The Family Tree by Pedro Cervantes
The socially conservative base of the Republican party has never been fond of secular education, and Republican presidential candidates are once again courting their socially conservative base by attacking evolution.
This was seen last week at a New Hampshire speaking event when Gov. Rick Perry responded to a child’s question about evolution with a somewhat embarrassing answer.
“It’s a theory that’s out there,” Perry said. “It’s got some gaps in it.”
Unfortunately, Perry is not the only politician making such statements. During the Republican Leadership Conference this June, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn) reiterated her support for intelligent design.
“What I support is putting all science on the table and then letting students decide,” she said.
“I think it’s a good idea for a government not to come down on one side of a scientific issue or another, when there is reasonable doubt on both sides.”
The problem is, there is not reasonable doubt on both sides. The scientific community is overwhelmingly supportive of the theory of evolution. The handful of objecting scientists are clearly of the mad variety.
The gaps that Perry referred to in his answer are the most common criticisms of evolution — alleged gaps in the fossil record. Since so few organisms are likely to leave fossils, much less fully intact ones, some transitional forms have not yet been discovered. Scientists do not expect that fossils will be found of all organisms that have lived on Earth. Evolution is observable in traits over generations and in alleles. There are no gaps in this so-called theory. Evolution is a fact.
Some believe that evolution was a deity’s instrument in creation, but there is no observable scientific evidence that this is the case. Candidates speak of reasonable doubt on both sides, when in actuality there is overwhelming evidence in favor of evolution, and no scientific evidence at all to support divine intervention.
The First Amendment of the US Constitution is fairly explicit about the establishment of a state religion. Thomas Jefferson elaborated on this in a letter written to the Danbury Baptist association in 1802.
“I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church and State,” Jefferson wrote.
How may a public institution preferentially treat any specific creation narrative over proven observable science in our schools? To do so would be establishing a national religion.
Asking our schools to teach a specific narrative on our origins would require that all origin narratives be taught. Why would we take class time for such a purpose when US students rank below average in math and science globally?
There are many religious theories about the origins of our planet and the human species. None are backed by scientific evidence. Faith is a deeply personal matter.
If one wishes to teach their child Judeo-Christian creationism, intelligent design, or that we all live on the back of a giant turtle, they are welcome to do so in their home. One does not, however, have the right to demand that their neighbor’s child be taught the same.
To insist that one’s own unverified beliefs are right for everyone is, by definition, bigoted. To maintain that evolution is unproven is willful ignorance in the face of fact.
Bachmann and Perry can hold their breath until the sky turns orange — but that will not make it true.
We do our children a great disservice by teaching them that 2 + 2 doesn’t have to equal 4 if someone yells loud enough that it doesn’t. If our next generation is going to compete globally, we must heed the words of the defense attorney in the infamous Scope’s Monkey Trial.
“We have the purpose of preventing bigots and ignoramuses from controlling the education of the United States,” Clarence Darrow said.
Darrow’s words are as true today as they were in 1925.
Much of the problem of this debate is the definition of Evolution. The most common definition of "change over time" is accepted by most if not all. The argument that ID posits is that an unguided and blind process through natural selection cannot not produce the vast amount of life that we see now. THIS IS THE ARGUMENT. Not change over time or differentiation within a species.
Show me any process other than "evolution", that we know today, that can produce new and specified information, as what we see in DNA, using a random,blind, and unguided process. There is none. From what we know today in our age of information, intelligence begets information. There is no way around this.
THIS is the controversy. Where did the information come from?
Neo-Darwinism assures us that all the variety of life comes from random mutations of information in DNA. I ask again, how can you get specified information from this process? Many will jump and say, "natural selection, silly!" Natural selection is blind,unguided and seemingly magical process invoked by Neo Darwinists.
No student will believe that they can their iPhone/Android device, shake up the information within and expect to get the newest version of iOS or Gingerbread. THIS IS what evolution proposes. IT CAN NOT HAPPEN.
Evolution doesn't have an end goal. It is random in the fact that each individual will have different mutations, different characteristics. But it is these characteristics that lead to the overall change in time that you speak of.
If you want to get more detailed, DNA changes with each replication. These are the mutations that scientists talk about. The general Dogma is that DNA makes RNA. RNA make protein and the proteins makes fucntionining cells. If the mutation in the DNA leads to a change in the RNA, the protein will be different and have different functions (most the time it will die, but sometimes there are advantageous changes).
These mutations come together and add up.
Using Caps doesn't make your argument any better.
Again, it is the same empty argument. You offer nothing to explain the origin of information from a blind, and unguided process. The caps were meant to draw attention to this contention, and again you chose to ignore it. There is no system that we know of that can generate specified information using an blind and unguided process.
You seriously refute yourself when you admit that "most the time it (organisms) will die, but sometimes there are advantageous changes". Have you thought to consider how minute a probability you put your faith in? The probabilities are out of your favor. Look at E.coli, thousands of generations yet we still have E. coli. Why because there are limits to mutational changes because the information is not there to produce new, functional attributes that will compel us to call it an entirely new organism.
And even if you do get a new function, natural selection will eliminate it from the population during the next generation because this was a random event resulting in from an improbable and potentially harmful mutation.
As for an argument, you have not offered a proper response to the problem of information. Specified information only comes from an intelligent source.
Random and unguided processes are perceived as such:
Jack dna Jlli
Wnte up eht hlil
To ftche a plail of wtera
Not much intelligence in the above. However, since you are an intelligible agent you are able to decipher the phrase above.
This is the argument for I.D. Biology is a system that was designed by an intelligent source, that is why we are able to understand it. If were a system of unguided and blind mutations of unknown origins, we would have no way of understanding.
Does this make my argument better?
LOL – since it IS a system of unguided and blind mutations of unknown origins, and we ARE understanding more and more of it as we continue to study and learn over time, I'd say that your argument just went 'kerplunk' (maybe you shouldn't actually try to be a proponent, and leave the arguing to other, more astute, ID fanatics… with friends like you, ID doesn't need enemies LOL) – but you are super-hilarious, so I've got to give you props for that…
Fact: Evolutionism is just a religion. You need faith to accept what is just a hypothesis, with very serious scientific flaws to be considered a "theory." As a religious men, the followers can not see any contradiction the evidence present to the hypothesis and yelled, without any proof, it is a "fact." The reason that faulty theology impede to recognize a Designer, should prompt to look for a better theology, and real science. I can not call science to something that violate the principal postulates that it pretend to represent. By the way, I have a couple of questions: What came first, the egg or the hen… or rooster? The tree or the seed? And please, give an intelligent and scientific evidence of your answers…
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/07/14/tech/ma…
Chicken came first, good game bro. Due to the fact the protein inside and egg shell can only come from a chicken.
The idea that evolution is a religion is laughable as well.
Definition: Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and moral values.
The Scientific theory of evolution meets none of the criteria necessary in the definition. Atheism and Evolution are not religions the same way bald is not a hair color.