Will Florida Teach Science? We know what one vote will be now.

Posted 3 December 2007 by Guest Contributor

By Brandon Haught, Communications Director of Florida Citizens for Science. Before I begin, let me give a brief recap of what’s going on for anyone just joining us. Florida’s state science standards for public schools is currently going through a revision process. The current standards are a miserable mess, having been given a grade of F by the Fordham Institute. The standards don’t mention the word evolution, instead referring to this important biology concept as simply “changes over time.” The draft of the new standards feature evolution as one of the major concepts students must know. The draft standards are now going through a public review period. Anyone can go to the website and rate/comment on the standards. Of course, the inclusion of evolution is causing quite a stir. Several newspaper articles, editorials, letters to the editors, online forum posts, etc. have been keeping track of this. The public comment period closes about mid-December. Then the writing committee will make any needed revisions to the draft. Finally, the state board of education will vote on whether to accept the new standards. That is just the short version of what’s going on. For more details, feel free to browse through this blog’s posts over the past few weeks. Of special note is the concern over the Polk County board of education expressing displeasure over evolution in the standards. Got all that? Now comes the next steep hill in this fun roller coaster ride. The Florida Baptist Witness has online an editorial by James Smith Sr. In this editorial he complains about evolution being “dogmatic” and believes that there is a real controversy within the scientific community over evolution. He cites the Dissent from Darwin list as supposed proof. (Project Steve is an appropriate counter to that dishonest Dissent list.) Smith doesn’t mind using the Discovery Institute, the public relations machine for the anti-evolution crowd, as his crutch throughout this article. So far there is nothing new or shocking coming from Smith. Unfortunately, his readership might be influenced by his drivel, but that’s his job after all. But then he reports that he had an e-mail conversation with Florida Board of Education member Donna Callaway. Callaway states quite clearly that she is going to vote against the new standards because of evolution. She’s apparently not advocating actually teaching intelligent design, the Discovery Institute’s creationist Trojan horse. But she does think that students need to be exposed to “other theories” in some way.

“I agree completely that evolution should be taught with all of the research and study that has occurred. However, I believe it should not be taught to the exclusion of other theories of origin of life,” Callaway told me.

What Smith and Callaway don’t understand is that those other theories of origin of life are not science. There is not even a thimble full of scientific evidence in intelligent design. Cold, hard facts have exposed in a court of law that intelligent design is nothing more than a vehicle for inserting religion into the public school science classroom. Even as a footnote, allowing intelligent design into biology lessons forces children to make a choice. Students are smart. As soon as intelligent design mentions its unspecified “intelligent designer,” kids know that the conversation is about God. That then sends a signal to students that religion is in conflict with science and that they have to pick one or the other. That’s a potential showstopper, turning many students off of science because they are falsely led to believe that the issue is God versus no God. That does a disservice to both religion and science. There are many religions that have no problem at all with accepting evolution. The common refrain to the steadfast resistance to having intelligent design in the classroom is that evolution is a theory in crisis and can’t stand up to criticism. Yes it can stand up to criticism. It has for about 150 years! Every single scientific theory by its very nature is falsifiable. If it’s not falsifiable, it’s not science. If the intelligent design crowd has the evidence to bring evolution down, then they need to provide the scientific evidence. They won’t do it, though. All of their time is spent on public relations. Smith and Callaway have a dangerous mindset. It’s obvious they have little understanding of what science is, or they are willfully being deceitful. This is dangerous because Smith has an audience to preach to and Callaway has a vote on the state Board of Education. They can rob students of a proper science education; an education sorely needed in this state. Everyone in this country has a right to freely practice religion, but every student in our public schools also has a right to a good science education that will prepare them for their adult lives in this rapidly changing world.

Although she is not attempting to “arouse controversy,” Callaway told me she is concerned about what’s best for children. “I want an informed public so that when these and other similar decisions are made that affect all of us that they are reflective of how the people feel.”

Science is not about how people feel, Ms. Callaway. It’s about a methodical way of exploring and understanding the natural world around us. Science is about discovering a body of facts, piecing those facts together to hopefully reveal a fuller understanding of what is being studied, and then presenting that work to the scientific community. That community will then pick apart the work, test it, test it again, and test it some more. There is no popularity vote. The work has to stand on its own merits. The “informed public” is best served by learning science in the science classroom. Evolution is science. Intelligent design is not.

A longtime, active member of First Baptist Church in Tallahassee, Callaway added, “My hope is that there will be times of prayer throughout Christian homes and churches directed toward this issue. As a SBOE member, I want those prayers. I want God to be part of this. Isn’t that ironic?” Not at all, as far as I’m concerned. Indeed, Florida Baptists should pray for the State Board of Education — as well as let their opinions be heard on this vital matter.

Be careful what you wish for, Ms. Callaway and Mr. Smith. This article was originally posted at the Florida Citizens for Science blog.

39 Comments

Eamon Knight · 3 December 2007

Good grief. No matter how often the DI & Co. insist the ID is all about the science, the local yahoos just can't open their mouths without having a Billy Buckingham Oxycontin Moment[tm].

Tyrannosaurus · 3 December 2007

The course followed by Smith and Callaway has all the trappings we have seen before; rubes been duped by the DI. And just as simple once the fecal matter hits the fan, the DI will run away blaming the BOE members and religious folks of not understanding what ID is all about. Dishonesty, lies and betrayal that is all in the future for the Florida fundies that follow the teachings of DI. BTW, TOE and origin of life are very different sets of theories. Can someone explain that to Callaway?

dave · 3 December 2007

Since she wants "other theories of origin of life" to be taught, no doubt she'd be delighted with the Darwinian one - "There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one" ;)

Stephen · 3 December 2007

Can someone work out how to get them to read Philip Johnson's comment, repeated here? Might they just perhaps listen to the actual instigator of ID?

NGL · 3 December 2007

dave: Since she wants "other theories of origin of life" to be taught, no doubt she'd be delighted with the Darwinian one - "There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one" ;)

Lies! Everyone knows Darwin invented evolution because he hated God. And puppies, rainbows, baseball, Batman, and Jews.

Sceptical Chymist · 3 December 2007

If the Florida DOE is going to "teach the controversy" in biology, the least they can do is to extend this "fair and balanced" treatment to other branches of science such as teaching alchemy or the phlogiston theory in chemistry classes; astrology and geocentrism along with astronomy; the caloric theory of heat and the two fluid theory of electricity in physics, etc, etc. After all, Floridian youth needs to be well prepared for the 16th, sorry I mean the 21st century.

Henry J · 3 December 2007

Lies! Everyone knows Darwin invented evolution because he hated God. And puppies, rainbows, baseball, Batman, and Jews.

Why that Joker! Henry

stevaroni · 3 December 2007

Everyone knows Darwin invented evolution because he hated God. And puppies, rainbows, baseball, Batman, and Jews.

Actually, Batman kind of creeps me out too. Although, admittedly, he does have some of the coolest toys of all the superheros.

Ravilyn Sanders · 4 December 2007

Sceptical Chymist: If the Florida DOE is going to "teach the controversy" in biology, the least they can do is to extend this "fair and balanced" treatment to other branches of science such as ...

You forgot Intelligent Design. If they want to teach the weakness of MTE then they should also teach the weaknesses of Intelligent Design too. Let us give them a preview of what they must teach to "be fair and balanced to both the theories".

Bill Gascoyne · 4 December 2007

If they want to teach the weakness of MTE then they should also teach the weaknesses of Intelligent Design too.

The weakness of ID is that it consists solely of alleged and bogus weaknesses of MET (or is it MET?).

Mr_Christopher · 4 December 2007

IDC lost in NM last night. The DI had to cancel their planned Waterloo Party.

Read 'em and weep - http://www.lcsun-news.com/latest/ci_7632301

David Fickett-Wilbar · 4 December 2007

Mr_Christopher: IDC lost in NM last night. The DI had to cancel their planned Waterloo Party. Read 'em and weep - http://www.lcsun-news.com/latest/ci_7632301

Love it, especially this part: "Schlichte, head pastor at Rio West Community Church, said in a slide show presentation that most laws come from a system of beliefs, and that Nazis and communists used their belief in evolution to pass harmful laws." A pastor objects because he says evolution has ideological results. And we're supposed to believe it's not religion but science because?

Vince · 4 December 2007

Chalk one up for the good guys! Next up, Florida and Texas (on second thought, let's let Texas secede - except for the Cowboys not much good has come there recently anyways....:)

Vince · 4 December 2007

Oops, I meant, "...from there..."

WILLOBIE · 4 December 2007

This could be Florida's new science curriculum. Why stop with evolution, when you could roll back chemistry and physics too. As a Nebraska board member recently said, "Science is the new secular religion." Time to stop it.

WILLOBIE · 4 December 2007

http://www.logonix.net/~chiara/kansas.html

Frank J · 5 December 2007

Why stop with evolution, when you could roll back chemistry and physics too.
— WILLOBIE

Good point. I vote for teaching Intelligent Electron Theory in chemistry class.

Henry J · 6 December 2007

Intelligent electrons? pshaw! Those guys don't even know if they're particles or waves, so how could they be intelligent? :p

Frank J · 6 December 2007

Intelligent electrons? pshaw! Those guys don’t even know if they’re particles or waves, so how could they be intelligent? :p
— Henry J

They're smarter than we are. When you want them to behave more like particles they behave more like waves, and vice versa. ;-) Kinda like IDers, when you ask them for evidence of design they rattle off some argument against "Darwinism," and when you answer that, instead of conceding, they simply Gish gallop to another long-refuted argument against "Darwinism." After a few rounds, anyone with a fondness for alternative science will think the IDer won the debate.

Stacy S. · 10 December 2007

Please help!! The argument in my area of the state is that there is "Scientific evidence" of ID. I do not know how to combat this. Also, the Board of Education has been bullied into another of these public meetings. Jan.3 in Jacksonville. Any of you reading this - please attend if you can - I believe it is going to be unbalanced.
Point of interest - The namesake of the oldest city in our country - Saint Augustine - believed that anything that man learned from science - even if it was contrary to the Bible - was given to us as a gift and necessary for our salvation!
He also believed that the universe was created in an instant! Not bad for 340 AD.

Henry J · 10 December 2007

If there was scientific evidence for ID, there'd be no motive for a political movement to support it; the evidence would do the speaking.

Henry

Stacy S. · 10 December 2007

Thank you!

Glen Davidson · 10 December 2007

Please help!! The argument in my area of the state is that there is “Scientific evidence” of ID. I do not know how to combat this.

Ask them to present some evidence for ID. Now if you don't know enough about science and its use of evidence to recognize where they're feeding you a line of BS, watch Judgment Day. I hear that it's online now, and it is quite a good introduction to ID and its lack of evidence. Here, too, are three questions I asked on the Expelled site, repeatedly (with no answers being given):

And yes, Ben has failed to answer the three questions I have posed, which is how to explain the Linnaean taxonomic system with its apparent genealogical structure, why the mostly sexual eukaryotes evolve quite differently from asexual prokaryotes (and in the manner predicted by MET), and why it is that vertebrate wings are derived from legs, when no known designer would make wings out of legs. I think it’s safe to conclude that he has no answer, while all of these provide evidence for MET, or what Ben tendentiously labels “Darwinism”.

The fact is that evolutionary theory was produced to explain what "design" cannot--which is, relatively, everything. However, perfection and rationality in the design of organisms would at least accord with notions of design. Don't ask for perfection, for some organisms are quite well adapted (yes, none are perfect, and we could say how they're not perfect (birds have evolved to minimize the problems of the "inside-out eye", but for that reason it is an imperfection). But the impression of a hummingbird perfectly hovering, flying backward, and flashing its stunning beauty works for "design" among the naive), but ask for any sort of rational design existing in organisms. They'll never be able to give you any true example of rational planning in organisms, rather everything is derived and "contrived" from past adaptations. It's actually hard to explain just how ID lacks evidence, except by pointing out how evolutionary theory explains taxonomy, homologies, the more extensive "poor design" of transitional organisms (predicted by evo theory), and asking ID to explain, well, anything at all, other than by "God did it," yields nothing at all. I'd add one other thing, which is that "complexity" or "irreducible complexity" is not evidence for design, at least not by itself. That's the "evidence" that IDists claim to have, but it rests on the supposition that if we don't know what caused something, then "intelligence" is the answer. That's utterly bogus, particularly for something like life which has any number of aspects (notably, near-total derivation from ancestors among, say, vertebrates) which are diametrically opposite to what known design produces. They're trying to take one thing that is not diagnostic of design, namely "irreducible complexity," and calling it evidence, when they're ignoring actual diagnostic features, like rational design and the lack of evidence for an evolutionary development, which are both important to actually identifying design (though lack of evolution is a negative indication, not positive evidence for design, but its lack in context is important to identifying design, as machines lack the evidence predicted for biological evolution). They harp constantly about "complexity," mainly because they have no evidence, and they wish for people to make the false analogy between our sometimes complex designs (which also have many other features of design which organisms do not, and which also have not evolved in the manner that organisms do (not to claim that designs don't evolve quite differently than organisms do, however)) and the complexity of life. That analogy is so very bad, because if we're actually comparing the "complexity" of some of our designs with the complexity of life, any real evidence for similarity between the two must entail the notion that we (or at least aliens---whose capabilities are not now known) could and woulddesign life as it is. That is, not only the capability, but some reason for, us or aliens to design life to look evolved would be needed, and are completely lacking at present. For the moment, such required evidence is completely lacking, so even their analogy of "complexity" doesn't agree with known design (in science we use the known to explain the unknown, not the other way around), for organic complexity is something that is not amenable to being designed by known intelligence, nor can any reason be given for why it would be designed to fit the predictions of MET, even by a super-intelligence. Glen D http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

Glen Davidson · 10 December 2007

Here are comments that I originally posted on the PBS blog (save a few added words). I think they deal well enough with evidence and ID's lack thereof from several angles:

...It's reproduced below (it's partly in response to a post which brought up abiogenesis): DLH wrote: Evolution has to have something that reproduces and can be "selected".

Yes, once you have life (even if it were due to a creator), you have those necessary conditions.

DLH wrote: If you have no intelligent causation for self reproducing life, then you are left with abiogenesis and its astronomically small probabilities.

Either way you're left with abiogenesis in the broader definition, since "intelligent design" is itself a story of life coming from non-life. How did the supposedly small probabilities for abiogenesis (sans God) become improved when you added in a purported entity for which there are no probabilities at all? And just what would be the problem with intelligent causation of first life for MET anyhow? Like I said, there are no probabilities for something lacking in evidence altogether, but evolution is important to biology not because it gets rid of some no-probability God, but because it explains what we see (hint, we see evolution and its results, while abiogenesis issues are difficult to observe as yet). Darwin himself suggested a Creator for the first life--perhaps something of a cop-out--but it was a convenient way of disposing with something that has no bearing on the theoretical value of evolution for dealing with all subsequent life.

Quote from DLH: That requires greater faith than to accept the apparent design in nature.

What's the evidence for that theistic claim? And of course the main issue is that all you are doing is apologetics, while we're defending science as a whole, and the value of actual explanation in biology. Believe or don't believe in your God, it means almost nothing to me. Just don't come along and tell me that life is the way it is because of "design", because that is an entirely meaningless claim due to the fact that this supposed "design" has no discernable relationship with what the word "design" means (that is, as it is used in human discourse with respect to the observed world). As such, it is completely useless for explaining any of the details of biology. MET [modern evolutionary theory], on the other hand, explains why males fight each other for mating rights, predicts and explains why the "poor design" happens to be due to constraints coming from heredity, it is what actually allows us even to identify transitional forms (like Tiktaalik and Archaeopteryx) thanks to its predictions, and it tells us why prokaryotic patterns of evolution (which do not involve speciation as understood in eukaryotes--unless one considers genes to be species) differ from the species branchings found in eukaryotic evolution. It is useful in the mundane world, which is generally the case in science, and it is being faulted for not being religion (though it is often accused of same). Meanwhile, ID comes up with absolutely no evidence of design (like novelty, lateral borrowing in vertebrates, evident purpose, and above all, actual rational planning of anything in life outside of our sporadic attempts to impose rationality on life) either in evolution or in the abiogenetic production of life. Yet the false dichotomy that their religion gives them suggests that the default is their own religious explanation, hence their disdain for science and its purposes. This is why it ends up being a clash of science against superstition, for although most of us care little about whether or not DLH and others cling to their beliefs, they do not refrain from attacking science for doing its job, which is coming up with proximal explanations for the phenomena that we see. They have no proximal causes themselves for anything at all (they always invoke a distant "Intelligent Cause", rather than dealing with known causes), yet they fault us for filling in the total lacuna that they leave behind with their preferred religious explanation. We do not generally complain about the total lack of explanatory value of religion, and yet they disparage our success at coming up with explanations that actually fit with the evidence, usually without any real knowledge of those explanations or reasonable criticisms of them. It's a fight between knowledge and ignorance, and I only wish that knowledge had greater advantages than it does in our society. Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

Stacy S. · 10 December 2007

Thank you so much - and thanks for the tip about "Judgment Day as well". I also ordered a copy of "Flock of Dodo's". Have you seen that? Is it any good?
I doubt very much that I will be able to speak for longer than three minutes (if at all) but I feel it's important to know as much as possible - in case someone throws a question at me.
To tell you the truth - I'm not too concerned about the Board of Education ADDING "ID" to the curriculum (if they were to attempt that - it would produce a whole different fight) I just want them to approve the new standards so that our kids can join the 21st century.

Thanks again for your help!
Stacy

Stacy S. · 10 December 2007

How many other "Theory's" of the origin of life are there? The text below is from one of the Board of education members. --- Callaway ---

“I agree completely that evolution should be taught with all of the research and study that has occurred. However, I believe it should not be taught to the exclusion of other theories of origin of life,”

Do you have some "Ammo" for me?? If we teach "ID" then we need to give equal time to the other "theories" as well.

Stacy

Glen Davidson · 10 December 2007

I haven't seen "Dodos". I think that most people thought it was good, though. There were some complaints made on Panda's Thumb and Pharyngula, however. Here's one less than complimentary review (you have to copy and paste in the address, due to limitations on the number of addresses imposed here, at least without any delay):

www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2007/02/flock-of-dodos-4.html

I did end up sparring with Randy Olson, the producer (or director, or something) of "Dodos" on Pharyngula once, and he was telling me how his film had received so many favorable reviews, which surely must count for something. My sense is that it must be fairly good, overall, and I gave the address to a less favorable one mostly because they tend to tell people more than do favorable ones---I hope that no one is actually put off by it. Panda's Thumb did have rather more favorable reviews as well, such as by PvM.

And I wondered why I didn't find and include the address for Judgment Day when I mentioned it. So for you or anyone else who'd like to watch it over the web, here's a link that I appears to offer that and transcripts (I had trouble with viewing chapter 1, but chapter 2 worked for me):

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/id/program.html

And good luck with your study into these matters.

Glen D

Stacy S. · 10 December 2007

Thanks again!

Bill Gascoyne · 10 December 2007

Stacy S. : Do you have some "Ammo" for me?? If we teach "ID" then we need to give equal time to the other "theories" as well. Stacy

The problem is, how do you stretch the time it takes to say, "God did it," to equal the time it takes to teach "all of the research and study that has occurred" over the last 150 years regarding evolution?

Glen Davidson · 10 December 2007

How many other “Theory’s” of the origin of life are there? The text below is from one of the Board of education members. — Callaway — “I agree completely that evolution should be taught with all of the research and study that has occurred. However, I believe it should not be taught to the exclusion of other theories of origin of life,” Do you have some “Ammo” for me?? If we teach “ID” then we need to give equal time to the other “theories” as well. Stacy

Of course many people would dispute the claim that ID is a theory at all (you did well to use scare quotes, but I wanted to state it more unequivocally). And it's not even that it's wrong, since "theory" can be used for ideas which proved wrong (like the "Lamarckian theory" of evolution), but because it doesn't really have any kind of theoretical framework. The Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM) is often held to be an alternative (if also a joke). But there's doubt if it really is an alternative, since one might argue that the FSM is "theoretically" an intelligent agent which would have "designed" life. However, there really are a host of alternatives, notably many ancient myths. Plato had a "theory of forms," so did Aristotle, and I would suggest that both of these ideas are actually closer to "theory" (not that anyone really thinks of them as scientific theories today) than is anything stated by ID. Forms would explain why humans are as they are, and why peacocks are as they are, especially in Aristotle's "theory". Then there are myths of gods basically reproducing themselves to make organisms and even inorganic forms. Theogony "by Hesiod" contains a number of myths involving reproduction of a kind, and some tales of a sort of "design" as well ("Works and Days" does tell of humans being made by Prometheus, however. But most Greek myths have at least some inheritance coming from the gods, in the "better families"). Indeed, isn't the idea that Greeks, and perhaps other humans, are the progeny of the gods a more sensible concept than that unmachinelike humans were "designed"? There are many tales of transformation in the Greek myths, a convenient source of which is Ovid's Metamorphoses. The peacock's feathers have the eyes of Argus, after a tale of Jove and Io ends in Argus's death. Ethiopeans are dark due to Phaethon's reckless flight through the sky, burning the Ethiopeans. The raven is turned black in revenge for its tattletales. Echos are explained by the story of Narcissus and, well, Echo. Then there are Eastern ideas, like Hindu beliefs that the world is the dream of Brahma. While the world and its inhabitants would thereby be a product of "mind", this would hardly be a "theory of design". Indeed, why any of these is inferior in the least to ID, or even why they are not superior (since there is no discernable design in the peacock's feathers, while they do have "eye" patterns) to ID, I cannot say. The only reason ID is taken seriously and Plato's and Aristotle's forms, along with Greek tales of metamorphoses, are not taken seriously, is due solely to the fact that ID agrees with a kind of philosophical form of Christianity. I contend that Ovid's metamorphoses are as close to being theories as ID is, while Plato's and Aristotle's ideas are closer to being actual scientific theories (if not very close, in fact) than ID has ever been. Glen D http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

Richard Simons · 10 December 2007

Stacy,

Can you find out what this 'scientific evidence of ID' is and let us know? The 'evidence' for ID that I have seen is 'this can't be explained by Darwinism' which ignores all other theories. One of these other theories, that people often seem to believe represents the current theory of evolution, is what should be known as the Great Chain of Being. This is the notion that evolution proceeds along a fixed course from microbes to humans, somewhat like a train on a track (although the idea long preceded trains) with species like passengers being dropped off along the way.

If you get the chance in the meeting, ask what possible findings would refute ID. They will almost certainly be unable to suggest anything, which effectively rules out ID as a scientific theory.

I hope the meeting goes well.

Stacy S. · 10 December 2007

Bill, Glen, Richard - All great ideas! Thank you.

If you can't tell by now - I'm not a scientist! LOL! but I do know the difference between a scientific theory and a speculation.

My main argument was going to be:

"You can't prove God, that's why it's called FAITH" -

and although I think that's a valid argument, that only takes up about five seconds of my allotted time. (If I get any time that is)

I was going to mention the "Theory of Gravity" etc... but I think they have heard those arguments before and they are prepared to argue them.

The Hindu beliefs and the Greek myths, I think, will be a great tool to use.
That argument might make one or two of them re-think whether "ID" belongs in a science classroom and that it may be more appropriate in a philosophy class.

Stacy

Henry J · 10 December 2007

My main argument was going to be: “You can’t prove God, that’s why it’s called FAITH” -

More to the point, their arguments often imply that God couldn't use (His own?) natural processes to get to what we currently see around us. Plus, their motive seems to be largely that they don't like the conclusion. Another thought along those lines, is that the genetic, anatomical and chemical similarity of humans to other animals is measurable, and puts us squarely inside the same nested hierarchy as all the other species. So either we evolved that way or the "designer" chose to make us as modified ape, primate, mammal, vertebrate (i.e., fish), animal. Seems to me that it makes just as much if not more sense to take that later as making us less "special" than the evolution route (assuming that to be the objection to human evolution). Granted, that's a subjective judgment so somebody else might think otherwise. From the science side, a description of the overall patterns found in the evidence, rather than individual pieces of evidence, might be more to the point, since individual finds by themselves lead to stuff about "interpretation". But general patterns aren't so easy to reinterpreted, imo. Relevant patterns include nested heirarchy, similarity of later species to earlier, geographical nesting of related species, convergence of the earlier species toward a common predecessor. All of those patterns (and probably others that experts in the subject could add) are logical consequences of evolution via accumulated small hereditary changes. The mechanisms of mutation, natural selection, and genetic drift are major factors. A good question for an ID pusher is simply what specific observed pattern is explained by the concept of deliberately engineered life. They need more than "there's some unanswered questions" (expected regardless of theory) or "some things are very complex" (that's predicted by the current theory as well) or "there's no establish theory of abiogenesis" (not required for conclusions about what happens after abiogenesis). Also, abiogenesis obviously happened at least once, since we're here now, and any separate creation claims require greater likelihood of abiogenesis than does any common ancestry hypothesis. And of course, for a large assortment of already refuted arguments, perhaps involving things like thermodynamics, the thickness of moon dust, the amount of salt in the ocean, Earth's magnetic field, etc., there's http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/index.html (An Index to Creationist Claims) on the TO archives site. Henry

Stacy S. · 10 December 2007

Thank you for the website Henry! --- Richard, I think I may have stumbled upon the "evidence" of ID.

-----Behe argues that the theory that irreducibly complex systems could not have been evolved can be falsified by an experiment where such systems are evolved. For example, he posits taking bacteria with no flagella and imposing a selective pressure for mobility. If, after a few thousand generations, the bacteria evolved the bacterial flagellum, then Behe believes that this would refute his theory-----

But don't worry, I also found this!

-----While testifying at the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial Behe conceded that there are no peer-reviewed papers supporting his claims that complex molecular systems, like the bacterial flagellum, the blood-clotting cascade, and the immune system, were intelligently designed nor are there any peer-reviewed articles supporting his argument that certain complex molecular structures are "irreducibly complex." -----

Stacy

Richard Simons · 11 December 2007

—–While testifying at the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial Behe conceded that there are no peer-reviewed papers supporting his claims that complex molecular systems, like the bacterial flagellum, the blood-clotting cascade, and the immune system, were intelligently designed nor are there any peer-reviewed articles supporting his argument that certain complex molecular structures are “irreducibly complex.” —–

Not only that, but Hermann Muller in 1918 predicted that irreducible complexity (which he called interlocking complexity) would be a result of evolutionary processes. Chris Ho-Stuart, at the Talk-Origins Archive (http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/sep06.html), says the paper is online at (http://www.genetics.org/content/vol3/issue5/index.shtml). Oh! Until I previewed this, I did not know that if a url is included it is automatically turned into a link.

Stacy S. · 11 December 2007

Thanks Richard - I do love Florida but yikes!I feel like I'M in 1918! LOL!

I guess I'm so passionate about this because a have a son in middle school.
God Bless all the "stay at home mom's" with nothing better to do than research, right?! - I'm hoping to research these ID ers' speechless.(Though I doubt very much that will ever happen)

I wish I knew about THIS website earlier - you have all been a great help!

Here is a link to the proposed new science standards in case any of you haven't seen it and are interested:

http://tools.fcit.usf.edu/ScienceReview/

I'm very angry that my son's ( and many other Florida students')education might be compromised after so many EXPERTS worked so hard to improve the standards!

http://www.fldoestem.org/page231.aspx

If you use the link it will take you to a page where - at the bottom - it says "Click here" and you will be taken to the power point presentation that they are using at the public meetings to discuss the science standards.

Thank you again,

Stace

Henry J · 11 December 2007

- I’m hoping to research these ID ers’ speechless.(Though I doubt very much that will ever happen)

Oh, I doubt they'll be speechless any time soon, seeing as speech (and its written equivalent) is all they've got for their position. :p Henry

Stacy S. · 11 December 2007

OM Gosh Henry! I just re-read your last post- (forgive me I'm not a scientistand it takes me a little longer for things to sink in) - and I'm absolutely giddy! Please tell me if I have the concept wrong?

Remember, I'll only have three minutes ...

"So for those of you pushing for ID to be taught, am I correct in assuming that you wish for our kids to be taught that something other than God created our Universe - and that you have proof of that?" I prefer to think that God did it - but of course we can't teach that at school because that would be a violation of the 'Separation Claus'".

LOL!!!

Stacy

Stacy S. · 11 December 2007

Their own argument defeats them right?

IF :

A -- ID is not religious (and that's why it's OK to teach it in school)
B -- There is scientific evidence of ID
then "C" must be true
C -- Something that is NOT God created the universe! and they have Proof!
(insert sarcasm)

Seems to me that they wouldn't be too happy about that logic.

Stacy