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Author Topic:   Creation Science In Schools: Give Us A Lesson Plan
keith63
Inactive Member


Message 11 of 48 (67408)
11-18-2003 2:03 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Dan Carroll
11-18-2003 1:12 PM


A theory, as I understand it, is the best possible explanation for observed evidence. You can’t do experiments on evolution or creation. None of us were there at the start and we can’t really reproduce the environment of the original earth. What people other than evolutionists want is to have students understand that there are other ways to interpret the evidence. We still want evolution taught!!!!!!
Since I can’t go back in time what I have to do is to make a hypothesis.
1. If life on earth evolved then we should see fossil evidence of a smooth transition from one life form to another.
That’s testable. Lets look at the fossil evidence and see what we find.
2. If life on earth did not evolve then we should not see fossil evidence of a smooth transition from one life form to another.
Again this should be testable using the same evidence.
My problem is always that evolutionists say their interpretation of the fossils are science but when creationists use the same evidence and interpret it differently that it is not science. This is just one example. Using the same evidence I think it is possible to come up with two different and plausible conclusions.
What I really want is that kids will be taught that there is a controversy about this topic. If there was not a controversy then we wouldn’t be having this discussion. I can provide hundreds of scientists working at major universities who have problems with Darwinian evolution.
UCSD IT Service Portal - Information Technology
Here is one of the doubters and what he had to say about the fossil evidence.
What Do the Fossils Say?
by Dr. David N. Menton, Ph.D.
Copyright 1997 Missouri Association for Creation, Inc.
Most evolutionists insist that the occurrence of evolution is an indisputable fact, even if it's exact mechanism must remain speculative. Since evolution is believed to occur far too slowly to be discernible in the time frame of human observers, we must examine prehistoric evidence in the fossil record if we are to observe the "fact" of evolution. In his book Historical Geology, evolutionist C.O. Dunbar said: "Fossils provide the only historical, documentary evidence that life has evolved from simpler to more and more complex forms." But what does the fossil evidence say, and does it really support the evolutionary view of origins -- or is it perhaps more consistent with Creation?
Fossilization typically occurs when organisms (either living or dead) are deposited from water into sediment. In some instances, the sediment solidifies making a cast of the entombed organism; in others, the organic material of the organism itself is replaced by mineral to form a stony replica. Conditions must be perfect for fossilization to occur, which perhaps explains why there is so little evidence of fossils being formed today. Both the burial of the organism and the hardening of the sediment must occur very quickly or the inevitable decay process will destroy the organism before it can become fossilized.
Evolutionists believe that fossilized organisms were gradually deposited in layers of sediment over hundreds of millions of years, giving us a visual record of at least some of the stages of evolution from the first simple organisms to the most complex. Most creationists, on the other hand, believe that nearly all fossils were formed over a relatively short period of time during and after a world-wide Flood. Thus creationists believe the fossil record reveals organisms that were mostly contemporary -- not an evolutionary sequence extending over millions of years. As these beliefs are sufficiently different, it should be quite easy to determine which is more consistent with the fossil record as it actually exists today.
To be consistent with evolution, the fossil record should show how organisms slowly transformed one into another through countless intermediate or transitional stages. Evolutionists, for example, claim that over one hundred million years were required for the gradual transformation of invertebrates into vertebrates; thus we would expect that the fossil record should show at least some of the progressive stages of this large-scale transformation. To be consistent with creation, on the other hand, the fossil record should show no obvious transitional stages between distinctly different kinds of organisms, but rather each kind of organism should appear all at once and fully formed.
It is now a generally recognized fact that the fossil record shows few if any unambiguous intermediate stages in the evolution of an organism into a distinctly different kind of organism. David B. Kitts, an evolutionist and paleontologist, said:
"Despite the bright promise that paleontology provides a means of 'seeing' evolution, it has presented some nasty difficulties for evolutionists the most notorious of which is the presence of 'gaps' in the fossil record. Evolution requires intermediate forms between species and paleontology does not provide them." (Evolution, 28:467)
Evolutionists have been aware of these missing intermediate or transitional forms since the time of Darwin, and have tried to dismiss the whole problem by appealing to the "incompleteness" of the fossil record. Evolutionists cling to the hope that the "missing links" which they believe formed a continuous chain of evolution may yet be found. But this seems unlikely, since most paleontologists believe that the majority of all existing fossilized species of plants and animals have already been found and identified. Even most currently living kinds of plants and animals have been found in essentially their present form in the fossil record! David Raup, a paleontologist at the Field Museum of Natural History, reported that the growth in our knowledge of the fossil record since Darwin's time provides even less support for evolutionary transformations. Raup writes:
"We are now about 120 years after Darwin and the knowledge of the fossil record has been greatly expanded. We now have a quarter of a million fossil species but the situation hasn't changed much -- ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin's time. By this I mean that some of the classic cases of Darwinian change in the fossil record such as the evolution of the horse in North America, have had to be discarded or modified as a result of more detailed information." (Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin, 50:22-29)
Some evolutionists have argued that the absence of transitional forms is simply an "artifact" of classification. Others insist that the gaps occur only among the higher taxonomic groups, while still others insist that the gaps occur only among the lower taxonomic groups. The evolutionist George Gaylord Simpson conceded, however, that the gaps are a universal phenomenon:
"...every paleontologist knows, that most new species, genera, and families, and that nearly all categories above the level of families appear in the record suddenly and are not led up to by known, gradual, completely continuous transitional sequences." (Major Features of Evolution, 1953 p. 360)
Speaking of the highest level of animal classification, evolutionist Philip Handler claimed that:
"Some 25 major phyla are recognized for all the animals, and in virtually not a single case is there fossil evidence to demonstrate what the common ancestry of any two phyla looked like." (Biology and the Future of Man, 1970 p. 506)
As for the lowest level of taxonomic classification, the popular evolutionist Steven J. Gould said:
"In any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and fully formed." (Natural History, 86:12-16)
This, of course, is exactly what creationists would expect to find.
While most evolutionists still insist that there are at least a few examples of transitional forms in the fossil record, a growing number question whether the fossil record provides any real evidence of the transformation of one organism into another. Evolutionist Steven M. Stanley concluded that: "The known fossil record fails to document a single example of phyletic evolution accomplishing a major morphologic transition." (Macroevolution: Pattern and Process, 1979 p. 39) Stephen J. Gould tells us that "the extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology." (Natural History, 86:12-16) It would go a long way toward correcting the evolutionary bias in our public schools if even this one "trade secret" were revealed to the students. Despite the "missing links" in the fossil record, few evolutionists have abandoned their faith in the so called "fact" of evolution. In an article defiantly titled "Who Doubts Evolution," Oxford zoologist Mark Ridley declared: "If the creationists want to impress the Darwinian establishment, it will be no use prating on about what the fossils say. No good Darwinian's belief in evolution stands on the fossil evidence for gradual evolution, so nor will his belief fall by it." (New Scientist, 90:830-8) We may conclude that the beliefs of "good Darwinians" are not supported by the fossil record while the beliefs of "good creationists" are.
Originally published in St. Louis MetroVoice, May 1994, Vol. 4, No. 5

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Dan Carroll, posted 11-18-2003 1:12 PM Dan Carroll has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 15 by Rei, posted 11-18-2003 2:15 PM keith63 has replied
 Message 16 by Quetzal, posted 11-18-2003 2:16 PM keith63 has not replied
 Message 18 by Brian, posted 11-18-2003 2:32 PM keith63 has not replied

  
keith63
Inactive Member


Message 19 of 48 (67432)
11-18-2003 2:45 PM
Reply to: Message 15 by Rei
11-18-2003 2:15 PM


Sounds like a fancy way of avoiding the issue. I would like to know how this is considered a bogus list. I have read many of these books and I think these scientists are working at major universities. Dr. David Menton works in St. Louis at Washington University in their Anatomy department. One of my colleagues had him as an instructor. I still don't know why evolutionists seem to be so scared of intelligent design? They always attempt to prevent it from being mentioned in the classroom.

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
 Message 20 by Loudmouth, posted 11-18-2003 3:05 PM keith63 has replied
 Message 24 by PaulK, posted 11-18-2003 3:33 PM keith63 has replied

  
keith63
Inactive Member


Message 23 of 48 (67455)
11-18-2003 3:30 PM
Reply to: Message 20 by Loudmouth
11-18-2003 3:05 PM


Point taken. I was simply replying to another point and got off the subject.

This message is a reply to:
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keith63
Inactive Member


Message 25 of 48 (67467)
11-18-2003 3:56 PM
Reply to: Message 24 by PaulK
11-18-2003 3:33 PM


That's your opinion. More than 80% of the public sampled seem to think otherwise. Scientist are the only population which seems to think that evolution is the only true alternative and they seem to have a religious agenda.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 24 by PaulK, posted 11-18-2003 3:33 PM PaulK has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 26 by crashfrog, posted 11-18-2003 4:05 PM keith63 has replied
 Message 27 by Loudmouth, posted 11-18-2003 4:09 PM keith63 has replied
 Message 29 by PaulK, posted 11-18-2003 4:29 PM keith63 has not replied
 Message 31 by Rei, posted 11-18-2003 4:34 PM keith63 has not replied

  
keith63
Inactive Member


Message 28 of 48 (67482)
11-18-2003 4:21 PM
Reply to: Message 27 by Loudmouth
11-18-2003 4:09 PM


Funny you should mention that because that is the problem we get with evolution. Darwin thought that Blacks were inferior to whites, he also thought women were inferior to men. Hitler was an evolutionist and look what he did to the Jews and homosexuals. And there is a movement among scientists against the theory of evolution. If there was not then we would have issues comming up like Kansas, Ohio and Texas. In 100 years we will probably be laughed at for thinking that all this complexity happened by chance. The theory of evolution will be placed in its rightful place with spontaneous generation.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 27 by Loudmouth, posted 11-18-2003 4:09 PM Loudmouth has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 30 by Dan Carroll, posted 11-18-2003 4:32 PM keith63 has not replied
 Message 33 by Loudmouth, posted 11-18-2003 4:36 PM keith63 has not replied
 Message 34 by Rei, posted 11-18-2003 4:40 PM keith63 has not replied
 Message 37 by :æ:, posted 11-18-2003 4:48 PM keith63 has not replied

  
keith63
Inactive Member


Message 32 of 48 (67486)
11-18-2003 4:34 PM
Reply to: Message 26 by crashfrog
11-18-2003 4:05 PM


No I don't. THere is a ton of data being collected by scientists who diagree with the theory of evolution but that evidence is censored by the peer reviewers who edit the journals. Here are some of them.
Acts and Facts Magazine | The Institute for Creation Research
The only way you can say this is not science is to make up a deffinition which automatically eleminates anything which points to intelligence.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 26 by crashfrog, posted 11-18-2003 4:05 PM crashfrog has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 35 by Rei, posted 11-18-2003 4:43 PM keith63 has not replied
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