It's a Sad Day For the Future Of American Children.

I'm not sure which part of the constitution says you can't teach anything religious in public schools. The so called establishment clause says that congress shall pass no laws that establish a religion. I don't think showing an alternative to evolution is establishing, lets say christianity, as the only state sponsored religion.

I don't propose and alternative to evolution. I simply think that any errors in the theory should be pointed out and explored. I am a biology teacher and in the biology textbook we use "Miller/Levine by Prentice Hall" It says on page 6 "science is an ongoing process, not the discovery of an unchanging, absolute truth. Scientists findings are always subject to revision as new evidence is developed." It further says that a desired quality of a scientist is to be skeptical and "A skeptical person continues to ask questions and looks for alternative explanations."Now when it comes to evolution the scientific community doesn't seem to follow it's own advise. In the recent debate about textbooks in Texas The Discovery Institute pointed out several outdated or outright incorrect information in 11 textbooks that were up for adoption by the State Board of Education. But instead of being skeptical and changing in light of this evidence. Many acknowledged to incorrect data but still wanted the Board to adapt the books without correction. Others attacked the Discovery Institute and said it wanted to "water down" education. Now correct me if I am wrong but does removing, or correcting, incorrect evidence sound like watering down the curriculum? I think to leave out the most up to date evidence is watering down the curriculum.I think presenting both sides of view will teach students to use their brains and critically (Oh my) think about the evidence. If Intelligent design is as bad as evolutionists make it out to be then what are they afraid of anyway? Developing critical thinking students!!What really makes me mad about the whole thing is the way evolutionists make up their own definition about science so that it automatically excludes any intelligent design. As soon as you say the word they say "that's religion and doesn't have a place in science." Then they say "ID people don't propose an alternative to evolution." They have written a definition which doesn't allow an alternative and then they threaten and refuse to publish anything that goes against the theory of evolution. Now maybe I don't understand this but aren’t statistics, fossil records, geology, carbon 14 dating, all scientific? I have found research using all of these which points to a deliberate intelligence.Let me ask this. How can scientists look to the stars and say that if they hear a nonrandom code say there is proof of an intelligence, and then ignore the fact that in every living cell of every living thing there is a language, written with four letters, spelling 20 or more words, and more complex than our most intricate computer program? Perhaps the writer of Romans was talking about our time when he said "For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen by being understood by the things that are made,... so that they are without excuse."{Inserted blank lines between paragraphs - AM}[This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 11-17-2003]

No I don't. I think they are pointing out that there are flaws in the evolutionary theory that should be explored. The schools are not congress. And they are not establishing a national religion which is what the founding fathers were trying to avoid. You would really have to stretch to say discussing other theories is the same as requiring everyone in the country to join your local baptist church under penalty of law.

Actually the law on the books right now allows "an open and broad discussion on origin in the classroom as long as it doesn't exclud evolution."

Which one. I see three and I am not sure which you are talking about.

Error: 404Here is the law and the site which I took it from.

In the case of Edwards v. Aguillard the Supreme Court in 1987 stated that "teaching a variety of scientific theories about the origins of humankind to school children might be validly done with the clear secular intent of enhancing the effectiveness of science instruction." The court also indicated that there should be no constitutional crisis created with including creation science so long as it is done with the "intent of enhancing the effectiveness of science instruction" and, provided it is not taught to the exclusion of evolution.

The court also indicated that there should be no constitutional crisis created with including creation science so long as it is done with the "intent of enhancing the effectiveness of science instruction" and, provided it is not taught to the exclusion of evolution.

I have already stated that I don't think we should exclude any theory from being explored. What I do think would be a good idea is that the current science text books disclose their weaknesses of evolution and correct the missleading information. For example1. Miller/Urey experiment. We have now known for years that the early earths atmosphere looked nothing like the organic soup Miller and Urey used in their experiment. Oxygen has always been in the atmosphere and if you mix oxygen into any mix you can't get the amino acids they produced. If you can't get the starting material then you certainly can't get started and the whole macroevolutionary idea becomes a mute point.Another point about the Miller/Urey experiment that never hits the text books. Their experiment produced tar which really messes up their results so they remove the tar. Now correct me if I'm wrong but that is intellegence. Also the experiment produced both right and left handed amino acids and only left handed ones are found in living things. Of course my original point makes these minor details all mute anyway.2. The fossil record is an imbarrassment to evolutionists. If you were really to evaluate the fossil record with an open mind you would see that it really supports the creation model which says that things reproduced after their "kind."3. Darwin himself said that the fossil evidence was his weakest point but he was confident that more fossils would be found. Well they have and what we find our all the major phyla already formed with no transitions, just like the bible said we would.And before you mention archeoptryx read the latest literature which declares it a true, although strange looking, bird.4. Peppered moths turning black, bacteria becoming resistant to antibiotics, and finch beaks getting larger are not evidences of macroevolution. They are simply populations expressing variation which already exists. What a huge leap evolutionists make. You might as well say that if you cross a dark mouse with a white mouse and you get a dark mouse then it's possible to turn a mouse into a donkey.Why don't the textbooks mention that in the finch population the years after the drought, which caused their beaks to become larger, their beaks went right back to their normal size. No genetic changs, just expressions of variation which already existed.

My point on the miller/Urey experiment is that it is still in the text books even though it is wrong so of course it doesn't say that in the textbooks. There are however several citations in literature that support the fact that oxygen was always present and that amino acids don’t form, or at least not many, in the presence of free oxygen. Here is just onehttp://www.answersingenesis.org/...s/tjv10n3_origin_life.pdfOn your correction for 2 and 3 didn’t you make my point for me. I said archaeopteryx was a bird and you said it just happened to fall on the bird side. That’s a different way of saying exactly what I said. The missing links are still missing. And have you ever stopped to think about the steps which would be necessary for a reptile to turn into a bird.1. Hollow bones which happen to be supported by internal struts for strength
2. A larger sternum for the muscle needed to power flight
3. A reproductive system which reduces in the non-breeding system as a weight saver
4. Becoming endothermic instead of exothermic
5. Wings which would be useless to any intermediate form.
6. feathers which have a central quill, thousands of barbs, and thousands more little hooks which allow the feather to be zipped back up for air resistance.
7. Fused bones for strength
8. The most advanced respiratory system on the planet, unlike any other, which has air sacs that extend into the body to reduce buoyancy.
9. A hard shell which allows oxygen to penetrate and is just hard enough to resist crushing but soft enough for the offspring to break out.What a huge difference. The respiratory system by itself is so different it makes the plausibility of a bird coming from a reptile laughable.In response to point 4. I said in my statements that we should not remove evolution, just point out the weaknesses. I agree that things change overtime within reason. The bible says things reproduce after their kind I believe all dogs came from a dog ancestor, all cats came from a cat ancestor. The bible bears this out. I just think it fits a creation model better.If creation was right we should find a perfect recycling earth, which we do. We should find no transitional fossils, which we don’t. And since the bible said we could eat anything on earth, we should be able to take any living thing, eat it, and turn it into our bodies. Since we are all made of the same material it is possible for us to do this. You see the same evidence when looked at with an open mind can actually be used to support creation better than evolution. Were are your missing links?

I think science can be understood perfectly without forcing it to fit an origin scenario. Science should be taking evidence and explaining what you see with that evidence. Unfortunately for various reasons scientists have decided they don't want a creator to answer to so they invent an origin story and try to make the evidence fit that story. No wonder there are so many problems(missing links). That's why there are new movements out there like the cladestics which is attempting to classify organisms without showing who they supposedly evolved from.Anyway all of you seem to be saying I want evolution taken out of the textbooks. I have stated in every response, including my first one, that that is not the case. Much of what Darwin came up with I think is correct. I just don’t think you can superimpose origins on it. The evidence just doesn’t fit.

That's it?? Isn't the fact that you can't produce amino acids in any appreciable amount enough to show that abiogenesis is impossible. I'm glad that your child's textbook has addressed the inconsistency. Not everyone has. It is still in the textbook used by my district (Miller/Levine pg 424). In there defence they do say that the ealy earth is now known to not be like that of the early earths atmosphere. However they say that new experiments have produced uracil and cytosine. What they don't say is that those are only two of the five nitrogen bases needed for DNA or RNA (RNA has uracil while DNA has thymine). I also don't see any amino acids produced in this new experiment. In order for any DNA or RNA to be replicated it takes at least 50 proteins to be decoded or replicated. The unfortunate thing for anyone holding on to some hope of a Godless evolution is that the 50 proteins just happen to be the products of the said DNA or RNA?As far as the fossils, I have been studying them for years. Would you care to give me an example of how they show evolution. I've been showing you the papers and citations for my arguments, I think it's time you came up with some.As far as the theory of Creation, what don't you get. Even the most primative cell is soo complex it could not be formed by abiogenesis therefor it had to be created. If God created things to reproduce after their kind, that's what the fossil record should show. (it does of course).I've noticed from some of your other responces that you have a problem with a flood theory. I've always thought if evolutionists were smart they would grasp on to a flood theory because that could at least be used to attempt to explain the total lack of transition fossils. Also there are new studies on the Grand Canyon which shows that the Colorado river could not have carved the structure we see. The best explanation, according to geology publications, is that the structure was caused by a large flood.As for your adding instructional time to evolution. As I still say in every reply, you don't have to add time you just have to tell it correctly!!!

The newest research I have seen shows that free oxygen was available as far back as we go and there is oxidation in rocks. Even the textbook used in my school district (Miller/Levine pg 424) admits that there was oxygen in the environment. So I would think that if an evolutionary textbook admitted to that then their must be the research behind it.As far as transitional fossils are concerned I consider a transitional fossil to be something in-between one species and another. For example Where is the fossil of the mammals which couldn't quite live in the ocean but still couldn't live on land? Since they supposedly would have drowned when they first tried to live in the water I am assuming that maybe some of their remains would be preserved in sand or silt or something.As far as Archaeopteryx is concerned I have read and provided the citation showing it is just a bird.As far as the equilibrium of the earth is concerned I agree it does show equilibration. You couldn't have designed a more perfect system it you tried. Our waste products are used by plants and we use their waste in a perfect system. My point is that it really takes some audacity, and a lot of make believe, to think that a system as complex and perfect as our world could assemble itself by accident. To borrow a phrase, you wouldn't find a watch and think that it assembled itself. Therefore when you find something as amazingly complex as the simplest cell with all its machinery, how can you say that is an accident. It has more information than the most complex computer program we know of.And to make my point more clearly, If you did find a watch you could take it into the lab, and with some intelligence, you could replicate it. I would like to see someone do that with a cell.

In order for abiogenesis to happen you would have to have the following.
1. Amino acids in the thousands would have to accidentally bump into each other in an exact order. Sir Fredrick Hoyle calculated the chances of that happening to be 1 in 10 to the 40,000. That's like finding the winning lottery ticket on the ground each week for over 1000 years.2. You would also have to have nucleotides forming accidentally with over 6,000,000 bases. (the simplest we know of) I don't even know what the odds of that are.3. You would also have to have the order of the DNA or RNA to just coincidently be in the correct order to code for those hundreds of proteins you produced.By the way DNA not only codes for those proteins but also determines how they will fold to be of any use. If you remember the lock and key model of an enzyme you will recall that it is this precise shape that determines how and what and enzyme catalyzes.4. If you got that far you would then a cell membrane made from a lipid by layer to spontaneously surround this magnificent mass of self assemblage.5. All of course would then burst because of the osmosis problem that all cells face due to the high quantity of organic material in the cell.6. So this would have to happen billions of times and then become destroyed until some lucky cell happens to have a cell wall spontaneously form around it to prevent it from bursting.You know you are right that does sound plausible. HA HaObviously I propose that it would take intelligence (GOD). It takes a tremendous amount just to understand it.

He obviously used DNA or RNA and the protein machinery which goes with it. The way he did it is one of those questions I will ask him when I stand before him someday. I asume it's using powers similar to those he uses to help Isreal defeat all their enemies in six days when they declared themselves a nation. It's the same way he kept the nation of Isreal alive through all the attempts to eleminate them, when most of those doing the eleminating have disapeared into history. (Asserians, babylonians, cananites, hitites, jubusites) The bible says that Isreal will be here and hated by every nation on Earth but they will continue and build a temple on the temple mount. And here they are, in controll of Jeruselem and they have all the materils to build this temple stored away in the city. And I do believe that except for the United States all nations on Earth are against them. So if the Bible is correct on these points, I don't see why it couldn't be correct on this one.It also says in the Bible that the things which are seen are created by that which is unseen. That can be taken as God the unseen or it could also be very profetic and talking about atoms and subatomic particles, in which case that would be astonishing correct.I would challenge anyone to disprove the Bible. I hear a lot of people saying it is false but I don't hear anyone saying why. I know of several people who have undertaken the task (Lee Stroble for one) Lee Stroble was mad that his wife became a Christian and he decided to disprove the bible. He was the leading court reporter for the Washington Post I think. And guess what he found?So if nothing and chance can make a living cell, how come we can't with all our intelligence and learning?