Ken Ham is ... EXPELLED

Is this really what happens ? Do parents really present evolution as ''the boogey man'' ? Do you have any evidence to back this up, or is it just your personnal feeling about this ?Because from my point of view, at least from my own personnal experience this is not the approach taken at all, and in fact christians have no problem studying in biology related subjects. My brother is in med school, and I have another friend who just finished her PhD in neurobiology and is now doing her post-doc partially at Harvard. Both christians and YEC ... And yet, when someone saying he doesn't believe in the ToE is equated to him being ''against science'' or other such outlandish claims, does it make it seem like the ToE has itself become a sacred cow, albeit a scientific one, that no one can question ?When you publicly declare of a theory that anyone who disbelieves it is either ignorant, fool or wicked, does it not become an attempt to put this theory beyond questioning, is this not an attempt to discourage doubts about it ? You could write a paper about it, but my guess would be it wouldn't pass peer-review.

They are free to think something else with good reason, not just because the theory conflicts with their superstition. Creationists are not replacing the Theory of Evolution with an alternative explanation at all, so their rejection of the theory is not valid. Of course. But you're acceptance and/or rejection of theories is supposed to add to physics, not just say, "Nuh uh," to the bits and pieces that you don't like.

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If you have nothing to say, you could have done so much more concisely. -- Dr Adequate

You are misunderstanding what is happening here. The theory is the science. If all they are learning is a series of (to them) unconnected facts that have no theory holding them together, then they aren't learning science. Science isn't merely a series of facts. It's the theories that are built upon those facts, and the subsequent further investigations that follow from those theories. If science merely learned facts but didn't put them together into a cohesive framework we'd still be living in the dark ages. I have no idea what you mean by "legitimate" so I have no idea if it's legitimate, but it isn't science. No, it isn't. It's science. Why must you creo types keep trotting out the same strawmen over and over again? Nobody is saying you can't believe whatever you like. The only thing you can't do is teach it in schools and call it science, because it isn't.Science certainly isn't about merely accepting whatever the prevailing paradigm is. But it is about challenging that paradigm with new facts or better explanations. Neither creationism nor intelligent design do either. It has nothing to do with logic. It has to do with the definition of science. The ToE fits it perfectly. (BTW, I'm pretty sure you mean "equating" rather than "equivocating" because "equivocating" makes absolutely no sense in that sentence.) You are rejecting a scientific theory that is the best explanation for the evidence. (Actually, at this point in time, it's the only explanation.) This means one of two things: either you don't understand what the evidence is or you don't understand the scientific method. But it will be expected of you that if you reject a theory that you provide either evidence undermining it or an alternative theory that better explains the evidence. Can you do that for the ToE?

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Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. -- Thomas Jefferson

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We see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

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It has always struck me as odd that fundies devote so much time and effort into trying to find a naturalistic explanation for their mythical flood, while looking for magical explanations for things that actually happened. -- Dr. Adequate

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...creationists have a great way to detect fraud and it doesn't take 8 or 40 years or even a scientific degree to spot the fraud--'if it disagrees with the bible then it is wrong'.... -- archaeologist

I have nothing worth adding to this debate, except this:

Over here, my experience is that they make up the majority of homeschooled children; however, I don't exactly have great knowledge of the area. The Christian's Homeschool thing doesn't have traction over here (yet?).

Is someone who understands a now falsified but formerly accepted scientific theory to the point where he could "regurgitate" it accurately faking it?Anyway, accepting the label for the sake of discussion, I don't think there are too many creationists out there "faking" an understanding of evolution. Most creationist rejections of evolution that we see here are based upon profound misunderstandings of evolution, and it isn't even unusual for some prominent creationists to share these misunderstandings, such as those of banana and crocoduck fame.Dover has had a profound influence on how informed the average creationist is on the details of the creation/evolution debate. Creationists coming here today well exceed their predecessors in their ignorance of both scientific and creationist interpretations of the evidence, and of course of the evidence itself. Even if "faking it" is the correct label, I see little evidence of any faking. Most creationists have an incredible amount to learn before they could even hope to attain what you call "faking it".--Percy

The thing that always seems weird to me is that this is the case even with those who have PhDs in relevant areas. The crazy stuff Jonathan Wells, such as the polar ejection model of cancer and claiming that genetics don't affect morphology, comes up with always surprises me.TTFN,WKEdited by Wounded King, : No reason given.Edited by Wounded King, : No reason given.

There is nothing wrong with skepticism about established theories, but you aren't merely skeptical about the theory of evolution. Evidence that would persuade any scientist won't convince you. Can you even conceive of evidence that might convince you that does not require time travel? That's not scientific.It seems to me that your reasons for rejecting the theory of evolution include your religious beliefs. In my opinion, that would be a handicap for a biologist. There might be subjects in physics that will be similarly problematic for you.

There is a need for objective people like Slevesque who are knowledgeable and objective about all science PoVs. Not all are stuck on our way or the highway in their class rooms.My advice to Slevesque is to continue learning all he can about everything. He will be able to teach effectively in both creationist and ToE classes and do it more objectively than someone who has learned only one science view.If more of our educators, in both camps, were as knowledgeable as Slevesque is going to be when he graduates, perhaps, the best of both PoVs will prevail in the minds of the young impressionable minds of students being taught when they graduate.

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BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW.
The Immeasurable Present Eternally Extends the Infinite Past And Infinitely Consumes The Eternal Future.

Money talks and Bullshit sells well.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

Slev will not remain a YEC very long. He really does seem intelligent and will soon realize that YEC and Creationism are but lies.I give him maybe a year more, certainly not much longer than that, particularly if he studies physics. Once he realizes that at least one Uranium Halo exists, YEC goes out the window.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

You speak so highly about him as if you know him personally. You know nothing about him or his intelligence or capabilities. Do you think so highly of him and praise his abilities so much just because he is a creationist christian?

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

For some of the families I grew up around, yes. This is exactly how they presented it. By the age of 10 they were being taught the most famous PRATT's in the book and being told that evolution was a tool used by atheists to make people hate God. I remember sitting in one time during "biology" class at one of my friends house. The first topic was Nebraska man and how atheists were using a tooth to tell lies to children. I don't view medical doctors as biologists. I have had to completely retrain medical doctors so that they wouldn't start the lab on fire. From my own experience, doctors and biologists think quite differently.As to neurobiology, I wonder what your friend has to say about the human accelerated regions (HAR's) that are related to human brain evolution.

quote:

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Nature 443, 167-172 (14 September 2006) | doi:10.1038/nature05113; Received 27 June 2006; Accepted 25 July 2006; Published online 16 August 2006

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An RNA gene expressed during cortical development evolved rapidly in humans
Katherine S. Pollard1,8,9, Sofie R. Salama1,2,9, Nelle Lambert4,5, Marie-Alexandra Lambot4, Sandra Coppens4, Jakob S. Pedersen1, Sol Katzman1, Bryan King1,2, Courtney Onodera1, Adam Siepel1,7, Andrew D. Kern1, Colette Dehay6,7, Haller Igel3, Manuel Ares, Jr3, Pierre Vanderhaeghen4 and David Haussler1,2

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Top of pageAbstractThe developmental and evolutionary mechanisms behind the emergence of human-specific brain features remain largely unknown. However, the recent ability to compare our genome to that of our closest relative, the chimpanzee, provides new avenues to link genetic and phenotypic changes in the evolution of the human brain. We devised a ranking of regions in the human genome that show significant evolutionary acceleration. Here we report that the most dramatic of these 'human accelerated regions', HAR1, is part of a novel RNA gene (HAR1F) that is expressed specifically in Cajal—Retzius neurons in the developing human neocortex from 7 to 19 gestational weeks, a crucial period for cortical neuron specification and migration. HAR1F is co-expressed with reelin, a product of Cajal—Retzius neurons that is of fundamental importance in specifying the six-layer structure of the human cortex. HAR1 and the other human accelerated regions provide new candidates in the search for uniquely human biology.

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There was a case like this a few years back. My memory is a bit hazy, but I believe there was a technician that agreed to work in a lab. At the time the PI was working off of a grant that was looking that the evolutionary history of a certain fish. The technician refused to use evolution in the work, and was summarily fired. When the tech filed suit for wrongful termination it was quickly thrown out of court. It was obvious to all that one should not enter a workplace that requires the use of evolution if you refuse to use it.Hypothetically, let's say that your boss wants you to take some of the currently unannotated genes from a recently sequenced genome and try to figure out their function. As it turns out, one of the best tools currently is SIFTER. This is an algorithm that uses evolutionary distances and history to infer protein function, and the results it kicks back are 96% accurate. If you reject evolution what will you tell your boss? Sorry, I know that it works but I refuse to use it on religious grounds?