When Expulsion is a Badge of Honor: Questioning Evolution
Posted 3 weeks 3 days ago byWhen a student is expelled from school, it is usually an instance of someone wilfully disobeying school rules. But what if those in charge of the school are themselves disobeying the rules?
That is the disturbing premise of writer and entertainer Ben Stein’s remarkable film, "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed," currently being shown in theaters across the country. The stark claim it makes is that authentic scientists in our universities and research institutions who question the orthodoxy of Darwinism are treated as renegades and thus fired, denied tenure, deprived of grants and other resources, and just plain denounced for their apostasy.
It is a comforting thought for millions of us that the stewards of science genuinely appreciate and properly utilize the freedom to inquire into all material matters amenable to the scientific method. But the evidence from "Expelled" is that this may well not be the case.
What is the problem with the uppity scientists who question Darwinism? Whether in biology, immunology, bacteriology or even astronomy and mathematics, scientists just beginning their careers or well into them, have begun to question, based on the evidence (or the lack of it), the long-held assumption that the origins and development of life are based on random chance.
"Intelligent design" (I.D.) is the offending and unwelcome intruder into the closed club of true believers and intimidated followers who dominate the scientific world today. Rather than restricting the range of explanations to material and efficient cause only, men such as microbiologist David Berlinski argue that, in a universe with far-flung galaxies and the incredibly complex cells of living things, intelligence cannot be ruled out as a cause.
Ben Stein plays dumb in most of "Expelled" in order to give his Darwinian and I.D. interviewees plenty of time to express (or hang) themselves. His disarming, deadpan manner stimulates remarkable responses, such as those of the famous Richard Dawkins, author of "The God Delusion," an attack on the very notion of divine beings, who admits to Stein that evolutionary theory cannot account for the origin of life.
Friendly critics of Darwinism have called it a "narrative" rather than a theory because the best it can do is to record what has happened, or speculate about what might, or could, have happened, in natural history. But it draws a blank on the beginning of the process. On camera Dawkins actually suggests that aliens from a more advanced world "seeded" the earth with the originating cells or forms that gave rise to simple and later more complex forms of life.
Other prominent Darwinists suggest that crystals from "somewhere" brought the elements that made life possible. Now, why are otherwise highly intelligent human beings willing to credit such loony explanations? There are at least two possible reasons. First, they think it incredible that a Supreme Being, God, could possibly have created the world. Dawkins is quite emphatic: it is rank superstition to believe in any deity.
Second, they don’t know how life began. That being the case, one idea is as good as the next. Alien seeders and what Stein called "free-riding crystals" are no more implausible than God!
What Stein’s "Expelled" has done is to show up not only Darwinism’s questionable assumptions about how our world functions or how it originated, but the limitations of science itself. From its beginnings in ancient Greece until now, what defines science is demonstration or proof. That is, if someone makes a claim about cause or effect, whether physical or biological, natural or social, that person is obliged to show the rest of us that things cannot be otherwise. How life began or developed should be demonstrated by evidence, not the alleged superiority of one's view of the world.
It takes more than the ability to perform an experiment or conduct a study to determine where and how to do science. We would not take seriously someone who claimed that he could flap his arms and fly. But a knowledge of physics and aeronautics, as well as the properties of solid objects such as metals, has long since been shown to be indispensable to flight.
A good scientist must be intelligent and thoughtful, not merely diligent and persistent, however indispensable those qualities are to obtaining results. A "mad scientist" may be smart as can be about many things but he lacks clear focus or a moral compass or both. Whether they admit it or not, scientists depend on philosophers and theologians for their world view.
It is no small feat to produce an entertaining film which is in actuality a documentary, hardly the favorite genre of movie goers. But Stein has combined compelling sights and charming sounds to generate enthusiasm for inquiry into the perennial and riveting questions of how life began and developed.
Stein reminds us that the freedom to inquire is indispensable and uplifting for us, the only beings capable of it. The last thing we need is closed minds, especially among those who are supposed to be wholeheartedly devoted to clarifying basic questions and proposing credible answers.
Thoughts
The DNA error with Evolution
Submitted on April 23rd, 2008 by PabloMost put too much into the so call DNA trend within the Evolutionary theory.
They point out that because the DNA of all animals on the planet is very simular and that within certain groups the is very little separation.
But is that really true?
Most people do not realize that they have 96% alike DNA to the tree in the front yard of their home. Thus there must be some link somewhere in the distant past.
I have a better explanation. Its called chemistry.
All life on the planet is carbon based. For this reason, there is a limited number of ways which you can change carbon within a chemical structure. Yea that number is large but it is still a number which has limits.
Because of the properties of how Carbon interacts with other elements then there is going to be some simularies chemically to all other carbon style life forms or for any general carbon chain like DNA.
An Example. Gasoline that people put into the fuel tank has 91% simularies to the carbon chains of the human.
Crude oil has 97% alikeness.
which means that crude oil is more alike a human than a tree? No that's not right either.
The truth is that carbon has characteristics which repeats itself. Thus why Man has 98% to 99% alike DNA to most animals on the planet.
It does not mean that we are all related. After all, the tree in my front yard should not be considered a long lost relative.
Please note disclaimer: Crude oil and gasoline do not have DNA. But they do have chains of carbons which are comparitable to chains of carbons in the human body. Some of which are identical or very simular.
Darwin was not a Darwinist
Submitted on April 23rd, 2008 by AnonymousDr. Reeb might have added another key point: the present "science community" is heavily invested in Darwin. A great deal of money and career status is tied up in some version of Darwinism. This is, I believe, the reason for the vicious behavior of the in-crowd in our higher education and research institutions when it comes to a critique of Darwin. In truth, the critics are not denying Darwin on the question of adaptation in response to environmental changes. Darwin is undoubtedly correct on the process of selection, at least insofar as some varieties of a species are better able to adapt than others when altered weather, food supply, or other new conditions appear in their living environment.
What is utterly new is the discovery of DNA and RNA, and the appearance of the encoded instructions on the building of materials and the assembly of those materials to make cells of various kinds. Even the simplest cell is complex and requires a number of molecular "machines," each programmed to perform certain functions and the whole activity to be subordinated to a guiding and highly ordered set of assembly instructions. In brief, the instructions MUST BE PRIOR to the cell. The cell is a product of manufactured materials assembled in the right order. Question: where did the DNA/RNA come from? Its instruction set was PRIOR to the very first cell ever to exist.
In the previews of the Ben Stein movie, Ben challenges the lecturer to explain by Darwinistic demonstration how life itself began. Darwin cannot explain this because Darwin was utterly ignorant of the complexity of the cell and of DNA/RNA and its multi-billion bit instruction set. He had never heard of the "genome." His work, therefore, is very narrowly interpretive, and, while useful as far as it goes, leaves untouched the deeper questions of biology. All the sciences face such new knowledge and evidence as requiring a revisiting of the old foundations. We cannot depend on Copernicus to explain black holes or neutron stars and we cannot depend on Darwin to explain the new conundrums of information theory.
The new biology, like the new astronomy, and the coming new physics, return us to the realization of mystery. They give science a new lease on life; but, inevitably, they disempower those whose reputations and fortunes are built on the old, mechanistic beliefs. "Intelligent design" is not a new explanation for our surprising recent observations; rather, it is a call for a return to St. Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle, as Frederick J. E. Woodbridge understood these philosophers. The old wisdom meets the new discoveries and invites us to contemplate, to speculate, and to become reacquainted with a love for the truth.
ahh those
Submitted on April 22nd, 2008 by John 2000bitter bumpkins of evolutionary monopoly clinging to their stagnant Darwinian Bibles, their little flashlights. They have a fear of strange and foreign inquiry and of those who see things differently. I cannot blame them. They are afraid; afraid to even try to see beyond their own crystallized certainties.
Evolution Hype and ultimate Error
Submitted on April 27th, 2008 by PabloThe truth about Evolution is that it is a theory!
The problem with the Educational system and the scientists and local schools is that they treat the Theory of Evolution as if it were the absolute truth of some foundational basics like 2+2=4
I am all for science and its facts. The problem I have with evolution is that its a failed theory!
Every few years the theory gets disproved. It gets smashed and then some other scientist takes up the torch and makes a modified theory to make it stand up and be accepted as a Theory which like the Big Bang is sound but umprovable.
Thus you have evolution which is nothing more than a failed theory and the current version will fail based on what I have read.
Just because a lizard can have feathers does not mean that the lizard mutated into the modern bird. Which is the main failing of the theory of evolution. There are no missing links in the fossil record. You have to have an intermediate species which makes the link for the ancient lizard to the modern versions or several links to get to the modern world.
When Darwin made his theory about 135 years ago, it was more fantasy than science. He saw animals which were exotic and beyond anything that a European could imagine. He tried to link all the fossils of the dead to that which we see today.
Thus those who are purist have to have some sort of rational closure as to the big question of where did we come from.
Science just can not accept that God spoke and in a blink of an eye that like appeared.
The reality is that most people confuse evolution with natural selection. They are different.
What most people fail to understand is that creationism in its non dogmatic loony right version allows for natural selection identical to the same claims made by the evolutionist.
The difference is that evolution claim life on earth is an accident from some cosmic soup and the creationist is that its by design by an all knowing all seeing and all powerful God.
So you have the legitimate creation scientists who believes in multiple creations as written in the bible which honestly fits closer to what is seen in the geologic record. That the previous life forms although are simular are not linked to the modern animals.
I say simular because when you have the same creater which created the first animals then its obvious and logical that the second set He created would be along the same patterns but different. Thus you would never find any missing links for the billons of life forms on the planet.
Think about that for a moment. There is around 1 trillion life forms on the planet today. Yet none have any missing links to the age of the dinosaur. Just to put it in a logical mannor, if you have trillions of life that takes millions of years to modify to the modern, how many missing links should be found somewhere?
Mathmatically, the answer is something in the order of quintillions.
That is millions, billions, trillions, dillions and quintillions.
Thus our planet should be loaded with missing links because of the sheer numbers that it would have produced from all those trillions of life forms over the span of millions of years.
Thus why Evolution fails and will always be as its basic form which gets rewritten be based on a false idea.
Thus I have no problem with the teaching of evolution in general as long as its labled as an unproved theory. But what the gradeschool kids learn in their text books are out right lies of a failed theory and is known as a failed theory.
Thus its ok to teach the idea of evolution but you should not deny other theories like creation. Its even ok to acknowledge that some ancients believed in crazy theories as to where we came from. In India they believed that the earth was flat and rode on the back of a great turtle.
But to me the most ignorant and most uncomformist among scientist are usually afraid to admit that they are wrong or that they have no real answers. Sometimes you just can not explain that which they see. They can not admit that on this subject they are just as ignorant as the rest of the world.
Thus why UFOs are called UFOs. They are things which a person can not identify or understand. Does not make what they saw false or wrong but its just not something they understand. Who knows, maybe aliens created this world. Its another theory!
Thus evolution v creation is in the realm of the area where neither side can prove beyond the level necessary to be fully accepted as an accepted truth like the Big Bang. Yet scientists still call the big bang a theory. Evolutionist call evolution science truths and an acknowleged fact of science. Problem is that its not! Its a lie to even suggest it.
But the problem is that science took the view that religion and science can not be compatible. Yet its always been the other way around. Science's greatest achievements have come from religon which it understood from its holy writings. From the earth being round verses flat for judism and christianity is a major example. All other religions believed the world was flat except judism and christianity. It was a verse from the bible that prompted a scienist to consider the earth round and that the earth moved about the sun. Science wants people to not think about how religious its early pioneers really were. How many of its pioneers were actually priests and holy men. Even Issac Newton promoted God and gave that God used the truths we know to apply the realities we see.
So science should not reject creationism but look more closely at it to see how that creation was actually done by God. In this, it just might answer the biggest of questions they have. To the creationist, sometime clinging to things that reject known science facts like 2+2=4 is just as bad as rejecting the truth of God. So to the creationist who believes in a 7000 year old earth is not logical nor is it right. Two truths can not be right at the same time when they contradict each other. Its the understanding of what those truths tell us that makes truth a reality.
ID by and for beetles
Submitted on April 22nd, 2008 by Anonymous** I demand equal time for my views to be taught in public schools **
Ancient Egyptians surmised that a dung beetle created the Earth. I accept the fecal gospel of "intelligent design" as long as it is extended -- the entire Earth emerged from the collective wisdom of committees of dung beetles.
The committees are still in charge . . . and having problems (as committees always do):
** The mistaken Anthropic Principle -- note from HQ **
To: All
From: CEO, Sentient Beings Inc.
Subject: Major anthropic screw-up, causes and proposed solutions
It was the Corporate Committee on Systematic World Ordering which initiated an RFP, cost-plus basis. Failure to recognize that Hellaburton was an unreliable contractor, created certain problems with shoddy workmanship and substandard materials which quickly emerged.
These however were plastered over for at least 4 billion years until the first multicellular creatures appeared in planet’s Precambrian oceans. By then it was too late to adjust any nucleotides. After all, it is a double blind test.
The last 550 million years, however, have proved one unforeseen disaster after another, culminating in Nature’s Greatest Mistake, homo sap. Currently, almost 7 billion cases of hypertrophy of ape prefrontal cortex! [Walking and talking mutants all of them!]
Delicious irony though. The defect provides an illusion of having "free will." Of course, homeostatic causes are still causes. But, as delusions go, this one is a sicko. Unfortunately, the trait is far too entrenched now to be wiped out by laws of population genetics.
Looks like human heads must roll. The Corporate Committee on Oort Cloud Exploitation hopes to find a suitably large comet in the next 65 million years, give or take 5 million years.
However, let there be light! The standing Corporate Committee on Bio-organics has estimated that the average species lasts only about 2 million years. Patience hath its rewards.
Personally, I want the testing to continue. I find myself inordinately fond of beetles. Let it be called the arthropodic principle.
bipolar2
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