Re: Fw: Ohio Votes 13-5 to Adopt Lesson Plan Critical of Evolution

  Thanks, Ted and all, for your thoughts on this.

I am currently working on a rush job for a
textbook client, so cannot reply to individual
contributions as yet, but hope to do so.

Everything Ted says below and everything that
you have said convinces me that the development
of critical thinking exercises in this area is
LONG overdue.

In my opinion, Christian evolutionists ought to
have been sponsoring the critical thinking
exercises, not just going along with everything
that the atheistic Darwinists say.

For example, here is what atheist/agnostic
philosopher Michael Ruse has said in his review
of Dawkins's A Devil's Chaplain:

"I worry about the political consequences of
Dawkins's message. If Darwinism is a major
contributor to nonbelief, then should Darwinism
be taught in publicly funded U.S. schools?"

(From "Through a glass, darkly," a review of A
Devil's Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies,
Science, and Love (New York: Houghton Mifflin,
2003), American Scientist (November-December,
2003),
www.americanscientist.org/template/BookReviewTypeDetail/assetid/28365.)

Pardon me, but if you didn't react to the same
situation that Ruse has, why am I supposed to
take you seriously? You claim to be Christians
-- and I don't doubt it -- but I am amazed that
this doesn't concern you as much as concerns
even him.

He also says,

Evolution after Darwin had set itself up to be
something more than science. It was a popular
science, the science of the marketplace and the
museum, and it was a religion--whether this be
purely secular or blended in with a form of
liberal Christianity . . . When believers in
other religions turned around and scratched, you
may regret the action but you can understand
it--and your sympathy for the victim is
attenuated. (Michael Ruse, The Evolution Wars
(Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2000), p. 114.)

Instead of blaming Discovery Institute for
rushing into the vacuum, ask yourselves why YOU
didn't think of doing so.

If you need to be the useful idiots of the
metaphysical naturalists -- so that even an
atheistic/agnostic philosopher like Ruse can
raise objections that didn't occur to you --
that's certainly fine with me. I only report the
news, I don't make it.

I can get a good story out of this, though, as a
Christian, I must say I'd far rather have told a
different one.

On the other hand, I am hardly surprised if you
do not command the respect you feel you deserve
in the Christian community.

By the way, re Jonathan Wells, if he hadn't
written about all the misleading crap in
textbooks, who would have?

Try helping to fix the problems instead of just
defending them and slamming the people who
report them. I've never met Wells and I don't
care if he is a Martian; as one who works on
textbooks part time, I am well aware of the
types of problems he describes. Only the details
re biology textbooks were news to me. Again, why
wasn't one of YOU on the ball?

I am sorry to sound so impatient, but I really
suspect that you do not understand what is
happening. Perhaps my explaining won't help
either, but let me try:

Discovery is moving into a vacuum that you help
to create by providing no leadership in critical
thinking on Darwinism, but only covert support
for atheistic Darwinism.

Like any fifth column anywhere, you rush to
defend everything Darwinists say and oppose
everything anyone else says.

And writing in to the list to argue against me
is not equivalent to doing anything about the
problem.

Probably because I work in media, I am not in
the least concerned if some ancient applecart is
overturned. Mess happens, and sometimes it needs
to happen.

Denyse
P.S. Darwinism is a widely used term in the
field. I prefer it to "the Darwinian theory of
evolution" on grounds of conciseness.
See, for example, this quote from Dawkins, who
must suppose that his readers know what he is
talking about:

"I know of only two alternatives to Darwinism
that have been offered as explanations of the
organised and apparently purposeful complexity;
of life. These are God and Lamarckism. I am
afraid I shall give God rather short shrift. He
may have many virtues: no doubt he is invaluable
as a pricker of the conscience and a comfort
to the dying and the bereaved, but as an
explanation of organised complexity he simply
will not do. It is organised complexity we are
trying to explain, so it is footling to invoke
in explanation a being sufficiently organised
and complex to create it." University."
(Dawkins R., "The Necessity of Darwinism," New
Scientist, Vol. 94, 15 April 1982, pp.130-132,
p.130)

Ted Davis wrote:
> I want to respond to Denyse, so I've inserted my comments below.
>
>
>>>>"Denyse O'Leary" <oleary@sympatico.ca> 03/10/04 08:27AM >>>
>
> If Darwin's theory cannot be questioned, it is
> not science.
>
> Ted: Agreed. IMO, the scientific establishment is more than touchy about
> this. However, historically many of those who question evolution do so for
> religious reasons, not primarily scientific ones. THus, IMO, the scientific
> establishment has reasons to be touchy--they're tired of being criticized by
> people who object to a theory for religious reasons, but claim that there
> are scientific reasons as well.
>
> If the supporters of Darwinism think the theory
> is viable, they should welcome critical inquiry
> instead of opposing it.
>
> Ted: Agreed. But there are quite a few people in the ID camp who (a) do
> not accept an earth older than 10,000 years and/or (b) do not believe that
> humans are related biologically to other animals. Both of these points do
> fly in the face of tons of genuine science. It is difficult to see why
> criticism on those points should be welcomed, when the evidence is seen by
> most scientists as overwhelming.
>
> The fact that supporters may well launch
> lawsuits to prevent critical thinking tells me
> that the theory is in deep trouble.
>
> Ted: I agree that it would be better pedagogically to encourage students to
> consider some of the objections that are raised. HOWEVER, then let them
> consider in depth the evidence for the earth's great age, the big bang,
> common descent, human antiquity, and many other things in the process. If
> we want a genuinely open inquiry about such things--which is what I'd like
> to see--there are going to be a lot of religious people (including I think
> popular supporters of ID) who are going to be upset. Open inquiry cuts both
> ways, and most schools are not presently giving in-depth treatment to the
> scientific evidence relative to the history of life.
>
> Nothing that Darwin's detractors might say will
> ever be as powerful evidence as this.
>
> Ted: I have never regarded legislative and judicial actions as powerful
> evidence for the truth or falsity of any scientific theory. This statement
> cuts both ways, too.
>
> There is no law you can pass or strike down that
> will prevent people from knowing that Darwinism
> cannot do what its supporters claim, because the
> supporters' own actions are now the strongest
> testimony against the theory.
>
> Ted: It's perfectly fair IMO for ID people to "call the question," to claim
> that scientific claims about the explanatory scope of Darwinism are
> overstated.
>
> In that regard, the Darwinists increasing remind
> me of Marxists and Freudians, determined at all
> costs to prevent critical analysis of their
> theory, thus hastening a collapse.
>
> Ted: I won't hold my breath on the collapse. Phil Johnson and his friends
> in Seattle once believed that evolution would collapse in a few years, now
> they're saying maybe 25 years from now. I don't believe it will "collapse"
> in my lifetime or long after that. I see far more people who do their own
> study of the relevant science, move from denying evolution to affirming it,
> than the other way around. (There is traffic in both directions, contrary
> to what mainstream scientists sometimes want people to think.) Denyse knows
> Denis Lamoureux's story quite well, he would be just one example of this,
> one die-hard antievolutionist who lost his antievolutionist faith once he
> actually started to study the evidence. It's *that* part (the
> antievolutionist attitude) that drives many ID people and fuels their
> popular support, IMO. Mike Behe, on the other hand, is an evolutionist
> (according to what he says in Darwin's Black Box), he simply objects to the
> ways in which evolution is interpreted metaphysically and the ways in which
> the state of scientific evidence on the origin of complexity is often
> misrepresented to the public. Those are fair objections, I don't see them
> as antievolutionary at the core. But someone like Jon Wells is
> fundamentally antievolutionist--he denies common descent, human ancestry
> from primates, etc. This part of ID strikes a chord with many laypersons.
>
>
>

-- 
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