Re: Dover and YEC: specific evidence on Thursday evening

Keith writes:

> The YECs are the foundation of the grassroots support for ID. They are
> the ones behind the local efforts to alter science standards or science
> curricula. It is their ideas and arguments that these advocates
> ultimately wish to have in the public classroom. That is certainly the
> situation here, and appears to be the case in Dover as well. The
> unwillingness of the ID advocates to challenge the false evolution vs
> creation dichotomy in public settings, and to in many cases explicitly
> support it, has given the YEC supporters new confidence to press their
> cause.

Bob replies: I entirely agree. The same thing happened in the debate at the
Cobb Co., GA, school board meeting a couple of years ago, according to Wes
McCoy, senior biology instructor at one of the local highschools, and a
member of the Presbyterian Association of Science, Technology and Christian
Faith. Wes and I had a long talk about the situation there at the last
Ecumenical Round Table meeting. The school auditorium was filled with
people who were church-bussed in from local fundamentalist churches to cheer
on those who testified against evolution when the school board met. The
YECs are delighted with what the ID crowd is doing. In fact, when Gary
Parker of Answers in Genesis gave lectures on "creation" at Berea, KY,
churches and a campus auditorium several years ago, he set up a book
display. Most of the works on sale were standard YEC literature, but two
books stood out: Johnson's _Darwin on Trial_ and Behe's _Darwin's Black
Box_.

The news article for which Keith provided a link expressed beliefs that are
regularly promoted in YEC literature and sermons. Sadly, they are among the
most difficult to dislodge from peoples' minds. In another article in this
paper someone said that colleges "brainwash" students into accepting
evolution. The irony of that statement must be apparent to anyone hearing
YECs repeatedly tell their audiences what they must fear from the teaching
of evolution.

Ted, thanks for posting Nussbaum's article. I was not surprised at what he
reported.

Bob Schneider

----- Original Message -----
From: "Keith Miller" <kbmill@ksu.edu>
To: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Sunday, October 02, 2005 9:18 PM
Subject: Re: Dover and YEC: specific evidence on Thursday evening

>> Anyway, Mr Nussbaum was on his way down to Dover for a rally against
>> evolution that evening. Here is a story from one of the Dover papers
>> about
>> what took place there:
>>
>> http://ydr.com/story/doverbiology/87577/
>
> For your information, the Burt Humburg mentioned in that article is a past
> member of the Kansas Citizens for Science board. KCFS has, as part of its
> efforts to support quality science education, been working to try to
> overcome the popular view that evolution and creation are in inherent
> conflict.
>
> The YECs are the foundation of the grassroots support for ID. They are
> the ones behind the local efforts to alter science standards or science
> curricula. It is their ideas and arguments that these advocates
> ultimately wish to have in the public classroom. That is certainly the
> situation here, and appears to be the case in Dover as well. The
> unwillingness of the ID advocates to challenge the false evolution vs
> creation dichotomy in public settings, and to in many cases explicitly
> support it, has given the YEC supporters new confidence to press their
> cause.
>
> Keith
>
> Keith B. Miller
> Research Assistant Professor
> Dept of Geology, Kansas State University
> Manhattan, KS 66506-3201
> 785-532-2250
> http://www-personal.ksu.edu/~kbmill/
>
>
Received on Sun Oct 2 23:07:07 2005