Evolution in schools; legal trap (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, June 13, 2012, 15:43 (4547 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

TONY: Read this before you judge too harshly. It is from the same website:-http://scienceagainstevolution.info/v12i6f.htm-As usual, we have a mixture of good sense and downright distortion. I don't know what is taught in your schools, but any website that purports to be educational should at least get its facts right. The Theory of Evolution does not set out to describe the origin of life (introduction). It does not depend on abiogenesis as its starting point (16), and if the theory of abiogenesis is false, that does not mean that the theory of evolution is false (17). The whole process of evolution describes what happens once there IS life. "How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life itself first originated." (Difficulties on Theory, p. 211 Origin). Abiogenesis (which I don't believe in either) is a totally separate theory. The fact that some atheists deliberately associate it with evolution does not invalidate evolution.
 
"If the theory of evolution is true, then every characteristic of every living thing must be the result of a random mutation" (43). As I said in my earlier post, evolution comprises several theories, and this one is vulnerable, especially as we don't know the extent of the role played by environmental factors. That does not invalidate the rest. "Acquired characteristics are not inherited..." (60). We don't know that either ... it's the subject of ongoing research. No-one is claiming to have understood the mechanisms that drive innovation, but either they are built into living creatures or...we'll consider the alternative in a moment. It's difficult to see how science can come up with "experimental confirmation" of how apelike creatures evolved into humans (61). What sort of experiment does the author envisage? The speculations are based on the fact that different kinds of ape-like hominids have been discovered, and no living being has ever been observed emerging from anything except another living being. The conclusion that humans have descended from creatures similar to themselves which are known to have existed is eminently reasonable. -Dating techniques: we discussed this in an earlier post, and as a layman I can only rely on scientific consensus. Has any scientific study come up with any evidence that the Earth is 6000 years old? I am myself sceptical when science gives us precise figures like 3.7 billion years, but the difference here is colossal.
 
If evolution did not take place, the alternative has to be separate creation. Instead of every characteristic of every living thing being the result of changes from one generation of organisms to another, it must be the result of an unknown designer creating it from scratch. Does the creationist author demand "experimental confirmation" of this ... if so, how does he expect to conduct his experiment? Has he ever observed God creating the different organs and species? Of course he hasn't. What evidence of any kind is there that every characteristic and every species has appeared independently of earlier living creatures? Creationists quote a book written many centuries ago by unknown human authors with little of the scientific knowledge that we have today. Even if I were a believer, I would still embrace evolution as a vastly more reasonable and hence more credible scenario than separate creation, and there are many believers who do precisely that, with the argument that whatever the mechanisms may be, they are far too complex to have arisen by chance. Darwin himself repeatedly said that his theory was perfectly compatible with religion. Your author has joined Dawkins in equating evolution with atheism for the sake of a personal agenda, and in both cases this is as inaccurate as it is dishonest.
 
"Public schools should not teach any fanciful speculation that is inconsistent with experimentally verified laws as if it were true." Agreed. Schools should teach evolution as part of their science curriculum, and I agree too that the weaknesses as well as the strengths should be part of the lesson. I am also in favour of teaching comparative religion at school. But neither scientific nor religious speculations should be taught "as if they were true". Facts should be separated from opinions and speculative conclusions. That, of course, is the agnostic approach.