And you call yourselves open-minded? During the Scopes-trial, the teacher was fined for telling students his take on evolution..Why is it wrong for students to be shown both sides of the coin? Teaching evolution as a proven science is wrong. WHY? b/c it has yet to prove itself. THe same goes for the creationism/intelligent-design approach. SO WHAT'S THE PROBLEM w/SHARING TWO THEORIES? ----jump off the bandwagon--- Tess in PA
TO: Dover School District

I am writing out of immense appreciation for your open-minded fairness to allow your students education that is multi-faceted. I graduated from Warwick High School in Lititz, PA in 2002. Currently, my two younger brothers are enrolled in WarwIck School District with one attending as a HS freshman. It would be thrilling if WSD would embrace the same learning approach in their biology department.

The scientific community knows the the power of influence over young minds. Our philosophy of life determines our decisions in life, political agendas and so on. Many are aware that in teaching solely, solid evolution in schools, these children will be the adult audience they need to continually propogate evolution as fact.

Evolution cannot be proven as exact science just because it has components of it. Intelligent-Design also cannot be proven. Each requires faith to believe it works, exists.
Thank you for allowing each student a comprehensive, varied outlook on life rather than just exposing one biased take.

Carpe Diem,
Tess

Good grief, the Christian Taliban in this country are just never content to poison their own with their lies, they have to try and "spread the word"..

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The last time this country mixed politics with religion, people got burned at the stake.

Allowing more than pne point of view = "Chistian Taliban"?

If their view doesnt make sense anyway, what are you afraid of?

The Teacher wasn't just being punished for expressing an opinion, (although that is officially a crime now). It was for defying the OMNIPOTENT (they believe) Teachers Union.

These megalomaniacs think that they have powers over the 'content' and 'context' of what they teach to kids, (truth/reality be (*)(*)(*)(*)ed - they have political agendas to promote).

PS: I do not prescribe to the Evolution (Darwinian) theory OR Biblical Creation theories. Both theories have been proved to be childlike in their simplicity.

Creationists are beginning to admit that their "science" is not science at all, and that it depends on faith, but, they are quick to add, so does evolution. Not so. Biologists do not have to believe that there are transitional fossils; we can examine them in hundreds of museums around the world, and we make new discoveries in the rocks all the time. Scientists do not have to believe that the solar system is 4.5 billion years old; we can test the age of the Earth, Moon, and meteoric rocks very accurately. We do not have to believe that protocells can be easily created from simple chemicals in the laboratory; we can repeat the experiments with comparable results. We can also create artificial species of plants and animals by applying selection, and we can observe natural speciation in action. That is the big difference between science and religion. Science exists because of the evidence, whereas religion exists upon faith -- and, in the case of religious fundamentalism and creationism, in spite of the evidence.

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"Don't get the impression that you arouse my anger. You see, one can only be angry with those he respects." -- Richard Nixon

@ brwneyedgrl - since this is your first post, let me welcome you to the forum.

If "creation" should be taught in schools, why should it be the Christian creation myth? Many societies have creation myths and I don't know any proof that makes the Christian creation myth more likely than that of the Greeks or Romans or Babylonians.

Would you support the school district teaching the Greek creation myth alongside evolution or do you only support the Christian creation myth? Why?

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"George W. Bush surrounds himself with smart people the way a hole surrounds itself with a donut." —Dennis Miller

in philosophy class or theology class or when covering the mythologies and religions of the world. But it most definitely does not belong in science classes unless used to teach what science is not. Let's take a look at the big observations behind ID:

1) Certain parts of the human body are too complex to have evolved all at once and required several independent evolutions and blah blah blah...
PROBLEM: Scientists do have an explanation. Coincidence. All the prerequisite parts were there, though serving no purpose. But when they evolved that one extra step- ah- a purpose! Thus they lived. Not everything in your body serves an evolutionary purpose. Evolution rewards those things that work, destroys those that are detrimental. Things that are useless, but not troubling, don't have a massive problematic effect. So things survive with useless traits. That's the way I understand it in layman's terms. Try looking at the scientists' arguments yourself sometime. In fact try just learning the basics of evolution (public schools don't even do a good job teaching that, so I don't know what the fuss is).

2) These parts have the appearance of things that are designed.
PROBLEM: Silly! Just plain silly! Why not "Designed things have qualities of stuff found in nature". That seems more likely given that designed things are created by creatures of nature using stuff found in nature and governed by the laws of physics. Not to mention most things found in the human imagination have some foundation in something a human came in contact with. What a shocker that designed things hold stuff in common with natural things! Even if you are to say my version is just as unprovable- Ha! You admit your side is unprovable! Thus not science.

3) THE CROWN JEWEL: Life and existance are simply to complex to be explained by evolution.
PROBLEM: Oh really. How do you know? Mathematic improbability doesn't always prove things. You are extremely unlikely to win the lottery, get struck by lightning, or get eaten by a shark. Yet all these things happen to people. The lottery is won on a regular basis. Some people are struck by lightning multiple times in their lives! Chance is heavily against it. But my mathematical friends, after tackling the improbability of the conditions for life (something that as far as we know happens on only one of many planets we've looked at), try this. Figure out the likelihood that YOUR particular god created everything. Then determine what improbable forces collided to bring that god out of all possible gods or godless creation ideas to happen. Keep in mind, science never ends. If science did prove the existance of an intelligent designer, the next question is "Where did it come from?" Any guesses? Oh, you thought you were done. Tell me, where did your god come from? Obviously if life, at least human life, was created in his image, then the same unlikelihood of life's existence applies to his existence. Did another god create him. Who created that god?
Now the reverse is "Where did the stuff come from for the Big Bang?" But scientists don't just make up things like "It's always been there" because they don't know. They theorize and test the theories and wait for information to come along that will help them make better theories.
I know. It's so much easier to just say there's a god. So just say there's a god and keep it out of science classes.

Hopefully a scientist can come along to put my horrible paraphrases into even more incomprehensible language. I already must face the fact that most good arguments to what I've stated will be from evolutionists who feel I'm not doing evolution justice. But at least I have a basic understanding, even if I am a terrible communicator. Most people who doubt evolution so highly believe that evolution is attempting to disprove God, which proves they don't know the first thing about evolution or science.[/i]

Here are some additional and equally simplistic theological arguments against the prospect of evolution...


1. Evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics. Entropy (disorder) is always increasing. Since order does not arise out of chaos, evolution is therefore false.

These statements conveniently ignore the fact that you can get order out of disorder if you add energy. For example, an unassembled bicycle that arrives at your house in a shipping carton is in a state of disorder. You supply the energy of your muscles (which you get from food that came ultimately from sunlight) to assemble the bike. You have got order from disorder by supplying energy. The Sun is the source of energy input to the Earth's living systems and allows them to evolve. The engineers in the CRS know this, but they permit this specious reasoning to be published in their pamphlets. Just as the more structured oak tree is derived from the less complex acorn by addition of energy captured by the growing tree from the Sun, so sunlight, via photosynthesis, provides the energy input that propels evolution. In the sense that the Sun is losing more energy than the Earth is gaining, entropy is increasing. After death, decay sets in, and energy utilization is no longer possible. That is when entropy gets you. What does represent an increase in entropy, as biologists have pointed out, is the diversity of species produced by evolution.


2. The small amount of helium in the atmosphere proves that the Earth is young. If the Earth were as old as geologists say, there would be much more helium, because it is a product of uranium decay.

Helium, used to suspend blimps in the air, is a very light gas and simply escapes into space; like hydrogen, it cannot accumulate in Earth's atmosphere to any great extent.


3. The rate of decay of Earth's magnetism leads to the calculation that Earth was created about 10,000 years ago.

The Earth's magnetic field does indeed decay, but it does so cyclically, every few thousand years, and it is constantly being renewed by the motion of the liquid core of the Earth. The "fossil magnetism" recorded in ancient rocks clearly demonstrates that polar reversals (shifts in the direction of Earth's magnetic field) have occurred both repeatedly and irregularly throughout Earth's history; the calendar of these reversals was established over two decades ago, and quickly became the linchpin in the emerging theory of plate tectonics and continental drift.


4. If evolution were true, there would be transitional fossils, but there are none; therefore, evolution did not occur.

There are many transitional fossils, including the ape-human transitional form, Australopithecus. Eusthenopteron shows marvelous intermediate characteristics between the lobe-finned fishes and the amphibians. The transitional fossils between amphibians are so various and so intermediate that it is difficult to define where one group ends and the other begins. Archaeopteryx is clearly intermediate between reptiles and birds. In spite of such reptilian affinities as a long bony tail, toothed jaws, and clawed wings, creationists declare that because Archaeopteryx had feathers, it was a bird, not a transitional stage between reptiles and birds. Having no explanations of thier own, the creationists attempt to deny the transitional fossils out of existence.


5. Fossils seem to appear out of nowhere at the base of the Cambrian; therefore, they had to have been created.

The earliest microfossils date back, in fact, to the Precambrian, about 3.5 billion years ago. A variety of multicellular life appears in the fossil record about 670 million years ago, which is 80 million years before the Cambrian. The Cambrian does seem to explode with fossils, but that is simply because the first shelled organisms, such as the brachiopods and the trilobites, date from the Cambrian; their resistant shells fossilize far more readily than their soft-bodied ancestors of the Precambrian. What is more, Precambrian rocks are so old that they have been subjected to a great deal of deformation. We are thus fortunate to have any Precambrian fossils of soft-bodied animals. Still more fossils are discovered every year, and each one further weakens the creationist position.


6. All fossils were deposited at the time of the Noachian flood.

There is not one shred of evidence in the geological record to support the claim of a single, worldwide flood. Geological formations such as mountain ranges and the Grand Canyon require millions of years to form, and the fossil record extends over several billion years. The time required for continents to have drifted into their present positions is immense. These things cannot be accounted for by a single flood lasting a few days or years.


7. There are places where advanced fossils lie beneath more primitive fossils.

Earth movements such as faulting and thrusting produce these discontinuities; the older rock has simply been pushed over on top of the younger rocks, as we sometimes see even along highway cuts. These places are easily recognized and explained by geologists. They cannot be explained by the creationists' belief that all fossils are the result of the Noachian flood. Thus the creationists' attempt to fault evolutionary theory by these means ends up demolishing one of their own pet claims.


8. The chances of the proper molecules randomly assembling into a living cell are impossibly small.

Simulation experiments have repeatedly shown that amino acids do not assemble randomly. Their molecular structure causes them to be self-ordering, which enhances the chances of forming long chains of molecules. Simulation experiments also demonstrate that the formation of prebiotic macromolecules is both easy and likely and does not require DNA, which is a later step in the evolution of proteins. The stepwise application of cumulative natural selection acting over long periods of time can make the improbable very likely.


9. Dinosaur and human footprints have been found together in Cretaceous limestone at Glen Rose, Texas. Therefore, dinosaurs could not have preceded humans by millions of years.

This Fred Flintstone version of pre-history is one of the most preposterous and devious claims the fundamentalists make, and they have made it in books and films. The "man-tracks" seen by creationists stem from two sources. One is wishful imagination, whereby water-worn scour marks and eroded dinosaur tracks are perceived as human footprints. The other is deliberate fraud. Creationist hoaxers obscure the foot pads of the dinosaur tracks with sand and photograph what remains, the dinosaur's toe impressions. When reversed, the tip of the dinosaur toe or claw becomes the heel of a "human" print. These prints are shown in poor-quality photographs in creationist literature and films. Because the stride length (7 feet) and foot length (3 feet) exceeded any possible human scale, the fundamentalists call these the giants mentioned in Genesis. In addition to the doctored tracks, there are other hoaxed prints circulating in this area of Texas. In fact, carved footprints were offered for sale to tourists in curio shops during the Great Depression. These caught the eye of the paleontologist Ronald T. Bird, who recognized them as fakes, but they eventually led him to the legitimate dinosaur footprints at Glen Rose. This area has since been extensively studied by paleontologists, and numerous species of reptiles and amphibians have been catalogued. No genuine human tracks exist there.


10. Biologists have never seen a species evolve.

On a small scale, we certainly have. Using allopolyploidy and artificial selection, scientists have manufactured crop plants and horticultural novelties that are reproductively isolated from the parental stock. In addition, one can see stages of incipient speciation in nature by looking at clinical variations and subspecies, that is, gradual change in the characteristics of a population across its geographical range. Major evolutionary changes, however, usually involve vastly greater time periods; we cannot watch such changes, but we can deduce them by inference from living and fossil organisms.


11. The number of humans today would be much greater if we have been around as long as evolutionists say we have.

This notion makes very naive assumptions about birth and death rates, and the fecundity of early humans, and assumes that populations are always growing, when in fact most animal populations are at a level somewhat lower than the carrying capacity of their environment. Such stable populations remain stable for long periods of time, held in check by environmental constraints. It is only our own species' recently acquired ability to modify our environment that allowed our numbers to get dangerously out of control. Ironically, it is our ability to master the environment -- as the Bible commands us to do -- that may yet do us in.


12. The current rate of shrinkage of the Sun proves that the Earth could not be as old as geologists say, because the surface of the Sun would have been near the Earth's orbit a few million years ago.

This simplistic view neglects the fact that stars, such as our Sun, have life cycles during which events occur at different rates. The characteristics of a newly formed star are quite different from those of stars near death. Astronomers can see these differences today by observing young, middle-aged, and old stars. By now, we know that it has not been shrinking at a constant rate.


13. A living freshwater mussel was determined by Carbon 14 dating to be over 2,000 years old; therefore, Carbon 14 dating is worthless.

When used properly, Carbon 14 is a very accurate time-measuring technique. The mussel in this example is an inappropriate case for 14C dating because the animal had acquired much of its carbon from the limestone of the surrounding water and sediment. These sources are very low in 14C, owing to their age and lack of mixing with fresh carbon from the atmosphere. Therefore a newly killed mussel in these circumstances has less 14C than, say, a newly cut tree branch. The reduced level of 14C yields an artificially older date. The 14C technique has no such problems with the tree branch that gets its carbon from the air, or with the campfire sites of ancient peoples. As with arcwelding or Cajun cooking, one must understand the technique to use it properly. This is another example of the self-correcting nature of science.


14. The influx of meteoric dust from space to earth is about 14 million tons per year. If the Earth and Moon were 4.5 billion years old, then there should be a layer of dust 50 to 100 feet thick covering their surfaces.

This estimate of dust influx is simply out of date. Space probes have found that the level of dust influx from space is about 400 times less than that. Creationists are aware of the modern measurements, but they continue to use the incorrect figure because it suits their purpose. Such is thier honesty and scholarship. Do you think the astronauts would have been allowed to land on the Moon if NASA thought they would sink into 100 feet of dust?


15. Prominent biologists have made statements disputing evolution.

The out-of-context quote is one of the most insidious weapons in the creationists' arsenal, and reflects the desperation of their position. Biologists do not deny the fact of evolution. We do, however, debate its mechanisms and tempo. The debate reflects the vigorous growth of a major scientific concept; it is what goes on routinely in all healthy, growing branches of scholarship. Creationists dishonestly portray this as a weakness in the theory of evolution.

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"Don't get the impression that you arouse my anger. You see, one can only be angry with those he respects." -- Richard Nixon

I have the proof! Controversy over! You want transitional fossils, well heck, what about the JACKALOPE?

http://www.sudftw.com/jackcon.htm

Case Closed

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"You sound like a gen-x coffee house dick" - From the outtakes to Office Space

I used to support the idea of teaching both evolution and creationism (aka intelligent design) in science class until I took a College Biology class last winter. The problem with bringing creationism into science is that science deals with physical theories and observations. Evolution is a physical theory, students who learn about it don't just learn about the philosophical aspects of evolution, actually that part is very small, they mainly learn through the physiological and anatomic changes that occur in groups of species over time. Creationism doesn't have this physical aspect to it, because it is only a philosophical theory. Most people don't understand that science doesn't always claim to be right and actually in most cases science studies theories not proven facts. Science is about trial and error. I think my biology professor actually said it pretty well when he said "If next week there became physical evidence that would conclude the bible as being correct, then every biology textbook in the country would stop the presses and immediately start a biblical section in biology." The thing about science is it studies physical only and if there isn't any physical objects to take into a science lab, then there is little to no chance that the particular subject will get studied in science.

Therefore, both evolution and intelligent design are theories of the creation of the human species, but only evolution has the physical component required to study in a science laboratory and science classroom. I think creationism and many other philosophies should be taught in high school, because I think philosophy is an important subject that isn't taught in many high schools.

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"If life were fair, Elvis would be alive and all the
impersonators would be dead.
-- Johnny Carson