“The Scopes ‘Monkey Trial’ Revisited” - An invitation to examine both sides of the origins debate

Red Sky at Morning

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From a comment on Facebook...

“And we just covered this in my biology class. I ask my kids "if ribosomes create proteins from DNA, which require proteins/enzymes to DO those processes, then which came first?" They think for a moment, then tell me it all has to be present at the same time, because nothing can't make proteins that are made FROM proteins. It's a great way to minister to my students!”
 

meximonk

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I found something I wrote years ago...

“Earlier this century the famous Scopes "Monkey" Trial proved to be a turning point in science education. The State of Tennessee brought John Thomas Scopes to trial for teaching evolution in a public school, in opposition to the Butler Act.

This act declared that no theory in conflict with the biblical story of creation, as laid down in the first chapters of Genesis should be taught. Although Scopes was found guilty, the American Civil Liberties Union, and freedom of scientific enquiry finally triumphed.

This decision opened the way for scientific findings to be presented in educational establishments, regardless of their implications for religious faith or cherished beliefs. Evolution was quickly embraced by the educationalists of the day, and so certain did the theory seem to its exponents that many were led to state that it was a fact.

Two years after the trial, Prof. George Gaylord Simpson wrote that "Darwin finally and definitely established evolution as fact". In England the same year, Sir Arthur Keith wrote in his 'Concerning Man's On'gin, (1927) "Will Darwin's victory endure for all time? So strong has his position become that I am convinced it will never be shaken".

However, half a century later many scientists were not so sure. Dr Colin Patterson, a senior paleontologist at the British Museum, addressed over fifty classification specialists at the American Museum of Natural History in 1981 with the question "Can you tell me anything you know about evolution any one thing, any one thing that is true?" After a long silence, one listener volunteered: "I know it should not be taught as fact in schools".

The probability that evolution could have produced life in the first place has been questioned by many scientists. Sir Fred Hoyle wrote (Evolution from Space, 1981): "Biochemical systems are exceedingly complex, so much so that the chance of their being formed through random shufflings of simple organic molecules is exceedingly minute, to a point indeed where it is insensibly different from zero".

Professor H.J.Lipson (A Physicist looks at Evolution, Physics Bulletin, 1980) sums up the thinking of a growing number of scientists when he writes: "I think, however, that we must go further and admit that the only acceptable explanation is creation. I know that this is anathema to physicists, as indeed it is to me, but we must not reject a theory we do not like if the experimental evidence supports it".

Despite a growing number of scientists who are abandoning evolutionary ideas, when it comes to what should be taught in schools, evolution is presented as the accepted theory of origins. It is commonly contended that “Evolution is science”, whereas “Creation is religion”.

The philosopher Karl Popper has argued that for any hypothesis to be within the realm of scientific theory, it must be phenomenon that may be tested by human observers and be repeatable. It is only then subject to the scientific method.

Creation has not been observed by human witnesses and since creation would involve unique, unrepeatable historical events, it is not subject to the scientific method. As a theory it is non-falsifiable as it is impossible to conceive of an experiment that could disprove it. Though creation does not fulfil the criteria of a scientific theory, that in itself does not invalidate it.

Evolution likewise sufferers from this problem. World-famous evolutionist Dr T. Dobzhansky stated the problem lucidly (American Scientist, Dec. 1957) "These evolutionary happenings are unique, unrepeatable and irreversible. The applicability of the experimental method to the study of such unique historical processes is severely restricted". Dr L. Merson Davies (The Bible and Modem Science, 1953) [a founding father of CSM Ed.] wrote: "It is Darwin's habit of confusing the provable with the unprovable which constituted, to my mind, the most unforgivable offence against science".

It follows that the dogmatic claims that “evolution is a fact", made by early evolutionist writers as well as contemporary ones like Prof R.Dawkins, are ill-founded. So is the tired claim that "Evolution is science but Creation is religion".

In his book "Charles Darwin and the Problem of Creation", Gillespie points out that in Darwin’s day, creationists frequently pleaded ignorance of the means of creation yet always affirmed the fact of creation. Patterson perceptively noted that the boot was now on the other foot. Evolutionists are now pleading ignorance of the means of evolution while always affirming the fact of evolution. On this point he states that it is hard to distinguish creationist attitudes of the past from evolutionists today!

In this climate of scientific debate, and the lack of clear difference in the scientific nature of these theories, surely no-one interested in academic freedom would seriously oppose the presentation in the classroom of scientific facts from both sides of the debate.

Would it not be better for the cause of scientific enquiry (and teach students more about the areas of experimental and investigative science), to allow the diversity of scientific view on origins to be honestly presented in schools? If both views were presented, allowing the main points of scientific evidence to be aired, surely this would not be detrimental to the cause of true science?

This situation would not be a 'Trojan Horse for religious fundamentalism infiltrating the world of science teaching, but rather, provide some much needed scientific objectivity to the question.

Where does all this leave the cause of science education? Does the teaching of origins in schools reflect open minded scientific questioning, or do we stand again in that hot Tennessee courtroom and and hear religious evolutionists trying a school teacher for inferring that the scientific evidence may not favour evolution?“
Read what Darwin said on his deathbed. They don't teach that in the Public Indoctrination System.
 

Red Sky at Morning

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I just watched this on YouTube (it had a few ads in but it is also free with Amazon Prime if you have it)...

If you ever thought there was good evidence for ape-to-men transitions, you may reconsider after this:-

 

Red Sky at Morning

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'Like finding a kangaroo in Scotland': 66 million-year-old duckbilled dinosaur unearthed in Morocco 'must have crossed at least 250 miles of ocean to get there'



'Sherlock Holmes said, once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth,' added Longrich.

'It was impossible to walk to Africa. These dinosaurs evolved long after continental drift split the continents, and we have no evidence of land bridges,'

Looking at the likely layout of the planet at the time there were no shallow platforms that could form a land bridge between Europe and Africa, Langrich told MailOnline

...unless it didn’t happen that way!

 
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Red Sky at Morning

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His premise is faulty at the outset. The only theories we currently have are Evolution and Creationism. The Possibilities, however, are infinite.
It would appear to me that there were only two real choices - either life arose from the accidental interactions of undirected matter via abiogenesis or something or someone outside the material universe was instrumental in the creation and development of life.

In that sense, you must decide between an unintelligent, undirected and purposeless process or a process with an idea behind it.

Considering the latter possibility, what can be known and understood of a creator (or creators) is beyond the realm of this discussion. I am a Biblical creationist so I have my own convictions on the answer to that question, but perhaps you might suggest other alternatives?
 

Red Sky at Morning

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If the scientific evidence supported the idea that humanity was descended from a heterozygous couple about 6000 years ago, could you handle it?!


P.s. would the realisation that we are essentially ONE RACE do something to slow the nonsense that is being promoted by way of racial divisions right now?
 

Red Sky at Morning

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Red Sky at Morning

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Although how the dinosaur mummy could remain so intact for so long remains somewhat of a mystery, researchers suggest that the nodosaur may have been swept away by a flooded river and carried out to sea, where it eventually sank to the ocean floor.

As millions of years passed, minerals could have settled on the dinosaur’s armor and skin. This might help explain why the creature was preserved in such a lifelike form.


83F6FEA2-078B-439B-B5FF-B7F4DB57177A.jpeg

 

Red Sky at Morning

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BDC60A32-7BDB-4A69-8273-3BEB3E42603C.jpeg

The Law of information

1. Anything material such as physical/chemical processes cannot create something non-material
2. Information is a non-material fundamental entity and not a property of matter
3. Information requires a material medium for storage and transmission
4. Information cannot arise from statistical processes
5. There can be no information without a code ie. No knowledge can be shared without a code
6. All codes result from an intentional choice and agreement between sender and recipient
7. The determination of meaning for and from a set of symbols is a mental process that requires intelligence
8. There can be no new information without an intelligent purposeful sender
9. Any given chain of information can be traced back to an intelligent source
10. Information comprises the non-material foundation for all
a. Technological systems
b. Works of art
c. Biological systems

Therefore:

A. since the DNA code of all life is clearly within the definition domain of information, we can conclude there must be a sender.

B. Since the density and complexity of the DNA encoded information is billions of times greater than man's present technology , we conclude that the sender must be extremely intelligent

C. Since the sender must have
- encoded (stored) the information into the DNA molecules
- Constructed the molecular biomachines required for the encoding, decoding, and synthesizing process and
- Designed all the features for the original life forms
it can be concluded that
- the sender must be purposeful and supremely powerful and must have a non-material component
- Since information is a non-material fundamental entity and cannot originate from material quantities, and since information also originates from man then mans nature must have a non-material component or SPIRIT.
- then the assumption that the Universe is comprised solely of mass and energy is false
- Since biological information originates only from an intelligent sender and all theories of chemical and biological evolution require that information must originate solely from mass and energy alone (without a sender) then al, theories or concepts of biological evolution is false.
- Just 2mm of a DNA strand contains as much information as 100 million 40GB hard drives, think about that a little, do you really think that is the result of pure Undirected random natural processes?

[Sourced from a Facebook post]
 
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Red Sky at Morning

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Reading a new book (looks like the book I wanted to exist when I wrote my little essay “Scopes Trial Revisited”!

“The Greatest Hoax on Earth”

The preface looks promising, and if I find anything interesting, I will post it up!

Clash of the titans: Sarfati vs Dawkins

Richard Dawkins is the world’s best-known champion of both atheism and its intellectual underpinning, particles-to-people evolution. His latest book, The Greatest Show on Earth: the evidence for evolution is touted as an unanswerable challenge to those who believe in divine creation. In the past, he says, he has assumed evolution; this time he has set out to present in one major book the evidence for evolution (and its corollary, vast geological ages).

Now scientist, chessmaster and logician Jonathan Sarfati Ph.D., F.M. goes head to head with Dawkins in this full-on rebuttal, The Greatest Hoax on Earth? Refuting Dawkins on evolution. Sarfati is no lightweight opponent; his Refuting Evolution (over 500,000 in print) is the biggest-selling creationist book ever. In his crisp, readable style trademarked by sheer competence, Sarfati calmly but relentlessly erodes each of Dawkins’ claims. In the process, he repeatedly exposes logical fallacies—even dubious tactics—employed in Dawkins’ ideologically driven crusade.

However, rather than pretending that the science of origins is some ideology-free zone, Sarfati openly declares his own axioms as a committed Bible-believing Christian. He fearlessly grasps the nettle in areas such as geology and dating methods—often downplayed by anti-evolutionists, but recognized by Dawkins as crucial components of this debate. Those familiar with Dawkins’ previous (and, it must be said, elegantly written) works know of his uncompromising commitment to his materialistic/reductionist axioms. One suspects that, while wincing at the body-blows his arguments receive in these pages, he will at least secretly admire Sarfati’s similarly consistent commitment—a commitment free of the slippery inconsistency of many who seek to eat their cake and still have it, by claiming that God really used the godless process of evolution, and pretending that the Bible allows this.

It’s precisely those who feel smug in the belief that all the intellectual firepower is on the side of evolution who most need to read Sarfati’s book—if only to understand better why it is that there are thousands of scientists and intellectuals today who are convinced that in a fair science showdown, stripped bare of rhetoric and ideological ‘noise’ by comparing each position within its own axioms, biblical creation outguns evolution. At the very least, fair-minded readers of this book will need to concede that they have been largely fed caricatures of the creationist position, exemplified in spades in Greatest Show.

If reason, science and rationality were all that were at stake, Sarfati’s exposé of what should be the best that evolution has on offer should make it increasingly difficult to exclude creation from a full seat at the table of rational debate. One would hope that his efforts will inspire a whole new generation of qualified believers to put in the hard work and apply their own intellectual horsepower to further loosen the stranglehold of mega-evolutionary thinking on our culture in general.

David Catchpoole,
Ph.D. Scientist, lecturer and writer,
Creation Ministries International (Australia)
 
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