Because some religions were wrong about the world being flat or that the earth is the center of the universe, does not disprove a Diety or that religion is a hoax etc.. It just shows the falts of men and their interpretations. Case in point, if you read the Bible carefully, how can all the religions be true? Obviously, many were created for whatever reason, but the bottomline is, they can’t all be true or the same/exact church that was created by the very Diety described in the Bible. Does that make religion wrong? No. It just proves that men are causing the confussion. I guess that is why it is so importatnt to have a living prophet like it talks about in the book of Amos chapter 3. Science is wonderful and it produces great answers and technology. But it won’t be able to answer the origins of life completely since there is a world that can’t be measured by the emperical method, at least maybe not yet? We know we can feel that hidden world if we are tuned into the spirit. The emperical model could not measure what you feel from the spirit, or love, or hate, or I.Q. for that matter. It can only measure physical things. I am not determined, I am a free agent making choices.

C. S. Wallace and D. L. Dowe; “Minimum Message Length and Kolmogorov Complexity”.

Paul M. B. Vitányi and Ming Li; “Minimum Description Length Induction, Bayesianism and Kolmogorov Complexity”.

I understand that non-Christian scientists find this all very important. That they may chose to debate the fossil record while “Rome burns”. Why do those who claim to be have been touched by Him focus here? I can find passages in the Bible about visiting those in prison. I can’t find anything about insulting people who disagree with you. Did I get that part about turning the other cheek wrong?

A Packer defensive end recently said about his conversion to Christianity: “Christain can be a noun or a verb. Growing up I only knew the nouns. In coming to Green Bay a met the verb.” I would suggest that the posters here are the nouns. If, however, you posted from a Habitat for Humanity build site in Honduras, please accept my humble apologies.

A.G.

Churches, school administrations, courts and legislatures are far too involved in this issue to prevent its becoming a sharply partisan, patently unscientific matter. It recalls the dismissal of Ignaz Semmelweis, M.D. (first medical advocate of hand washing) or John Harrison’s trials at the hands of the British Board of Longitude. Science is diminished whenever scientists refuse to seriously consider dissenting opinions.

Though not statistically valid, I have personally known quite a few professional scientists (in the physical, biological and medical sciences) with reservations about evolution. Few are gutsy (or stupid) enough to publicly admit it. As an older biology teacher, I’ve never really felt certain about it myself. But I pity any teacher who crosses their school district on the issue. In this way, at least, Ben Stein’s thesis is correct. I’d have to agree this is motivated by something other than empirical and dispassionate scholarship. Interestingly, of the five biology teachers I’ve known to retire within the district, three (all AP bio teachers also) publicly denounced evolution at their retirements explaining that they were in no position to say anything earlier. None was a religious person and one even had posters in his classroom with these quotes from Carl Sagan, “It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.” and “The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent.” That one continues to be a friend, and is a vocal atheist who truly esteems science above all other human activities. Yet he sees, as I do, that standards are the threshold is diminished and the facts carefully chosen to support this single idea among the multitude of more solid theories. Further, this idea is feverishly advocated and disseminated to the youngest of students. This evokes evangelism, religious intolerance or missionary brainwashing far more than it suggests the skeptical and critical inquiry fundamental to good science.

Comment #10 by Croath is absolutely correct about so many things. Academia is quickly becoming a business rather than a search for facts or fundamental truths. Many Nobel prize winners have faced rejection and died poor and unrecognized. Science is becoming a competition for grants in which researchers grovel at the feet of a secular priesthood rather than the Roman Catholic preisthood. Same game, new players!

Your response to #21, Toni Bourlon, compares quantum theory, the theory of relativity and electromagnetic theory to evolutionary theory. That’s quite a stretch. I am my school’s AP instructor for most things math and science (Calculus, Chemistry, Physics and Biology) I hold a triple B.S. in E.E., microbiology and mathematics and double Masters in chemistry and secondary science education. Note that it’s a simple matter to test, observe, (and if I have disagreeing data) falsify any of the first three theories you’ve mentioned. Could I, I’d be rewarded by being featured (as was surfer dude) in all sorts of scientific literature, inviting all manner of serious scrutiny. Conversely, you must admit there’s no way I’d experience the same treatment if I had data which conflict with evolutionary theory; I’d be summarily fired. But the really insidious fact is that I can not test or observe evolution beyond simplistic adaptation and gene activation. No one has demonstrated significant evolutionary differentiation (even with the best fossils yet doscivered) to include novel colinization or substantial niche modification. These observations come from my students and they are correct. For the last 10 years these issues have also been banned from our science fairs as pseudo-science (Stein’s point I believe).

In the classroom, I’m careful to neither build up nor to tear down evolution. Fifteen years of really smart kids–many of whom have gone on to accomplish great things as scientists, doctors, lawyers and leaders–remain largely unconvinced about evolution. In particular, they are routinely offended when I teach required “evolutionary facts” (which they must know in order to reason through evolutionary problems on the AP Biology exam). In contrast, I’ve experienced no such issues with thermodynamic laws, the various conservation laws, universal gravity, gas laws, any part of mathematics, or even quantum uncertainty (though that concept surely occupies (a distant) second place). I’m also sobered by another thing Sagan once said, “I am often amazed at how much more capability and enthusiasm for science there is among elementary school youngsters than among college students.” Where are we going wrong in science education? Perhaps doctrinaire complacency intrinsically repels the curious and open minds of our children.

I believe that you and numerous commentors have made a mistake best summarized by #14, ronnyg who said, “Religious belief is indeed untestable, and thus not worthy of the discipline known as science. Case closed.” My point is that he is correct. The problems begin when science begins to act like a religion instead of what it is supposed to be, a system of acquiring knowledge based on scientific method, supported by reproducible results and testable hypotheses (something lacking in cosmology lately as well). Parsimony is a handy rule, but it does not confer factuality. Newton’s mechanics are absolutely a simpler model than Einstein’s relativity except that they fail to explain observations. Had Newton placed a coefficient in front of every one of his terms with a footnote explaining that all these terms presently appear to equal one, but may reformulated to be as complex as necessary to describe any future observations people would have called him a charlatan instead of a genius. However, this is precisely what we see with evolution. The theory is poorly formed and continually re-invented to address any criticism thrown at it. While acceptable in philosophy, theology or even in a business model, it isn’t kosher within the standards of descriptive and predictive science.

Therefore, I think that the response by “Dr. Dogbert” is of vital importance to the future of science and even the future of free thought in society! Maybe we should really just let kids focus on observational science rather than feeding them a bunch of theoretical science and conjecture. We certainly ought to in classrooms below AP Biology. Besides, the average elementary or middle school teacher is roughly as incompetent teaching this theory as his or her students are incapable of critically understanding it.

P.s. All this honesty really is dangerous to my career–I hope my school board reads this but doesn’t figure out who wrote it.

P.p.s I notice that message #44 from Dr. Dogbert is now missing. Do I smell censorship? I think it’s the most important content on this page including your original article!

I still believe in God.

Go figure.