Darwinism in schools?

[LeafByNiggle]

Based on ONE man NASA built the giant saucer shaped feet on the lunar lander right ? If I show you a “non creationists” link in regards to this, then what?

One of the biggest mistakes made by the creationists and ID side is in drawing conclusions from what they cannot understand, such as:

“I can’t understand why NASA build the lunar lander feet they way they did if they were not expecting loads of moon dust.”

“I can’t understand how complexity could naturally arise from simpler forms.”

“I can’t understand why God would take so long to create man.”

“I can’t understand why the messiah has to suffer and die instead of rise up and lead Israel to glory over the Romans.” (-Judas)

History is littered with failed hypotheses based on the inability to understand. Creationism and ID are just more of the same.

 

[johnnyjones]

Every aspect of the lunar landing involved science. The fact that they successfully went and returned far outweighs any earlier mistakes they made about what it would be like when they got there (and finding out what it would be like was, scientifically, the reason that they went).

Who’s doubting success? That wasn’t the point. The billions theory was wrong and was supported by the landing.

 

[johnnyjones]

One of the biggest mistakes made by the creationists and ID side is in drawing conclusions from what they cannot understand, such as:

“I can’t understand why NASA build the lunar lander feet they way they did if they were not expecting loads of moon dust.”

“I can’t understand how complexity could naturally arise from simpler forms.”

“I can’t understand why God would take so long to create man.”

“I can’t understand why the messiah has to suffer and die instead of rise up and lead Israel to glory over the Romans.” (-Judas)

History is littered with failed hypotheses based on the inability to understand. Creationism and ID are just more of the same.

Evolution is matter arranging itself with no source of information. The theory of evolution will be one of the great jokes in the history books of the future. Posterity will marvel that so flimsy and dubious a hypothesis could be accepted with the incredible credulity that it has.

 

[johnnyjones]

The answer is no because Darwinism does not offer any kind of explanation for the development of life from non-life, if that is what you mean. Darwinism offers an explanation for the development of species from other species. That is not the same thing as the development of life itself. But to save you time I will also consider what you probably meant to ask: Is Darwinism currently taught in schools a completely sufficient explanation for the development of different species? To that question I say it depends on what you mean by sufficient. Sufficient for what? Sufficient to understand our place in the universe? No. Sufficient to establish relationships between species that helps to answer a vast number of questions in biology? Yes. And as regards requiring supernatural intervention, it is not that it isn’t required. It is that it doesn’t help in answering practical questions in biology. Although it does help in understanding our place in the universe.

OK, now that I answered your question, answer mine. What alternative do you trust more than mainstream science to answer the kind of questions that mainstream science tries to answer?

The only competing explanation for the order we ALL see in the biological world is the notion of special creation. (Niles Eldredge, Ph.D, paleontologist and evolutionist, American Museum of Natural History)

 

[buffalo]

One of the biggest mistakes made by the creationists and ID side is in drawing conclusions from what they cannot understand, such as:

“I can’t understand how complexity could naturally arise from simpler forms.”

A big one - in addition we now know the earliest life forms were complex. Life has been front loaded.

 

[buffalo]

The only competing explanation for the order we ALL see in the biological world is the notion of special creation. (Niles Eldredge, Ph.D, paleontologist and evolutionist, American Museum of Natural History)

But, we cannot allow “a divine foot in the door”.
‘We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, *in spite* of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, *in spite* of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our *a priori* adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that Miracles may happen. "Professor Richard Lewontin"

 

[rossum]

The billions theory was wrong and was supported by the landing.

The billions of years old theory is correct. It is the lying creationist websites that you are reading that are incorrect. You are being lied to, and have insufficient knowledge to recognise the lies for what they are. That means you are copying those lies to us, and hence are swiftly losing your credibility.

Here is what Answers in Genesis says about moon dust:

Too Little Moon Dust

Only a thin layer of dust covers the moon’s surface. However, this does not prove a young age for the moon. Before the Apollo lunar missions, a few scientists had predicted that a yards-thick layer of dust should have settled on the moon over billions of years.

Those predictions got a lot of press, yet further satellite measurements of dust in space indicated a much smaller rate of accumulation than previously assumed. This does not mean the moon is billions of years old; modern scientists cannot know the rate of dust accumulation in the past or the amount of dust originally on the moon. Therefore moon dust cannot be used as an age indicator one way or the other.

Editor’s Note: During the 1960s and 1970s many creationists adopted the “moon dust” argument based on early calculations by some secular scientists, but more accurate information is now available.

Source: Far Out Claims About Astronomy.

Early scientific estimates were incorrect. Later estimates were more accurate, and were in line with what was actually measured on the moon. The sites you use are obviously continuing to use this faulty argument, that even Answers in Genesis has rejected. That puts your site somewhere down among the Kent Hovind/Dr Dino level of zero scientific credibility.

Again, I repeat, you are being lied to and you are not sufficiently knowledgeable to recognise those lies for what they are. By repeating them you are doing yourself, and creationism, an injury.

rossum

 

[johnnyjones]

So you pick a creationist website that refers to one paleontologist who is a complete loner in his perspective?

The way I see it, you’re only shooting yourself in the foot. First of all, he’s one of the only paleontologists with this view. Second of all, his view is about this one fossil, and does not apply to the hundreds of others with clear and obvious feathers. Third of all, this man, despite his minority view, retains the respect of the scientific community! Why do you think that is? Could it be because he actually understands evolution and actually understands the issues at hand? It becomes a little silly for creationists to claim that they are being silenced because of their views when scientists like him are around and not being silenced.

I was told by an evolutionist poster that I only sited just “one man” that layed out the moon dust hypothesis. I site “one man” from a web site and we get your camp having their cake and eating it… No can do.

 

[rossum]

A big one - in addition we now know the earliest life forms were complex. Life has been front loaded.

Your Nobel Prize awaits your publication of the complete genome of the very first life form.

rossum

 

[buffalo]

Your Nobel Prize awaits your publication of the complete genome of the very first life form.

rossum

When is the ceremony? Will you be attending?

 

[johnnyjones]

The billions of years old theory is correct. It is the lying creationist websites that you are reading that are incorrect. You are being lied to, and have insufficient knowledge to recognise the lies for what they are. That means you are copying those lies to us, and hence are swiftly losing your credibility.

Here is what Answers in Genesis says about moon dust:

Too Little Moon Dust

Only a thin layer of dust covers the moon’s surface. However, this does not prove a young age for the moon. Before the Apollo lunar missions, a few scientists had predicted that a yards-thick layer of dust should have settled on the moon over billions of years.

Those predictions got a lot of press, yet further satellite measurements of dust in space indicated a much smaller rate of accumulation than previously assumed. This does not mean the moon is billions of years old; modern scientists cannot know the rate of dust accumulation in the past or the amount of dust originally on the moon. Therefore moon dust cannot be used as an age indicator one way or the other.

Editor’s Note: During the 1960s and 1970s many creationists adopted the “moon dust” argument based on early calculations by some secular scientists, but more accurate information is now available.

Source: Far Out Claims About Astronomy.

Early scientific estimates were incorrect. Later estimates were more accurate, and were in line with what was actually measured on the moon. The sites you use are obviously continuing to use this faulty argument, that even Answers in Genesis has rejected. That puts your site somewhere down among the Kent Hovind/Dr Dino level of zero scientific credibility.

Again, I repeat, you are being lied to and you are not sufficiently knowledgeable to recognise those lies for what they are. By repeating them you are doing yourself, and creationism, an injury.

rossum

It’s time to stop asserting you have all truth and I’m “being lied to”

Astronaut Neil Armstrong reportedly said his greatest fear in landing on the moon was the expected thick layer of dust." (The Age of the Earth" February 1987)

The theory that the Maria were covered with deep layers of soft dust was current until well into the 1960s. (Rand Mc Nally, New Concise Atlas of Universe 1978 page 41)

Some astronauts think that in places, lunar meteoritic dust may be a hundred feet or more deep. Also, it may be so loosely packed that a spaceship would sink into it, never to be seen again.(Apollo and the Moon- Natural History press/Hayden Planetarium)

It wasn.t necessary to be accurate at the time? Evolutionary “science” was RELIED UPON for space travel and it was wrong. Thin layer?

Thomas Gold (Royal Astronomical Society of London) speculates that “the moon is acquiring a layer of one centimeter of thickness every 107 years for a total of about 18 inches and speculates the maria could be filled to 1 thousand feet deep and that there would be a hazard to landing spacecraft”.( Astronomical Society Monthly notice Vol 115 1955).

They still embraced it when they traveled or the space craft would not have been designed to counteract the thick layers of dust. Who are you relying for facts?

 

[LJH_80]

JohnnyJones,

I am asking out of curiousity, because I don’t know the creationist take on this.

We both agree that the moon has craters that appear to have been formed by meteorite colisions. Yet nowhere in historical literature that I know of does anyone write about seeing things impact the moon; certainly not enough for a significant fraction of the hundreds of thousands of craters on the moon.

Why do you think those craters are there?
1.) The moon was made that way.
2.) They were caused by colisions that happened before mankind was created.
3.) They occured while mankind was alive, but people didn’t think to record explosions of things hitting the moon as interesting (despite recording comets and planetary movements).
4.) They all occured while mankind was in the Garden of Eden, before the fall, when few records were kept.
5.) Some other explanation I’m not thinking of.

 

[johnnyjones]

JohnnyJones,

I am asking out of curiousity, because I don’t know the creationist take on this.

We both agree that the moon has craters that appear to have been formed by meteorite colisions. Yet nowhere in historical literature that I know of does anyone write about seeing things impact the moon; certainly not enough for a significant fraction of the hundreds of thousands of craters on the moon.

Why do you think those craters are there?
1.) The moon was made that way.
2.) They were caused by colisions that happened before mankind was created.
3.) They occured while mankind was alive, but people didn’t think to record explosions of things hitting the moon as interesting (despite recording comets and planetary movements).
4.) They all occured while mankind was in the Garden of Eden, before the fall, when few records were kept.
5.) Some other explanation I’m not thinking of.

!0,000 years is not a short time in the model I accept . Is there anything to negate an interstellar cloud of comets and asteroids? As well, "ghost craters’ had to be formed in a short time because of lava flow. The universe was created, what happened through that process happened. Again, we are dealing with design. Evolutionists often use that word but they have no designer. Have you ever heard of something being designed without having a designer? Nothing fits that. Strangely, we take the man made stuff and say ,“somebody had to make it”, yet the exceedingly more complicated thing (life), many are adamant had no creator. Actually, a design demands a designer.

 

[buffalo]

JohnnyJones,

I am asking out of curiousity, because I don’t know the creationist take on this.

We both agree that the moon has craters that appear to have been formed by meteorite colisions. Yet nowhere in historical literature that I know of does anyone write about seeing things impact the moon; certainly not enough for a significant fraction of the hundreds of thousands of craters on the moon.

Why do you think those craters are there?
1.) The moon was made that way.
2.) They were caused by colisions that happened before mankind was created.
3.) They occured while mankind was alive, but people didn’t think to record explosions of things hitting the moon as interesting (despite recording comets and planetary movements).
4.) They all occured while mankind was in the Garden of Eden, before the fall, when few records were kept.
5.) Some other explanation I’m not thinking of.

Stuff is hitting the moon all the time.

June 13, 2006: There’s a new crater on the Moon. It’s about 14 meters wide, 3 meters deep and precisely one month, eleven days old.NASA astronomers watched it form: “On May 2, 2006, a meteoroid hit the Moon’s Sea of Clouds (Mare Nubium) with 17 billion joules of kinetic energyâthat’s about the same as 4 tons of TNT,” says Bill Cooke, the head of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office in Huntsville, AL. “The impact created a bright fireball which we video-recorded using a 10-inch telescope.”
Lunar impacts have been seen before–“stuff hits the Moon all the time,” notes Cooke–but this is the best-ever recording of an explosion in progress:

 

[johnnyjones]

Stuff is hitting the moon all the time.

June 13, 2006: There’s a new crater on the Moon. It’s about 14 meters wide, 3 meters deep and precisely one month, eleven days old.NASA astronomers watched it form: “On May 2, 2006, a meteoroid hit the Moon’s Sea of Clouds (Mare Nubium) with 17 billion joules of kinetic energy—that’s about the same as 4 tons of TNT,” says Bill Cooke, the head of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office in Huntsville, AL. “The impact created a bright fireball which we video-recorded using a 10-inch telescope.”
Lunar impacts have been seen before–“stuff hits the Moon all the time,” notes Cooke–but this is the best-ever recording of an explosion in progress:

Excellent point.

 

[LJH_80]

!0,000 years is not a short time in the model I accept . Is there anything to negate an interstellar cloud of comets and asteroids? As well, "ghost craters’ had to be formed in a short time because of lava flow. The universe was created, what happened through that process happened. Again, we are dealing with design. Evolutionists often use that word but they have no designer. **Have you ever heard of something being designed without having a designer? **Nothing fits that. Strangely, we take the man made stuff and say ,“somebody had to make it”, yet the exceedingly more complicated thing (life), many are adamant had no creator. Actually, a design demands a designer.

This sentence is where I have disagreed with you via my watchmaker argument several pages back.
I don’t believe the watchmaker physically moves the hands on my watch every second of every day. I believe that he set up a system by which the hands move on their own to create the desired result at the desired time.

My view of evolution is the same. God created a system that He knew would come to a desired endstate, then let it run its course.

I am not saying that you need to believe my system, just stating that evolution does not, by necessity, exclude a designer.

 

[LJH_80]

Stuff is hitting the moon all the time.

June 13, 2006: There’s a new crater on the Moon. It’s about 14 meters wide, 3 meters deep and precisely one month, eleven days old.NASA astronomers watched it form: “On May 2, 2006, a meteoroid hit the Moon’s Sea of Clouds (Mare Nubium) with 17 billion joules of kinetic energy—that’s about the same as 4 tons of TNT,” says Bill Cooke, the head of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office in Huntsville, AL. **“The impact created a bright fireball which we video-recorded using a 10-inch telescope.”**Lunar impacts have been seen before–“stuff hits the Moon all the time,” notes Cooke–but this is the best-ever recording of an explosion in progress:

I highlighted the important part of that. a 14m crater is not even close to visible from Earth by the unaided eye, I am speaking of the visible craters (which I admit is less than the 10^5 number, but is still significant).

So let me rephrase my inquiry to be more direct:
Of the impacts that people could have seen, why didn’t anyone say they’d seen them?

 

[buffalo]

I highlighted the important part of that. a 14m crater is not even close to visible from Earth by the unaided eye, I am speaking of the visible craters (which I admit is less than the 10^5 number, but is still significant).

So let me rephrase my inquiry to be more direct:
Of the impacts that people could have seen, why didn’t anyone say they’d seen them?

It is explained in the link…

Not sure how many people could see them with the unaided eye.

 

[johnnyjones]

This sentence is where I have disagreed with you via my watchmaker argument several pages back.
I don’t believe the watchmaker physically moves the hands on my watch every second of every day. I believe that he set up a system by which the hands move on their own to create the desired result at the desired time.

My view of evolution is the same. God created a system that He knew would come to a desired endstate, then let it run its course.

I am not saying that you need to believe my system, just stating that evolution does not, by necessity, exclude a designer.

Would you think, “Let us make man” means he didn’t make him then and there? No scripture verses indicate a sub species or half simian man. As well Jesus quoted Genesis,"he made them from the beginning male and female. Was he talking about non -humans?

 

[buffalo]

**100 Explosions on the Moon **

May 21, 2008: Not so long ago, anyone claiming to see flashes of light on the Moon would be viewed with deep suspicion by professional astronomers. Such reports were filed under “L” … for lunatic.
Not anymore. Over the past two and a half years, NASA astronomers have observed the Moon flashing at them not just once but one hundred times.
“They’re explosions caused by meteoroids hitting the Moon,” explains Bill Cooke, head of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). “A typical blast is about as powerful as a few hundred pounds of TNT and can be photographed easily using a backyard telescope.”
As an example, he offers this video of an impact near crater Gauss on January 4, 2008:

http://science.nasa.gov/media/media...p_lunarperseids_resources/impactmap_strip.jpg