Keating, Catholic Answers take a swipe at evolution

[reggieM]

It is perfectly possible for one environment to change quickly while a different environment remains almost unchanged.

I fully agree that it is possible to see those kinds of changes. But in this case, it seems like the same environment changed significantly and rapidly enough to create these various species (in all of their complexity and splendor), but then ceased changing for millions of years.

To my view it doesn’t seem consistent. When we can notice the same kind of stasis among creatures living on land in places where there doesn’t seem to be an unusual amount of environmental change (more or less) – then it’s something more to question, as I see it.

 

[edwest2]

Maybe its time to put a Constitutional Amendment on the books. One that says Christianity is the law of the land. While we are still a majority.

I’m not for that. As both Pope John Paul II and and Pope Benedict have said, we have to offer the world the good news of the gospel of Christ. It is up to each individual to accept or reject it.

God bless,
Ed

 

[buffalo]

I’m not for that. As both Pope John Paul II and and Pope Benedict have said, we have to offer the world the good news of the gospel of Christ. It is up to each individual to accept or reject it.

God bless,
Ed

I was only funnin’.

 

[rossum]

I fully agree that it is possible to see those kinds of changes. But in this case, it seems like the same environment changed significantly and rapidly enough to create these various species (in all of their complexity and splendor), but then ceased changing for millions of years.

To my view it doesn’t seem consistent. When we can notice the same kind of stasis among creatures living on land in places where there doesn’t seem to be an unusual amount of environmental change (more or less) – then it’s something more to question, as I see it.

Which species are you talking about. Fossil coelacanths were shallow water fish living in a relatively unstable environment (coastlines change). Modern coelacanths are a deep water fish living in one of the most static environments on earth. There were hundreds of species of extinct coelacanth, there are only two species of living coelacanth.

rossum

 

[edwest2]

I fully agree that it is possible to see those kinds of changes. But in this case, it seems like the same environment changed significantly and rapidly enough to create these various species (in all of their complexity and splendor), but then ceased changing for millions of years.

To my view it doesn’t seem consistent. When we can notice the same kind of stasis among creatures living on land in places where there doesn’t seem to be an unusual amount of environmental change (more or less) – then it’s something more to question, as I see it.

You know, I thought they had their dates nailed down. Looks like not:

sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080910104202.htm

God bless,
Ed

 

[reggieM]

Which species are you talking about. Fossil coelacanths were shallow water fish living in a relatively unstable environment (coastlines change). Modern coelacanths are a deep water fish living in one of the most static environments on earth. There were hundreds of species of extinct coelacanth, there are only two species of living coelacanth.

There are coelacanths that live today in very shallow water. They’re virtually the same as the deep water varieties.

saasta.ac.za/biosciences/fish.shtml

Three years ago, a group of divers amazed the world when they discovered coelacanths swimming in South Africa’s Greater St Lucia Wetland Park at a depth of just over 100 metres.

Beyond this, the change from shallow water to deep water should have had some impact on the development of the fish. But the fossils look “virtually identical” to the live fish found today.

 

[hecd2]

There are coelacanths that live today in very shallow water. They’re virtually the same as the deep water varieties.

Wrong. Wrong in every respect.

There are only two known extant species of coelacanth and they are both deep water fish, living from 90m to 700m. This is a typical example of your flawed understanding of both the content of science and the way that it works. Neither extant species is known in the fossil record, and many extinct species of coelacanth are very different from the living ones.

You display quite disgraceful arrogance in your claims that scientists who dedicate their lives to a painstaking and detailed study of biology have overlooked elementary logical, theoretical and empirical flaws that, you, Reggie can see, despite the profound ignorance of science that you display in almost every one of your posts. How is it that people who have not learned the first elements of a subject think that they can find fundamental flaws in it that thousands of professionals have missed. Talk about misplaced pride.

Your approach to the natural world is diametrically opposed to the approach that scientists take. You have decided that you will reject the fact of evolution, a priori, on religious grounds. All of your energy therefore is focused on gathering arguments to support your religious view. Your arguments are based on either false (as above) or marginal data; you claim one disputed experiment disproves, for example, the process of sexual selection when there is a vast quantity of well documented evidence for it; you misrepresent debates within science about the relative importance of different evolutionary mechanisms and claim, falsely that they call into question the fact of evolution.

Your aim is not to discover the truth about the natural world whatever it might be, but to promote your religious view. Well, the final appeal is to nature, as the Catholic Church found in the Galileo affair, and the Communist government of the Soviet Union tragically found in their Lysenkoist opposition to evolutionary biology and modern genetics.

The “evolution debate” is currently about education. Scientists care about it because we deplore the idea of scientific education for our children being debased by an ersatz version of science through the religio-political agenda of “teach the controversy” (which controversy does not exist amongst scientists). There is no scientific debate about common descent or the fact of evolution in science and the kind of religious propaganda that you promote is utterly irrelevant to working scientists. More authoritarian societies, the sort that you might rather like, do pose a threat to science as the Galileo and Lysenko affairs show, but, thankfully, that is not the case in developed societies today.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[reggieM]

You display quite disgraceful arrogance in your claims that scientists who dedicate their lives to a painstaking and detailed study of biology have overlooked elementary logical, theoretical and empirical flaws that, you, Reggie can see,

Their own fellow scientists can see such things – as is pointed out on these evolutionary threads on a daily basis. The “reconsidering” of evolutionary “facts” is about the most common aspect of the theory itself. So, I merely need to read the conflicting data produced by scientists themselves to observe the flaws that some part of the scientific community have, indeed, overlooked (and misrepresented).

How is it that people who have not learned the first elements of a subject think that they can find fundamental flaws in it that thousands of professionals have missed.

As I said, it’s enough to read scientists stating that they have found fundamental flaws in their own theory. Of course, those scientists could be wrong – but doesn’t that prove the same thing? (namely, that those scientists are wrong about flaws in the theory?).

You have decided that you will reject the fact of evolution, a priori, on religious grounds. All of your energy therefore is focused on gathering arguments to support your religious view.

You offer an interesting opinion about my motives. Perhaps you believe that your scientific knowledge equips you to be a good judge of such things. If so, that would merely confirm what I’ve been saying about a misuse of science which is widespread.

Your arguments are based on either false (as above) or marginal data; you claim one disputed experiment disproves, for example, the process of sexual selection when there is a vast quantity of well documented evidence for it;

I merely reported what mainstream scientists said. They tested sexual selection as a factor and concluded that the idea was falsified. At the same time, they claimed that sexual selection “must have been” the driver of the evolutionary changes in the distant past. That’s the kind of “science” one can find quite frequently. But apparently, you’re saying that I consulted “the wrong scientists” and therefore I’m ignorant. I’ll suggest that consulting any of them would render me ignorant since they can’t agree among themselves.

The “evolution debate” is currently about education. Scientists care about it because we deplore the idea of scientific education for our children being debased by an ersatz version of science through the religio-political agenda of “teach the controversy” (which controversy does not exist amongst scientists).

I can agree that there are many scientists who are interested in the quality of education. I don’t know their motives (I don’t doubt that you’re right about them), but I don’t think there is as much consensus on this issue as you’re presenting here. There are some scientists who accept some aspects of intelligent design theory. As I’ve said elsewhere, every Catholic has to accept intelligent design theory to some extent. As for questioning various claims of evolution – I think there is more or less support for that depending on the convictions of the scientist/educators in question.

There is no scientific debate about common descent or the fact of evolution in science and the kind of religious propaganda that you promote is utterly irrelevant to working scientists.

I fully agree that most scientists (at least 70%) are not interested in religion at all – and, in fact, they don’t believe that God exists. I find that remarkable in itself. How do you explain such a skew in the statistical data – this huge overrepresentation of atheists in the science community?

I don’t agree that there is no debate since there are some scientists who do debate evolutionary theory, but for the sake of the discussion – just because there is a consensus does not mean that the majority is right.

More authoritarian societies, the sort that you might rather like, do pose a threat to science as the Galileo and Lysenko affairs show, but, thankfully, that is not the case in developed societies today.

I think you’re really stretching the point beyond a mere criticism/support of evolutionary theory. You’ve mentioned this before so I suspect this is something very close to your heart. I don’t think there is any threat of creationist-fascism taking over our developed societies, and you’ve affirmed it also.

I do think, however, that science is a threat to society in many ways. When science is conducted without reference to the moral laws, for example, there can be some very damaging results.

Additionally, when people are deceived by theories which are proposed as “fact” but which are really loose conjecture and biased interpretations of data, then society will suffer from ignorance and illusions. This is what I see from people who unquestioningly embrace Darwinian theory.

 

[rossum]

They’re virtually the same as the deep water varieties.

Which makes them different from the fossil varieties - about three or four times the size.

But the fossils look “virtually identical” to the live fish found today.

False. Fossil coelacanths are 30 cm long or less (about one foot). Modern coelacanths are between 100 and 200 cm long, three feet to six feet. I do not call that “virtually identical”, I call it lying by your creationist source. I suggest that you check anything else you get from that source very carefully since they may have other mistakes in their pages.

Scientists have a great respect for facts. If you get your facts wrong, as here, you will put off many scientists. If you want to convert any scientists then please have more respect for the facts.

rossum

 

[hecd2]

There are coelacanths that live today in very shallow water. They’re virtually the same as the deep water varieties.

Still wrong. Utterly wrong. I notice in your recent reply that you deleted this. You are long on rhetoric and short on facts. How about admitting for once that you were wrong. I’m not holding my breath. Which of your creationist masters told you the lie that there are coelacanths that live today in very shallow water?

Like your absurd claims about the Altenberg conference and the fact that you ended up by calling Pigliucci, the organiser and chairman of the conference that was supposed to overthrow Darwinism, a Darwinist - when you discovered that he didn’t support the overthrow of evolutionary biology as you had hoped, you didn’t acknowledge your mistake - you just slipped away. All that matters to you is to promote your a priori religious view and the truth can go hang.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[reggieM]

False. Fossil coelacanths are 30 cm long or less (about one foot). Modern coelacanths are between 100 and 200 cm long, three feet to six feet. I do not call that “virtually identical”, I call it lying by your creationist source. I suggest that you check anything else you get from that source very carefully since they may have other mistakes in their pages.

Scientists have a great respect for facts. If you get your facts wrong, as here, you will put off many scientists. If you want to convert any scientists then please have more respect for the facts.

I might have the facts wrong about coelacanths, but I did not consult creationist sources to get the information. I see this information posted on pro-Darwin science websites. I am more than willing to accept that you and Alec are correct and all of these other scientist-oriented publications are wrong. That would not surprise me. But I wouldn’t conclude that this was a matter of “facts”, but rather some widely divergent interpretations of data – none of which can be trusted.

scienceinafrica.co.za/2002/february/coela.htm
Coelacanths have not changed much over the past 380 million years. The skeleton of Macropoma lewesiensis, which is known from the upper Cretaceous, is **virtually identical **to that of the coelacanths caught off Sodwana Bay

biologyreference.com/Bl-Ce/Bony-Fish.html
Living coelacanths, **virtually identical **to its fossil relatives that lived 20 million years ago, were first found in 1938.

ucmp.berkeley.edu/vertebrates/coelacanth/coelacanth2.html
The fascination scientists and the general public have with coelacanths is likely caused by their unusual appearance, their evolutionary importance, and the fact that they have remained **virtually unchanged **morphologically for millions of years, leading some to refer to them as “living fossils”.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/302368.stm
The first living coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae) was discovered in 1938 when marine biologists hailed the fish as a “living fossil” - an animal that has existed **virtually unchanged **since it first appeared over 400 million years ago.

answers.com/topic/coelacanth
The living coelacanth is often referred to as a “living fossil.” A representative of an ancient group whose other members have all gone extinct, it has survived for millions of years with a** virtually unchanged body form**.

flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/InNews/fossil2004.html
Coelacanths fascinate because of their unusual appearance and evolutionary importance. They have remained **virtually unchanged **morphologically for millions of years

eprints.ru.ac.za/551/01/ribbink.pdf
How could this fish have survived virtually unchanged
for so long when so much has changed around it? This was especially intriguing, and somewhat perplexing to the ACEP
scientists, as the studies of the Fricke team28–31,39,40 point to coelacanths having narrow habitat tolerance and stenotopic
phenotypes, which are characteristics expected of species groups (clades) prone to rapid speciation, short, rather than
long, species life expectancies and a high probability of extinction.24,25 If Latimeria chalumnae is a stenotope, as the data from
the Comoros suggest, then coelacanths are a high profile, unique exception to the rule and call into question the ‘Effect Hypothesis’.24,25 Alternatively, the data regarding the coelacanth’s position on the stenotopic–eurytopic continuum may be less robust than initially assumed

pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2905_link.html
Coelacanths must have survived **virtually unchanged **since branching off from an ancestral fish some 360 million years ago.

 

[reggieM]

You are long on rhetoric and short on facts. How about admitting for once that you were wrong. I’m not holding my breath. Which of your creationist masters told you the lie that there are coelacanths that live today in **very **shallow water?

I notice your editorial addition here. I won’t call that “lying” because only creationists add to people’s quotes. Darwinists wouldn’t dream of doing such things – far too principled.

dinofish.com/sa_canth.html
sightings by divers of coelacanths **in shallow water **in the vicinity of Madagascar

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coelacanth
The coelacanths which live near Sodwana Bay, South Africa, rest in caves at depths of 90 to 150 m during daylight hours, but disperse and swim to depths as shallow as 55 m when hunting at night.

scienceinafrica.co.za/2002/february/coelap.htm
and endangered population of coelacanths, living in fairly shallow water near Sodwana Bay.

dst.gov.za/media-room/speeches/archived/speech.2007-02-20.2096368833
It is only eleven months since the concept of the coelacanth programme was brought to my attention in May 2001 for approval. South Africa has the unique opportunity to study living coelacanths in comparatively shallow water. Not only are we making the best use of this opportunity, we are also expanding the opportunity so that it includes much more than the scientific search for answers about a curious fish.

Like your absurd claims about the Altenberg conference and the fact that you ended up by calling Pigliucci, the organiser and chairman of the conference that was supposed to overthrow Darwinism, a Darwinist - when you discovered that he didn’t support the overthrow of evolutionary biology as you had hoped, you didn’t acknowledge your mistake - you just slipped away.

Pigliucci has been quite conflicted by reports from his own conference that were brutally critical of Darwinism (indeed, calling for an overthrow). Do you think I thought that was a creationist event? Nice try – but you’re really stretching to win something here and it’s not working too well. The Altenberg conference caused a lot more problems for Darwinists than anything I could do here on CAF. It’s a fact that the conference was convened to “reformulate” evolutionary theory. Of course there were Darwinists involved - who else were they going to invite? The “new ideas” some came up with to replace the failed concept of natural selection were just more materialist nonsense (self-organization).

So, it was you who were mistaken when you thought I was mislead about who those scientists were and what they proposed. It was merely my interest to point out (yet again) the profound confusion that can be found everywhere among evolutionary theorists. The contradictions offered in the interviews with those scientists were enough for me. I notice that you avoided that ugly spectacle quite readily yourself.

All that matters to you is to promote your a priori religious view and the truth can go hang.

I can see your appreciation of the truth on this very post. It’s right here for anyone to observe. Because you’re driven by ideology, you had to add a word to what I quoted, in order to illicitly make your point.

 

[reggieM]

You are long on rhetoric and short on facts. How about admitting for once that you were wrong. I’m not holding my breath. Which of your creationist masters told you the lie that there are coelacanths that live today in very shallow water?

dinofish.com/sa_canth.html
sightings by divers of coelacanths **in shallow water **in the vicinity of Madagascar

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coelacanth
The coelacanths which live near Sodwana Bay, South Africa, rest in caves at depths of 90 to 150 m during daylight hours, but disperse and swim to depths as shallow as 55 m when hunting at night.

scienceinafrica.co.za/2002/february/coelap.htm
and endangered population of coelacanths, living in fairly shallow water near Sodwana Bay.

dst.gov.za/media-room/speeches/archived/speech.2007-02-20.2096368833
It is only eleven months since the concept of the coelacanth programme was brought to my attention in May 2001 for approval. South Africa has the unique opportunity to study living coelacanths in comparatively shallow water. Not only are we making the best use of this opportunity, we are also expanding the opportunity so that it includes much more than the scientific search for answers about a curious fish.

 

[reggieM]

Like your absurd claims about the Altenberg conference and the fact that you ended up by calling Pigliucci, the organiser and chairman of the conference that was supposed to overthrow Darwinism, a Darwinist - when you discovered that he didn’t support the overthrow of evolutionary biology as you had hoped, you didn’t acknowledge your mistake - you just slipped away. All that matters to you is to promote your a priori religious view and the truth can go hang.

You were mistaken to think that I thought the Altenberg conference was conducted by creationists. Who else were they going to invite? The event was designed to “reformulate” Darwinian theory. Of course they had Darwinists involved. The “new theories” were more materialist nonsense. You were mistaken about why I posted that. I was merely interested in the confusion and contradictions coming out of the Darwinian cult.

 

[rossum]

I might have the facts wrong about coelacanths, but I did not consult creationist sources to get the information. I see this information posted on pro-Darwin science websites.

My apologies, I see so much misinformation on creationist websites that I assumed it came from there.

I am more than willing to accept that you and Alec are correct and all of these other scientist-oriented publications are wrong. That would not surprise me. But I wouldn’t conclude that this was a matter of “facts”, but rather some widely divergent interpretations of data – none of which can be trusted.

I suspect that at least part of the problem is the interpretation of “virtually” in virtually unchanged. That is less of a fact than an interpretation.

Again, my apologies.

rossum

 

[The_Barbarian]

No coelacanth lives in very shallow water, as ancient ones did (they lived in very shallow ponds and steams).

Some of them can come into “relatively shallow” water, at certain times.

Huge difference. They are all deep sea fish, living at great depths.

From your link:

**As coelacanths were only known to live at depths of several hundred feet (250m-700m) in the Comoros, these accounts seemed to strain credibility. In South Africa, the search continued on and off over the years. One diver, 46-year-old, Riaan Bouwer, lost his life exploring for coelacanths in June 1998. But lightening struck quite accidentally on October 28th, 2000. Off the Northeast coast South African town of St Lucia, just south of the Mozambique border, in KwaZulu-Natal, is Sodwana Bay, part of the St. Lucia Marine Protected Area. This is a World Heritage site comprising a wetland and marine reserve known for its reefs and SCUBA diving. Two deep submarine canyons indent the continental shelf near Sodwana Bay from a depth of 1000 metres. There pleasure divers Pieter Venter, Peter Timm and Etienne le Roux made a dive to 104 metres (320ft) using a mixture of diving gasses. “I saw this eye reflecting towards me and that made me curious,” Venter said later. “I approached…and underneath an overhang, I saw a fish of about two metres long.” After several seconds he realized it was a coelacanth. “I did not expect anything like this. I was not trying to find it.” He signaled Timm and they saw two more. They had no cameras. “It was like seeing a UFO without taking a photograph.” Timm took some convincing to realize what they had seen. The group decided they would return with cameras. This would be the shallowest confirmed sighting of coelacanths. **

Three hundred twenty feet down is indeed “relatively shallow” for a coelacanth. But it’s a world of difference from the shallow freshwater ponds of its tiny ancestors.

BTW, your sources are not from scientists, but from journalists, with the possible exception of the university site. And that one says only that coelacanths are “morphologically virtually the same”, i.e. they have the same general shape as earlier ones. If it’s not in the literature, it hasn’t been reviewed for accuracy.

I have a copy of an old clipping from the science editor of a prominent newspaper, taking Professor Goddard to task for suggesting rockets might someday fly in space. He reminded the Professor that there is no air in space for the rocket exhaust to push on.

Caveat emptor, at least when it applies to the popular press and science.

 

[reggieM]

I suspect that at least part of the problem is the interpretation of “virtually” in virtually unchanged. That is less of a fact than an interpretation.

Again, my apologies.

Thank you, rossum. You are a gentleman. I appreciate your reflective approach to this issue. That is admirable. Maybe there’s something to the idea that Europeans are more highly evolved than we are after all.

 

[Donald45]

…Concerning your presupposition about “all the evidence proving evolution,” understand that the theory of evolution is not only not proven, but . To learn about problems with the theory of evolution, you might read Darwin on Trial by Philip E. Johnson and Evolution: A Theory in Crisis by Michael Denton.

Several things can be said about this unfortunate statement:

[1] The idea that evolution is “proven” (or as “proven” as an idea can be within the sciences) is not a “presupposition,” but a conclusion from the empirical evidence.

[2] The claim that “evolution is…not…proven” is categorically incorrect. Evolution by natural selection is as demonstrable a concept as one can find within science.

[3] The citation of Johnson and Denton reveals the sad reality that some Catholics have begun to derive their views on this topic from Protestant fundamentalists and evangelicals (and the anti-Catholic so-called “Warfare Model”), rather than from science as perceived within a specifically Catholic worldview. Thus, there is developing in the Church a type of protestantized “Catholic fundamentalism” regarding the relationship between religion and science (faith and reason) which is quite foreign to the Catholic faith.

[4] The claim that “many scholars are abandoning [evolution] as at odds with scientific findings” is wildly exaggerated in the extreme. This entirely false claim has also been drawn from Protestant fundamentalist sources, rather than informed Catholic ones.

For a Catholic perspective, I recommend:

Francisco J. Ayala, Darwin & Intelligent Design (Fortress Press, 2006); ISBN 0-8006-3802-6

Kenneth R. Miller, Finding Darwin’s God: A Scientist’s Search for Common Ground Between God & Evolution (HarperCollins, 1999); ISBN 0-06-093049-7

Ted Peters & Martinez Hewlett, Can You Believe In God & Evolution? A Guide for the Perplexed (Abingdon, 2006); ISBN 0-687-33551-5

Gaudium de veritate,

Cruciform
+T+

 

[reggieM]

Michael Behe is a good Catholic.

But I would also say that every Catholic must accept creationism and intelligent design theory to some degree.

One reason why many Catholics are turning to Denton, Johnson, Dembski and others is that those critics of Darwinian theory offer better explanations of God’s evident powers in the design and shape of nature, than do the standard Darwinian texts.

I think more Catholics will enter the Intelligent Design movement and provide even higher quality work than the Protestants have done thus far. Again, Michael Behe is a good example.

 

[edwest2]

To Donald45 -

I don’t think Catholics want to be Protestants or are inspired by Protestants. Here is the problem: the biology textbook presents a theory that is shown to be complete in itself: random mutation + natural selection = you. This is, at best, only part of the answer. All parents and individuals of faith need to teach and be taught that a critical element is missing - God.

Without that critical element, the theory, by definition, is atheistic. Clearly atheistic. It allows for nothing supernatural.

bringyou.to/apologetics/p81.htm

Pope Benedict XVI

Monod nonetheless finds the possibility for evolution in the fact that in the very propagation of the project there can be mistakes in the act of transmission. Because nature is conservative, these mistakes, once having come into existence, are carried on. Such mistakes can add up, and from the adding up of mistakes something new can arise. Now an astonishing conclusion follows: It was in this way that the whole world of living creatures, and human beings themselves, came into existence. We are the product of “haphazard mistakes.”

What response shall we make to this view? It is the affair of the natural sciences to explain how the tree of life in particular continues to grow and how new branches shoot out from it. This is not a matter for faith. But we must have the audacity to say that the great projects of the living creation are not the products of chance and error. Nor are they the products of a selective process to which divine predicates can be attributed in illogical, unscientific, and even mythic fashion. The great projects of the living creation point to a creating Reason and show us a creating Intelligence, and they do so more luminously and radiantly today than ever before. Thus we can say today with a new certitude and joyousness that the human being is indeed a divine project, which only the creating Intelligence was strong and great and audacious enough to conceive of. Human beings are not a mistake but something willed; they are the fruit of love. They can disclose in themselves, in the bold project that they are, the language of the creating Intelligence that speaks to them and that moves them to say: Yes, Father, you have willed me. [end quote]

The Church has the audacity to say this.

Just as it is the purpose of the Church to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ, it is the duty of the Church to articulate the truth about man. Biological evolution has branched off into Evolutionary Psychology. There are theories there too. Among them is that you or I do not exist - our genes programmed us, our genes decide. That and a little environment, is why you are you. Atheistic again.

So I hope you can see the connection. I am not associated with any group or so-called Institute that wants to force Creationism under any name into public schools. In fact, that idea is anti-Christian. However, uttering the words Intelligent Design alerts the atheist fire brigade to put out even the idea that there could be anything to it. Why? Not because some of the ideas are good but because it raises the possibility of the ultimate worst case scenario – some kids might get the insane, never to be explicitly suggested idea that the “intelligence” is God. Can’t let that happen in a public school – or anywhere else for that matter.

Peace,
Ed