UK bans teaching of creationism in any school which receives public funding

[Kelt]

This is taken from a review of Koonin’s book, the Logic of Chance…
In figure 12-7B the threshold of biological evolution would equal 1,800 nucleotides. Despite this, life exists on this earth. Now, Koonin invokes a radical alternative: Eternal Inflation Cosmology. The Many Worlds in One (MWO) changes the very definition of what is possible, likely, and random in such a way that the probability of the realization of any scenario in an infinite multiverse is exactly 1.
“Thus, spontaneous emergence of complex systems that would have to be considered virtually impossible in a finite universe becomes not only possible, but inevitable under MWO.” (p. 385).
“Specifically, it becomes conceivable that the breakthrough stage for the onset of biological evolution could have been a primitive coupled replication-translation system that emerged by chance” (p.392 my emphasis).
This is the most unorthodox, subversive claim in the whole 516 page book. This radical change in thinking must have happened 2007 May 31 when Koonin published an ‘optimistic’ mainstream publication with Yuri Wolf (2) and a ‘pessimistic’ publication (3) without coauthor. The second publication has been reviewed by four researchers. One reviewer (Eric Bapteste) was afraid that Koonin’s views “could open a huge door to the tenants of intelligent design”. Koonin replied that “Properly interpreted, the anthropic principle is a death knell to ID” and that biologists should not stop publishing research on hard problems in evolutionary biology and should not declare these hard problems solved. The ID crowd will interpret these results as support for their cause anyway." I fully agree with Koonin. David Krakauer warns for the danger of invoking the infinite multi-verse: “as well assert that all observed biological order emerged in one step, including the complete evolutionary history of life.” According to the fourth reviewer (Itai Yanai) the present model represents the first one to account for the origin of life by explicitly invoking the anthropic principle. The anthropic principle means that only universes in which the transition to Darwinian evolution happened evolved observers. The other universes do not contain (complex) life and thus no observers.

 

[Hans_W]

A new website is on the Internet called The Third Way. This is a list of mainstream scientists (not Intelligent Design, Creationists, etc.) who are saying Darwin is falsified. When I first looked at it, there were 17 scientists listed. Now there are 29, and several are very prominent biologists, including Scott Gilbert, Denis Noble, and Eugene Koonin. (Unfortunately, they also say that Creationism has been falsified by science, which is interesting since we are told that they are different realms, but I’ll leave that for another day.)

It was back in 1997 when James Shapiro wrote an article “A Third Way”, proposing that neo-Darwinism wasn’t a complete picture of modern evolutionary theory. Even by that time it was not news. He seems to have missed the previous 30 years of research when ideas of Neutral Theory and genetic drift were already well-known and studied in detail. In the meantime we discovered the contributions of biased mutations, genetic hitchhiking and others.
I am studying these phenomena in my thesis and would be happy to explain this in more detail. But that is not the purpose of this forum. Let me assure you that none of these scientists mentioned, with the possible exception of Eugene Koonin, have anything significant to say about evolutionary theory. And they are decades behind what modern evolutionary theory has been accepting all along.

Furthermore, The Third Way has nothing to do with bringing in God or an intelligent designer into the evolutionary picture. It is actually heavily criticized by the ID movement, and of course by creationists. I have no idea why you bring this into this discussion.

Do we know how long a billion years is?

When we figure possible number of combinations for DNA needed for a free-living organism, we use the total number of necessary DNA bases as the exponent, one million (see the reference after this paragraph). The number of possible types of DNA bases, the 4 found in living things, is the mathematical base. Therefore the total number of possible combinations is 4^1,000,000. This can be converted to the more familiar base 10 which rounds off to 10^600,000 (these numbers are approximate but close enough to be useful for the concepts).

The fastest chemical reactions are usually no faster than a picosecond, which means 10^15 reactions per second. All the possible sets of one million (10^6) bases on Earth is 4.4 x 10^48 (available bases) divided by 10^6 = 4.4 x 10^42. Multiply that times the rate of chemical reactions per second (10^15) times the seconds in 500,000 years (1.58 x 10^16), you get, rounded off, 7 x 10^73. This would be a limit to the number of “tries” for all the chemical reactions on Earth in 500 million years to mix bases together in hopes they would come up with a set of one million DNA bases in a specific order.

A “try” is similar to trying to guess numbers between a certain range. If you are asked to guess a number between 1 and 10, you are much more likely to “hit” the right number than if the range was between 1 and 1,000,000. If for some reason you had to keep guessing until you got it right, you would probably be done a lot sooner for the 1 to 10 set.

We started with talking about needing about 1 million base pairs of DNA for a free-living organism. For just one short protein around 100 amino acids long, the DNA would have to be about 300 bases long for just that protein (3 bases of DNA to code for one amino acid of protein.) Even if there
were nothing to interfere with random combinations of the correct bases, it would take on average around 4^300 or about 4 x 10^180 tries to get one specific DNA sequence for one protein. Using figures above, the Earth would allow no more than 10^78 tries (1.5 x 10^46 bases) x (1.58 x 10^16 seconds) x (10^15 chemical reactions per second)] for combinations of 300-base DNA sequences.

To compare these numbers with a few other physical phenomena, the estimated number of particles in the universe is about 10^90. The maximum number of actions possible in a second is 10^49 (some talk about quantum physics allowing for more, but we and DNA exist in Newtonian space). The number of seconds in a 14 billion year old universe is no more than 10^20.

The maximum number of organisms on Earth calculated in relation to water volume is 10^50 in 4 billion years.

womanatwell.blogspot.com/p/creation-biology.html

This is the common anti-science drivel, generally coming from the pen of an Intelligent Design fan. Your ramble is on the level of kindergarten ID. This typical pseudo-science fog making is habitually used to impress the science illiterate general public. Ever heard of the Argument from Incredulity?

This is NOT science and it is BAD theology. Don’t you know that the Catholic Church has fully accepted the theory of evolution in the form of Theistic Evolution?

You are welcome to believe in ID or Creationism, but don’t portrait them as something we Catholics want to accept. And please don’t use this forum to promote your idea of “Creation Biology”! It totally contradicts The Third Way theory anyway. What’s the purpose?

 

[Rau]

We know that they do, absolutely! Where we disagree is on the topic of whether God’s way was to create protozoa which had the capacity for enough mutations to become man over hundreds of millions of years.

God created more than than origins, or a “progenitor”. The laws of nature too. And who is to say that the “randomness” that ensued, albeit guided by those laws, was not just the “right” path through randomness to produce us. It is not possible to know the answers to these questions, for the alternatives are indistinguishable.

 

[RACJ]

In our past we haven’t had to have one religion, (or none) pitted against another…simply different denominations of the same faith have done a very efficient job of slaughtering each other. It’s still happening…or a minority are still trying to make it happen, in N Ireland, and the Sunni’s and Shia’s have been having a go at one another on and off since Mohammed died. Religion isn’t always a guarantee that people will behave well towards each other, any more than people who come to the conclusion that they don’t believe in any of the religions on offer, are guaranteed to ‘behave like animals.’

In N. Ireland, you are talking about a territorial battle that has almost nothing to do with religion. The death toll there has not reached the hundreds of millions, to say the least. And I thought I pointed out that radical Islam is the one “religion” that believes in killing the unenlightened. The domain of genocidal maniacs is littered with Darwinists, although I have never challenged the fact that some atheists act morally.

 

[RACJ]

God created more than than origins, or a “progenitor”. The laws of nature too. And who is to say that the “randomness” that ensued, albeit guided by those laws, was not just the “right” path through randomness to produce us. It is not possible to know the answers to these questions, for the alternatives are indistinguishable.

Rau, I don’t see evidence for half-formed organisms, and knowing all the structures and systems which are necessary preconditions for life, it is inconceivable that life developed as naturalists say. Consciousness is an unsolvable puzzle, as is the split into the sexes. There would be no reason whatsoever for two “miraculous” compatable systems to spring into existence, since prior organisms survived quite nicely by other means, as “simpler” life does today. Evolution says that the purpose of life is to survive. That mission was already accomplished.
I say that all organisms that we observe today, including man, were created whole and ready to go. Rob

 

[RACJ]

It was back in 1997 when James Shapiro wrote an article “A Third Way”, proposing that neo-Darwinism wasn’t a complete picture of modern evolutionary theory. Even by that time it was not news. He seems to have missed the previous 30 years of research when ideas of Neutral Theory and genetic drift were already well-known and studied in detail. In the meantime we discovered the contributions of biased mutations, genetic hitchhiking and others.
I am studying these phenomena in my thesis and would be happy to explain this in more detail. But that is not the purpose of this forum. Let me assure you that none of these scientists mentioned, with the possible exception of Eugene Koonin, have anything significant to say about evolutionary theory. And they are decades behind what modern evolutionary theory has been accepting all along.

Furthermore, The Third Way has nothing to do with bringing in God or an intelligent designer into the evolutionary picture. It is actually heavily criticized by the ID movement, and of course by creationists. I have no idea why you bring this into this discussion.

This is the common anti-science drivel, generally coming from the pen of an Intelligent Design fan. Your ramble is on the level of kindergarten ID. This typical pseudo-science fog making is habitually used to impress the science illiterate general public. Ever heard of the Argument from Incredulity?

This is NOT science and it is BAD theology. Don’t you know that the Catholic Church has fully accepted the theory of evolution in the form of Theistic Evolution?

You are welcome to believe in ID or Creationism, but don’t portrait them as something we Catholics want to accept. And please don’t use this forum to promote your idea of “Creation Biology”! It totally contradicts The Third Way theory anyway. What’s the purpose?

The “purpose” is to ascertain Truth! Scientists should never fear contrary evidence and logic, as presented on this thread. To many Christians, including Catholics, discussions about origins do not constitute “drivel”. However Hans, you should not lower yourself to engage with those of us who have betrayed “kindergarten ID” speculations! Blessings, Rob

 

[Monkey1976]

Rau, I don’t see evidence for half-formed organisms, and knowing all the structures and systems which are necessary preconditions for life, it is inconceivable that life developed as naturalists say. Consciousness is an unsolvable puzzle, as is the split into the sexes. There would be no reason whatsoever for two “miraculous” compatable systems to spring into existence, since prior organisms survived quite nicely by other means, as “simpler” life does today. Evolution says that the purpose of life is to survive. That mission was already accomplished.

Evolutionism says the purpose of life is to survive. Evolution itself makes no claims on the purpose of life.

I say that all organisms that we observe today, including man, were created whole and ready to go. Rob

So why have we never found a modern form alongside an early one? Where are the whales that were eaten by (or ate) plesiosaurs? Where are the dogs? The wolves? The horses? The squirrels? The birds?

The position of “as-is” creation flies in the face of all evidence from the natural world. Did God create the world such that - for example - there is only enough uranium remaining, associated with the expected decay products, to give an age of roughly 5 billion years to the earth?

 

[Hans_W]

The “purpose” is to ascertain Truth! Scientists should never fear contrary evidence and logic, as presented on this thread. To many Christians, including Catholics, discussions about origins do not constitute “drivel”. However Hans, you should not lower yourself to engage with those of us who have betrayed “kindergarten ID” speculations! Blessings, Rob

Ascertain Truth - that’s right. It’s a bit optimistic, because we’ll never get to absolute truth, but every day we find out a bit more about nature. And scientists don’t fear contrary evidence, I can assure you. We welcome debate and it’s a celebration (and a Nobel Prize) if somebody can upset the apple-cart of well-established theories.

But I do object to nonsense masquerading as science. And it’s usually aimed at the young people. I am not worried about you old guys. If you want to believe in elephants and whales jumping out from nothing, that’s fine. But some of the brainwashed young people do start questioning things. They often lose their belief in God once they realise that the world operates differently from what their Sunday school teacher has taught them.

Have a look at this video and see how some young people have to struggle:
youtube.com/watch?v=LTp_debtLfA

 

[Rau]

Rau, I don’t see evidence for half-formed organisms, and knowing all the structures and systems which are necessary preconditions for life, it is inconceivable that life developed as naturalists say. Consciousness is an unsolvable puzzle, as is the split into the sexes. There would be no reason whatsoever for two “miraculous” compatable systems to spring into existence, since prior organisms survived quite nicely by other means, as “simpler” life does today. Evolution says that the purpose of life is to survive. That mission was already accomplished.
I say that all organisms that we observe today, including man, were created whole and ready to go. Rob

And yet, your evidence is thin on the ground. And with so few expert adherents.

 

[womanatwell]

This is the common anti-science drivel, generally coming from the pen of an Intelligent Design fan. Your ramble is on the level of kindergarten ID. This typical pseudo-science fog making is habitually used to impress the science illiterate general public. Ever heard of the Argument from Incredulity?

This is NOT science and it is BAD theology. Don’t you know that the Catholic Church has fully accepted the theory of evolution in the form of Theistic Evolution?

You are welcome to believe in ID or Creationism, but don’t portrait them as something we Catholics want to accept. And please don’t use this forum to promote your idea of “Creation Biology”! It totally contradicts The Third Way theory anyway. What’s the purpose?

I take it you have no sense of wonder about a free-living organism needing to have 1,000,000 DNA base pairs in specific order (even if you give or take 1 in 10^70 functional strings of codes). To be truthful, I’d rather stay in metaphorical kindergarten and retain that sense of wonder. I worry about young people also (reference to a statement of young people being taught Creationism)—that these youth are shot down when they explore various ideas. You certainly seem to be extremely embarrassed by Creationists and insult us without restraint. In the case of US Creationists who do not even have the religious freedom to have their children taught in a neutral way about biological facts instead of evolutionary theory, the evolutionary worldview is the idol.

biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+18%3A3&version=NIV

When you keep asking what is the point of stating these things, it is for you to think about them.

 

[JackVk]

I’m a practicing Catholic who has quite a few reasons for not being a creationist. By this, I have taken a sledgehammer to the knees of 90% of atheist rhetoric.

Honestly, I think creationism should not be taught, because all it seems to do is give atheists ammo. They think us believers to all be knaves because of it.

 

[Hans_W]

I take it you have no sense of wonder about a free-living organism needing to have 1,000,000 DNA base pairs in specific order (even if you give or take 1 in 10^70 functional strings of codes). To be truthful, I’d rather stay in metaphorical kindergarten and retain that sense of wonder. I worry about young people also (reference to a statement of young people being taught Creationism)—that these youth are shot down when they explore various ideas. You certainly seem to be extremely embarrassed by Creationists and insult us without restraint. In the case of US Creationists who do not even have the religious freedom to have their children taught in a neutral way about biological facts instead of evolutionary theory, the evolutionary worldview is the idol.

biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+18%3A3&version=NIV

When you keep asking what is the point of stating these things, it is for you to think about them.

On the contrary - I have a deep sense of wonder, and the more we discover about God’s wonderful creation the deeper my feeling of awe and wonder. Every religious scientist will tell you the same. But you don’t need to be a scientist, just open your mind.

I am not “extremely embarrassed” by creationism, just annoyed because creationists try to hijack science for their purpose. They rely on the general public being ignorant on even basic science. Creationists make Christianity look silly and thus play into the hands of atheists, and not just the radical ones.

I am not embarrassed by creationists, because they don’t represent Christianity, certainly not our Catholic Church. But I do get very angry when I see this nonsense being fed to our young children. Not all, but some of them start to question things once they hit high school. I have seen children struggling with their faith. There must be millions in your country. Many have lost their faith because they can’t square it with science.

Has anybody watched that documentary? Here is the link again. No atheism, only Christianity and good science. And young people struggling to keep their faith:

youtube.com/watch?v=LTp_debtLfA

 

[Kaninchen]

Threads like this are wonderful support for the Government’s decision.

 

[RACJ]

Threads like this are wonderful support for the Government’s decision.

First of all, what is and isn’t debated should not be the province of government. Who the hey are they to decide for US? The problem is that those of us who believe in grand Creation have taken a back seat for too long!

 

[RACJ]

On the contrary - I have a deep sense of wonder, and the more we discover about God’s wonderful creation the deeper my feeling of awe and wonder. Every religious scientist will tell you the same. But you don’t need to be a scientist, just open your mind.

I am not “extremely embarrassed” by creationism, just annoyed because creationists try to hijack science for their purpose. They rely on the general public being ignorant on even basic science. Creationists make Christianity look silly and thus play into the hands of atheists, and not just the radical ones.

I am not embarrassed by creationists, because they don’t represent Christianity, certainly not our Catholic Church. But I do get very angry when I see this nonsense being fed to our young children. Not all, but some of them start to question things once they hit high school. I have seen children struggling with their faith. There must be millions in your country. Many have lost their faith because they can’t square it with science.

Has anybody watched that documentary? Here is the link again. No atheism, only Christianity and good science. And young people struggling to keep their faith:

youtube.com/watch?v=LTp_debtLfA

Actually, I think that everyone in my church of about 100 believes in ID. MOST Christians reject macro-evolution, including many millions of Catholics. So we are not a small subset. You should be frustrated that your instructors have not presented your case convincingly enough!
But womanatwell delivers a laser at your main difficulty, Hans. No one should ever leave a class about evolutionary origins without presenting probability exercises such as those mentioned above. But students are NOT informed about the very real challenges to naturalism, and you evolutionists are comfortable with these glaring omissions. Everyone should leave the course with the same sense of wonder that you admit to having yourself. Rob

 

[Kaninchen]

First of all, what is and isn’t debated should not be the province of government.

Except that this thread isn’t about internet message board discussions/games.

It’s about the science curriculum of schools in the UK receiving public funds. There’s nothing to prevent various beliefs being raised in the religious education curriculum of those schools.

Who the hey are they to decide for US?

In the UK, they’re the people who are elected to decide where public money is spent.

The problem is that those of us who believe in grand Creation have taken a back seat for too long!

I’m sure that people who believe in numerology, the healing power of crystals and homoeopathy have similar feelings but they don’t belong in the science curriculum either.

 

[RACJ]

Except that this thread isn’t about internet message board discussions/games.
It’s about the science curriculum of schools in the UK receiving public funds. There’s nothing to prevent various beliefs being raised in the religious education curriculum of those schools.
In the UK, they’re the people who are elected to decide where public money is spent.
I’m sure that people who believe in numerology, the healing power of crystals and homoeopathy have similar feelings but they don’t belong in the science curriculum either.

How sporting of you! I’m sure that some people believe in macro-evolution as well, but just as with numerology, crystals and homeopathy, unsupported theory should not be taught in science class. The Big Government masterminds should have little or nothing to do with educating children. Local governments and school boards can handle decisions about cirricula quite well, thank you. Rob

 

[Kaninchen]

How sporting of you! I’m sure that some people believe in macro-evolution as well, but just as with numerology, crystals and homeopathy, unsupported theory should not be taught in science class. The Big Government masterminds should have little or nothing to do with educating children. Local governments and school boards can handle decisions about cirricula quite well, thank you. Rob

Perhaps you should remember that this thread is about the UK, not the US and importing US obsessions/politics is an irrelevance to UK obsessions/politics. Your US version of subsidiarity/localism is orthogonal to the issue in the UK.

The reason this has arisen is that developments over the past couple of decades have meant that publicly-funded schools have moved outside the kinds of local overview that used to exist - particularly ‘Academies’ and now what are known as ‘Free Schools’. All sorts of groups, religious or irreligious can set up schools and receive public funding for them.

What the government is doing is ensuring that children at these various publicly-funded schools, run by believers in all sorts of things, get a science curriculum - not a pseudo-science curriculum. I’m sure such schools willl be able to hire numerologists, believers in crystals in healing and creationists to turn up for their Religion classes if they so wish.

 

[Estevao]

You guys just don’t understand though, the darwininsts haven’t been able to convince people of their theory like physicists have convinced us of gravitational theory or the big bang theory, but that has nothing to do with the theory, it’s just the stupid hoi polloi who won’t listen, so they have to use government to force us to think like them. Hopefully, in the name of science of course, psychologists will force schools to teach cognitive development theory.

 

[lightbeamrider]

Evolutionary biology isn’t atheistic.

That is how it is taught in public education which was the context of my comment. Life and intelligence from non life and non intelligence.

Nor is it Catholic, Muslim, Hindi, or pagan.

Pagan Hitler certainly was a believer.

As has been pointed out several times in this thread, science makes no claim on the supernatural.

Why not? That is an artificial rule to delete God. The intricacy of a DNA molecule certainly indicative of design far more that non intelligent non life causes. When Intelligence is deleted from the get go, the innocent student can only conclude unguided processes as the cause.

Is astrophysics atheistic because it makes no mention of God?

If God is mentioned, does it cease to be astrophysics?

How about Newtonian mechanics?

Did Newton delete God? Did Newton suggest, if God is mentioned it is no longer science?

The rules of baseball are silent on the question of the divine - should that game be shunned?

Well we are not really talking about that. To bring baseball into the discussion is trivial. Baseball isn’t really a problem for most people as it relates to education of youth. There is a major difference between teaching students all of life came from a common source by some unguided natural process. That life and intelligence are products of…something (?) and it cannot be God because when God is mentioned it is religion and no longer science. When the subject is origins the subject is also religion. Refer Genesis 1:1. And then attempting to legitimize it all by putting it on the same level as Newton Mechanics and astrophysics.

Philosophically, it is preposterous to assume natural selection or common descent can explain the emergence of all life when it really only explains trivial changes withing species. If they can tell the difference between intelligent and natural effects on a macro level then they should be able to tell the difference on a micro as opposed to assuming it is all non intelligent effects for no reason. Or an accident. Students need to hear the dissent report in a way they understand it. Macro evolution is not a slam dunk.

I always tell them Theism assumes life and intelligence from Life and Intelligence. Non theistic common descent assumes all life and intelligence from non life and non intelligence for no reason or an accident.