John West, an author of "Darwin Day in America" made some puzzling statements on C-Span Feb. 8.

1. evolutionists are pushing incorporating theological topics into public school science courses. Examples: Eugenie Scott encouraging science students to discuss theological statements in class ; NSF funded website linking to religious sites endorsing evolution ; the usually outspoken ACLU is suddenly AWOL on this one.
2. evolution classes are essentially devolving into "Darwinian Sunday Schools"
3. evolutionists are avoiding some troubling questions (a) do random mutations provide raw material for evolution (b) can natural selection be extrapolated to macroevolution (c) what were the origins of animal biology plans during the Cambrian.

Where is this guy coming from? Is this some type of double psychology to get us to think he is an evolutionist and is critiquing what he sees as shortcomings in the curriculum? Is he really an evolutionist or a creationist? The troubling questions he claims science should be focusing on seem like loaded questions : for instance, the idea that there WERE "animal biology plans" seems like a grand leap of logic. Why did there have to be plans at all?

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"fifty is nifty" , unknown poet

He's from the Discovery Institute. Need more be said? The NSF reference probably relates to this:

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/r...volution.shtml

Perhaps he is using "plan" in such a generic way that it does not imply a "planner". What evolution does to generate various "plans" is to allow the CHON based carbon in water machinery to have its way to the extent that any particular evironment will support the activity.

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For those inclined to oppose human meddling with the structure of the universe or the composition and configuration of objects and groups of objects within the universe, consider:
Whether there is a limit to the magnitude of a modulation of chaos below which order remains invariant? Or, is order but a fiction invented by perspectives applied over finite, however large, time intervals?

ok, that explains a lot.

These people are getting sophisticated in how they cleverly attack science.

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"fifty is nifty" , unknown poet

Yes, he's an anti-evolutionist. It looks like his tack is that Darwin is a kind of "cult of personality", so there's no evolution theory that works splendidly well, instead there is a "Darwin Day".

If he uses the term "macroevolution", that's a red flag. No reputable scientist or knowledgeable scientific advocate would use that term, it's purely a Creationist/IDist invention.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

I can hardly wait for the "Darwin Day" cards to go on sale. And with the bicentenary of Charles Darwin (and Abraham Lincoln) coming up in 2009 I say "Let's party like it's 2009!"

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Microsoft is over if you want it.

The bar has been lowered for the promotion of ATM ideas; the bar for the acceptance of ATM ideas must remain high.

Gosh! If someone has to write a book attacking Darwin Day as a threat that has "degraded American culture over the past century" and trying to show that "American politics and culture have been corrupted by scientistic ideology" by using "anecdotes and damning quotations" rather than evidence - we're winning!
And what an anniversary - meaningless but pleasing - that two such men as Lincoln and Darwin were 'twins'!

How about an issue of a stamps to commemorate both men, simultaneously in the UK and the USA?

John