The threat posed to America’s traditional values of liberty, reasoned debate and secular government by the Republican Religious Right was powerfully demonstrated by comments made this week by South Carolina’s Governor, Republican Mark Sanford. Appearing on television, Governor Sanford promoted the teaching of Christian intelligent design theology in public schools, declaring, “There are real chinks in the armor of evolution being the only way we came about.”
Some hard thinking is necessary to deal with the challenge that Governor Sanford is making to the science of biological evolution. What is Sanford suggesting, that there were two separate origins of the human species, or of life on Earth? While that’s an interesting idea, it may be more suitable for an English class on science fiction than a class that is supposed to teach real science. Real science has not been finding chinks in the armor of the theory of evolution. On the contrary, the more information has been gathered, the stronger the theory has become.
Never one to be daunted by a little incoherence, Sanford continued his struggle to explain what was wrong with teaching science in science classes. Trying to create the appearance of a scientific basis for teaching Christian theology in biology classes, Sanford sputtered, “The idea of there being a, you know, a little mud hole and two mosquitoes get together and the next thing you know you have a human being is completely at odds with, you know, one of the laws of thermodynamics, which is the law of, in essence, destruction.”
Hm.
I’ll admit that I’m out of my depth on this one. I don’t know the laws of thermodynamics well enough to judge if two mosquitoes plus one little mud hole can be combined to make an instant human being. Maybe a professor of physics can help me out with the equations. I suspect, however, that Governor Sanford may be right that this recipe for Instant Human is flawed.
I am fairly certain, however, that no biology teacher instructs high school students that two mosquitoes can be added to a mud hole to make a human being. Perhaps Governor Sanford needs to go back to high school for some remedial education.
Our governor Sanford (I’m a SC resident) showed his ignorance of science when he mentioned the oft-cited law of thermodynamics in his comments in support of intelligent design (ID). This battle has been going on for a couple of months now and wil culminate in February when the SC Board of Education decides whether to review some biology teaching standards. See more about this on my post: http://irregulartimes.com/board/index.php?topic=100.msg773#msg773.
The second law of thermodynamics predicts that the entropy of an isolated system always increases with time. Entropy is the measure of the disorder or randomness of energy and matter in a system. Because of the second law of thermodynamics both energy and matter in the Universe are becoming less useful as time goes on. The argument against evolution states that since life is a highly ordered state it would be impossible without a higher power (God). This argument arose decades ago and even the ID community acknowledges that it is a baseless argument against evolution.
Recent discussion in the ID community (http://www.uncommondescent.com/index.php/archives/747#comments) doesn’t even deny the evolution of humans from ape-like ancestors. They don’t deny that life on Earth arose 4 billion years ago and has changed over that time to result in the life forms we see at present. Their main goal right now is to argue that the creation of life and new forms of life was accomplished not by random mutation and natural selection, but by an outside, unknown, intelligent force. They still insist they are being scientific, but they offer, nor even try to offer, any evidence of this intelligent designer. They insist that the apparant complexity of life is evidence enough for his existence and that we have to accept his existence on faith. They are trying to change the basic laws of science to allow supernatural explanations for scientific problems. They see it as an expansion of the realm of science. Scientists see it as a perversion of the role of science in describing the natural universe.
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/39512
a funny spoof from the onion about “intelligent falling” instead of gravity. i think its worth sharing with everyone
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Do they sell instant human powder?