WEAKNESSES IN EVOLUTION DEFENSE

WEAKNESSES IN EVOLUTION DEFENSE
By Bob Ward

The State Board of Education will soon decide how to teach evolution in the classroom and the discussion produced an amazing statement by an alleged curriculum expert.

At issue is whether language should be retained that calls on students to examine the “strengths and weaknesses” of scientific theories including evolution. Steve Schafersman, according to the Austin American-Statesman, is president of Texas Citizens for Science and part of a group
responsible for writing the earth and space science standards for the state.

"Scientific theories,” Schafersman said, “do not have weaknesses.” He added that evolution “is complete.”

How about being dead wrong? Does that count as a weakness?

It’s instructive to look back at some of the scientific theories that might still be the prevailing orthodoxy if Schafersman had his way. Columbia University’s Electronic Encyclopedia notes, for example, the theory of phlogiston which had strong scientific support in the 18th century. It held that all flammable materials contain a substance called phlogiston which had no color, odor, taste, or weight. When something burned, according to this theory, phlogiston escaped leaving the material “dephlogisticated.”

Fortunately, Schafersman wasn’t around in the 18th century so a scientist named A.L. Lavoisier was free to take a critical look at the theory and concluded it was mostly weaknesses. Now we know that combustion does not release phlogiston but rather adds oxygen. So we know that to keep a fire going we have to supply it with oxygen and we can put out a fire by depriving it of oxygen.

It what may be the most famous instance of a scientific theory with weaknesses was the one that said if Columbus sailed west from Europe he would fall off the edge of the Earth. Columbus thought otherwise, he sailed west and we all know what happened. God bless America.

An Italian named Galileo had his own troubles with 16th Century Schafersmans. He went against the current scientific theories, which all the authorities said had no weaknesses and were complete, by declaring the earth revolves around the sun and not the other way around.

One discredited scientific theory appears to be making a comeback through this push to indoctrinate Texas kid on evolution and that is the theory of spontaneous generation. For about 2,000 years, starting with Aristotle, the scientific orthodoxy was that inanimate objects, such as a piece of rotting meat, could generate life, such as flies.

For 20 centuries nobody wanted to challenge Aristotle until another Italian named Francesco Redi demonstrated otherwise by sealing the meat in a jar and no maggots or flies appeared. A Frenchman, Louis Pasteur, conducted even more rigorous experiments and settled the question. Life only comes from life.

Education Board member Ken Mercer correctly points out that excluding the phrase about strengths and weaknesses "raises a huge red flag about academic freedom and freedom of speech." It’s also worth considering what the state of science would be today if the Schafersmans of past ages had prevailed.

Advocates of changing the language claim that its defenders want to inject religion into public school. Religion entails a doctrine accepted by faith without examining its strengths and weaknesses. So who are the religionists in this debate?