Concerning my approach to Education and the use of reason anyone can read about it in my The Ethics of Changing Habits of Mind (2005) by Philip A. Pecorino at
http://www.ppecorino.com/Articles/Pedagogy-and-Ethics-of-Changing-Minds....
Information (assignments, grading system, textbook, etc..) about the course involved in this incident is available through this site: http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/pecorip/SCCCWEB/SS610/default.htm

Look at the evidence and reach your own well reasoned conclusions.

Thanx, Professor. I for one am on your side. Critical thinking enriches life greatly, and is vital to the development of sensible conflict resolution skills in our diverse society.

I'd like to thank you for referencing my article. And I'm glad we're all in favor of critical thinking, even though not all of our words and actions relect this belief.

One thing I think is being left out of the discussion is the element of constitutional law. As a representative of the State of New York, Dr. Pecorino is prohibited by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution from demonstrating favor for any type of religious expression. He is further prohibited from denigrating the free individual exercise thereof. Both of these violations were committed by Dr. Pecorino against Gina.

Dr. Pecorino used abusive language and coercive grading to compel the student in question (Gina) to agree with him. This was not simply an issue wherein the teacher believed a student did not grasp the principle. His and Gina's online dialogue indicate that she clearly understood his arguement; she simply disagreed with him.

If any party in this dispute is guilty of stifling critical thought, it would clearly be Dr. Pecorino himself.

Where is the line between encouraging critical thinking and arrogantly discouraging someone else's way of viewing the world?

It is interesting to see a Darwinian approach to learning emphasizing struggle and change. I have taken the assumption that (within limits) you can only teach what students already know and so try to link new concepts to old; mine would be a growth rather than a change paradigm with a nod to Piaget.

The article focuses on Changing Minds. If change is the focus, is it also the rubric for assessment? What if a student already subscribes to what the instructor sees as logical thinking. Would they have to change some of their beliefs to get an A? Should a strict rationalist be forced to consider the possibility that the supernatural exists and what the implications might be ?(yes, I think they should, but they shouldn’t have to convert for an A)

Is the goal of a teacher change per se or is it to develop a set of critical thinking skills that will allow students to live a thoughtful life? Or is there a specific set of endpoints in mind that students must learn to adopt? Is the assessment based on endpoint or process? In health professional education, we care about the endpoint (adoption of a culture and skills) and not at all about how much they had to change to get there.

From an assessment standpoint, I am responsible for articulating what I want to teach and then measuring whether or not those objectives have been met. If it were ethics, I could test whether or not they have the ability to recognize and break down an ethical issue and lay out the choices (skill set). However, I would not want to list as one of my learning objectives that the students should be more ethical because a) it would be hard to measure objectively unless I submit them to a series of temptations b) I am not responsible for what they do with the skills I have helped them develop. I could of course ask them, but that is only an indirect measure (and they could lie, which would be an interesting irony).

I am a little troubled by a list of endpoint beliefs (in the article) that supposedly indicate lack of critical thinking. Specific endpoints could indicate a different set of presuppositions, not a sloppy mind. In folk medicine, some of the apparently silly beliefs demonstrate pretty decent reasoning considereing on what there was to work with. If you don’t know about germs, mal de ojo is a pretty good guess as to why the baby gets sick after someone comes up and touches it. I could also disagree with some of the items on the list, depending on how we define them. The placebo effect demonstrates the validity of the statement that if you believe it, it’s true. “There is no problem in holding beliefs that are contradictory to one another.” The world is messy and sometimes there are truths that are in apparent contradiction; it would be premature to discard one for the purpose of consistency. A scientist summarizing the literature one usually has to figure out how both sets of researchers could be right even if one says the treatment works and the other says it doesn’t. Synthesis is after all the second-highest level of Bloom’s taxonomy.

Critical thinking has at least two primary dimensions-Lateral and Vertical. Lateral: one considered all of the options, in vertical one thinks analytically considering all of the pro-s and con's. Euclid geometry is an excellent example of vertical thinking. The following short story illustrates lateral thinking. A man is walked down the street pulling a long string. A policeman walking his beat, stops and asked the man: "Why are you pulling that string?" The man replies: "Did you ever try to push one?" Far out you say. That is the point. Lateral thinking can push the envelope as far out as one wishes, even to humor. Vertical thinking is grounded in rational choices among many possibilities. If we see stonehedge, we ask who, when, and why? If we see the Iris of the human eye half of the world asks how long did it take and along what path? The other half says, My God and My Lord how great is Thy handiwork. Tom

I once took a General Chemistry class at a public Community College. The teacher in one class, produced on the board the thermodynamics of the "Big Bang Theory" producing all the elements of the Periodic Chart posted at the front of the room.

When he was finished, I asked, where did the Hyrdrogen atom come from in it's simple complexity, used in the Big Bang. His answer, we're not here to discuss that!

Science, by definition, is what can be observed by man. Maybe God should be left at the front gate of public universities, until something is observable, however, equally of question, why is evolution, that man, in all his wondrous complexity, that it should be taught in the same school of learning that life walked/slithered (or by other means) proceeded out of a primordial soup after a bolt of lightening set the equations in motion. How much more faith is involved?? How many shakes of the evolutionary/Darwinian dice must happen to accomplish the selection and mutation to produce the many complex systems of our bodies? Which is harder to believe??? Bring it into personal belief, to believe that man became his present day self via apes, brings into question for me, Salvation, and worshipping a God who said He created man in His image not a monkey's.

So many short-age Christian's get completely confused over the difference between the big-bang theory and the duration of life on earth. They are completely independent questions.

Evidence for, and details of, the big-bang are very subtle.

Evidence for, and details of, life having been present on earth for millions of years is within the reach of anyone who is prepared to study

> Where did the White Cliffs of Dover come from?

> Why are the fossils distributed between the continents like they are?

> Why are the meteorites found where they are in Antarctica?

> Why are coral atolls so deep?

> Why are volcanos where they are?

> Why do some parasites have such amazing life cycles?

> Why is the DNA of a pine tree so much more complex than the DNA of a human?

> Why is Ayer's Rock where it is?

> Why do rocks have magnetic fields imprinted in them?

> Why are the impact craters where they are?

...

It is the inability of the Short-Age creationists to come up with a reasonable explanation for such a wide range of things that can be explained by a long period of life on Earth that makes their position not one of science, but one of personal belief in spite of the evidence.

People are entitled to their own personal belief systems - but those systems should not claim to be scientific or based in measurable reality

/Bevin

The best model I have ever seen of a teacher that probed and pushed without negativity- was Graham Maxwell. He would ask in the most gracious way for a student to "go on", unpack further, and explore the implications of their opinion without ever using fancy words or demeaning labels for their stance. He never allowed the conversation to become personally adversarial or exclusionary- you always felt he was trying genuinely to understand you even though he probably had heard this line of thought a thousand times before. It was very effective, and yet stopped short of being publically embarrassing.

And then sometimes, when the person had done a thorough job of looking foolish with their contradictions, he would even rescue them- by taking one point they had said well, and praising it and linking it to the following topic of discussion. It was a spiritual gift.

Bevin, I have no problem leaving things open for discussion or exploration when not understood, but why would millions/billions of years be accepted as more logical a fact when it takes as much faith to believe. Uniformity is a big assumption that evolutionist/Darwinists, even theistic evolutionists, must throw in as fact, in order to proceed to discussing the next point like primordial ponds and "croc fish". Google it, you'll get a kick out of it, I did!!!!

RDS, why do you think it takes as much faith to believe the universe is 13.7 billion years than that it is 6,000 years? Would it also take "just as much faith" to believe the universe began last Thursday? And what non-biblical reason do you have for believing in a 6,000 year old earth rather than a 6 day old earth? All measurable evidence points to billions of years. There are a few difficulties in exceptional cases that give another (longer or shorter) date. So I do not know why you insist it is still "just as much" a position of faith.

I agree with Pecorino.

I do not think all minds are the same. There is a genetic basis for different minds. Some people seem almost incapable of logical reasoning. It would help if we knew more about the brain and how it creates the mind. One thing is for sure, it is an age old problem. The Bible says, man looks on the outward appearance God looks on the mind.

arlyn

I also have watched Graham Maxwell at work. Beautiful!

The Second Law of Thermodynamics is that energy runs down hill. Evolution would have it run up hill. The laws of nature dictates that things move from complex to simple. Evolution would say they move from simple to complex.

Some would say that the sun makes the difference. I believe that the Son made the difference. Tom

Thank you all for the stimulating thoughts. Whatever debates we become impassioned over, this community definitely displays a level of intellectual refinement (Which is more than I can say for -- no offense to other netizens -- the average web community). Now, a few reponses of my own (Forgive my verbosity):

RDS: By "uniformity" I assume you mean, for example, the assertion that the speed of light is constant throughout the entire universe? Non-uniformity of the laws of Physics is an interesting idea, but from what I understand astrophysics has never been able to find such evidence, or even reinterpret what we see in such a way so as to make it seem plausible. Quite the contrary: Many phenomena in astronomy make perfect of sense when we assume the laws of Physics are apply both close and far away.

Also, I would have to agree with jemand: While it is perfectly acceptable, and indeed expected, that the problems, inconsistencies, and enigmas resulting from evolutionary theory be pointed out and grappled with, to say that both require just "as much faith" strikes me as little more than a way of avoiding the question of which, if any, is likely to be true. The issues are complicated (Which is why most of us, to be honest, just take scientist's word for it -- be they from the GRI, ID, or naturalism), but I would see it as not only acceptable but the responsibility of the university to mirror scientific consensus -- not to bend over backwards to avoid offending proponents of a theory that essentially no secular researcher has ever espoused. And it is a consensus -- if the issue were widely considered to be debatable, it would be taught as such.

I don't mean to make an appeal to popularity -- "consensus" of the world's thinking people does not directly imply truth (Think of the "consensus" Aristotlean physics held for millenia) though I think it could be said to represent humanity's best, and ergo is teaching-worthy. As such, cogent challenges to the status quo are healthy. Amidst the littany of evangelical creationism that only serves to give religion a bad name, for example, places like the Geoscience Research Institute do produce good science.

jemand: I believe the universe came into existence on Tuesday, which of course is today (Inside joke).

Arlyn: I seem to remember my father also speaking with reverence of classes he took from Maxwell. He sounds like an excellent nemesis for Dawkins :-P.

Tom: The low entropy we see in the universe is indeed a paradox in astrophysics, but to apply it as a self-contained, blanket dismissal of evolution is oversimplistic. The entire point of evolution is "order from disorder," and though thermodynamics implies a general trend towards disorder (On the grand scale), localized low-entropy is not a problem. Our low entropy bodies, for example, or car engines, break down chemical substances and give off heat, producing entropy. Just what entropy is, or what "information" is, is a difficult question, too, and depends one what is specifically being discussed.

Finally: I came across this while reading last night, and thought it relevant to the original post:

“[Some people may] feel at first a little startled at the purely existential point of view from which in the following lectures the phenomena of religious experience must be considered. When I handle them biologically and psychologically as if they were mere curious facts of individual history, some of you may think it a degradation of so sublime a subject, and may even suspect me, until my purpose gets more fully expressed, of deliberately seeking to discredit the religious side of life.

“Such a result is of course absolutely alien to my intention; and since such a prejudice on your part would seriously obstruct the due effect of much of what I have to relate, I will devote a few more words to this point…”

– William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, Lecture I (1902)

Eric

From slim to man is not simplistic!

From mud to the breath of God is sublime. Tom

Smiled through this and thought it germane here.

Eric, if a car was built by an anonymous person and no one ever discovered who built it but it existed, would you deny a designer of the car? Or, come up with some elaborate evolutionary theory about how the car arrived in the garage??

I think you see my point, Intelligent Design concept is like that, it is harder for me to believe my brain, my liver, my thyroid, my digestive system, just happened, arrive from the primordial slime via the apes, and insults the God I believe deserve and want our worship. If I evolved in to what I am, why do I need Him????

RDS writes "I think you see my point, Intelligent Design concept is like that, it is harder for me to believe my brain, my liver, my thyroid, my digestive system, just happened, arrive from the primordial slime via the apes, and insults the God I believe deserve and want our worship. If I evolved in to what I am, why do I need Him????"

I think we can agree on some fundamental points

(a) All available evidence suggests my body is going to die,
(b) Most people, given a choice of living a reasonably pleasant existence and dying, prefer the former
(c) The universe is a very complicated place

If there is a God who created and maintains the universe then that God is going to have more than enough power to be able to recreate and maintain 'me' in a body that does not die, should this God so wish

That is why I need Him

Not because He made the world in 6 days 6000 years ago

Not because He made the universe out of a Big Bang 14B years ago, and did or did not interfere with the natural processes of mutation and selection in a complex system

Because I am dying

/Bevin

Bevin, beause we are all dying, is the whole summation of why all religions began: as an answer to that inevitable conclusion that all of us from birth are destined to die.

RDS: You have a point. Theistic evolution has always been a little awkward for me to envision too. That only goes to show that I don't understand it, since I was raised creationist, and am used to thinking of the two as mutually exclusive. This does not show, however, that it's not a palpable way of thinking. Many, many people maintain a religious belief and belief in evolution simultaneously.

When you treat creationism, ID and evolution as varying philosophies, then one can pick and choose which "makes the most sense." When you look at what the fossil record and genetics actually show us, then only one of those makes sense. Evolution may be tough to swallow philosophically but for those of us acquainted with the evidence, that's beside the point. It is what it is.

My belief would be much much less complicated if I could just pick a biology that fit better with the traditional Christian narrative. Unfortunately, I can't do that and remain true to the values and ethics I also hold dear.

Bevin said:

"If there is a God who created and maintains the universe then that God is going to have more than enough power to be able to recreate and maintain 'me' in a body that does not die, should this God so wish"

So, now your rule is, God isn't just unless, unconditionally, he keeps me alive for eternity. Bevin, you don't make the rules. The rules are established. Sin is here, we inherited it, (not my rules, His). We then, if eternity is meaningful to us, (to some it is not)then we need to discover the rules, and abide by them, not make up our own with our own logic. Not to say that our logic isn't part of reading the rules in the Bible, like are the Decalogue and the Sabbath still in effect and required of Christians. The NT is replete with texts that SDAs take one way and the rest of Christianity read another. The issue of Sabbath and the "state of the dead" , as Cliff mentions, both are not salvific issues, though they are in Cliff's mind.

What are the rules. As stated to the jailer by Paul,

Acts 16:
29The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. 30He then brought them out and asked, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?"

31They replied, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household." 32Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house. 33At that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his family were baptized. 34The jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them; he was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God—he and his whole family.

Notice there was no long baptismal class for weeks, or an Inquirers Class for months, he accepted and was baptized that night. How old were his family, age of consent, or as the Presbyterians make a distinction, Covenant children, minors who are baptized because they are part of the family whose parents believe?

Beth, I am a Biology major. One thing I learned was, a fossil could be in layers of earth that are related to a local flood or event, that the atmosphere was not necessarily uniform for carbon dating, that our observations as men/women are limited to human thought, God's ways are not our ways, and science is an attempt to discover what God actually did. When we become obsessed or disappointed that it "looks" like the Bible and God were wrong and allow our lives to be altered because we think we have the answer, that says something about us, not God.

Eric, because many people believe and utilize "theistic evolution" does not mean it is right. I have always said, one can not be a creationist without believing in evolution (adaption). Adaption is what Darwin observed on the Galapogos, not common ancestory Evolution, he just extrapolated, and corralated wrong. The missing links between species show his error. Notice this Darwin comment:

"False facts are highly injurious to the progress of science, for they often endure long; but false views, if supported by some evidence, do little harm, for every one takes a salutary pleasure in proving their falseness: and when this is done, one path towards error is closed and the road to truth is often at the same time opened." Charles R. Darwin, 1871, The Descent of Man And Selection in Relation to Sex[1981 Princeton University Press edition, with Introduction by John T. Bonner and Robert M. May], Chapter 21, page 385

http://www.csuchico.edu/~curbanowicz/DarwinSacFeb2002.html

Also note these words by Darwin himself on the origins of man:

"Charles R. Darwin took great care not to write about Homo sapiens in Origin in 1859 and all he had to say about "man" in 1859 was:

"In the distant future I see open fields for far more important researches. Psychology will be based on a new foundation, that of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation. Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history. [Chapter XV: "Recapitulation And Conclusion"]
By the 6th edition of Origin in 1872, Darwin had re-written the above as follows:

"In the future I see open fields for far more important researches. Psychology will be securely based on the foundation already well laid by Mr. Herbert Spencer, that of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation. Much light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history. [Chapter XV: "Recapitulation And Conclusion"]"

http://www.csuchico.edu/~curbanowicz/DarwinSacFeb2002.html

Even Darwin's thinking was "evolving", eh????

RDC, the reason I gave a long list of issues (but by no means even half the list of issues I could raise) leading to my personal conclusion that life on earth is much older than 10,000 years is because I usually find short-age creationists have their favorite explanations for a few of them (eg:
the atmosphere was not necessarily uniform for carbon dating) but have rarely considered exactly how diverse the evidence is.

You say When we become obsessed or disappointed that it "looks" like the Bible and God were wrong and allow our lives to be altered because we think we have the answer, that says something about us, not God, but it is equally true that defending our understanding of the Bible and God in the face of the physical evidence also says something about us, not God.

I am not asking you to change your personal assessment of the evidence, but as a Biology Major you are in an excellent position to learn more about the items on my list than most people.

You are probably young (most Biology major's are). When I was your age, I too thought the short-age creationists were right, and the vast majority of the scientific community wrong. It took years of study of science, of myself, and of how churches form and sustain beliefs before I finally decided that the evidence suggests the scientists are right, and the best explanation for the beliefs of the short-age creationists is that they are not weighing the evidence on the same scales I am.

I made this decision in the 1980's, when the SDA church really didn't care whether I believed in evolution or creation. It was a community of believers that was comfortable for both short-age creationists and evolutionists.

I remember visiting Andrews University and speaking to Professor [name omitted because he is still active in a SDA university] about the evolutionary display in their science department and asking how it was tolerated - and him replying that the SDA church was much more interested in Ford and NT theology and so it wasn't an issue.

I visited Columbia Union College about 10 years ago, and was told when I asked that at least half their science faculty thought that life on earth was old.

It wasn't until the late 1990's that the SDA church began a real witch-hunt against evolutionists, with Clifford Goldstein in the vanguard. He organized a SS Lesson Pamphlet against evolution. He repeatedly publishes ignorant anti-evolutionist diatribes in his column in the Review. There were no counter-balancing arguments published.

It was one of these diatribes that I read one Sabbath, and precipitated my sitting down and writing my letter of resignation from SS Superintendent, from church treasurer, and completely from SDA church membership.

I don't mind being in the minority, I don't mind fair debate, but I am not going to finance an organization that is blatantly anti-intellect.

/Bevin

"I don't mind being in the minority, I don't mind fair debate, but I am not going to finance an organization that is blatantly anti-intellect."

Congratulations, Bevin! That is the only way many of us have been able to maintain our integrity. Anything less, IMO, is hypocritical.

/Bevin

The age of the earth has nothing to recommend either evolution or creationism. God is from everylasting to everylasting. The story of creation is just that, a story.
The hypothesis of evolution is just that a hypothesis. Neither are falsifiable. To believe in a Creator God does not force one to accept a 6000 year human history. It seems to me that variation within kind is a very telling point when it comes to origins.

Certainly one would have to accept a very catastrophic history to this planet at or during times of organic matter.

The true is man knows neither the beginning nor the end without revelation. We have but a brief moment together, let us spend it more profitably that in foolish speculations. That doesn't mean I think Cliff did either the Church or God any favors. But he was about as close to the truth as was Darwin. Tom

Tom
If evolution could not be falsified, it would indeed be a mere opinion, something you could toss aside if you didn't like the narrative it is part of. Evolution would cease to be science if it could not be disproven.

Creationism, on the other hand, can not be falsified. That's why it doesn't merit the label "scientific." Creationism is at best science looking for logical holes in evolution.

Aage

I don't get your point. Neither evolution nor creationism are subject to empirical testing. Ergo neither are science! Scientists attempt to prove or disprove one or the other by analogy only. Unfortunately, creationists have generally been the least creative in the field of science. Evolutionists take that as evidence that their suppositions are closer to the true origin of matter and energy. Tom

The point is that critical thinking IS heresy in some people's minds. It's as if they're saying, "check your brain at the door" when you enter a house of worship. Yet all we have to determine the truth or otherwise of claims is that marvelous piece of equipment called the brain.

I have taught a number of classes in religion and I DID see it as my responsibility to challenge the "pat" answers that some students gave. Respectfully, and without making any questioning personal, I tried to probe further than the simple making of assertions that all to many believe is theological thinking. I believe that the majority appreciated the need for critical thinking, and not to rest content with the uncritical acceptance of mere assertions.

In the words of Rik Torfs, a good Catholic friend of mine: "Theological thinking should not be abandoned to the masters of elusiveness."

Best to all, Jonathan

Jonathan, critical thinking is at work in a lot of people that believe in creation as the origin of man. I have never said that 6000 years is my position, it was assumed by others on the forum.

Just like others have assumed that, by my believing the Ten Commandments were fulfilled on the cross, that I believe in a 2nd Covenant with no standards. Note:

http://cranfordville.com/NTViceLists.html
http://cranfordville.com/NTVirtureLists.html

But notice one thing, Sabbath is not commanded or mentioned as a standard of belief for the NT/NC believer.

Getting back to Creationism, one can not be a Creationist without believing in Evolution (Adaption). But common ancestry Evolution is of the Devil. We were created in God's image and did not descend, interspecies through pigs and apes. That is an insult to our creator and negates Salvation, IMO.

Tom
Take the geological column. In spite of what creationists at times argue, there is a predictability about the sequence of fossiles that makes it possible to falsify evolution. If, for instance, you found a horse and a dinosaur buried together, entire structures of the evolutionary edifice would come tumbling down.

There are people on this forum who know more about how evolution could be falsified than me and maybe they can add other examples.

Neither evolution nor creationism are subject to empirical testing

Evolution was arrived at by people who were critically examining the evidence they found in the world around them. Evidence such as I hinted at in my list of issues.

There are two competing hypotheses - namely "life has/has_not existed on earth for millions of years".

If it has been on earth for millions of years, you would expect to find

• Parasites living weird life cycles
• Fossils in rocks having a strong relationship with the age of the rock
• Accumulated relics of the death of many years worth of creatures.

You would not expect to find these if the world is only 10,000 years old - unless you believe God created a world that APPEARED to have had life for millions of years, but hasn't.

I have deliberately omitted from this list anything about genetic diversity and similarity, because it could be argued God created these in from the beginning.

You find these things.

• There are worms that start as eggs born in sea mammal gut, get excreted, hatch on the ocean floor, get eaten by shrimp, move from the shrimp to the fish when the fish is eaten, then to a sea mammal when it eats the shrimp. If any part of a-eats-b-eats-c is broken, they don't survive - now tell me there was no death before Adam sinned...
• Fossils in rocks having a strong relationship with the age of the rock - continental drift, erosion, and many other applications of physics to rock let us approximately date the rock - and, what do you know, the fossil record correlates with that dating.
• Accumulated relics of the death of many years worth of creatures - there are no good short-age Creationist explanations for either coral atolls or the White Cliffs of Dover - both show life has been around for a lot longer than 10,000 years.

One of the things that a good short-age Creationist teacher should be teaching is that evolution is a falsifiable theory. However it has survived 150 years of the invention and performance of a huge range of experiments that could have falsified it, and have not. Yes, the theory has been refined - continental drift has gone from being an outsider to being main-stream in my lifetime.

/Bevin

Aage,

I have no trouble with your analogy but I don't think it stands the tests usually assigned to the falsability of a hypothesis.

I am a hide bound creationist but don't believe the Genesis story is nearly complete or accurate. I think God reveals Himself on a need to know basis.

We do see through a glass darkly. Tom

Tom I'm confused. How is the example Aage gave an analogy and why don't you think it shows how evolutionary theory could be falsified?

There are several definitions but almost everyone agrees that the core of evolution is common descent with modification. How could one show common descent didn't happen? Easy, just find fossils that are out of place in the geological column. If one found an animal with a backbone in the same earliest layer as one finds only unicellular organisms then clearly common descent would be wrong. If a current human was ever found with a dinosaur, that would be it (because there are too many transition steps between homo sapiens and the early mammals around during dinosaur times). The fossil record shows clear and distinct pathways of common descent. A creature has to be closely related to something that came before it.

There are layers of the geological column that are found all over the world. The very oldest layers show only unicellular life. The next oldest show more complex unicellular life (along with the older ones). The earliest creatures had very simple bodies and were sea creatures. Creatures with backbones show up later though they were still sea creatures.

Then they began to move up on land at the same time as they began to develop four legs. And so on up until the most recent layer where we find humans. The time periods of the fossils correspond perfectly to what one would expect if common descent was happening. Mammals are never found when there were only sea creatures and never when the earliest land animals appeared (because mammals evolved from early tetropods - which is why they along with retiles, amphibians and birds all have four limbs - and the early tetropods came from fish). Finding a bird back with the creatures just starting to show backbones would do it. Humans are never found in the dinosaur level (or any other level where you wouldn't expect them assuming they evolved from earlier primate ancestors). Never. Nor has any other fossil been found so out of sequence that common descent couldn't explain it.

Scientists know what kind of fossils they will find in each layer because the geological column has been so predictable. In fact, lately they have been deciding what type of creature they want to find, they figure out the time period it would have lived, figure out where the geological layer corresponding to that time period is exposed, and go find the creature. Pretty nifty. And finding one out of sequence would be an achievement of a lifetime and a certain career maker so you better believe it would be grabbed.

Now one can say they'd rather not believe that evidence but I don't know how one could say evolution can't be falsified.

Beth

In 1969 Harold G. Coffin published a book entitled Creation Accident or Design Review and Herald. He gave many similar examples Yet the evolutionists are stronger than ever. By Falsification, I mean proven false by experimental evidence.

Can the hypothesis be repeated? Since a given set of scientists half life is less than a billion part of the "evolutionary age" the task is not humanly possible. Of course neither is the creation model. My point is simply both sides must take their position on assumption or faith alone.

I refer you to to a book published by MIT back in 1966 entitled the Mathematical Challenge to the Neo-Darwinian Theory. Their bottom-line was that the current model was insusffient even to create a human eye let alone a human being, never-the-less they still believed in evolution--the model just needed a little tinkering.

Creation is by faith alone as is our salvation!
You and i can consider evolution false but that has no impact on those who find support for their theory.
Tom

I know I'm probably off-base with this, but . . .

The original issue of this post surrounded whteher or not someone was being forcibly coerced to acknowledge the non-existence of God.

I fail to see how our current position in this discussion is relevant to that point.

But, again . . . may not be my place to question this.

No Rob you are absolutely right. And I swore I wasn't going to go down this path yet again so why I am standing here :) My apologies. The original topic is more interesting anyway.

It one is forced to defend one's belief system--What areas would that be? Where did I come from? Why am I here? Where do I go when I die? Certainly not A squared times B squared equals C squared!

To discuss force feeding in the abstract Or brow beating in the abstract has very little pedagogical value. The issue is there a God or is there no God, if a God what kind of God?

Learning is the happening in the encounter between a new idea and a receptive mind. Teaching is seeing that these encounters occur on more than a random basis. Certainly brow beating teaches just one thing. I hate school! And if I survive I will be ten times the horror in the classroom than my mentor.

Students learn what they live. Tom

Rob,

This is what Pecorino wrote:

There are students/learners who enter college believing that:
• heavier things fall faster than lighter things because they are heavier
• the sun rises and sets
• only cold environs or exposure to drafts cause colds
• humans lived at the same time as dinosaurs
• the earth and universe have existed for just over 6,000 years
• events associated with a house in Amityville in the movie, the “Amityville Horror”, are true because they were described in a movie or book
• members of one group of people are naturally inferior/superior to others
• if a person believes that X exists then X does exist
• if a person thinks that a proposition or claim is true then the claim is true
• all opinions on all subjects are of equal value
• the shape of planet earth can be flat and spherical at the same time
• evolutionary theory and creationist theory are equally acceptable and effective explanations of life forms on planet earth
• a person is entitled to believe that any claim or proposition P may be held to be true until someone else can prove that claim P is not true using an empirical-logical method that is avoided in the initial holding and asserting of the claim P and not even then must a person surrender belief that claim P is true
• there is no problem in holding beliefs that are contradictory to one another

I am not sure what sparked the argument between him and Gina, but he does write about 6,000 years and evolution as shown here. I think this is how the topic got off track.

His ideas concerning critical thinking are correct but he erred concerning scientific proof concerning evolution.

I was at Avondale College in Australia in 1978 - an SDA college, where Desmond Ford at one time taught, and which was certainly not a bastion of conservative SDA'ism.

However, in one of the freshman Education classes, the augment was put forward that cooperation was a religious virtue, and that it was incompatible with the evolutionist's "survival of the fittest" theories.

Even though http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evolution_of_Cooperation
had not yet been published, never-the-less the concept was well established and known even to math major's (I already had a B.Sc(Hons) in math from a secular university), and so I pointed this out in the class discussion group.

I was summonized to Dept. Head's office and told I was not allowed to discuss such ideas because parent's sent their children to Avondale so that they would not be exposed to them!

Curiously enough Clifford Goldstein made exactly the same fallacious anti-evolution statement only a few weeks ago. 20 years after this famous book was published, one of SDA'ism's most prominent intellectual's hasn't caught up on material available on the far side of the world to undergraduates almost 30 years ago.

Apparently the suppression of such dangerous ideas is working

/Bevin

I'm ok with investigating the basis of belief, etc, as described, as long as

1) Expectations for the course and the grading are clear in the syllabus
2) All beliefs are challenged equally and not just theistic ones
3) Assessment of a student's critical thinking is based on the actual ability of a student to analyze a problem and not on what beliefs they currently hold or whether they change their mind about those beliefs
4) Students are treated with essential dignity. Note: "You are displaying level 1 thinking" is different from "You are a level one thinker" Tying this to the above comments, we can "evolve" students by cooperating with them instead of antagonizing them.

Someone commented about questions concerning where everything came from ...this and that. Like the "big bang". I would not stop there...I want to know...what went bang, and who made that? Could it be, God snapped His finger? I think that would be a big bang. The "eye", is without question, the greatest proof of a creator. Then there's the brain. You would have to be, intelligent to design that. These are some of the things that give evilutionists brain freeze. And then there is the math problem...its just not very smart to choose to be a nunner(non-believer). If there is no God, the believer and the nunner will end up in the same place. But, if there is a God...yikes. So mathematically speaking, its much wiser to choose ...belief.

Just so we give credit where it's due, that's called Pascal's Wager.

Alex, Pascal's Wager is insignificant, IMO. It's a scare tactic that just doesn't apply to everyone. As an agnostic, I can enjoy the beauty of nature and the unfathomable design of human anatomy without knowing who, what, or when had a hand in it all. Someone beyond our ken and that's sufficient without attribution to ?

It's merely following tradition to believe absent one's own reasoning. Believe in what? I feel much more content saying that "I don't know" and am waiting to be surprised with no illusions of what might lie ahead.

From time as early as we have any records, humans have always believed in various gods or an entity that sent the rain, sun, and caused things to grow. They simply believed in what they could see; and projected their ideas on the causal effects. Modern man is no different; except he wants to identify, categorize, classify, and understand the "who" behind it all. Curiosity? Of course, but there are no "right" answers; all are mere conjectures.

Elaine

Just follow the energy exchange in muscle contraction and the role of ATP--Even Microsoft couldn't do it. An intelligence beyond human had to have a hand in it. The Revelation of Jesus Christ is my best answer and hope. Tom

Tom, I never said that we could ever understand the complexities of the human anatomy. However, to designate a specific entity as responsible doesn't necessary follow. We cannot identify all causative agents. There are those who divide them up between the Devil and God: If I like it, God's responsible; if it is bad IMO, then surely it was caused by the Devil. Both answers are unsatisfactory for me.

Elaine

The consensus is growing toward intelligent design. The Biblical story is far more intelligent than the neo-Darwinian Theory. Examining my condition, physically, mentally, and spiritually, I find the Christ event the most satisfying, which of course attributes the Creation Event to Him also. In the meantime, I personally believe that the Christian ethic and ethos is the best prescription for the lifestyle for this old man. For clarification, I am willing to wait, even to be wrong. Given my roots, my history, and my present state, I thank God for my 83 years. I do pray for the courage He gave me through war, university, and institutional conflicts to carry me through what ever lies ahead. In the meantime, I intend to speak my mind as cogently and civily as you have so ably demonstrated in a closed community. Tom

Tom, your comments are always relished. You have had such a wealth of experiences in your lifetime that has developed your present understanding, as it has for each one of us.

Whether one believes in Intelligent Design or not, do you believe it should be taught in the public schools? I am not too familiar with the current position of evolution, but that there is evolution at work is impossible to deny. How it is understood and explained are the details that are disturbing to some.

For a student of pre-med or pre-dental, I assume that it would be a requirement that they have a thorough knowledge of biology and human anatomy.
Teaching evolution in the K-12 grades is not so intensive and any teaching that implies an Intelligent Designer back of humans should not be taught in a science class but in comparative religions, as ID infers a god, or Supreme Being which would instantly bring religion into the classroom, something we all should be opposed to.

Elaine said:

"but that there is evolution at work is impossible to deny"

but more accurately she should say:

"but that there is adaption at work is impossible to deny".

Single origin species is never been supported by the evidence, in fact "Origins" was noticably avoided by Darwin and left it to come our "later".

I don't advocate intelligent design. I think comparative anatomy and physiology should be instructive without assignment or suggestion of origin. The issue is too politically charged to do the student any good, one way or the other. Of course, I had to sit through hours of neo-darwinian theory. It only became more stupid as it progressed.

Fortunately, the test questions were always limited to comparative anatomy and physiology not origins. My son teaches high school biology and leaves the inference of origin to the students' home orientation. I think he handles it very well. Yes there is micro-evolution at work since the original "kinds" were formed. But a rose is a rose is a rose.
Tom

Group, read this article, not just about Adaption/Evolution but about how one should "adapt" their mind when persuasive concepts present themselves and contradict what you learn in your youth:

Darwin’s theory is only about adaptation not evolution

http://hitxp.wordpress.com/2007/06/03/darwins-theory-is-only-about-adapt...

"Never allow your mind to get prejudiced about an idea or a thought. The key to really understand things is to have an open mind. If what you have been believeing ever since your birth is found to be false, enquire into it with an open mind and if all evidences point towards it being false, immediately give up your childhood belief."

RDS

Yes of course, adaptation. We see it annually in flu shots.

The issue is that adaptation was much more open and diverse soon after creation than today. Just watch a dog show on TV sometime. Then think of all the canine types world wide that don't even qualify for the dog show.

It is properly called adaptation, but some very good creationists have referred to species variation as micro-evolution--within "kind".

I am not a fan of the term Open mind. I prefer receptive mind--a willingness to listen and to analyze. In fact, the word obedience in the Old Testament means a willingness to listen. Open has the connotation of in one side and out the other. Tom