Sadly, the New Orleans Cty Council favors repeal of LSEA

See this article on the NCSE blog.

However ,at the end of the day, the majority of thepublic still favors teaching both the strengths and weaknesses of evolution. Who on the New Orleans City Council represents these people? No one.

Yeah,yeah, yeah, I have heard the trite expression, "science is not a democracy," a million times , But the New Orleans City Council is supposed to represent a democracy.

The supercilious trolls here will of course applaud this action. But suppressing reasonable scientific criticisms of evolution is extremely anti-science. and anti-intellectual. Being forced to confront these criticisms enhances our understanding of evolution and biology in general. If these criticisms raise doubts of the validity of evolution theory, well,that's too bad, isn't it? People who think that evolution theory has no weaknesses are not inclined to seek such weaknesses or study them. Consider co-evolution, for example. Many people just dismiss it as mere "mutual evolutionary pressure," presenting no special problems. But these people don't understand co-evolution at all. The articles in this blog's two post label groups on Non--ID Criticisms of Evolution (see left sidebar) show that co-evolution is much more complicated than this.

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Are scientists and scientific societies "protestng too much" against "critical analysis"laws ?

The NCSE website says,

Support for the effort to repeal Louisiana's antievolution law is mounting. The American Institute for Biological Sciences, the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, the American Society for Cell Biology, the Louisiana Association of Biology Educators, the Louisiana Science Teachers Association, the National Association of Biology Teachers, and the Society for the Study of Evolution together with the Society of Systematic Biologists and the American Society of Naturalists have all endorsed Louisiana's Senate Bill 70, which if enacted would repeal Louisiana Revised Statutes 17.285.1, which implemented the so-called Louisiana Science Education Act of 2008

Additionally, the Repeal Creationism website — run by Zack Kopplin, the Baton Rouge high school student who is spearheading the repeal effort — now lists the endorsement of a number of prominent scientists and educators: Francisco Ayala, Niles Eldredge, Susan Epperson (the plaintiff in the 1968 Supreme Court case Epperson v. Arkansas, which established the unconstitutionality of bans on teaching evolution), Paul R. Gross, Lawrence S. Lerner, Kenneth R. Miller, Neil Shubin, John Sulston (the forty-third Nobel laureate to support the repeal effort), and Tim White.

Certainly many laypeople must think that the real reason for scientists' opposition to these "critical analysis" laws is a belief that many scientific arguments against evolution are good, not a fear of the introduction of religious ideas into science classrooms. Those fears are adequately addressed by disclaimers in the laws. This opposition to these laws is creating a backlash of heightened public distrust of scientists.

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Why isn't heliocentrism as controversial as evolution?

There are two reasons--(1)heliocentrism is far more credible than evolution; (2)heliocentrism is based on what is seen to be happening now, whereas evolution theory is mostly based on circumstantial evidence of events that no one was here to witness.

And we can forget about the flat earth theory, a popular Darwinist straw man -- this has been exposed as a gigantic hoax.[1][2 ]

Awake! magazine, published by Jehovah's Witnesses --often critcizes evolution theory , but the criticisms I have seen there were mostly based on science -- usually incredulity that evolution could produce things of such great complexity or sophistication. In fact, there is a regular column titled, "Was It Designed?" I never saw the following arguments against evolution: (1)that it is wrong solely because it conflicts with the Bible ( though Awake! might incidentally point out that the theory conflicts with the Bible) ; or(2)no one was here to see evolution take place.

Darwinists' insistence that religion is the only reason for questioning evolution theory is very disingenuous.

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Is evolution theory science -- or a worldview?

The NCSE website says,

NCSE is pleased to offer a free preview (PDF) of Christopher Wills's The Darwinian Tourist: Viewing the World Through Evolutionary Eyes (Oxford University Press, 2010). The excerpt, chapter 1, takes a dive in Indonesia's Lembeh Strait as the chance to introduce the concept of common descent. Wills writes, "Surely no two organisms could be more dissimilar than the ingenious and graceful water-breathing cuttlefish and its clumsy air-gulping human observer. But in fact, even though present-day cuttlefish are expert shape-shifters and we are not, we had a common ancestor. And, at the time of that common ancestor, a far more astonishing shape-shift took place, one that had enormous evolutionary consequences."

WHAT? "A far more astonishing shape-shift"? I thought.that Darwinists believed that evolution was gradual.

The NCSE continues,

The publisher writes, "In The Darwinian Tourist, biologist Christopher Wills takes us on a series of adventures — exciting in their own right — that demonstrate how ecology and evolution have interacted to create the world we live in. ... With his own stunning color photographs of the wildlife he discovered on his travels, Wills not only takes us to these far-off places but, more important, draws out the evolutionary stories behind the wildlife and shows how our understanding of the living world can be deepened by a Darwinian perspective. ... The reader comes away with a renewed sense of wonder about the world's astounding diversity, along with a new appreciation of the long evolutionary history that has led to the wonders of the present-day."

Darwinists are always talking about how evolution theory enhances their wonder at nature and their belief in God (for those of them who believe in God). But believing that living thing are too complex to have evolved can have the same effects! Also, "our understanding of the living world" can also be "deepened" by criticisms of evolution theory.

Also, it is amazing that Darwinists can talk so casually and matter-of-factly about things that are very controversial. Also, Darwinists often talk about evolution theory with a fervor resembling that of bible pounding, holy rolling evangelists.

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