By Ben Stein on 2.20.08 @ 12:08AM
No other suppositions about our origins would have been allowed.
Just a few tiny, insignificant little questions.
* How did the universe start?
* Where did matter come from?
* Where did energy come from?
* Where did the laws of motion, thermodynamics, physics,
chemistry, come from?
* Where did gravity come from?
* How did inorganic matter, that is, lifeless matter such as
dirt and rocks, become living beings?
* Has anyone ever observed beyond doubt the evolution of a new
mammalian or aviary species, as opposed to changes within a
species?
These teeny weeny little questions are just some of the issues
as to which Darwin and Darwinism have absolutely no verifiable
answers. Hypotheses.
Yes. Guesses. Yes. Proof? None.
To my little pea brain, these are some pretty big issues about
evolution, the origins of life, and genetics that Darwinism cannot
answer. Now, to be fair, does anyone else have verifiable answers
either? Not as far as I know.
But if there are no answers that can be reproduced in the
laboratory, isn't any theory about them a hypothesis or a guess?
Isn't any hypothesis worth thinking about? And aren't these immense
questions?
Yet the state of Florida, the glorious Sunshine State, was (I am
told), until recently, considering legislation that would make it
illegal to allow teachers or students in public schools to discuss
any hypothesis about origins of life or the universe except that it
all happened by accident without any prime mover or first cause or
designer -- allowing only, again, the hypothesis, which is
considered Darwinian, that it all started by, well, by, something
that Darwin never even mentioned.
That is, the state of Florida was considering mandating that
only Darwinian-type suppositions can be allowed about scientific
subjects that Darwin never studied. (This is not to mention that we
know now that Darwin was wildly wrong about some subjects such as
genetics, and, again, although he wrote about the evolution of
species, never observed an entirely new species evolve.)
This was beyond Stalinism. Stalinism decreed that only
Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin knew all the answers, but it did not say
that subjects they never mentioned could only be studied if the
student guessed at what they might have said. The proposed law in
the state of Florida was an anti-knowledge, anti-freedom of inquiry
law on a scale such as has rarely been encountered. Maybe in Pol
Pot's Kampuchea there were such laws, but they have been unknown in
the USA until now.
By an incredible miracle of good sense, at the last minute, the
state of Florida changed the proposed regulations. They backed off
powerfully saying that only Darwinism could possibly make sense and
said they would allow discussion of differing theories about the
origins of life. That's the current proposal as I write this on the
afternoon of the 19th of February.
I suspect the now omitted proposals would have been
unconstitutional in any event (although this always depends on the
court you ask). Freedom of inquiry is part of freedom of speech.
That is basic. That is what America is all about. Whatever the
proposed -- now discarded -- regulations were, they have nothing to
do with freedom, very little to do with science, and not even much
to do with Darwin, who had a lot more respect for freedom of
thought than his henchmen in Florida apparently do.
topics:
Constitution, Law, Energy
