The fossil record shows that evolution never happened

[Eliyahu]

Bs'd


Stasis, or non-change, of most fossil species during their lengthy geological lifespans was tacitly acknowledged by all paleontologists, but almost never studied explicitly because prevailing theory treated stasis as uninteresting nonevidence for nonevolution. .... The overwhelming prevalence of stasis became an embarrassing feature of the fossil record, best left ignored as a manifestation of nothing (that is, non-evolution)."

Gould, Stephen J., "Cordelia's Dilemma," Natural History, 1993, p. 15

Stephen J Gould was on of the most well known evolutionists and the inventor of the punctuated equilibrium theory, and professor geology en zoology at Harvard university.


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"Paleontologists just were not seeing the expected changes in their fossils as they pursued them up through the rock record. ... That individual kinds of fossils remain recognizably the same throughout the length of their occurrence in the fossil record had been known to paleontologists long before Darwin published his Origin. Darwin himself, .... prophesied that future generations of paleontologists would fill in these gaps by diligent search .... One hundred and twenty years of paleontological research later, it has become abundantly clear that the fossil record will not confirm this part of Darwin's predictions. Nor is the problem a miserly fossil record. The fossil record simply shows that this prediction is wrong.

The observation that species are amazingly conservative and static entities throughout long periods of time has all the qualities of the emperor's new clothes: everyone knew it but preferred to ignore it. Paleontologists, faced with a recalcitrant record obstinately refusing to yield Darwin's predicted pattern, simply looked the other way."

Eldredge, N. and Tattersall, I., The Myths of Human Evolution, 1982, p. 45-46
Niles Eldredge is an evolutionist en co-inventor of the punctuated equilibrium theory


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"Paleontologists have paid an enormous price for Darwin's argument. We fancy ourselves as the only true students of life's history, yet to preserve our favored account of evolution by natural selection we view our data as so bad that we almost never see the very process we profess to study. .... The history of most fossil species includes two features particularly inconsistent with gradualism:
1. Stasis. Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking much the same as when they disappear; morphological change is usually limited and directionless.
2. Sudden appearance. In any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and 'fully formed."

Gould, Stephen J. The Panda's Thumb, 1980, p. 181-182

Stephen J Gould was on of the most well known evolutionists and the inventor of the punctuated equilibrium theory, and professor geology en zoology at Harvard university.



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".... we have proffered a collective tacit acceptance of the story of gradual adaptive change, a story that strengthened and became even more entrenched as the synthesis took hold. We paleontologists have said that the history of life supports that interpretation, all the while really knowing that it does not."

Eldredge, Niles "Time Frames: The Rethinking of Darwinian Evolution and the Theory of Punctuated Equilibria," Simon & Schuster: New York NY, 1985, p. 44


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"The fossil record flatly fails to substantiate this expectation of finely graded change."

Eldredge, N. and Tattersall, I., The Myths of Human Evolution, 1982, p. 163


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"Given that evolution, according to Darwin, was in a continual state of motion .... it followed logically that the fossil record should be rife with examples of transitional forms leading from the less to more evolved. .... Instead of filling the gaps in the fossil record with so-called missing links, most paleontologists found themselves facing a situation in which there were only gaps in the fossil record, with no evidence of transformational evolutionary intermediates between documented fossil species."

Schwartz, Jeffrey H., Sudden Origins, 1999, p. 89.

Schwartz, Jeffrey H is professor anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh and also evolutionist, writer of boek about evolution: Sudden Origins, a provocative new theory on how evolution works by sudden leaps and bounds:
http://www.post-gazette.com/books/revie ... iew395.asp


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"Species that were once thought to have turned into others have been found to overlap in time with these alleged descendants. In fact, the fossil record does not convincingly document a single transition from one species to another."

Stanley, S.M., The New Evolutionary Timetable: Fossils, Genes, and the Origin of Species, 1981, p. 95, speaking about the Bighorn basin in Wyoming USA.

S.M. Stanley is an American paleontologist and evolutionary biologist at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
He wrote many articles, also together with Niles Eldredge, de co-inventor of the punctuated equilibrium theory.
One of his articles is Paleontology and earth system history in the new millennium which has been published in Geological Society of America
For more info about prof Stanley look here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_M._Stanley


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"The Eldredge-Gould concept of punctuated equilibria has gained wide acceptance among paleontologists. It attempts to account for the following paradox: Within continuously sampled lineages, one rarely finds the gradual morphological trends predicted by Darwinian evolution; rather, change occurs with the sudden appearance of new, well-differentiated species. Eldredge and Gould equate such appearances with speciation, although the details of these events are not preserved. .... The punctuated equilibrium model has been widely accepted, not because it has a compelling theoretical basis but because it appears to resolve a dilemma. Apart from the obvious sampling problems inherent to the observations that stimulated the model, and apart from its intrinsic circularity (one could argue that speciation can occur only when phyletic change is rapid, not vice versa), the model is more ad hoc explanation than theory, and it rests on shaky ground."

Ricklefs, Robert E., "Paleontologists Confronting Macroevolution," Science, vol. 199, 1978, p. 59

Robert E Ricklefs is an evolutionist and professor biology at the University of Missouri te St. Louis:
http://www.umsl.edu/~ricklefs


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"Paleontologists are traditionally famous (or infamous) for reconstructing whole animals from the debris of death. Mostly they cheat. .... If any event in life's history resembles man's creation myths, it is this sudden diversification of marine life when multicellular organisms took over as the dominant actors in ecology and evolution. Baffling (and embarrassing) to Darwin, this event still dazzles us and stands as a major biological revolution on a par with the invention of self-replication and the origin of the eukaryotic cell. The animal phyla emerged out of the Precambrian mists with most of the attributes of their modern descendants."

Bengtson, Stefan, "The Solution to a Jigsaw Puzzle," Nature, vol. 345 (June 28, 1990), p. 765-766

Stefan Bengtson is an evolutionist en head curator of the Swedish museum of natural history in Stockholm Zweden.
For more info about S. Bentson look here http://palaeo-electronica.org/staff/stefan.htm


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"Modern multicellular animals make their first uncontested appearance in the fossil record some 570 million years ago - and with a bang, not a protracted crescendo. This Cambrian explosion marks the advent (at least into direct evidence) of virtually all major groups of modern animals - and all within the minuscule span, geologically speaking, of a few million years."

Gould, Stephen J., Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History, 1989, p. 23-24

Stephen J Gould was on of the most well known evolutionists and the inventor of the punctuated equilibrium theory, and professor geology en zoology at Harvard university.


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"The record jumps, and all the evidence shows that the record is real: the gaps we see reflect real events in lifes history - not the artifact of a poor fossil record."

Eldredge, N. and Tattersall, I., The Myths of Human Evolution, 1982, p. 59

Niles Eldredge is an evolutionist en co-inventor of the punctuated equilibrium theory


*********************************


"The fossil record itself provided no documentation of continuity - of gradual transition from one animal or plant to another of quite different form."

Stanley, S.M., The New Evolutionary Timetable: Fossils, Genes and the Origin of Species, 1981, p. 40

S.M. Stanley is an American professor, paleontologist, and evolutionary biologist at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. For most of his career he taught geology at Johns Hopkins University (1969-2005) He is best known for his empirical research documenting the evolutionary process of punctuated equilibrium in the fossil record.
He wrote many articles, also together with Niles Eldredge, de co-inventor of the punctuated equilibrium theory.
For more info about prof Stanley look here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_M._Stanley


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"The absence of fossil evidence for intermediary stages between major transitions in organic design, indeed our inability, even in our imagination, to construct functional intermediates in many cases, has been a persistent and nagging problem for gradualistic accounts of evolution."

Gould, Stephen J., "Is a New and General Theory of Evolution Emerging?," 1982, p. 140

Stephen J Gould was on of the most well known evolutionists and the inventor of the punctuated equilibrium theory, and professor geology en zoology at Harvard university.


*********************************


"Gaps between higher taxonomic levels are general and large."

Raff R.A, and Kaufman, T.C., Embryos, Genes, and Evolution: The Developmental-Genetic Basis of Evolutionary Change, 1991, p. 35

"The lack of ancestral or intermediate forms between fossil species is not a bizarre peculiarity of early metazoan history. Gaps are general and prevalent throughout the fossil record."

Raff R.A, and Kaufman, T.C., Embryos, Genes, and Evolution: The Developmental-Genetic Basis of Evolutionary Change, 1991, p. 34

Rudolf A Raff is an evolutionist en professor biology at the Indiana University in Bloomingdale, Indiana, USA, and also Director"Institute for Molecular and Cellular Biology, Distinguished Professor, Adjunct Professor of History and Philosophy of Science.
More info about prof Raff can be found here: http://newsinfo.iu.edu/sb/page/normal/608.html


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"The known fossil record is not, and never has been, in accord with gradualism. What is remarkable is that, through a variety of historical circumstances, even the history of opposition has been obscured .... The majority of paleontologists felt their evidence simply contradicted Darwins stress on minute, slow, and cumulative changes leading to species transformation. .... their story has been suppressed."

Stanley, S.M., The New Evolutionary Timetable, 1981, p. 71

S.M. Stanley is an evolutionist and professor at the John Hopkins university in Baltimore.
He wrote many articles, also together with Niles Eldredge, de co-inventor of the punctuated equilibrium theory.
One of his articles is Paleontology and earth system history in the new millennium which has been published in Geological Society of America
For more info about prof Stanley look here: http://www.jhu.edu/~eps/faculty/stanley ... l#research


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"In spite of these examples, it remains true, as every paleontologist knows, that most new species, genera, and families, and that nearly all new categories above the level of families, appear in the record suddenly and are not led up to by known, gradual, completely continuous transitional sequences."

Simpson, George Gaylord, The Major Features of Evolution, 1953, p. 360

Simpson George Gaylord is anevolutionist and professor paleontologie in Columbia and Harvard.


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"Paleontologists had long been aware of a seeming contradiction between Darwins postulate of gradualism .... and the actual findings of paleontology. Following phyletic lines through time seemed to reveal only minimal gradual changes but no clear evidence for any change of a species into a different genus or for the gradual origin of an evolutionary novelty. Anything truly novel always seemed to appear quite abruptly in the fossil record."

Mayr, E., One Long Argument: Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Modern Evolutionary Thought, 1991, p. 138

Ernst Mayer was one of the leading evolutionistic biologists of the 20th century, see here: http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Ernst_Mayr


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"The record certainly did not reveal gradual transformations of structure in the course of time.
On the contrary, it showed that species generally remained constant throughout their history. New types or classes seemed to appear fully formed, with no sign of an evolutionary trend by which they could have emerged from an earlier type."

Bowler, Evolution: The History of an Idea, 1984, p. 187

Peter J. Bowler, a scholar of Darwin and evolution, is a prolific author and professor of the history and philosophy of science at Queens University of Belfast.
http://www.americanscientist.org/author ... ter-bowler


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"The paleontological data is consistent with the view that all of the currently recognized phyla had evolved by about 525 Ma. Despite half a billion years of evolutionary exploration generated in Cambrian time, no new phylum level designs have appeared since then."

"Developmental Evolution of Metazoan Body plans: The Fossil Evidence," Valentine, Erwin, and Jablonski, Developmental Biology 173, Article No. 0033, 1996, p. 376


*********************************


"Chicago Field Museum, Prof. of Geology, Univ. of Chicago, "A large number of well-trained scientists outside of evolutionary biology and paleontology have unfortunately gotten the idea that the fossil record is far more Darwinian than it is. This probably comes from the oversimplification inevitable in secondary sources: low-level textbooks, semi-popular articles, and so on. Also, there is probably some wishful thinking involved. In the years after Darwin, his advocates hoped to find predictable progressions. In general, these have not been found yet the optimism has died hard, and some pure fantasy has crept into textbooks .... One of the ironies of the creation evolution debate is that the creationists have accepted the mistaken notion that the fossil record shows a detailed and orderly progression and they have gone to great lengths to accommodate this 'fact' in their Flood."

Raup, David, "Geology" New Scientist, Vol. 90, p.832,1981

David Raub is an evolutionist, and professor emeritus (former Sewell L. Avery Distinguished Service Professor) in Geophysical Sciences and former curator Geology at the Field Museum of Natural History at the University van Chicago. See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_M._Raup


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"A major problem in proving the theory (of evolution) has been the fossil record; the imprints of vanished species preserved in the Earth's geological formations. This record has never revealed traces of Darwin's hypothetical intermediate variants instead species appear and disappear abruptly, and this anomaly has fueled the creationist argument that each species was created by God."

Czarnecki, Mark, "The Revival of the Creationist Crusade", MacLean's, January 19, 1981, p. 56
Czarnecki Mark is an evolutionist and a paleontologist.
.

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"It is as though they [fossils] were just planted there, without any evolutionary history. Needless to say this appearance of sudden planting has delighted creationists. .... Both schools of thought (Punctuationists and Gradualists) despise so-called scientific creationists equally, and both agree that the major gaps are real, that they are true imperfections in the fossil record. The only alternative explanation of the sudden appearance of so many complex animal types in the Cambrian era is divine creation and (we) both reject this alternative."

Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker London: W.W. Norton & Company, 1987, p. 229.

Richard Dawkins is very well known evolutionist en author and professor zoology at the Oxford university.


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"All paleontologists know that the fossil record contains precious little in the way of intermediate forms; transitions between major groups are characteristically abrupt. Gradualists usually extract themselves from this dilemma by invoking the extreme imperfection of the fossil record."

Gould, Stephen J. The Panda's Thumb, 1980, p.189

Stephen J Gould was on of the most well known evolutionists and the inventor of the punctuated equilibrium theory, and professor geology en zoology at Harvard university.


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"Instead of finding the gradual unfolding of life, what geologists of Darwins time, and geologists of the present day actually find is a highly uneven or jerky record; that is, species appear in the sequence very suddenly, show little or no change during their existence in the record, then abruptly go out of the record. and it is not always clear, in fact its rarely clear, that the descendants were actually better adapted than their predecessors. In other words, biological improvement is hard to find."

Raup, David M., "Conflicts Between Darwin and Paleontology," Bulletin, Field Museum of Natural History, vol. 50, 1979, p. 23

David Raub is an evolutionist, and professor emeritus (former Sewell L. Avery Distinguished Service Professor) in Geophysical Sciences and former curator Geology at the Field Museum of Natural History at the University van Chicago. See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_M._Raup


*********************************************************


"But just in proportion as this process of extermination has acted on an enormous scale, so must the number of intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed on the earth, be truly enormous. Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely-graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against my theory. The explanation lies, as I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the geological record."

Charles Darwin, Origin of Species

[dianaiad]

...

That is a Creationist. We should all try to get them to stop following stupid ideas, for all our sake.

Why?

I mean, really....why? You yourself have stated that there are few young earth literal biblical creationists in the sciences; therefore they can't really affect what science does. We may want to convince them for their sakes, but they aren't hurting me any.

Indeed, they are kinda fun, and as an online teacher myself who works with homeschoolers (many of whom are children of just such literal biblical creationists) I have some fun being subversive. Oh, not obnoxiously so, and not without their parents permission, but, well....can I help it if the site I send them to to learn about reading comprehension is full of articles about geologic processes, tectonic plates and Pangea?

Bad Diana, Bad....

Wouldn't you want to know if you believed something totally ridiculous - and didn't even study the subject?

Well, I don't try to pretend that I know all about a topic I haven't studied, so, no. I'd think you were being obnoxious.

Just sayin'

Imagine you having all kinds of opinions about the proper way of balancing a corporate ledger, or provide brain surgery - but you studied neither?

Actually, I don't mind people having all sorts of wild notions about topics they actually know nothing about, as long as they don't have the authority to make me act as if they were right.

You know, like forcing me to participate in a religious event that I disagree with because they don't think that my beliefs are as important as theirs? That sort of thing.

That is a Creationist. They offer NOTHING to humanity, except as an example of how one can be so utterly un-creative.

They offer entertainment value. C'mon...we made it to the moon, have launched telescopes that have found planets, and are about to turn the space program over to private enterprise, all because of people right here where I live, in the same geographical area that spawned the Flat Earth Society.

We'll be fine.

[help3434]

[Replying to post 29 by dianaiad]

Some Catholics are creationists. The founder of Conservapedia is Catholic.

[help3434]

Can you accept the simple fact that the fossil record shows the opposite of evolution, namely sudden appearance of new species without any link to supposed predecessors, followed by stasis, non-change, for their whole stay in the fossil record?

The fossil record hints at what the genetic research and direct observation proves beyond all reasonable doubt: Evolution. I'm not going to debate the FACT of evolution with you for the same reason that I will not debate the fact that 2+2=4. You are welcome to disbelieve evolution for the same stupid reason that you might disbelieve that 2+2=4. In fact, I welcome it, and I hope you do so. The more god believers that believe ridiculous things, the better it is for me and other nonbelievers who know and understand the facts as they are. Please continue exactly as you are, now. I beg you. It helps our side, your opponents. And I thank you.

Speak for yourself. I am not a believer in God, and I don't think that this is better for anyone.

[Ooberman]

We'll be fine.

What's that quote about good people doing nothing?

The point is, it's wrong. It's not a true account of how the world works, and it seems reasonable to promote true things over false ones, particularly if they are harming us.

The question is: Is Creationism harming us?

I believe it is. It seems axiomatic that if Creationists were inspiring young people to pursue true things instead of false things, we'd have more true things to act on.

Understanding Evolution has led to scientific breakthroughs that have saved lives.

Understanding Creationism hasn't led to a darn thing... except more Creationists.

Clearly, a world in which there are 100% Creationists isn't Good.

Other than for your entertainment, can you think of why Creationism is good for society? And is your entertainment that important? Why?

[Danmark]

We'll be fine.

What's that quote about good people doing nothing?

The point is, it's wrong. It's not a true account of how the world works, and it seems reasonable to promote true things over false ones, particularly if they are harming us.

The question is: Is Creationism harming us?

I believe it is. It seems axiomatic that if Creationists were inspiring young people to pursue true things instead of false things, we'd have more true things to act on.

Understanding Evolution has led to scientific breakthroughs that have saved lives.

Understanding Creationism hasn't led to a darn thing... except more Creationists.

Clearly, a world in which there are 100% Creationists isn't Good.

Other than for your entertainment, can you think of why Creationism is good for society? And is your entertainment that important? Why?

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
__ Edmund Burke
Creationism itself is not evil in the usual sense, but the versions of it that defy the science of biological evolution certainly produce an evil result because it teaches false belief and a contempt for science. The 'Young Earthers' in particular damage young minds in many ways, starting with teaching students to first determine the conclusion, then set out to find ways to support it.

[dianaiad]

[Replying to post 29 by dianaiad]

Some Catholics are creationists. The founder of Conservapedia is Catholic.

Some Mormons are, too; it took Dad and I close to fifty years to change my mother's mind about that.

Still, the Catholic church's official stance is that it accepts evolution. Or perhaps more exactly, it's more for evolution than not, and there are more pro-evolution Catholic organizations (some founded by Catholic priests) than there are anti evolutionary groups.

You aren't going to be tried for heresy either way, though you might have a problem being a strict creationist Jesuit.

[dianaiad]

We'll be fine.

What's that quote about good people doing nothing?

that all depends upon what the 'something' contemplated is. It is more harmful to society to 'do something' that impacts freedom of speech and belief than it is to allow others to believe things we don't agree with.

Go ahead and talk and teach, persuade and argue; but I get rather nervous when the lawyers start talking.

The point is, it's wrong. It's not a true account of how the world works, and it seems reasonable to promote true things over false ones, particularly if they are harming us.

EXACTLY how is the homeschooling creationist Mom next door (whose kids will probably be more likely to get into a good university than the public school educated kids, belief in literal Creationism or not) harming you?

I mean, really? How is your life impacted or harmed by her beliefs?

The question is: Is Creationism harming us?

I believe it is. It seems axiomatic that if Creationists were inspiring young people to pursue true things instead of false things, we'd have more true things to act on.

Understanding Evolution has led to scientific breakthroughs that have saved lives.

Yes, and your Creationists weren't in on that...and didn't stop it, either.

Understanding Creationism hasn't led to a darn thing... except more Creationists.

Clearly, a world in which there are 100% Creationists isn't Good.

...and you are afraid that someone will come along and sue you into behaving as if you think Creationism is true, are you? Odd...

The shoe is entirely on the other foot, there. You realize this, right? The creationists, in general, aren't suing you, and when they do, they lose. I can't say the same for the folks who are suing theists for the crime of expressing THEIR beliefs.

Other than for your entertainment, can you think of why Creationism is good for society? And is your entertainment that important? Why?

I didn't say that it was 'good for society,' though it may be; it's important for different points of view to be available. It's important to see that even positions that are extremely outside the norm are allowable. It is when such 'outside' opinions are not allowed that thinking gets stifled.

The irony is pretty rich, here. There is this argument that the church had such a stranglehold on science that it would slap down every scientist who came up with an idea that went against the common belief; certainly the church didn't like other religious opinions. There was no freedom of thought or expression. This is considered, historically, to be a very bad thing.

Yet the folks of the time thought it was just dandy, because of course it was permissible to prohibit ideas with which they did not agree; those rebels were wrong, stupid, dangerous, 'not good for society..."

And here y'all are, making the same arguments against people who hold positions with which you don't agree, acting exactly like the folks y'all so decried when it was the church in power.

I don't see any advantage to having 'science' be the arbitor of thought instead of the church, even when I agree with 'science.' It's just as scary for them to be in charge of the thought and belief police as it is for a specific religion to be.

Let the creationists alone. Celebrate the fact that they CAN speak and believe as they wish, because as long as they can, the rest of us can, too.

And that is far more important than any irritation you may feel because you think that they are wrong.

[Danmark]

We'll be fine.

What's that quote about good people doing nothing?

that all depends upon what the 'something' contemplated is. It is more harmful to society to 'do something' that impacts freedom of speech and belief than it is to allow others to believe things we don't agree with.

Go ahead and talk and teach, persuade and argue; but I get rather nervous when the lawyers start talking.

The point is, it's wrong. It's not a true account of how the world works, and it seems reasonable to promote true things over false ones, particularly if they are harming us.

EXACTLY how is the homeschooling creationist Mom next door (whose kids will probably be more likely to get into a good university than the public school educated kids, belief in literal Creationism or not) harming you?

I mean, really? How is your life impacted or harmed by her beliefs?

....
Naturally I can't speak for Ooberman, but I agree with the implication of what you are saying, that it is difficult or impossible to show how any one person is harmed by a single expression of a false belief I also agree that the part of the cost of free speech is the allowance of expression of beliefs both stupid and false.

I believe that false beliefs are inherently dangerous, even tho' I cannot always trace that proximate cause to a particular bad result. It is obvious that a false belief a bridge exists across a chasm will likely kill the believer who steps onto thin air in reliance on that belief. The harm other false beliefs cause may be more subtle and more difficult to prove.

But it is not so difficult to demonstrate that general damage done when students are led to believe science in general is not to be trusted, that science is a global conspiracy intent on attacking a literalistic view of the Bible.

Even tho' we cannot agree on what is a lie; even tho' we cannot demonstrate that any one particular lie causes a bad result; at least we can agree that teaching a lie is wrong, evil, a 'sin', or whatever other negative label you might want to put on it.

And can't we also agree that it is wrong to teach as 'true' facts which we have not fully investigated, or have been investigated with a highly biased approach?

[Ooberman]

Di, there is a vast difference with how the Church restricted verifiable information, and how science restricts unverifiable claims. You are being polemic for the sake of it, IMO.

The harm anti-science does to us as a culture has true consequences. You favor personal freedom over truth that would literally save personal freedom for some. This high and mighty fixation on individual freedom being sacrosanct is another conversation. This conversation can remain on topic without Republican-style fear-mongering.

The US trails industrial nations in scientific literacy. We have a number of social ills that can be helped by science literacy. Creationism is in direct opposition to science, yet you ask that it be considered in the marketplace of ideas, so much so that you see no problem that anti-science public officials are elected to counter science-based policy?

This is the real world: defend your position. Why would you allowea faith-based policy to trump a science-based policy, when the faith-based one could destroy individual freedom?

If you would say that policy should be evaluated by its impact on society, then this is a science claim - and you agree with me.

That homeschooling, creationist parent affects me because her and her children live in the same democracy as I do. They vote, and voting in America, and in free countries, means something.

Are we not our brothers keeper? Do you really have such low regard for democracy?

Of all personal freedoms, do you really prize forced teaching of ignorant ideas above all?
No one mentioned forcing people by policy, but ironically this is what you are calling for: for policies to allow parents to dumb-down their children and make our society weaker. Unless you are going to argue those children make excellent cannon fodder, but even then, cannon fodder can find its way home and vote.

Its a real world issue. There are Creationists in our government, voting against legislation that may save your life, or your childs. If you dont think anti-science affects all of us, youre not paying attention.

[Ooberman]

Here is a debate that is on topic:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/21/educa ... .html?_r=0