Freedom In the U.S. Vs Freedom In China

Who has the greater freedom of speach? Someone living in China or someone living in the U.S.?

Obviously it is the person in the America, right? We have much greater freedom here... or do we?

There is a Chinese paleontologist who travels around the world giving lectures in which he states that recent fossil finds in China are not consistent with the Darwinian theory of evolution. He says this because he has observed that the major animal groups appear abruptly in the rocks over a relatively short time. Darwin's therory predicts that they should evolve gradually from a common ancestor. When this conclusion upsets American scientists, he wryly comments: "In China we can criticize Darwin but not the government. In America you can criticize the government but not Darwin."

I don't claim the Chinese, in general, have more freedom of speach than American's do, but it is ironic that in China a professor can speak openly about Darwin being wrong. That's not allowed in America. To do anything that questions evolution can result in lose of tenure or even the lose of your job.

What for a movie called "Expelled, No Intelligence Allowed" that is coming out in April.

Creation vs Evolution Debate (Comments)

A person who calls himself TVL left a comment on a June 2006 post about Creation vs. Evolution Debate vidos. In my response I said that I would post photographs of ancient art that shows humans and dinosaurs together. All it would take is one piece of art, from 1000 years ago, showing a dinosaur and that would be proof that humans and dinosaurs lived together. But there is much more than just one, there are hundreds.

The art does not even have to show people and dinosaurs together, because:

1. Obviuosly there was a person there, because the person made the art.

2. If the art shows an accurate representation of a dinosaur (which it does), there is no other way for the artist to know what a dinosaur looked like unless he saw one, live and in-person. Ancient people did not dig bones out of the ground and try to assemble them into skeltons.

There is not just one or two paintings and carvings showing dinosaurs, there are thousands from many different cultures around they world. They show many different types of dinosaurs, and they show them correctly. That's something we have not always been able to do. For example, for many decades the brontosaurous was considered the largest dinosaur. But, scientists had the wrong head on this dinosaur. That mistake was recently corrected. However, ancient art unearthed nearly 100 years ago shows this dinosaur with the correct head.

What is shown in this post are two ica stones from Peru. The one above shows two people fighting with a dinosaur. The one in front of the dinosaur is attacking it with a spear. There is also a person behindthe dinosaur attacking it with an ax. This carving was made about 1000 years ago and buried as a part of a funeral.

Here is a second ica stone, also about 1000 years old, that clearly shows a different type of dinosaur.

In addition to ica stones, there is other art such as: a carving of a dinosaur in a Cambodian temple; Native America rock petrogliphs showing dinosaurs; tapistries showing dinosaurs; there is even a book from 16th century Europe, that catalogs all the animals existing at the time in Europe... and the catalog includes dinosaurs.

Dinosaurs are even mentioned about 40 times in the Bible.

To see ancient art showing dinosaurs visit: http://www.bible.ca/tracks/dino-art.htm.
This web site does not show very good web design skills, but it does have very good pictures.

Secret Emails - Following The Evidence Where It Leads

Secret Emails Reveal How ISU Faculty Plotted to Deny Distinguished Astronomer Tenure
ISU’s tenure process and official explanation in the Gonzalez case exposed as a sham.

Iowa State University faculty plotted to deny tenure to a distinguished astronomer, as revealed in private emails written by faculty and administrators at ISU.

Discovery Institute is making public a record of secret emails exchanged among faculty at Iowa State University about noted ISU astronomer Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez.

The emails demonstrate that a campaign was organized and conducted against Gonzalez by his colleagues, with the intent to deny him tenure because of views he holds on the intelligent design (ID) of the universe, expressed in his 2004 book The Privileged Planet. In spite of his distinguished publishing career, Gonzalez was denied tenure by ISU in the spring of 2007.

Faculty involved in the tenure decision were well aware of Gonzalez’s support for ID. More than one year before his tenure evaluation was scheduled, one ISU professor wrote an e-mail that left no doubt that Gonzalez’s tenure application would never receive a fair evaluation. "He will be up for tenure next year," wrote the professor. "And if he keeps up, it might be a hard sell to the department.

Contrary to his public statements, and those of ISU President Gregory Geoffroy, the chairman of ISU’s Department of Physics and Astronomy, Dr. Eli Rosenberg, stated in Dr. Gonzalez’s tenure dossier that Dr. Gonzalez’s support for intelligent design "disqualifies him from serving as a science educator."
Read the rest of the story here.

Intelligent Design Was the Issue After All: ISU’s official explanation in Gonzalez case exposed as a sham
Internal documents show Gonzalez was denied fair tenure process by hostile colleagues who plotted behind his back, suppressed evidence, and then misled the public.

This executive summary outlines the following and includes ISU faculty quotes from e-mails siezed in a public records request last spring.

A. The Campaign to Vilify Dr. Gonzalez and Induce Him to Leave ISU.
B. The Use of Intelligent Design as a Negative Factor in Tenure Deliberations.
C. The Effort to Evade the Law by Suppressing Evidence that Could Be Used in Court to Prove a Hostile Work Environment.
D. Private admissions that Dr. Gonzalez was denied academic freedom or otherwise mistreated.
E. The Cover-Up: Department Chair Eli Rosenberg’s Effort to Mislead the Public.
F. The Rejection of the Recommendations of the Outside Reviewers.
Read the rest of the story here.
Click here to download the summary as a PDF document.

How Eli Rosenberg, Chair of ISU’s Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, Concealed Viewpoint Discrimination When Explaining Tenure Denial
Tenure votes at the earliest levels are made by a faculty member’s department, and they typically set the tone for whether that faculty member will ultimately receive tenure. Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez was ... read the rest of the story here.

Secret ISU Faculty E-mails Express Disregard for Academic Freedom
Public document requests under Iowa's Open Records Act have obtained revealing correspondence of key faculty members within ISU's Department of Physics and Astronomy. Various e-mails show that ... read the rest of the story here.

Convergent Evolution / Homology

The following is from on a continuing discussion about evolution arising from a post dated July 1, 2006.

The comment showing there are scientific fields producing evidence for evolution was: "Comparative Anatomy: This shows the same skeletal elements in the forelimbs of humans, cats, whales, and bats, showing that all have some common ancestry. This is only one small example in this field."

You may be speaking about "convergent evolution" or about the theory of "homology." Both need to be discussed together.

Convergent evolution is when species without a close common ancestor have different looking structures which perform similar functions. The wings of a fly and the wings of a bird would be an example of this. Thus if living things have parts that function the same, but have different structures, it is a proof for evolution.

Homology states that, if there is the possibility of close common ancestor, similarities in structure are due to common ancestory. Similar looking structures evolved to accomplished very different tasks. Thus, if living things have parts that function differently, but have the same structures, it is proof for evolution. This is the option I believe you are talking about.

If we look at the complete picture, what we have is: that if things look the same, it is evidence for evolution. And if things look different, it is evidence for evolution. The problem is that the assumption that evolution is true underlies the conclusions.

If the initial assumption that evolution is true is removed (as should be done for a true scientific investigation) there is a third theory. That biological structures are similar because they were created by a common designer.

So which of these three, or combination of them, has evidence to support it?

If convergent evolution is true, then we should find lots of living things (and fossils of living things) with intermediate stages showing the evolution of stuctures as the environment forces them to change.

If homology is true, then we should find lots of living things (and fossils of living things) with intermediate stages leading back to a common ancestor.

If a common designer made all things, we should see similar structures in various living things. There would be no evidence of intermediate structures. If two living things performed similar functions, but were radically different (flies and birds) we could expect to see different structures. Again there would be no evidence of intermediate structures.

When we look at reality, what do we see? Stasis. We see living things with no evidence of the required change. We do see natural selection. For example, there is evidence that all dogs came from a common ancestor, a wolf. But dogs always create more dogs, nothing else. And the structure of dogs shows no sign of the changes required for convergent evolutiuon or homology. The observable evidence, what we can see and measure (reality), favors a common creator. Comparative anatomy provides evidence for a common creator, not for evolution.