Defeating Darwinism Ch. 1 Emilio’s Letter Exordium: Eugenie Scott discussing the fight over evolution being taught in schools, “We’ve worked a lot with science education organizations. One of the most important groups (sic) we work with is members of the faith community, because the best kept secret in this controversy is that Catholics and main stream protestants are ok on evolution.” Expelled Film What did Emilio come to believe in this chapter? -grew up in a Christian home, believed in creation, -college made him rethink his beliefs -How long is a day? 24 hours or millions of years -God made the laws of nature and then retired, like a divine watchmaker -gave way to the realm of reason Comparison: How is his conclusion similar to the above quote? Where do you stand on evolution? Why? Definition: What is evolution? If we say it means change over time, does this idea change our view of evolution? What is intelligent design? Comparison: How are micro-evolution (small changes over time) and macroevolution (large changes over time) similar? Different? How is evolution different from adaptation? Circumstance: What was happening in the world when Charles Darwin published The Origin Of Species? Nov. 24, 1859 1861 Civil War, slavery, any other major things happening in the world? What came after the book was published? Relationship: Darwin is buried in Westminster Abbey in London. How could he maintain his faith while proposing his theory? Testimony: What impact did evolution have on the world? Can we believe in God and His description of creation and the theory of evolution? How? Why? Defeating Darwinism ch. 2. Inherit The Wind Exordium: “The doctrine that some known process of evolution turned a protozoan into a human is a philosophical assumption, not something that can be confirmed by experiment or by historical studies of the fossil record.” -Phillip Johnson DD, pg. 34 Vocabulary: fictionalized depiction bigot: a person who is prejudiced against any contradictory principle prosecutor: lawyer for the prosecution conformist: someone who goes along with the group sarcastic: makes unkind or nasty comments symbolism: using agreed upon numbers or symbols to bring meaning think ( · and, v or, ⊃) for logic symbols etc. preface: introduction to a book or story understatement: describing something less than it actually is ACLU/ American Civil Liberties Union: an organization whose stated mission is to defend individual rights and uses the legal or court system and education to try to encourage more liberal policies. oppressor: old guard: authority: “Owning the microphone”? having control over what the public gets to hear or not hear cross-examination: questioning in court of someone who isn’t on your sideusually to gain new information and makes your side look better. (Think hurts your opponent.) Definition: What was the purpose of the Scopes Trial? To gain fame for the state of Tennessee. What was the purpose of Inherit The Wind? Put evolution vs creationism on trial. What does “microphone man” mean? Comparison: How are the Scopes trial and the trial in Inherit The Wind similar? Different? How is microphone man different than our news castors now? Who decides what information gets out to the American public now? Circumstance: When newspapers, radio, and tv came out, news reporters reported the news? What are news shows or channels doing now? Can we see the unbiased reporting of news in our current day? Why? Why not? What happened to Danny Phillips? How is he like Emilio in chapter 1? How is he different? Do you remember what happened to Danny in Denver? Relationship: Please describe how you view the way “news” is presented now. Maybe play a news clip??? Inherit The Wind clip??? Testimony: Later this year we have an election…How do your parents decide who they will vote for? Party? Issues? Economy? Christian vs. non-Christian? How will you decide who to vote for? How do you decide what you believe? “Whether evolution is the subject, questioning whether the official story is true is enough to make you an enemy of education.” True or false? Is there a God who created us and cares about what we do? Defeating Darwinism chapter 3 Turning Up Your Baloney Detector Exordium: “A democratic education aims to produce citizens who can think for themselves.” -Phillip Johnson Pg. 48 Definition: 1. education 2. indoctrination 3. microevolution 4.macroevolution Comparison: How are education and indoctrination similar? Different? Are believers of evolution/creation indoctrinated? Which method produces a better citizen? Why? Are evolutionists interested in critical thinking? Why? Why not? What about creationists? How are microevolution and macroevolution similar? Different? Relationship: Are these two words related? Which are you getting education or indoctrination? Is there a relationship between education and religion? Indoctrination and religion? How can words with similar meanings trip its up when discussing microevolution/macroevolution? Circumstance: Are we allowed to think freely in science? Why/ why not? What kinds of “bologna” have your heard? Do they involve fallacies you have studied? Which ones? How does Sagan’s bluff force people to believe in evolution? What happens to those who “buck” the system? Testimony: How do you feel about the perception of the world when it comes to being a homeschooled student? Do you feel you have to defend your position? Should indoctrination be part of education? How do we prevent ourselves from being considered a fool when it comes to evolution-creationism? How can we use the ideas we have learned in logic to help us refute the fallacies/ ideas of evolution? Defeating Darwinism Chap. 4 A Real Education In Evolution Definition: What is the mechanism in evolution? What is philosophy? What is religion? What is a culture war? What is a transitional form? What is naturalism? What is Berra’s Blunder? Circumstance: What did people believe about our origins before evolution became widely presented? Have scientists been able to find these transitional forms? Where? What has the educational and legal authorities forced to be the focus of this cultural war? Who will ”win” the war? Why? Do scientists take a small sample and use that to support the larger theory of evolution? Is this honest “science”? What do we know? What don’t we know? Comparison: How are philosophy and religion similar? How are they different? Are animals and people similar in their embryonic forms? Are we allowed to honestly examine the ideas of creationism and evolution in our society? Why? Why not? Compare the statements: “Evolution is a fact.” and “Science and religion are separate realms”. Are they really separate realms? What makes you think that? How are “new” breeds of dogs different from an animal of one species becoming an animal of another species? Can adding more time change this process? If we compare the evolution of the Corvette to the evolution of animals, what do both require? What laws of nature would refute the creation of a new species? How doe the idea of evolution compare to the organization of a closet? Relationship: What might cause animals / people to appear similar in embryonic forms? What makes scientists successful in divorcing religion from philosophy? Can we separate what scientists assume and what they investigate? Testimony: How can we change the thought that evolution is a fact to evolution is a philosophy? Do the science textbooks authors try to have it both ways? How might we use the definitions of terms like microevolution and macroevolution stated clearly and consistently to keep the scientists “honest” and not change their meanings in the middle of a conversation? What fallacy tells us we can’t change the definition of a word in the middle of the argument? Who is easiest to fool? What door can the discussion of the problem of pain open? Is there a God who created us and cares about what we do? Defeating Darwinism Chp. 5 Intelligent Design Exordium: From Life’s A Joke pg. 106. By Dr. J. T. Dock Houk, Darwin on irreducible complexity, “Indeed, Darwin confided to a friend in a published letter that, ‘when I consider their complexity of the human eye, and stereoscopic vision, I sometimes fear that I have given my life to a fantasy.’ In my book “The Haymaker”, in which I suggest that governments all over the world are interested in teaching evolution as a fact to strengthen their “hold” on the people, and weaken their allegiance to the church, I publish this quotation above, and comment… “You’re right Darwin. You did give your life to fantasy. To say that the world evolved accidentally by natural selection is clearly, scientifically wrong. But…Lucky you. Everyone believed you.” Defeating Darwinism ch. 5 Definition: What is reductionism? idea everything can be reduced to its material base. What is natural selection? What is matter/information? What is a gene? What is gene selection theory? What is irreducibly complexity? Show Irreducible Complexity youtube or Chuck Missler youtube clip. https://youtu.be/NaVoGfSSSV8 https://youtu.be/O71iqMjU5fE Comparison: How are matter and information similar? How are they different? How are natural selection and irreducible complexity similar? How are they different? Can we have or be both? Why? Circumstance: If we see ourselves as the material we are reduced to, what impact would that have on believing we are created in the image of God? What did scientists believe about the complexity of the cell at the time Darwin lived? What do scientists believe now? Relationship: When people marry, are their genes choosing their mate? What role does God play in putting couples together? (If the idea is that animals don’t select each other, genes do.) What relationship do our genes have to making us be the way we are? Hobbies, interest, strengths and weaknesses. Testimony: By what authority are these ideas supported? Is it only evolutionary scientists or could some Christians also believe some of these ideas? What does God say? Are these ideas denying that God cares about us and what we do? How? Defeating Darwinism Ch.6 The Wedge Definition: What is a wedge? What does it mean to accommodate something? What is materialism? What is naturalism? Comparison: How are materialism and naturalism similar? How are they different? How does macroevolution exclude God from the creation of man? How does creationism include God in the creation of man? Circumstance: How do we use a wedge? Can we get hurt if we hit the wedge in the wrong place? Think chopping logs for firewood. Is the whole idea of evolution a denial of the sin nature we all carry inside us? What happens to someone who acknowledges they are a sinner? Does repentance follow? Can we use our logic skills to help evolutionary scientists see the failure of their own logic? Relationship: Does natural selection co-exist with naturalism? What relationship do they have? Friends/ enemies? If we accept the accommodation of microevolution, must we also accept the belief in macroevolution? How can we separate the two in the minds of scientists? Testimony: Why must these atheistic scientists push others to deny their belief in the God of the Bible? What does it mean to you to believe in the God of the Bible as your Creator? Can we encourage those who hold evolution as true to see their own sin and possibly acknowledge their own sin? Does the kindness of God lead to repentance? Defeating Darwinism Ch.7 Modernism- The Established Religion of the West Definition: What is an agnostic? What is an amino acid? What is evolutionary humanism? What is political correctness? Comparison: Compare pre 1960’s thought about God in our culture to the 1960’s culture’s ideas about God. What type of God were people beginning to rely upon? Is God a fact or a belief? Why? How is political correctness just as oppressive as “religion”? Circumstance: What was America like before Darwin published On The Origin Of Species as far as their belief in God? What was Americans’ attitude about God after the three events Johnson talked about in the late 1950’s through the 1960’s? Does making some act no longer sinful actually change it at all? Can you think of a time when man did away with the idea of something being a “sin” in the Bible? Relationship: How did taking the Bible out of public schools and later prayer out of public schools impact the culture in America? How were the 1960’s a pivotal point in the changes of social mores in America? What “moral” implications did we see? What social taboos went away? Testimony: Does this change how you answer the question, is there a God who created us and cares about what we do? Is it no longer important to show we all have a sin problem? Why? Why not? Can we demonstrate the forgiveness of God, if we leave “sin” out of our discussion? If our culture has traded one morality for another, can we reverse it, and trade the ungodly morality back to Godly morality? Defeating Darwinism Ch. 8 Stepping Off The Reservation Exordium: “Like it or not, our world is a market-place for good and bad ideas just as Athens was in Paul’s day.” Definition: Who was… Charles Templeton? Billy Graham? John Spong? What is good science? What is intellectual suicide? Comparison: How were these men similar? Different? Who was Jesus to each of these men? What events in each of their lives brought them to different conclusions? What did Spong want to happen to “save” Christianity? (Purge the supernatural elements so that the gospel message of love and generosity can be credible to modernist minds.) Circumstance: How did “we” as a culture go from “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God; or give thanks; but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.” Romans 1:20-23 to “Evolutionary biology is a field whose cultural importance far outstrips its modest intellectual and scientific content. Its sacred trust is to preserve the central, indispensable part of the modernist creation story, which is the explanation of how such things as life, complex organ systems and human minds could exist without a Creator to design and make them.” -Phillip Johnson pg. 113 Relationship: What was the early friendship of Billy Graham and Charles Templeton like? Testimony: Who really committed intellectual suicide? What was the outcome for Billy Graham? What was the outcome for Templeton? What is truth? ( Note: Some questions came from Hinkle, Kitty’s book Tips For Teens On Intelligent Design: Study Guide For Defeating Darwinism. I found the Kindle edition on amazon.com) Defeating Darwinism Blue Book essay Please choose one of the two options for your Defeating Darwinism essay. You may write your outline BEFORE community day _______. Please DO NOT write your essay before ________. I will give you your blue book to use week 10 and week 15. This is an open book, open outline essay. Tell me (or more importantly your parents) what you have learned from reading Defeating Darwinism. Please plan to have enough ideas or information to write for 20-30 minutes. 1. Are we creatures created in the image of God or are we products of naturalistic evolution? Choose an answer and defend it logically and persuasively by writing an essay expressing what you learned from the book Defeating Darwinism. You may use an outline and the book to support your thoughts. 2. Create an outline for your blue book essay about what you learned reading Defeating Darwinism. How was your worldview impacted? What ideas were exciting? What ideas were not as enlightening? Are there any people you want to be like in life? Are there any you don’t want to be like? Why? Tell me about how you may use these ideas to express your Christian faith to those around you.
