{"id":135,"date":"2007-01-11T07:12:00","date_gmt":"2007-01-11T11:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=135"},"modified":"2008-08-05T11:41:06","modified_gmt":"2008-08-05T15:41:06","slug":"staver-vs-ruse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=135","title":{"rendered":"Staver vs. Ruse"},"content":{"rendered":"

(edited: I feel sillly. It was just pointed out to me that this story was published back in 2005. Better late than never, eh?)<\/em> The Orlando Weekly has dueling interviews up in a story about intelligent design versus evolution<\/a>. First up from Orlando is the Liberty Counsel’s Mat Staver. Then Florida State University’s Michael Ruse steps up to the plate. It’s obvious that the article’s author, Jeffrey Billman, was standing on the side of real science, so this isn’t your typical unbiased news story. (You have to love it when an author can’t resist throwing in a mention of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.) But Billman does let Staver speak his piece. Staver uses the standard creationist playbook as he claims evolution is not good science, can’t be tested and that intelligent design deserves to be presented in the classroom. For instance:<\/p>\n

Staver:<\/strong> Evolution can’t be tested either. You can’t test either intelligent design or evolution. You can’t go back and replicate either one of them. And with that in mind, in the final analysis, whether it’s evolution or intelligent design or any other theory of the origin of the universe that you conclude, I think you have to ultimately approach the final step by faith.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

False. Evolution can and is constantly being tested<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Staver:<\/strong> Certainly evolution does not fall into the same category as the law of gravity and if it did, that would be a different story. But it doesn’t. \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 There are a lot of different questions by evolutionists themselves regarding missing links or the inability to explain a brand-new animal phylum in a strata that has no precursor.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Gotta love the whole missing link complaint<\/a>. Oh, and be careful of that gravity thing. I hear that it’s riddled with problems that can be better explained another way<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Staver:<\/strong> I think more and more scientists themselves are beginning to question Darwinian evolution, and in fact you have 52 Ohio scientists, 49 of which hold doctoral degrees, that recently in 2002 signed an affirmation that says where there are alternative scientific theories in the area of intelligent design \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 that students should be permitted to learn the evidence for and against them, and that science curriculums should encourage critical thinking of all these different ideas.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Was Steve on that list<\/a>?<\/p>\n

Ruse has a good time hammering intelligent design.<\/p>\n

Ruse:<\/strong> Well, let’s go back to intelligent design first. I think it’s religion, period. I mean, if you would judge it as science it wouldn’t be very good, but [that’s] like saying Marilyn Monroe is not a very good man. As far as I’m concerned, Marilyn Monroe isn’t a man, period. And I would want to say the same of intelligent design.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(edited: I feel sillly. It was just pointed out to me that this story was published back in 2005. Better late than never, eh?) The Orlando Weekly has dueling interviews up in a story about intelligent design versus evolution. First … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcZNLl-2b","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":338,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=338","url_meta":{"origin":135,"position":0},"title":"Miami Herald article","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"December 8, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The Miami Herald jumps into the fray over evolution in the Florida public schools science standards. The reporter writes a comprehensive piece on what is going on, the history of attacks on evolution education, and interviews quite a few people to try to display everyone's views on the subject. In\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "In the News"","block_context":{"text":"In the News","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":317,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=317","url_meta":{"origin":135,"position":1},"title":"Last night’s science standards meeting","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"November 16, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The Orlando Sentinel reports that several people attended last night's meeting in Orlando about the new draft science standards with the objective of promoting intelligent design and complaining about evolution. But several people who spoke Thursday urged state Department of Education officials to allow schools to teach intelligent design and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Our Science Standards"","block_context":{"text":"Our Science Standards","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":918,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=918","url_meta":{"origin":135,"position":2},"title":"Tonight in Jacksonville","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"February 24, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Florida Community College at Jacksonville offers a Scholars\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Roundtable with Michael Ruse, Ph.D., professor of Philosophy and Zoology at Florida State University. Subject: Evolution vs. Intelligent Design. 7 p.m. tonight at Florida Community College South Campus Nathan H. Wilson Center for the Arts 11901 Beach Blvd. Free and open to\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=918#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1262,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1262","url_meta":{"origin":135,"position":3},"title":"Newspapers not kind to antievolution bill so far","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"March 8, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The early news reports and blog posts about Senator Stephen Wise's antievolution bill (SB 1854) (and see my previous post) are not too kind to his repeated attempts to undermine science education. Orlando Sentinel columnist Mike Thomas has a blog post \"Groan ... evolution back on trial in the Legislature.\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "\"Critical Analysis\" bills '11"","block_context":{"text":"\"Critical Analysis\" bills '11","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=29"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2106,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2106","url_meta":{"origin":135,"position":4},"title":"Going Ape in the news","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"April 19, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"A story about me and my new book was published in the Daytona Beach News Journal today. The piece also features quotes from Florida Citizens for Science president Jonathan Smith and Florida Family Policy Council president John Stemberger. John Stemberger, president of the Orlando-based Florida Family Policy Council, said he\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 2 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 2 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2106#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":318,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=318","url_meta":{"origin":135,"position":5},"title":"Latest news story","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"November 17, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"TV station Bay News 9 ran a piece on the state science standards, choosing to make the story a dueling quotes war between FCS member Johnathan Smith and Polk County school board member Kay Fields. \"To me, just showing evolution is not fair to the students,\" Fields said. \"I am\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "In the News"","block_context":{"text":"In the News","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}