{"id":275,"date":"2007-09-06T07:12:33","date_gmt":"2007-09-06T11:12:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=275"},"modified":"2008-08-05T19:29:20","modified_gmt":"2008-08-05T23:29:20","slug":"fact-or-fiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=275","title":{"rendered":"Fact or fiction?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Daniel W. Jarvis writes a regular column for a Marco Island community newspaper. I stumbled across his most recent piece<\/a>, which announces that he will be poking evolution with a stick in his next few columns and promoting intelligent design. This first column doesn’t present much hope for the series as his arguments tend to wander around like a driver picking up random hitchhikers.<\/p>\n

First he tries to paint evolution as nothing more than a fictional artist representation of a few random bones. This immediately reveals that Jarvis doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t take evolution seriously enough to even do some basic research or reading before launching his attack. I would go so far as to say Jarvis doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t take science as a whole seriously. He wants the reader to think that a fictional TV program can be repackaged as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153fact\u00e2\u20ac\u009d just so long as a scientist does the narration. Heck, those man-monkeys are just fanciful creations blooming in some nutty artist\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mind. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure, though, that there are those who would disagree with that sentiment<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He apparently wants to plant the seed in his readers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 minds that evolution is nothing more than a special effects show put on by some mad scientists. I wonder what he thinks about educational programs that use recreations and artist representations to show the general public concepts in astronomy or ancient Egyptian history. Furthermore, Jarvis focuses on human evolution, leaving out all the rest of the planet\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life, past and present. This looks to be another attempt to play on the readers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 emotions akin to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153my grandpa was no monkey.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d And Jarvis decides to only\u00c2\u00a0mention a handful of bones, as if that’s all scientists have to go off of. Has Jarvis heard of something called a genome and all the research going on there? Maybe not.<\/p>\n

Jarvis admits that evolution is widely accepted, or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153trumpeted\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as he puts it, but he claims it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all just assumptions with no proven absolutes. Well, I hate to tell Jarvis this, but he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll have a hard time finding proven absolutes in all of science. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not the way science works, further showing Jarvis\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 lack of understanding, or caring for that matter. And the assumptions he might be referring to are not assumptions, but scientific theories. These theories are not just some wild guesses, but rather an attempt to solve a puzzle based on evidence. Jarvis has his own little straw man factory it would seem. Everything he has written so far has been a slipshod misrepresentation of reality.<\/p>\n

Jarvis is just getting warmed up. Next he hints at a conspiracy preventing teachers from daring to contradict evolution. Supposedly, these poor teachers have all sorts of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153hard evidence\u00e2\u20ac\u009d against evolution and risk getting fired should they dare to reveal it to those impressionable students. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Freedom and discovery are not tolerated,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he wrote. However, the reality is that if only this hard evidence went through the same research and peer review process that all other science goes through, then those teachers would not only be free to show it all to students, they would be told to do so. The thing is that public school students are taught established, sound science in order to build a foundation on which further interest and schooling can be built. The public school classroom is not the place to introduce goofy ideas that have no research behind them. Hard evidence? If Jarvis has some of that, I think a Nobel might be in his future.<\/p>\n

Finally, Jarvis reveals that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to bring to light evidence for intelligent design in future installments. Talk about \u00e2\u20ac\u0153artistically enhanced\u00e2\u20ac\u009d! This ought to be entertaining.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Daniel W. Jarvis writes a regular column for a Marco Island community newspaper. I stumbled across his most recent piece, which announces that he will be poking evolution with a stick in his next few columns and promoting intelligent design. … 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":[4],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcZNLl-4r","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":282,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=282","url_meta":{"origin":275,"position":0},"title":"Waiting for the evidence","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"September 18, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Daniel Jarvis\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 second installment in his series of articles about evolution and intelligent design is just as disappointing as his first. What sticks most in my mind is that he entitles this series \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Consider the evidence\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and yet he hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t presented any evidence. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an odd incongruity to say the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Analysis\/Commentary"","block_context":{"text":"Analysis\/Commentary","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=4"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":291,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=291","url_meta":{"origin":275,"position":1},"title":"Consider the evidence IV","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"October 18, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Daniel Jarvis stopped by this here FCS blog after one of our commenters noticed something screwy at The Marco Island Sun Times. Jarvis has been writing his Consider the Evidence series about evolution and intelligent design. (Our response to part one here, part two here, and part three here.) Strangely,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Analysis\/Commentary"","block_context":{"text":"Analysis\/Commentary","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=4"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":285,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=285","url_meta":{"origin":275,"position":2},"title":"Why, yes, I did gain some new information.","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"September 26, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Part III of Daniel Jarvis' series \"Consider the evidence,\" which takes on evolution and supports intelligent design,\u00c2\u00a0is up. My take on part one here and part two here. This article presents the \"no new information\" argument against evolution. Simply put, where did the information required for increasingly complex life forms\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Analysis\/Commentary"","block_context":{"text":"Analysis\/Commentary","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=4"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":420,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=420","url_meta":{"origin":275,"position":3},"title":"Minority Report","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"February 1, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Fred Cutting, a member of the framing committee who helped create the new draft of the state science standards, doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like how evolution is presented in the standards. (Previous posts about Cutting here and here.) Since he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s apparently not being heard by his fellow committee members, he decided to offer\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 2 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 2 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=420#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":577,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=577","url_meta":{"origin":275,"position":4},"title":"More articles trickle in","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"May 6, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The evolution bills that derailed in the Florida legislature recently are still drawing some attention. This column does a good job of addressing many of the anti-evolution arguments we heard during the legislative session. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s any point to passing laws that give teachers permission to do the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "\"Academic Freedom\" bills '08"","block_context":{"text":"\"Academic Freedom\" bills '08","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=23"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":167,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=167","url_meta":{"origin":275,"position":5},"title":"Interview with Wesley Elsberry","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"February 25, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I had written a college paper on the subject of introducing intelligent design into the public school classroom. For that paper I had to do some primary research, which involved either an interview with a subject expert or a survey. I opted for an interview and I chose Wesley Elsberry\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Analysis\/Commentary"","block_context":{"text":"Analysis\/Commentary","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=4"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275"}],"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=275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}