Sorrells' Commentary
This is my page to pontificate.
*July 16, 2006
As I construct this website, so many thoughts come to mind about the origin issues and their proper place in respect to both religion and science. Along the way, I’ve have concluded the evidence presented concerning aging of life, earth and universe places more than sufficient doubt as to the validity of current theories and techniques. What most of the people I work with are concerned with this – that our children may be turned away from God in the inferences possible from a strict evolutionary teaching. We belive that our children must know that their existence is much more than only random chance, that this prevailing theory has identified flaws, constraints if you will. It is not fact. Teachers must be charged with provide examples of this. If this minimum does not occur, then our children are being led astray from their God by our public school system.
I've read stories, testimonies of people now theists, who finished teir schooling no believe in or love for God. Only through His gentle revealing hands did they come fully around, all I believe becoming Christians.
By leaving the revised standards in place enables children to recognize that in all the four of the major origins (man, life, earth, universe), these are only theories that actually spin through a myriad of disputed assumptions. Science has not yet found the truth.
This is the best that can be done now. The current standards are very weak in that. Less than half of the 7 or so affected standards had statements identifying specific constraints or cautions. The document is still very evolutionary ‘friendly’, much more so to my taste at this time. I see nothing wrong with them except that. We should move on.
I’m in the 9th Board district, got Brad Patzer, Jana Shaver and Kent Runyan running for the seat. I’m for Brad. He states that will keep the standards in place as is and truly move on. That is the major issue for me, although I'd keep Bob Corkins on longer, I think there are benefits associated with not having a full educational pedigree in terms of vision, operations and fiscal responsibility. Let the good man endure another year or so with his not-very-friendly press. The other issue for me is Brad's position on accountability. I very much want a standardized and an understandable account reports of revenues and expenditures through all of the local school districts.
Jana’s postcard of the “Gobbler of Fire” does not raise the same feeling of confidence. Take back Kansas? From what? Has she read the standards? What is offensive to her? Where is Intelligent Design in the Standards? And “Anti-Sex Stance”??? Because the Board wants parents involved?
Her card is titled: “Take Back Kansas”. From who? Little Iris Van Meter? Are we to assume she was dealing cards under the deck? This is a call to one's emotions, not their reason.
So I’m going to ask a few questions and I’ll cover then here as well as under District 9 Election. Will you vote to keep the standards or will you press for yet another revision? For either reason, give me your reasons why. I’ll send the questions email and post them with the date they are returned. I’ll allow the candidates to provide more comments as they desire after their initial reply.
*July 24, 2006
The recent articles I’ve posted in Media – Related Articles on Gawis cranium are disturbing. I ran a search on this as a keyword for over 300 hits and found only one that had some skepticism that this may be the “missing link”. Almost all of the hits were duplicates of the standard press release. There are questions about the ‘facts’ missing about this discovery that need to be answered. Without dealing with them, the inference reached can not stand up to validation.
First, the age of the skull is reported to be perhaps determined by two methods: radioactive 40Ar/39Ar method, and matched to correlative dated layers, but these methods are not explicitly attributed to the skull itself only the area in which it was found. Additionally, radioactive aging of fossils is still disputed.
Secondly, the skull was reported found “in a small gully at the base of a steep slope of soft sediments from which it had recently eroded”. So how would anyone know what sediment layer(s) it came from? How could there be certainty that the primitive tools found nearby came from the same strata?
As Peter Line notes, “It has to be understood that the interpretation of the fossil specimen is heavily biased according to the researchers’ framework, which in nearly all cases is evolutionary.”
Yet here we have a spew of articles in basic agreement that macroevolution is being validated with this discovery with almost no criticism and no substantiating facts.
The evolutionists know that their theory is still under debate. Why do they allow such releases to infer fact with so little evidence, without validating statements? Why is the media so willing to publish reports like this without either asking that all the specifics be given or noting the lack thereof?
If we continue thusly in our society, our people will be inclined to operate under a false paradigm that macroevolution is true. If true, then by inference decide that there is no God. If no God, then ultimately no higher moral law that we are to live by.
The theories of origins must not be given a free ride. The agenda is pushed by a well-compensated cadre of scientists who should rigorously apply the tenants of science testing for every assertion that they make public. If they do not, they degrade their profession and lead the laymen and laywomen astray.