The Evolution of Education

Religion deals with matters of the soul. Science deals with matters of what is tangible. Religion is Faith. Science is Reason. This is the widely accepted division between Science and Religion, the stereotypes, if you will. In the same way, the phrase Intelligent Design in the secular scientific community is not a phrase without meaning behind it. If you took a poll of 10 random people on the street who were untrained in any scientific field outside of what is taught in High School and asked them the question “What is Intelligent Design in regards to the Origin of Life?.” I would venture to guess that as many as 10 out of 10 would answer God is the Designer. This is to be expected as everyone knows that science has solved the origin of life problem in the form of Darwinian Evolution. At least that is what we are teaching our students in the classroom. Evolution is presented in such a way that the most important part of Evolution has slowly been removed, the word “Theory”. Secular society has been so adamant about separating church and state that they have extended that separation beyond the bounds of church and state. Any phrase that even suggests at something “churchy” automatically gets the religion tag and is considered unconstitutional. The facts are that in regards to the Origin of Life, the origin of you and me, there is no factual process that can be proven. There are only theories based on interpretations of scientifically collected data. The most prominent of these theories being the theory of evolution. Where Evolution struggles to provide logical explanations based on the evidence alone, a growing number of scientists are looking at alternative hypothesis. The Theory of Intelligent Design is one of these Hypotheses. To make it unlawful for our students to learn about alternate theories about the origin of themselves seems itself, to be unconstitutional. It is time to teach without bias and provide information for our students to draw their own conclusions. Teach them critical thinking, not group think.

To understand this conflict requires us to go back to the basics. We need to revisit the Scientific Method. The Scientific Method is a step by step process that is widely accepted as the way to test a hypothesis based on observations. Test those observations and analyze the results independent of bias and restructure the initial hypothesis. This cycle is the very core of what science is. Robert Prisq said the scientific method is good for “testing the truth of what you think you know.” This applies to everything. There is no exception for the Theory of Evolution despite what some teachers and curriculum writers would like us to believe.

To this point, you may be agreeing with what has been said because you see it as semantics over how the theory of evolution is perceived, perhaps. So, let’s look a little closer at a few situations in science that are at the center of this Intelligent Design vs. Evolution debate, and let you decide. The most common Icon of Evolution is the poster of the gradual evolution of man, from a chimpanzee to modern man. Everyone has seen it and knows it. A slouched over chimp slowly begins to walk erect over a series of transitional beings to the point where it is eventually fully upright and completely evolved as modern man. This process took place over millions of years. This is standard evolution. This is a fact. Or is it? Since this process took place over millions of years, the fossil record should have recorded hundreds if not thousands of transition specimens to demonstrate the power of Natural Selection. Natural Selection is the mechanism that drives Evolution. It is the process of random mutations creating a strategic advantage for the survival of the species in order to reproduce. So the evolution of man would slowly have the process of natural selection push towards modern man. This is not something that happens over one generation, but thousands of generations. So during these “transition” periods of thousands of generations, the fossil record should record a few of them to preserve for modern archeologists to piece together what an artist depicted in the famous drawing of the evolution of man. The problem is, the missing link is still missing. Not only have we not found thousands of these transition specimens, we have yet to verify one. Every time an archeologist finds a skull that appears to be abnormal, main stream media jumps all over it as front page news of the missing link. Society looks at it as more evidence for our evolution and moves on. When later tests begin to show that the skull is actually more likely to be a modern man with a genetic disease, the media doesn’t cover that. That isn’t nearly as interesting. So the fossil record doesn’t reflect the evolutionary story of man’s evolution. So how do we explain this evolutionary gap? Evolution will keep searching for the missing link. Other scientists will look at the evidence and go back to the original hypothesis and adjust it to fit the observed evidence. More specifically, they follow the scientific method instead of trying to find evidence to fit the original hypothesis.

The tree of life is another iconic phrase. All species evolved from one simple cell and slowly branched out to form the current diversity of species we see today. Evolution will again point to the fossil record as their evidence. Don’t look too closely however because it is pretty difficult to map this tree of life. Namely, because of this phenomena known in scientific circles as The Cambrian explosion. The Cambrian Explosion has been called ‘The Biological Big Bang’ because it gave rise to the sudden appearance of most of the major animal phyla that are still alive today, according to Michael Behe, without any indication of transition species. The tree of life is not seen in the fossil record. If we want to use an analogy to describe it, the lawn of life might be more appropriate. Charles Darwin gave us some insight into what he thinks about the fossil record in his famous book Origin of Species when he said, ”The most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory [is the fossil record]. Why, if species have descended from other species by insensibly fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms?” So how does modern evolution explain the fossil record? Keep looking for a way to explain it in Darwinian terms. Other scientists will follow the Darwin’s own doubts and follow the scientific method and seek to revise the original hypothesis based on observed scientific evidence.

So the fossil record has some gaps, we just haven’t found the complete evolutionary picture yet. Perhaps, but to call it a fact might be jumping the gun a bit. Maybe we should look at the very beginning, the simple cell, our common ancestor. The problem here is that the simple cell, isn’t so simple. Bruce Alberts, The President of the National Academy of Sciences, puts it this way; “We have always underestimated the cell. The entire cell can be viewed as a factory that contains an elaborate network of interlocking assembly lines, each of which is composed of a set of large protein machines.” According to today’s textbook, Stanley Miller conducted a ground breaking experiment that showed how amino acids, the building blocks for proteins can be made from inorganic material in the right proportions given an electric pulse. The electric pulse would represent lighting on the early earth and the inorganic material would be representative of the primordial soup and atmosphere on the early earth. Unfortunately this mixture requires a specific ratio of Hydrogen, which is now believed to be much lower due to the weight of hydrogen and its likely hood that it escaped into space. The experiment has been repeated since then with more accurate inorganic ratios, and no amino acids were formed. That aside, all Miller’s experiment did was create amino acids, which are only pieces to form the multiple proteins which must be assembled in the correct order and then form the “factory and elaborate network” from a variety of different proteins. This is not just a matter of getting lightning to strike. When asked how life began, renowned biologist and prominent critic of Intelligent Design Richard Dawkins said simply, “We don’t know.” So again, Evolution will continue to explore ways to try and demonstrate the current hypothesis is correct, others will look at the observed scientific evidence and form a new hypothesis.

Just forming a simple cell is difficult enough, how do you even begin to explain the origin of DNA through random mutations. Bill Gates said “DNA is like a software program, only much more complex than anything we’ve ever devised.” That is interesting considering the source, and knowing that Microsoft wasn’t developed by random mutating variances to produce the first version of Windows. Intelligence was behind it. The last thing that should be brought up is the concept of Irreducible Complexity. An irreducible complex machine or process is one that has multiple parts, and will not function if any one of the fundamental parts is taken away. All of the parts must be there, all at once, for any function to occur. Michael Behe, the Ph.D Biologist who coined the term, uses the example of the molecular flagellum. The Flagellum is one of the many parts of the previously discussed “elaborate network” in the simple cell. To illustrate this paradox, let’s look at the engine of a boat. It has a motor, and axel, gears, and a propeller. If you remove even one of these, the engine doesn’t function. If the gears aren’t in place, the axel can’t turn the propeller. If the propeller is missing, the boat doesn’t move. You get the picture. This is a problem for evolution because the key factor of natural selection is that each mutation creates a reproductive advantage. This would require all the parts to mutate and form all at once with the appropriate function. The odds of this happening are astronomically impossible. So Evolution will set out to find a way to explain how each part evolved separately and had a beneficial function step wise. This is dangerously close to creating additional theories to support another theory. Other scientists will follow the scientific method and modify the current hypothesis.

So is providing an alternate explanation of the origin of ourselves a threat to curriculum? Many people blindly say the Intelligent Design is not science. Looking at the above dilemmas for evolution, it seems that intelligent Design solves a lot of problems and arose from the scientific method. Some might say, that is great, but Intelligent Design is God, and God can’t be brought into the classroom. Simple. It’s the constitution. The problem is that this is another assumption that has been engrained by the same scientists promoting the tree of life and the evolution of man. I wonder what The SETI institute would think of Intelligent Design. They spend countless hours scanning the heavens for radio signals that indicate there are other advance civilizations. After all there may be more than 50 billion planets in the universe. If only 1% of those planets had life, that leaves 500 million planets with life. If 1% of those had advance civilizations, there may be as many as 5 million advanced civilizations in the universe. Perhaps one of those 5 million advanced civilizations are so advanced that they designed their own version of life and seeded this planet. That is also Intelligent Design. Yes, aliens. Aliens might have seeded this planet. Is this grasping at straws? Then what is SETI doing searching the stars if this is crazy? Richard Dawkins, the most notable anti Intelligent Design critic said this about Intelligent Design: 2 min video, sorry, Embedding was disabled

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoncJBrrdQ8

See, the issue isn’t that Intelligent Design isn’t science as some claim. It clearly is. The issue is with whom people associate the Intelligence doing the designing. If an advanced civilization visited earth and claimed they seeded the planet, suddenly ID would be widely accepted and taught in parallel and in some cases might replace current evolutionary teachings. Whether the Intelligence is a Supernatural God, or an Advanced Civilization shouldn’t matter. Science should be able to follow the evidence to whatever conclusion it leads them to. Teaching alternate hypothesis to the origin of life in our schools will force our students to think critically for themselves, not recite what curriculum developers determine is relevant in their view. Critical Thinking is one of the most difficult things to teach. Let’s not take that away from our students. Lets’ follow the scientific method and let them draw the conclusion for themselves; Evolution, Intelligent Design or another Origin Hypothesis. Why do we have to limit it to only one? Teaching is not about brainwashing, it is about giving our students the tools to think intelligently. We need to design a curriculum that allows for the development of this intelligence. In its current state, Evolution requires Faith. It’s time for science curriculum to evolve.

To prevent the state of Texas from teaching out dated science curriculum, copy and paste the link below.

http://support.discovery.org/site/MessageViewer?em_id=1742.0&dlv_id=5581

Life with Jon

So there are some of you that know Jon and there are some of you that know me...but let me welcome you into what life is like with Jon and Courtney.  I am sure you have gained a lot from reading the blog and have realized that our life is generally not overly serious.  You may have also see that I love pictures and take them everywhere we go.  I am working on many scrapbooks to document the wonderful times we have together.  Let me share with you a little bit of the experiences we go through.

February we went to get our marriage license.

March we went to the Rodeo to watch a friend's little boy do the muttin bustin.

 And we went out for our friend's birthday.

 In April we had an early birthday celebration for Jon.

In May we went out to eat for my parent's anniversary, this is a nice one.

 In June we went to a friend's wedding.

Until next time...

Courtney

Baby, You're a Firework!

We decided that since Fireworks were banned due to the draught here in Texas and the high risk of fire, that we would have to go find a sanctioned professional show. Even some of those were canceled. We settled on the Miller Outdoor Theater presentation of the Houston Symphony. It was FREE!

What we didn’t know, was that the rest of Houston had the same idea…

So we hauled our chairs and beverages and hunkered down where we could find room, unfortunately where we found room was not where we could hear the symphony…so next year…must get their early.

In the mean time, we had to kill some time…and what do you know? We brought along our good friend Flip, the camera. We should have filmed the amazing people watching that we witnessed but unfortunately we didn’t…although there was this amazing goatee behind us…but that is for later…

First we had to capture the attempt to fly a kite in the very slight breeze that was there. What you see in the video was attempt number 3 or 4…all with the same result. They were determined at least…



Fail.

Then there was the moment we discovered that the Fireworks weren’t going to even start until 10:45pm and so we basically had to sit in the mass of humanity for a good 3 hours until the fireworks began…and so we found other things to entertain ourselves. Megan, on the other hand decided to treat us to some of her own musical talents. Her Husband is in the background showing us is “proud” face.



To prove that there were a lot of people there…there is this little ditty. Watch for the guy with the Star Spangled Goatee who sat right behind us. Oh, and I had my own little Cameo in this video…



And Finally…the show started…with Courtney’s commentary…
The pictures below are of the same show that you see in the video…
Enjoy!

Jon

The Implementation of Genius...sort of.

So…we have a pool.

It has been named, The Prebish Pool. We are very creative around these parts.

The Prebish Pool has its own check-in on facebook. It is the frequent gathering place for our newly dubbed group, The Super 8 (not the movie…just…well, it is what it is…just go with it…).

The combination of The Prebish Pool and our “Frozen Concoction Maker” (its for snow cones…) can be worth the price of admission in itself. The admission price? Um…well…its $0. We operate on a BYOB2 (Bring Your Own Beer and Beef) because we are a classy operation. Sometimes, certain things happen that are, well, they fall into that category of “What happens at the Prebish Pool, stays at the Prebish Pool”. So of course we took video of a recent event and figured we would just post it for the whole world to see.

WARNING: If you are a parental unit of anyone associated with this Blog, or a parental unit of anyone who frequents the Prebish Pool, you may want to just go on to the next blog post…You have been warned…so no lectures later…deal? DEAL!

Before we get to “The Event”, we must show you what happens when you are 4 years old and feel indestructible. There are two videos, but this literally happened probably like 40 times, no exaggeration. Danny and Brandi are very proud…without further ado, may I present The Amazing Flying Colton!





Notice the faceplant…that probably happened at least 10 times. He just kept coming back for more. Courtney said I should stop throwing him so high…so I did. I tossed him about half the height of these videos…he came back and said…”No, throw me higher!” So I obliged…

And now back to “The Event”.

Every time we get in the pool, Courtney inevitably has to mention that we need to cut down those dead palm tree branches from the freeze back in January. I look at her and say, yes we do, but we need a 16 foot extension ladder. She says, don’t you have one? I say, yes, but it is up in The Woodlands. It’s basically a part of the Pool routine.

Our friend Paul basically got tired of hearing this conversation one day, and decided that we were going to solve this problem with “tools of opportunity”. Danny Willis is familiar with this tool. It basically is anything you can find to get the job done despite whether or not it was designed for the task at hand or not.

So Paul busted out my small 6 ft A-frame ladder, and placed it next to the tree. It was very evident that this was not going to work…So he slapped that bad boy on the top 2x4 of the fence and perched it up against the palm tree…uh oh.



At first, I was being wise, and said Paul, that is funny, but this is just dumb. Look at this fence?! It is going to disintegrate with a strong breeze! As you see in the video, the “wise” quickly disappeared as I sided with Paul on the possibility of this actually happening. I am pretty sure Paul and I were the only one who were ok with this Plan.



Yes. That is a Reciprocating Saw, better known as a Sawsall (Saws All). It is not designed for tree trimming activities, but…is our “tool of opportunity”. Notice the comment made by Spencer White in the back ground of the previous video. “I wash my hands of all of this!” (yes Mrs. White, your son is wise beyond his years…) and HE is the one living in the Frat House!

And so…the trimming began...what am I doing you ask? I am countering the force the ladder and Paul are putting on the fence so it doesn’t fall over. You’ll notice a little ways into this operation, we discovered another tool that might of helped…but that would be NO FUN!



…and that is how Paul Anderson earned his MexiCAN badge…
He always says he is half Mexican, but didn’t get that part…as you can see…I beg to differ!

Some were so happy at the successful implementation of genius that they had to dance! “Oh Yeah!”



…and just in case you were concerned about those involved in this operation, may I present…



No animals were harmed in the making of this Blog Post.

Until the next Prebish Pool Adventure…

Jon

The iPad

Courtney recently turned 30. I came to realize that sometimes surprising your wife with a gift, can cause some undue stress on the marriage leading up to the surprise, because you have to convince her that she is in no way going to get said gift.

Such was the case for Courtney’s 30th birthday. The gift? The iPad2.

It really started a few months before her birthday where we witnessed the power of Steve Jobs first hand on a return flight from Kansas City. I think we counted about 10 iPad’s just within our viewing range. Courtney, while holding her iPhone4, gave me the “pretty please” look and said she wanted one. Without hesitation I said “No chance. All it is a big iPhone 4 without the Phone part and $600 less from the checking account.” She did her pout face and went back to whatever she was doing.

The next day was when I thought the iPad would be a perfect gift. I have a few rules on gift giving. You can’t meet the rules all the time, but when you do, the gift becomes elevated in the pantheon of great gifts. The rules?

1) The gift has to be something the person wants
2) The gift has to be something person wouldn’t otherwise buy for themselves
3) The gift is likely to get a positive “surprise” reaction.

And so because I wasn’t about to bust out the $600 for Mr. Jobs latest toy, I recruited the parental units to combine on this gift. Lucky for me they were all in, and so the plan was under way.

In the mean time, it felt like every corner we turned someone else was telling Courtney how great having an iPad was. One time she came back home and was very excited and went on a 5 minute “download” (that what I refer to it when she has lots of thoughts in a bottleneck up in her head and she has to get them out…and now!). One of her friends just showed her the Nook color, and how “amazing” it was, and how she could get text books on them for school and they were cheaper and…well, it just kind of kept going.

Great. So, she has bailed on the iPad, but now focused her attention onto the Nook Color. The only valid excuse I could come up with, was “when we have kids we can look at getting a tablet of some sort” I also used this excuse for getting a camcorder. I mean, what could we possibly need to record now? (Blog posts are forthcoming to answer this vital question…stay tuned!)
So I kind of skirted by that whole, “I need a tablet for my education studies” by blaming it on our unborn children…stay classy Jon! This began to back fire over time, because she got increasingly frustrated and thought it was going to be a “crappy birthday, because my husband won’t let me get anything I actually WANT for my birthday”. I paid for this in the form of golf outing guilt trips. (Sorry, Chad)

What was even better is Father’s Day was 1 week before her birthday, and through a roundabout process, my sister and I determined that the Nook color would be a good gift to split for my dad. Good except for one small thing…I had to tell Courtney what we were getting my dad. Crap.

J: “Hi Hun! I love you SO much!“

C: “What do you want.” (yes, we are at that point of our marriage already)

J: “Shawna really wants to split a gift for my dad that requires splitting for my dad for father’s day.” (yes, I tried to push this decision on my sister, but that pretty much failed)

C: “ok. What is it?”

J: “Nook Color” (sarcasm waterfall is let loose)

C: “Why would anyone want that? It doesn’t do anything! It only gets you books including educational text books for cheaper, and can download apps…that is just dumb.”
J: “I love you?”

C: -silence-

J: “so…is that a yes?”

C: “You know, when we have kids, you owe me big! I am going to get a camcorder, a tablet computer and whatever else you pawn off on our unborn children. Tablets are ok for your dad, but NOOOOO, your wife can’t have one!”

J: “um…you didn’t answer the question…”

C: “You are so…so…GRRRR! Fine.”

1 more week…

At this point her mom was saying, we can give it to her early? It might make this next week easier for you? I was steadfast. No, there is a plan in place, we are going to follow it. I will just take the “love” shrapnel for a week.

So unknown to her, she was actually getting a Flip camera as well, in part so we could record the reaction to her opening her iPad.

So a week later we were at a wine bar and she looks at me and says “you know, I really want a camcorder, not one of those fancy ones, just one of those Flip one”. I look at her with a searching look, did she know and she was trying to tell me that she knew? I’m pretty sure I just grabbed my glass of wine and stared off some other direction… She didn’t know that in less than 10 hours she was going to get her Flip camera. So in my mind, I am thinking “I might just survive this…”

The next day was her Birthday Pool Party for her at the Prebish Pool, which is quickly developing a bit of a reputation. A reputation along the lines of “What happens at Prebish Pool, Stays at Prebish Pool”. Another Post with Video will provide some insight into this…
But for the Birthday Girl of honor, did taking the “love” shrapnel pay off? I’ll let you decide.



Happy Birthday Courtney! And thank you to all who helped me keep this a surprise, and those who were blissfully unaware and made my task a bit more difficult at times…thank you as well.

Jon