Da Hawg Frog Blog

With all of the important problems facing Florida and its economy what are we debating? Why evolution of course!

Americans are having problems competing in the global economy today. Many say it is because foreigners are better educated and work harder for less. There just might be something to this.

Nearly a hundred years ago, 1925 to be exact in Dayton. Tennessee, we fought this same battle in the court room. It was called the Scopes Monkey Trial. Then it was the state of Tennessee trying to equate their religious beliefs with scientific facts. “We’re not descended from apes!” they declared. Then they all acted like a bunch of monkeys trying to defend their stand.

Religion has its place. It belongs in the family and home, not in the classrooms we fund at taxpayer expense. Now we are facing the same ignorance driven campaign again today to introduce Intelligent Design into our school curriculum as a legitimate approach to science. It isn’t. It is based on mythology and ancient world view. A world view developed to explain those things unexplained to the people living post stone age. What have we learned since then?

Seventy-five years ago, a Tennessee high school teacher named John Scopes was arrested for teaching evolution in violation of state law.

His trial, which began this week in 1925, became one of the most celebrated courtroom proceedings in U.S. legal history — a “trial of the century” — because of the high-profile players involved, the media attention it received and the issues it raised. It was also called the “monkey trial” because evolutionists maintain that humans and monkeys share a common ancestor.

Today, the trial is noteworthy for the legal, scientific, religious, philosophical and political questions it raised — questions that will remain for a long time to come, experts say. (Source: CNN)

Today, people are losing their homes in Florida due to high taxes and out of control insurance companies. And while “No Show, Empty Chair” Charlie is out campaigning for John McCain, our legislature has dug up John Scopes and put it all on trial again.

Fortunately we have educators who are resisting this return to the dark ages and the proliferation of ignorance. David Campbell is a good example.

David Campbell, a science teacher at Ridgeview High in Clay County, near Jacksonville, heads off conflict by telling students what may seem obvious: There’s a big difference between science and faith.

“The student needs to know, ‘I’m not asking you to believe this. I’m just asking you to understand it,’” said Campbell, a 14-year veteran. (Source: St Petersburg Times)

Many of our competent Florida educators find themselves under the gun when it comes to teaching evolution. Darwin’s theory is accepted by virtually the entire civilized world. It has been tried and tested and found to contain great truth and is based on fact, not fiction.

The freshman in Dan McFarland’s Advanced Placement biology class at Durant High had a thoughtful question.He had read about a rock formation where radiometric dating found the layers on top appeared to be older than the layers on the bottom. How could that be, he wanted to know? And didn’t that put a dent in evolutionary theory?

McFarland, a 24-year veteran, knew the student was a young-earth creationist — somebody who believes God created the Earth a few thousand years ago — and hardly a lone wolf at Durant in Plant City.

So, McFarland did what he always does in these situations. He told the student he didn’t know the answer. But he suggested there may be scientific explanations. Perhaps the type of dating mechanism used wasn’t appropriate, or maybe the formation had been affected by a geologic event that resulted in layers being switched topsy-turvy.

The student wasn’t buying it. But he appreciated how McFarland handled his questions.

“He explained everything to the very best of his ability, but he didn’t convince me,” said Dan Barousse, now a senior who plans to study mechanical engineering in college next year. “It’s three years later and I’m still a young-earth creationist.”

Convincing the student, though, wasn’t McFarland’s goal.

“I’m not trying to disavow anyone of their religious beliefs,” he said. “I’m trying to offer scientific explanations for natural phenomena. That’s my job.”

Many of the science teachers interviewed by the Times echoed that sentiment.

In 20 years of teaching science, Rena White, a teacher at Challenger Middle School in Cape Coral, said she has never dealt with a parent upset about evolution. (But frog dissection? That’s a different story.) She tells them that their beliefs and values are important, and that they should hold on to them.

But if she asks them how old the Earth is on a test, she says, “the answer is 4.65-billion years.”

We are fortunate to have this test. After all the smoke and mirrors the creationist throw at us the answer remains the same, 4.65 billion years old.
Now what we really need to tackle is the barbaric practice of frog dissection. Frogs are people too!

When this administration decided to invade, I mean liberate, Iraq they assured the American people that the war would be could be funded with revenue gained from Iraqi oil revenue. They also said we’d be welcomed with flowers and adoration from an oppressed population. Now, years later, we have discovered that the entire cost of this misguided adventure has broken the back of the American taxpayers. We’ve spent billions in Iraq that should have been invested in bettering our own futures. Now two senators, Carl Levin, D-Michigan, and John Warner, R-Virginia are finally asking, “where is the money?”

The senators want to know when the Iraqi government is going to begin financing its own reconstruction. When we went into Iraq and ousted Saddam Hussein we also destroyed that country’s infrastructure and leveled its cities and towns. It is reasonable we should shoulder some of the expense of reconstruction, but not all of it. We helped the people of Iraq throw off the mantle of oppression and terror that had been Hussein’s administration. They are better off for that, yet their country still suffers from a lack of basic necessities. Necessities that their own government should be providing.

“We believe that it has been overwhelmingly U.S. taxpayer money that has funded Iraq reconstruction over the last five years, despite Iraq earning billions of dollars in oil revenue over that time period that have ended up in non-Iraqi banks,” wrote the senators, who are their party’s top members on the Armed Services Committee.

The senators cited testimony of then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz who told a House subcommittee in March 2003 that the U.S. would not foot the entire bill for rebuilding Iraq. Wolfowitz predicted then that Iraq’s oil revenues could reach between $50 billion and $100 billion in the next two or three years.

“We are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon,” Wolfowitz said in 2003. (Source: CNN)

Now here it is 2008 and Iraq is still broken. Their own government, in spite of tremendous oil revenues, has avoided contributing to the country’s reconstruction. Where is the money going?

“Our conversations with both Iraqis and Americans during our frequent visits to Iraq, as well as official government and unofficial media reports, have convinced us that the Iraqi government is not doing nearly enough to provide essential services and improve the quality of life of its citizens.”

Iraq’s ability to spend its $10.1 billion capital projects budget in 2007 was one of the 18 benchmarks used to assess U.S. progress in stabilizing and rebuilding Iraq, according to the GAO.

The United States has spent more than $47 billion on Iraqi reconstruction efforts since 2003, according to the 2008 quarterly audit by the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction.

The senators are right, it is time for an accounting. We’ve borne the burden in blood and money for too long. According to the Iraqi’s themselves:

The report predicts average daily production will reach 2.692 million bpd by 2010, with exports at 2.217 million bpd. Such oil sales would continue to bring in the tens of billions of dollars — especially at today’s oil prices — which fund nearly the entire Iraqi federal budget. (Source: UPI)

Iraq has been dragging its feet. As long as someone else is willing to do for them, what they should be doing for themselves, they are satisfied and in no hurry to help themselves out. Until they step up to the plate and begin financing their own reconstruction they are going to be a burden on the rest of the international community. They are in effect a welfare nation, unwilling to contribute to their own wellbeing.