Teacher posts evolution challenge

[Azazal]

Anyone here in the Penn area up for trouncing this guy? Also, why is the chemistry and physics teacher doing this? Why is he teaching Chem and physicis?

Better watch of for his stupid ground rules though.

Douche in the News

Teacher posts evolution challenge
By RORY SCHULER
Staff Writer
Lebanon Daily News

ANNVILLE — If you believe in evolution as fact, Tom Ritter has a thousand bucks that says he can prove you wrong.

“I want to put one of these evolutionists on the spot,” Ritter said yesterday while standing in his chemistry-lab classroom at Annville-Cleona High School. “I want them to put their money where their mouth is. Let’s belly up to the bar and see what you’re made of.”

Ritter, a chemistry and physics teacher, has laid down a public challenge to those who believe that evolution is the only rational explanation behind life and the existence of modern organisms.

On the state’s Constitution Party Web site, Ritter has posted the ground rules for a debate to be held in mid-May between himself and a yet-to-be-determined opponent whom he characterizes as an “evolutionist.” Ritter wants to argue the topic and have the debate judged by a panel of high-school students, with a cash prize at stake.

The debate is tentatively scheduled for the evening of May 15, 16 or 17. He hopes to find a worthy opponent by Friday.

Ritter said he has strong feelings against teaching evolution as fact while leaving out other theories, including creationism. He said those feelings far predate last year’s controversy in the Dover School District in York County, when parents sued to have a statement about “intelligent design” removed from the classroom.

“Personally, I don’t have much interest in evolution, creation or ‘intelligent design,’” Ritter said. “I’m interested in science. I believe teaching evolution as fact perverts science. You could teach evolution as a theory, and I’d have no problem with that.

“My faith doesn’t have much to do with evolution,” he said. “I believe in God, and I believe there may be a creator. When people teach evolution as (if) it has to be true, they’re teaching something that hasn’t been and cannot be proven. These people — these dedicated evolutionists — are really just dedicated atheists.”

Ritter said he believes the teaching of only evolution in public-school science classes is a concept driven by atheists. To be fair, Ritter feels the theory of creation should be offered as an alternate possibility.

“Evolution may be right, at least in parts,” Ritter wrote in part of the on-line debate challenge. “But it is not treated as science, and materialism is a faulty theory to rely upon. Thus anyone who insists it is the only possible explanation employs evolution as an article of faith.”

He wants the debate to be one-on-one, between himself and another teacher or professor of science with a strong educational background. Each debater is to place $1,000 in escrow. The winner will take the pot.

The outcome is to be decided by a jury of high-school seniors who are undecided on the subject, Ritter said. A willing school, from within a 50-mile radius, will be chosen, and then a question regarding the teaching of evolution and creationism in the public-school setting will be posed. Several students who answer “undecided” to the question will compose the panel.

No audio-visuals or handouts will be permitted. Each person will have an 18-minute introduction, 12 minutes for cross-examination, and a seven-minute closing statement. The challenger will choose who goes first.

Ritter said anyone officially associated with the state Department of Education, any state politician, anyone who teaches a physical science or biology class at an accredited college or university, any member of good standing in a nationally recognized science organization, or on the masthead of a science publication with more than a 500,000 paid circulation is eligible to participate.

The Constitution Party of Pennsylvania has also announced it is willing to pay a $500 finder’s fee to the first Pennsylvanian who gets a qualified challenger to actually debate Ritter under the ground rules.

While Ritter said he’s not a member of the party, he and the group share several common interests and beliefs, as they connect to the the teaching of evolution.

Ritter, 58, of Orwigsburg in Schuylkill County has taught in the Annville-Cleona School District for eight years. A former owner of a screen-printing business and a past Pennsylvania Air National Guard reservist, he also organized the annual Physics Pow-Wow at Lebanon Valley College from 1999 to 2002.

He’s a member of the Hersheypark Physics Day committee, was a frequent presenter at state Science Teachers’ Association conventions, and had his article, “The Baker St. Irregulars Meet Archimedes” published in the April 2005 edition of The Physics Teacher.

——————

http://www.constitutionpartypa.com

[Fire Fly]

The outcome is to be decided by a jury of high-school seniors who are undecided on the subject, Ritter said.

This says it all already. Stupid people will be the judges of who wins this farce. No self respecting professional would ever lower themselves to debating a pathetic high school teacher who has a vendetta against evolution.

[Fire Fly]

For anyone actually interested in his bullshit arguements:

Evolution is an Article of Faith
The Constitution Party of Pennsylvania offers a $500 reward for evolution debate!

Evolution is not treated as a science:
True science concerns itself with finding the truth and evolution is no exception. Or are we to believe science can lead to a wrong answer?

In addition to buttressing a theory, science may also be employed to disprove a theory. For example, the famous Michelson-Morely experiments of 1887 showed that an invisible ether was not responsible for transmitting light in the vacuum of space.

If someone claimed he had discovered the cause of gravity, the first thing his colleagues would say is, "Show us the proof." Yet evolution cannot demonstrate 3 critical points:

1. No one has demonstrated that life can evolve where none existed before.

2. No one has demonstrated that a new sexual species can evolve.

3. Evolution theorizes the human brain evolved from lower forms of life. Over 50 years into the age of computers, we can build machines that can crunch numbers far better and faster than humans, recognize and use language and tools, and beat us in chess. Yet science has yet to build even a rudimentary computer than can contemplate its own existence1, the hallmark of the human brain.

Materialism2 fails to answer some critical, scientific points:
The First Law of Thermodynamics says the total energy of the universe is constant. Now there are two fundamental kinds of energy, useful, that is energy that can be used to move things against a resistance, and waste heat, that is energy that cannot be made to do useful work. By the Second Law, we are constantly changing useful energy into waste heat, so there will come a predictable time in the future when the universe will run out of useful energy and all reactions will cease for a lack of energy. This so called Heat Death and the Big Bang are recognized by virtually all physicists around the world and serve as a bookends to our present existence. So can materialism explain what there was before the Big Bang, what there will be after the Heat Death3, and what caused this present interval of existence?

What is an Atheist?
god, with a lower case g, can be almost anything, so it is essentially a meaningless term. God with an upper case G is the Being recognized by Christians, Muslims, Jews and many others to possess remarkably similar traits, among them the ability to create. Thus when the evolutionists say that a Creator cannot exist4, they are saying God cannot exist. This is a profession of Atheism.

Evolution may be right, at least in parts. But it is not treated as science and materialism is a faulty theory to rely upon. Thus anyone who insists it is the only possible explanation employs evolution as an article of faith.

[Admiral Valdemar]

The jury has already decided. The many thousands of scientists who peer review this theory trounce the babblings of one CHEMISTRY and PHYSICS teacher who can't comprehend BIOLOGY. See the problem?

The war is already lost for them, so spin is their last resort and more appeasing Joe Bloggs on the street who knows sweet fuck all about anything above highschool science.

[petesampras]

"Yet science has yet to build even a rudimentary computer than can contemplate its own existence1, the hallmark of the human brain."

What exactly is a test for whether or not something is capable of contemplating its own existance? As far as I can see this is inherently untestable, therefore can not be used as a judge of AI. Anti-AI people say stuff like this a lot, yet fail to come up with any objective test for the criteria.

I know this thread is about evolution, rather than AI, but I saw that and it pissed me off.

[Baron Scarpia]

*Yawn* This guy is just copying Kent Hovind's $25,000 "challenge," which is a total joke, as the ground rules insisted upon are designed to ensure his "victory." If he wants to get someone to debate him, he should at least up Hovind's ante.

[Baron Scarpia]

Materialism2 fails to answer some critical, scientific points:
The First Law of Thermodynamics says the total energy of the universe is constant. Now there are two fundamental kinds of energy, useful, that is energy that can be used to move things against a resistance, and waste heat, that is energy that cannot be made to do useful work. By the Second Law, we are constantly changing useful energy into waste heat, so there will come a predictable time in the future when the universe will run out of useful energy and all reactions will cease for a lack of energy. This so called Heat Death and the Big Bang are recognized by virtually all physicists around the world and serve as a bookends to our present existence. So can materialism explain what there was before the Big Bang, what there will be after the Heat Death3, and what caused this present interval of existence?

What is an Atheist?
god, with a lower case g, can be almost anything, so it is essentially a meaningless term. God with an upper case G is the Being recognized by Christians, Muslims, Jews and many others to possess remarkably similar traits, among them the ability to create. Thus when the evolutionists say that a Creator cannot exist4, they are saying God cannot exist. This is a profession of Atheism.

Aaaaaaand what do these "arguments" have to do with biological evolution?

Nada. Please come again.

[Guardsman Bass]

Wow, what a hard-core debater he is, announcing his challenge in front of a bunch of high school students, and asking for high school students to judge him. Not to mention that he's organizing the debate almost like a kind of law trial, where all he has to do is make evolution the target and cast "reasonable doubt" in order to veridify creationism.

[Patrick Degan]

“Personally, I don’t have much interest in evolution, creation or ‘intelligent design,’” Ritter said.

Lie.

“I’m interested in science. I believe teaching evolution as fact perverts science. You could teach evolution as a theory, and I’d have no problem with that.

“My faith doesn’t have much to do with evolution,” he said. “I believe in God, and I believe there may be a creator. When people teach evolution as (if) it has to be true, they’re teaching something that hasn’t been and cannot be proven. These people — these dedicated evolutionists — are really just dedicated atheists.”

Ritter said he believes the teaching of only evolution in public-school science classes is a concept driven by atheists. To be fair, Ritter feels the theory of creation should be offered as an alternate possibility.

And there he gives away the game. This man is no scientist and is not interested in science no matter how much he may say otherwise. The fact that he totally misunderstands the meaning of the word theory, does not get the concept of peer review, and engages an Appeal to Motive fallacy from the jump shows his bias in big red letters. The outcome of this "debate" is pre-determined and there's no reason to trust the impartiality much less the competence of the alleged "judges". The whole thing's a crock.

[TheBlackCat]

1. No one has demonstrated that life can evolve where none existed before.

An absurd requirement. This deals with abiogenesis, not evolution. It is completely irrelevant to evolution.

2. No one has demonstrated that a new sexual species can evolve.

Completely and utterly wrong, speciation has been observed in animals and plants repeatedly.

3. Evolution theorizes the human brain evolved from lower forms of life. Over 50 years into the age of computers, we can build machines that can crunch numbers far better and faster than humans, recognize and use language and tools, and beat us in chess. Yet science has yet to build even a rudimentary computer than can contemplate its own existence1, the hallmark of the human brain.

A stupid comparison. The human brain is not built to crunch numbers the way computers can. We have 10^12 nuerons, each with, on average, 1000 synapses, with each synapse acting as a sophisticated, highly variable, and fully modifiable analog calculator. That is ignoring non-synaptic communication, which is turning out to be more important than we previously realized. Even if we take each synapse as a single transistor, which they most certainly are not, we are still talking 10^15 synapses. That is about 3000 times the number of transistors of the world's fastest supercomputer, the IBM Blue Gene/L. And as I said, they are transistors they are analog calculators.

What is more, the brain is not just a bunch of neurons. They are highly organized in ways we are no where near fully understanding. So the claim that we should somehow be able to reproduce the human brain with neither the processing power nor the understanding to do so is insane. We don't know exactly where conciousness resides in the human brain, not to mention the funamental nature of how it operates that would be needed to reproduce it.

The First Law of Thermodynamics says the total energy of the universe is constant. Now there are two fundamental kinds of energy, useful, that is energy that can be used to move things against a resistance, and waste heat, that is energy that cannot be made to do useful work. By the Second Law, we are constantly changing useful energy into waste heat, so there will come a predictable time in the future when the universe will run out of useful energy and all reactions will cease for a lack of energy. This so called Heat Death and the Big Bang are recognized by virtually all physicists around the world and serve as a bookends to our present existence. So can materialism explain what there was before the Big Bang, what there will be after the Heat Death3, and what caused this present interval of existence?

Irrelevant to biology. Besides, since time started with the big bang the notion of "before the big bang" is nonsensical to begin with.

god, with a lower case g, can be almost anything, so it is essentially a meaningless term. God with an upper case G is the Being recognized by Christians, Muslims, Jews and many others to possess remarkably similar traits, among them the ability to create. Thus when the evolutionists say that a Creator cannot exist4, they are saying God cannot exist. This is a profession of Atheism.

Evolutionary biologists do not claim, as a group, that God does not exist. They simply claim there is no direct evidence of His existence. This is a strawman.

Evolution may be right, at least in parts. But it is not treated as science and materialism is a faulty theory to rely upon. Thus anyone who insists it is the only possible explanation employs evolution as an article of faith.

No scientists claims this. And without materialism science cannot operate. If you thow out materialism, anything is possible and science instantly dies. If he is really a scientist he would know this.


Naturally the debate is stupid. He gets to pick the place, the debate is judged by high school students, and he won't allow any sort of visuals which are essential to understanding what is happening. Plus he expects them to answer questions that cannot be answered. The debate was stacked against science from the very beginning.

[Baron Scarpia]

Evolutionary biologists do not claim, as a group, that God does not exist. They simply claim there is no direct evidence of His existence. This is a strawman.

Quibble: Evolutionary biologists do not claim, as a group, that there is no direct evidence for God's existence. On the contrary, evolutionary biology is mute on the subject of god(s). Individuals may draw their own conclusions about what the implications of biology are, but as a group, scientists don't stick their nose into theological questions.

[Steven Snyder]

Ritter wants to argue the topic and have the debate judged by a panel of high-school students, with a cash prize at stake.

No audio-visuals or handouts will be permitted.

I love how he casually sneaks in a huge limitation on the presentation of evidence, then leaves it up to a bunch kids to decide.

[Chardok]

Ritter wants to argue the topic and have the debate judged by a panel of high-school students, with a cash prize at stake.

No audio-visuals or handouts will be permitted.

I love how he casually sneaks in a huge limitation on the presentation of evidence, then leaves it up to a bunch kids to decide.

I just thought about this...and this really isn't fair, since kids already have a pretty good idea about the creation of the universe as depicted in the bible (Show me a high-school kid who hasn't heard about Adam and eve, or That God rested on the 7th day, and I'll show you my third penis) but show me a high school kid who understands the concept of heat death and who can explain and comprehend (without study) the laws of thermodynamics and the concept of abiogenesis. (With the exception of the laws of thermodynamics, I hadn't even heard of those until I came to THIS SITE at age 25.) Maybe I'm off base, here, but...yeah...

[SpacedTeddyBear]

I love how he casually sneaks in a huge limitation on the presentation of evidence, then leaves it up to a bunch kids to decide.

It's a standard tactic among ID'ers, doesn't really surprise me much. I did however like how he wanted evolutionist to " put their money where their mouth is. Let’s belly up to the bar and see what you’re made of", which is quite funny seeing as how ID'ers have yet to produce any scientific material that supports the notion of an ID. As many here have pointed out, it's just another attempt to verify ID as a science by casting doubt on evolution.

The guy is seriously suffering from delusions of grandeur.

[Frank Hipper]

Someone should pose a similar challenge to the ID God Squad, with similar limitations, distortions, and strawman arguments just to give them a taste of their own fetid diarhea.
Not that it's anywhere near neccessary, but because it would be entertaining.

[Darth Lucifer]

Someone should pose a similar challenge to the ID God Squad, with similar limitations, distortions, and strawman arguments just to give them a taste of their own fetid diarhea.
Not that it's anywhere near neccessary, but because it would be entertaining.

Rule #1: No Bibles!

I'd pay money to see that. On Pay Per View even.

I wonder if this guy is even aware of a third alternative (or more) besides Evolution and Intelligent Design. Admittedly, I myself am not.

[Steven Snyder]

Rule #2: All cited studies, papers, or other evidence must be published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal before being accepted.

[Darth Lucifer]

The outcome is to be decided by a jury of high-school seniors who are undecided on the subject, Ritter said. A willing school, from within a 50-mile radius, will be chosen, and then a question regarding the teaching of evolution and creationism in the public-school setting will be posed. Several students who answer “undecided” to the question will compose the panel.

That's real smart posting all of this well in advance of the debate. I wonder to myself how many brainwashed fundie tardlings (and atheist mongrel heathens too, just to keep things fair and balanced...) within 50 miles will treat this like a popularity contest and answer "Undecided" so they can skew the results.

I'd like to see the transcript to this thing when it's over.

[Wicked Pilot]

You mean people who can't find Canada on a map should be allowed to dictate the scientific validity of well established biology theories? We'll see how far that flies.

[drachefly]

1. No one has demonstrated that life can evolve where none existed before.

An absurd requirement. This deals with abiogenesis, not evolution. It is completely irrelevant to evolution.

It is not however completely irrelevant to the actual issues at hand. Dismissing this would be one of the dumbest possible moves.

[TheBlackCat]

It is not however completely irrelevant to the actual issues at hand. Dismissing this would be one of the dumbest possible moves.

The issue he wants to debate, according to his statement, is evolution. Debating things that are completely irrelevant to evolution is not debating evolution. If he wants to make it a larger case about faith vs. science, then he should say so. But like many creationists he is disguising this by claiming he is only debating evolution, but is really using his own screwed-up definition of evolution. As it is now he is being dishonest, claiming he wants to debate one thing but lumping in a whole bunch of other, unrelated things to mask the real issue.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I say we let a panel of atheists judge the validity of the Bible and Creationism. Afterall, it's not like we need true believers to contemplate theology, just like we don't need actual scientists to agree on the soundness of a scientific theory when highschool pupils will do.

[mr friendly guy]

I like to ask him how he intends to debate evolution when he can't even define it properly, seeing how he gets it mixed up with abiogenesis.

[Solauren]

A stunt like this should cost the man his job.

He's clearly letting his own personal views color his professionalism in a way that will negatively impact his students

[defanatic]

I think a high school student would be able to debate him. When I was in high school, I would have been able to point out that he doesn't know what evolution actually is, and that we have seen all the things he lists. That evolution is both a fact and theory (it has happened, and has mechanisms). And so-on. A high school education is enough to trounce this guy.