Evolution challenge

Do you want to make US$1,000? Do you believe in evolution? Well, here's your chance to prove your point and earn some cash.

"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.ldnews.com/news/ci_3647650

I want to make a challenge where I set the bar high enough that I always win, much higher then any bar has been set! I mean, there are other explanations then gravity, who wants to debate me! You are required to show the every item that falls, will fall, or has ever fallen did,does, or will do so because of gravity.

I will offer $2000 of my own money to anyone who can offer conclusive proof of God or intelligent design

this is proof that meets the scientific method, and 95% + of people shown the proof will beleive it

please, nothing to do with faith

this is absolute irifutable proof

$2000 of my own money

good luck finding God!

)and finding me a spell check)

Go to google's download page and get the toolbar, it has a spell checker that checks any edit window you are typing to.

sorry; i don't think that wins ya the 2K but a good find, nontheless!!

(now i only just played with google earth last night for the first time - now -that's- pretty darn godlike...

Kevn,

You are officially as bad as the person starting all the damn age play thread. Pick a new topic, good lord. You are never, ever going to win this argument or change anyones mind, so it just makes you look like a troll.

What an idiot! He can't believe there may be a creator and that there is God. Either God created the universe or else there is no God. Otherwise what's the point of there being a God? He would just be a spectator.

Challenger: I would like to start out saying -
Ritter: God says you are wrong.
Challenger: oh well, kinda hard to debate that, nevermind, good day.

I know tons of people 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 who have an afternoon to blow going to Nowehere, OH and getting "judged" by high-schoolers that aren't prejudiced on the subject because - get this - Ritter says so.

I also like how politicians somehow got lumped in there along with scientists, because they are so well known for their expertise in matters scientific, I guess.

I only wish this was from The Onion, it might have had a chance at being amusing instead of just absurd.

That pretty much sums up Mr. Ritter's position I guess. He tries to do the "I'm really impartial" thing, but like all the creationists, stumbles. He believes in God, but only thinks that there may be a creator. See, he's impartial. Doesn't really understand what God is, but he's impartial.

For Mr. Ritter it's all about how evolution is taught. And if you teach it wrong, then you must be an atheist??? LOL.

I also like how he gets to pick the panel who decides who wins the contest. Yah, sure, you betcha...

Don't trust a panel of High School Students with anything... Probably already rigged toward the fundamentalist

I met God once. I was under the influence of BellaDonna, but I met him. For real, it was really him...saw Satan too

Did I win?

I think I'm quite done attempting to teach people about evolution when they don't even seem to understand what science, or a scientifict theory, is. Further it is something of a fool's errand to put $1000 of one's own money on a debate that will be judged by high school seniors that still don't understand basic science.

You don't exist.. strike me down if you do you big girls blouse.

You aint all that - and as far as I can see haven't done anything worthwhile since the the old testimate.

(waits)

(waits)

I'll give you an update tomorrow to see if I'm smote..

The body of evidence in support of biological evolution is immense. It is too immense for me to even start summarizing here. Google will surely help out anyone with a genuine desire to learn.

Appeals to authority and arguments from personal incredulity are fallacies of the very worst kind.

When it comes to science, anyway, materialism is the ONLY way we can persue it. If we can't measure or observe something, we can't simply assume it exists.

Oh well, blah, blah, blah.


"Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution" ~ Theodosius Dobzhansky (1900-1975)

But if you're smote, won't you just TP home and rez again?

"All scholarly subjects seem to go through cycles, from periods when most of the answers seem to be known to periods when no one is sure that even the questions are right. Such is the case for evolutionary biology. Twenty years ago Mayr, in his Animal Species and Evolution, seemed to have shown that if evolution is a jigsaw puzzle, then at least all the edge pieces were in place. But today we are less confident and the whole subject is in the most exciting ferment. Evolution is both troubled from without by the nagging insistencies of antiscientists and nagged from within by the troubling complexities of genetic and developmental mechanisms and new questions about the central mystery-speciation itself. In looking over recent literature in and around the field of evolutionary theory, I am struck by the necessity to reexamine the simpler foundations of the subject, to distinguish carefully between what we know and what we merely think we know. The first and strongest of our critics to be answered should be ourselves." (Thomson K.S., "The Meanings of Evolution," American Scientist, Vol. 70, pp.529-531

Yep, good science begins and ends with self-criticism. Do not, however, mistake debate on the means and mechanisms of biological evolution for any doubt over the fact that it has occurred. Evolutionary theory strives to explain how the observed biological evolution happened. The observations are not in doubt.

Hey, I know for certain that evolution is right because God told me so! Can I win now?
He told me to tell you all that anyone who argues with evolution is going to Hell. He also said that anyone who has a thousand dollars to spare and doesn't fork it over to his one true church is facing eternal damnation.

You know, I disagree with almost anything that's ever came out of Kevn's virtual mouth, but I don't think you quite grok Kevn's position..

Um. No. This "challenge" is rigged like a wrestling match. No thanks. No scientific theory is aboslute, not even gravity. That's why they are theroies. Its not a matter of needing to disprove evolution, its a matter of needing to establsih one scintillia of scientific support for intelligent design.

They could tell me evolution was all wrong tomorrow, as long as they had an alternative that was not based on me acceptign a transcendent white guy as god. ID seeks to rpove the existence of god but showing that god created the universe. Thus it is a fallacy. You need a god to have ID and the only way to establish a god is by way of ID.

Cute pun.

Most scientists who accept macro-evolution feel the same way, I'm sure. It's a matter of rejecting a possibility before investigating because of a bias against religion. In many cases these people have had bad experiences with a particular religion or church.

What if ID argued God is a purple woman? Maybe all religions are wrong, except that they believe in some God. Would that allow you to search for evidence?

Or must we assume there is no God, even if there is a God, to keep science moving forward?

I'll throw $1000 of my own money on this one too.