Churches urged to back evolution

British Broadcasting Corporation ^ | 20 February 2006 | Paul Rincon

[ToryHeartland]

Churches urged to back evolution By Paul Rincon BBC News science reporter, St Louis

US scientists have called on mainstream religious communities to help them fight policies that undermine the teaching of evolution.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) hit out at the "intelligent design" movement at its annual meeting in Missouri.

Teaching the idea threatens scientific literacy among schoolchildren, it said.

Its proponents argue life on Earth is too complex to have evolved on its own.

As the name suggests, intelligent design is a concept invoking the hand of a designer in nature.

It's time to recognise that science and religion should never be pitted against each other Gilbert Omenn AAAS president

There have been several attempts across the US by anti-evolutionists to get intelligent design taught in school science lessons.

At the meeting in St Louis, the AAAS issued a statement strongly condemning the moves.

"Such veiled attempts to wedge religion - actually just one kind of religion - into science classrooms is a disservice to students, parents, teachers and tax payers," said AAAS president Gilbert Omenn.

"It's time to recognise that science and religion should never be pitted against each other.

"They can and do co-exist in the context of most people's lives. Just not in science classrooms, lest we confuse our children."

'Who's kidding whom?'

Eugenie Scott, director of the National Center for Science Education, which campaigns to keep evolution in public schools, said those in mainstream religious communities needed to "step up to the plate" in order to prevent the issue being viewed as a battle between science and religion.

Some have already heeded the warning.

"The intelligent design movement belittles evolution. It makes God a designer - an engineer," said George Coyne, director of the Vatican Observatory.

"Intelligent design concentrates on a designer who they do not really identify - but who's kidding whom?"

Last year, a federal judge ruled in favour of 11 parents in Dover, Pennsylvania, who argued that Darwinian evolution must be taught as fact.

Dover school administrators had pushed for intelligent design to be inserted into science teaching. But the judge ruled this violated the constitution, which sets out a clear separation between religion and state.

Despite the ruling, more challenges are on the way.

Fourteen US states are considering bills that scientists say would restrict the teaching of evolution.

These include a legislative bill in Missouri which seeks to ensure that only science which can be proven by experiment is taught in schools.

I think if we look at where the empirical scientific evidence leads us, it leads us towards intelligent design Teacher Mark Gihring "The new strategy is to teach intelligent design without calling it intelligent design," biologist Kenneth Miller, of Brown University in Rhode Island, told the BBC News website.

Dr Miller, an expert witness in the Dover School case, added: "The advocates of intelligent design and creationism have tried to repackage their criticisms, saying they want to teach the evidence for evolution and the evidence against evolution."

However, Mark Gihring, a teacher from Missouri sympathetic to intelligent design, told the BBC: "I think if we look at where the empirical scientific evidence leads us, it leads us towards intelligent design.

"[Intelligent design] ultimately takes us back to why we're here and the value of life... if an individual doesn't have a reason for being, they might carry themselves in a way that is ultimately destructive for society."

Economic risk

The decentralised US education system ensures that intelligent design will remain an issue in the classroom regardless of the decision in the Dover case.

"I think as a legal strategy, intelligent design is dead. That does not mean intelligent design as a social movement is dead," said Ms Scott.

"This is an idea that has real legs and it's going to be around for a long time. It will, however, evolve."

Among the most high-profile champions of intelligent design is US President George W Bush, who has said schools should make students aware of the concept.

But Mr Omenn warned that teaching intelligent design will deprive students of a proper education, ultimately harming the US economy.

"At a time when fewer US students are heading into science, baby boomer scientists are retiring in growing numbers and international students are returning home to work, America can ill afford the time and tax-payer dollars debating the facts of evolution," he said. Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/sci/tech/4731360.stm

Published: 2006/02/20 10:54:16 GMT

© BBC MMVI

[Elsie]

My understanding of God has to match up with reality. If it does not, then my understanding is wrong.

Which 'understanding'??

That of GOD; or or 'reality'?

[Elsie]

My recall of them later was spotty at best.

Why do you assume that YOUR recall is the same as others?

[Elsie]

Where is PI??


Are you 'assuming' that certain descriptions of dimensions are used in certain ways to produce PI?

If so, which ones?

[Elsie]

By going on to describe the circumference (incorrectly, given the diameter)...

Uh... just WHICH 'circumference' are you refering?

[Elsie]

Better to not mention the circumference than to give a wrong value for it.

What 'wrong value'??

[donh]

At least their sheep, cattle, and camels got off the hook; unlike the Amalekites in Samuel.

In my opinion, the camels deserved it. Camels are proof that humans can domesticate anything, no matter how intransigent, knowingly difficult, contrary, and unreasonable. With the possible exception of creationists, of course.

[Elsie]

Well, now, God must be particularly proud of your motivation.

Whatever it takes! Sometimes ya jess gotta get their attention!

Once the Lord used a talking donkey; today, He's used me!

---

Does God think you should also torture the innocent grand-children of those who mocked him?

Well now, All Knowing One, how do know the grand-children are 'innocent'?

---

Small wonder the founding fathers didn't want your ilk running the show anymore.

They DIDN'T??

Those SLAVEOWNERS???

[Elsie]

I'll see that and raise you a Strong's!

 

 

2:22  So the waters were healed unto this day, according to the saying of Elisha which he spake.

2:23  And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little (6996) children (5288) out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head.

2:24  And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children (3206)  of them.

---

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Strong's Hebrew Definition for # 06996
06996   //  Njq  //  qatan   //  kaw-tawn'  //  or
  //  Njq  //  qaton   //  kaw-tone'  // 


from   06962  ; TWOT - 2009a,2009b; adj

AV - small 33, little 19, youngest 15, younger 14, least 10, less 3,
lesser 2, little one 2, smallest 1, small things 1, young 1; 101

1) young, small, insignificant, unimportant
1a) small
1b) insignificant
1c) young
1d) unimportant

Strong's Hebrew Definition for # 05288
05288   //  ren  //  na`ar   //  nah'-ar  // 

from   05287  ; TWOT - 1389a; n m

AV - young man 76, servant 54, child 44, lad 33, young 15, children 7,
youth 6, babe 1, boys 1, young 1; 238

1) a boy, lad, servant, youth, retainer
1a) boy, lad, youth
1b) servant, retainer

 Strong's Hebrew Definition for # 03206

03206   //  dly  //  yeled   //  yeh'-led  // 

from   03205  ; TWOT - 867b; n m

AV - child 72, young man 7, young ones 3, sons 3, boy 2, fruit 1,
variant 1; 89

1) child, son, boy, offspring, youth
1a) child, son, boy
1b) child, children
1c) descendants
1d) youth
1e) apostate Israelites (fig.)

[Search4Truth]

Their contemptuous posts remind me of a child, who, having been caught by their father doing something wrong, something that the conscious God gave them tells them is wrong, then get angry at the father for calling them to task on it.

Their every contemptuous word reveals their knowledge of their sin, by the law of God written in their hearts.

"What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Let it not be said! But I did not know sin except through the law. For also I did not know lust except the law said, You shall not lust" (Romans 7:7).

As long as they are in love with their sin, they will never know the love of God. Only His wrath. And like an errant child, they hate Him for it.

Their conscious convicts them in every word they write.

[Elsie]

What about those who skate over the repeated gloating mass murders reported in it?

Who's skating? You don't LIKE a GOD who would DO such a thing, and are not averse to saying so. We report what the book says and 'do not stand up for GOD' and you get upset.

Oh well.

[Lurking Libertarian]

I wonder if the pure "youth" translation is derivative of embarrassment?
Quite likely. I'll have to see if I still have my Strong's Concordance somewhere in the closet ...

I read Biblical Hebrew (I spent grades 1-12 in an Orthodox Jewish day school). The Hebrew is n'arim q'tanim, literally "small lads." "Young boys" or "young children" (the Hebrew is ambigous as to gender) would be a good idiomatic translation.

[Elsie]

You called the judement of the dead "great theatre," which implies that the thought of people burning in hell is enjoyable to you.

In response to a tweak that said GOD resorts to 'theatrics'; which implies WHAT, in your humble opinion?

[Elsie]

Quite likely. I'll have to see if I still have my Strong's Concordance somewhere in the closet ...

OOh!

Great minds and all! ;^)

[Elsie]

You can't have leaders unless you have followers.

Will SOMEONE please tell Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Mr. Gore this???

[Elsie]

I looked at the web page; how does it work?

[Thatcherite]

Are you one of those who can't tell allegory from reality?

No, I'm not one of those people who are so credulous that they think that tales of magic fruit, talking snakes, angels with flaming swords, the entire world ecology being saved on a wooden boat, and God feeling threatened by a tower built by bronze-age people isn't allegorical. It's you who cannot tell allegory from reality.

Stories of stars falling to earth are much less clearly allegorical than those things. Up to 250 years ago, when the nature of the stars first started to be understood, the idea of them falling to earth was more reasonable than much in the Bible that you take literally. Only modern cosmology has revealed the sheer number of stars and their nature. The writers of the Bible would have laughed at the idea that stars are the same class of object as the sun.

[Elsie]

Now, now... I used to be one of those contemptous ones, before I was asked a question to which I had no answer.

[donh]

The infallibility of God's word is a topic of discussion wasted on those who view the Bible as simply a book. Much less, those who view it with contempt.

The discussion of issues such as justice, mercy, and preserving civilization is wasted on those whose infallible book's acolytes have besmirched these ideals repeatedly for centuries, and who, when their noses are rubbed in it, instead of acknowledging and attempting to find a way to ameliorate their convictions with these problems, launch on arrogant campaigns of patronizing rudeness. The correlation between True Belief and bad manners and argumentative bad faith is nothing short of astonishing to me--and an excellent indicator as to why creationists don't deserve the level of serious attention they've been getting in court, and on-line, of late, with this dishonest stealth ID gibberish.

[Thatcherite]

You don't LIKE a GOD who would DO such a thing, and are not averse to saying so. We report what the book says and 'do not stand up for GOD' and you get upset.

So, do you LIKE a God who does things like that? The implication is that you don't. Maybe it is just fear then...

[Elsie]

Good to have someone who knows more than I!

How does that 'go on up' thing come out?