Posted on 02/20/2006 5:33:50 AM PST by 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
Thank you for finding another hoax. You Evo guys are GOOD! ;^)
Some Heaven has popped out as well!
Common as this defense is, it's power rests on never actually pulling tape on a construction project. There is no obvious reason whatsoever to measure the inside of the brim, and no reason whatsoever to think that the "all important" volume calculation affects where you measure the circumference any more than the diameter. Neither one is a particularly better measure of the volume than the other, and neither one is any more particularly an "outside dimension" than the other. What is reasonable to conclude, is that if they dropped tape on the inside to measure circumference, than they dropped tape on the inside to measure diameter. If they took one measure on the outside, than they took the other measure on the outside. Why would you think the surveyors would clamber into the bowl to take one measure, or clamber out of the bowl to take the other?
Well, there's time well spent.
What is popular is not always right; what is right is not always popular.
Sure, as soon as you make it necessary by proving that I'm the LIAR you publicly claimed I was.
I think it more probable that the writer just eyeballed it,and came up with an approximation.
Fine, declare what tangible evidence you use to presuppose standards of naturalism and I will get back to you. Are you really so dense as not to understand the question?
OK. I declare tangible evidence to be evidence which I can somehow detect. Is this really rocket science to you?
By the way, one does not "presupposition." A presupposition is an "a priori" assumption one brings to the table.
Save the etimology lessons for someone who cares. You knew what I was trying to communicate, and neologism isn't a felony.
One "presupposes" certain things and adopts them usually without critical analysis. It is like a fish being unaware of the medium in which it swims (to quote another). This is why the modern technocrats splutter so angrily when they are challenged on this issue, and continue to recite the same old cant about science dealing with the observable and quantifiable, as if this were a new vantage point that was heretofore unacknowledged. Naturalistic assumptions are not a part of science, but are simply the philosophical a prioris of many modern scientists.
This is pretentious gibberish of an old stripe. People much less wordy than you have been confusing themselves, and others, about the distinction between philosophical naturalism and the choice of science to deal only with tangible evidence, since before you were a gleam in your father's eyes.
Indeed, it was time quite well spent...got to see some posters I have not encountered before, and read their views...and of course, encountered the usual posters...at times, this thread turned into a name-calling, shouting, mud-flinging, scripture-posting, religious-witnessing, moderator-warning, 'you're a liar, no I'm not, you're a liar', insult-hurling festival...but in between all of that, there were indeed, some very thoughtful, very interesting posts, and I am just jealous that I was not able to be online, at the time all of this was happening...
However, as is the case with everyone, real life intervened(I found myself entertaining unexpected out-of town visitors for a few days), and so find myself having to play catch up on my FR threads...
But, there are certainly worse ways to spend ones time...a long, rousing thread on FR, on the subject of EVo/Creo/ID, is exactly what I needed after acting as a tour guide for my dear friends...
Now let me find another thread I need to catch up on...
Has it?...that would be open to debate...
Could be. The thing is, I am being offered the words of the bible as the unerrent final word in science and morality here on this thread. Can I take it that the Commandment against adultery is also an approximation? Could it be that God meant I should USUALLY not mess around with my neighbor's wife?
1750 placemarker.
Thank you for your kind words.
Too many folks believe that their own particular subjective interpretation of the Bible, is the final word, period...they will accept no one elses interpretation at all...just look at the religious forum on FR and the threads there...they all stick to their own religions dogma, and theology, and insist that they and they alone are correct, and everyone else is wrong, and bound to go to Hell, because they are interpreting the Bible, differently...
No one on this thread or any other on FR is Gods defining authority on earth, tho some would have you believe otherwise...Scripture is sacred...human interpretation of that Scripture, is not sacred...that is, unless someone can demonstrate that they have been in a direct two way telephone call with God, giving them clear instructions...all people of faith believe they are in communication with God through prayer, and through His Word in the Bible...but just note the in-fighting and disagreement, and food fights going over on the religious threads...they all seem to say they are in communication with God, but they all seem to be receving different messages....
You are welcome...I look forward to more of your posts, they are quite enlightening...
Never said it was; just stated what has happened.
Sorry I just got around to getting involved in this thread; just caught wind of it...
I have no problem in the belief that God's word is final. The problem comes in when you try to pin down what that word really is.
If you mean the bible, which translation/version of the bible do you take as THE word? The KJV? The New Life version? The original Greek? The oral tradition which was written down from spoken Hebrew? The Book of Mormon? Just the New Testament? And why only the books which were chosen for the current NT? Why not the Gnostic gospels?
The bible is a book. It is written by man, translated, interpreted, reprinted by man, and applied by man. Whether its author(s) were originally inspired by God or not, man's imperfect filter has been put on it so many times that to try to point to it as a perfect tome, as THE word of God, is truly indefensible.
Of course, that's just my opinion. Your mileage will vary....
Incidentally, I struggle with how you define a different belief set as "Idolatry", unless that belief set involves actually worshiping idols.....
As Alpha-Darwinist Dawkins said, to paraphrase him,"Stupidity and Ignorance allowed me to become an intellectually fulfilled Atheist." And he also, like Junior, had a daughter that he loves, and iirc, whom he hoped to explain all the brilliance and wonder of intellectually fulfilling atheism.
Your post #1757 is right on target...on this thread, and on the religious threads on FR, you have a myriad of posters, trying to pin down just what exactly what the Word is...they all have different and varying interpretations, and argue endlessly with one another about it...they all believe that they are right, and everyone else who disagrees with them is wrong...its all quite fascinating to me, and so long as each poster does realize that he is not the final authority as to how something in the Bible is interpreted, things to seem to move along quite civilly...however, as happens, when someone tries to claim that they are 'more' right than someone else, and they are 'more' right, because they understand the Bible better than others, things can and often do get nasty...
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