Posted on 08/02/2005 4:16:26 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
President Bush waded into the debate over evolution and "intelligent design" Monday, saying schools should teach both theories on the creation and complexity of life.
In a wide-ranging question-and-answer session with a small group of reporters, Bush essentially endorsed efforts by Christian conservatives to give intelligent design equal standing with the theory of evolution in the nation's schools.
Bush declined to state his personal views on "intelligent design," the belief that life forms are so complex that their creation cannot be explained by Darwinian evolutionary theory alone, but rather points to intentional creation, presumably divine.
The theory of evolution, first articulated by British naturalist Charles Darwin in 1859, is based on the idea that life organisms developed over time through random mutations and factors in nature that favored certain traits that helped species survive.
Scientists concede that evolution does not answer every question about the creation of life, and most consider intelligent design an attempt to inject religion into science courses.
Bush compared the current debate to earlier disputes over "creationism," a related view that adheres more closely to biblical explanations. While he was governor of Texas, Bush said students should be exposed to both creationism and evolution.
On Monday, the president said he favors the same approach for intelligent design "so people can understand what the debate is about."
The Kansas Board of Education is considering changes to encourage the teaching of intelligent design in Kansas schools, and some are pushing for similar changes across the country.
"I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought," Bush said. "You're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas. The answer is 'yes.'"
The National Academy of Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science both have concluded there is no scientific basis for intelligent design and oppose its inclusion in school science classes. [Note from PH: links relevant to those organizations and their positions on ID are added by me at the end of this article.]
Some scientists have declined to join the debate, fearing that amplifying the discussion only gives intelligent design more legitimacy.
Advocates of intelligent design also claim support from scientists. The Discovery Institute, a conservative think tank in Seattle that is the leading proponent for intelligent design, said it has compiled a list of more than 400 scientists, including 70 biologists, who are skeptical about evolution.
"The fact is that a significant number of scientists are extremely skeptical that Darwinian evolution can explain the origins of life," said John West, associate director of the organization's Center for Science and Culture.
Why don't people all think alike? Why is there disagreement on this thread? Why are some people criminals? Why are some smarter than others? Why are some people better at pattern recognition?
That you claim to interpret the bible by what it says. That's what it says. It is pretty straightforward. I don't know anybody that actually follows these scriptures as written. I was curious as to your interpretation of them.
I don't even think humans have the same thought processes. This thread being a prime example.
by Lenny Flank
(c) 1999
A common charge made by creationists is that evolutionary theory is "evil" and is the source of racism in general, and of dictatorial killers in particular. The most often-heard assertion is that Hitler and his racist genocide were the product of "evolutionary philosophy". Henry Morris, for instance, flatly declares, "However one may react morally against Hitler, he was certainly a consistent evolutionst." (Morris, "Evolution and Modern racism", ICR Impact, October 1973) Morris adds: "The philosophies of Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzsche--the forerunners of Stalin and Hitler--have been particularly baleful in their effect: both were dedicated evolutionists." (Morris, Troubled Waters of Evolution, 1974 p. 33)
How accurate is this creationist finger-pointing? Not very. The creationists are apparently unaware of the fact that Stalinist Russia rejected Darwinian evolution as "bourgeois" and instead embraced the non-Darwinian "proletarian biology" of Lysenko and Michurin (a disaster from which Russian genetics and biological sciences has still not completely recovered). As for Hitler, even a cursory reading of his book Mein Kampf reveals that the true source of Hitler's inspiration and exhortations came from a source that creationists, understandably, would rather not talk about.
Hitler's goal was the "purification" of the "Aryan race" through the elimination of "subhumans", which included Jews, gypsies, Asians, black Africans, and everyone else who was not a white Aryan. Despite the creationists claims that this was based on Darwinain evolutionary theory, Hitler's own writings give quite a different story. The ICR claims that "Hitler used the German word for evolution (Entwicklung) over and over again in his book." (ICR Impact, "The Ascent of Racism", Paul Humber Feb 1987) Like so many of ICR's claims, this one is simply not true---a quick scan of several online English translations of Mein Kampf shows only ONE use of the word "evolution", in a context which does not refer at all to biological evolution, but instead to the development of political ideas in Germany: "This evolution has not yet taken the shape of a conscious intention and movement to restore the political power and independence of our nation."
Had ICR made even a cursory reading of Mein Kampf, they would have seen a quite different source for Hitler's racist inspiration than the one they would have us believe. White Aryans, Hitler writes, are the special creations of God, the "highest image of the Lord", put here specifically to rule over the "subhuman" races: "Human culture and civilization on this continent are inseparably bound up with the presence of the Aryan. If he dies out or declines, the dark veils of an age without culture will again descend on this globe. The undermining of the existence of human culture by the destruction of its bearer seems in the eyes of a folkish philosophy the most execrable crime. Anyone who dares to lay hands on the highest image of the Lord commits sacrilege against the benevolent Creator of this miracle and contributes to the expulsion from paradise." (all quotes from Hitler, Mein Kampf, online version) Actions which aid the "subhumans" at the expense of the Aryan master race, Hitler declared, were an offense against God: " It is a sin against the will of the Eternal Creator if His most gifted beings by the hundreds and hundreds of thousands are allowed to degenerate in the present proletarian morass, while Hottentots and Zulu Kaffirs are trained for intellectual professions."
Rather than basing his racism on any evolutionary theory, Hitler based it squarely on his view of white Aryans as the favored people of God. In fact, Hitler solemnly declares that his program of removing Jews and other "subhumans" from the earth is a divine task forced upon him by the Lord Almighty: "What we must fight for is to safeguard the existence and reproductionof our race and our people, the sustenance of our children and the purityof our blood, the freedom and independence of the fatherland, so that ourpeople may mature for the fulfillment of the mission allotted it by the Creator of the universe."
Hitler concludes: "Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord," adding "Compared to the absurd catchword about safeguarding law and order, thus laying a peaceable groundwork for mutual swindles, the task of preserving and advancing the highest humanity, given to this earth by the benevolence of the Almighty, seems a truly high mission." For Hitler, removing the subhumans from earth was not a matter of biology or evolution---it was a divine mandate from God Himself, the "work of the Lord", a "truly high mission".
Even in discussing racial purity and "race-mixing", Hitler chooses not the words of evolutionary biology or eugenics, but points instead to his divinely holy mission: "Historical experience offers countless proofs of this. It shows with terrifying clarity that in every mingling of Aryan blood with that of lower peoples the result was the end of the cultured people. North America, whose population consists in by far the largest part of Germanic elements who mixed but little with the lower colored peoples, shows a different humanity and culture from Central and South America, where the predominantly Latin immigrants often mixed with the aborigines on a large scale. By this one example, we can clearly and distinctly recognize the effect of racial mixture. The Germanic inhabitant of the American continent, who has remained racially pure and unmixed, rose to be master of the continent; he will remain the master as long as he does not fall a victim to defilement of the blood. The result of all racial crossing is therefore in brief always the following: To bring about such a development is, then, nothing else but to sin against the will of the Eternal Creator."
The goal of the "folkish government", then, Hitler declares is to "finally to put an end to the constant and continuous original sin of racial poisoning, and to give the Almighty Creator beings such as He Himself created."
"The folkish-minded man, in particular," Hitler concludes, "has the sacred duty, each in his own denomination, of making people stop just talking superficially of God's will, and actually fulfill God's will, and not let God's word be desecrated. For God's will gave men their form, their essence and their abilities. Anyone who destroys His work is declaring war on the Lord's creation, the divine will."
In Mein Kampf, Hitler makes an emotional appeal to God to aid him and his Nazis in their divine task: "Then, from the child's story-book to the last newspaper in the country, and every theatre and cinema, every pillar where placards are posted and every free space on the hoardings should be utilized in the service of this one great mission, until the faint-hearted cry, "Lord, deliver us," which our patriotic associations send up to Heaven to-day would be transformed into an ardent prayer: 'Almighty God, bless our arms when the hour comes. ' " Later, when Nazi troops swarmed over Europe, each of them wore an army-issue belt buckle inscribed with the words "God is With Us".
The invocation of God and the Bible in support of racism continues with modern hate groups in the US. Aryan Nations, which also calls itself the Church of Jesus Christ Christian, begins its web site by proclaiming "Praise Yahweh" and its intention to "serve the Lord of Glory and His Holy Race". The American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan note that only those of "Christian faith" can be members, and asks every new recruit "Do you believe in Jesus Christ?" The White Camelia Knights of the Ku Klux Klan declare that "at some point God's people must take action in the defense of our Christian, racial and political beliefs". The Camelia KKK website also explicitly states "We base our beliefs on our Biblical interpretations, not ignorance, superstition or blind hatred." How does the Camelia KKK justify its opposition to "race-mixing"? "White Christian Israelites are under Gods law and covenant. The other peoples of the earth are under natures law, which God also created. . . Natures law, which is a creation of YAHWEH, dictates that kind reproduce after kind. The different people of the world were never supposed to mix." The Imperial Klans of America declares, "We are a gathering of White Christian men and women." The National Knights of the Ku Klux Klan website declares that they "reverently acknowledge the majesty and supremacy of Almighty God and recognize his goodness and providence through his Son Jesus Christ. We avow the distinction between the races of mankind as decreed by the Lord our God, and we shall ever be true to the maintenance of His Supremacy."
None of these racist websites mentions "Darwin" or "evolution" as a justification for any of their beliefs. All of them talk about "God" and "The Creator" instead.
So long as it's really a matter of faith, there's no ason to arge with science.
alas! You beat me to it!
Behe and friends are not fundamentalists.
Perhaps a better word would be "reason". Humans can reason, deduct, induct, and have emotion. If it comes from a brain alone, then all brains should be able to do all those things.
I will publicly stand up for WVNan here. I know her and her husband. I believe her to be a fair and honest person who will not just dismiss knowledge/data or "lie for God".
I agree...I voted for Bush twice but in both cases it was more a case of voting against the socialist democrat running against him. Unfortunately, in fiscal matters Bush really isn't that much different than the socialist democrats that I worried about.
Creationists say what they say in the face of 100% of the available evidence. You have a choice: either creationists are dishonest, or they are uninformed. I think most are the latter. Do you prefer that they be the former?
My brain worked slightly faster in this case ... :)
That sort of successful lab experiment would refute the theological concept that useful DNA code organization has to come from an intelligent designer.
It would not, however, preclude an intelligent designer from organizing DNA code.
IIRC, you asked for specific support in the bible for slavery. From many-one provided it, you side-stepped it by saying that yes, the Israelis were enslaved, and I merely pointed out eight specific verses in the quote that addressed the exact point that you claimed did not exist in the bible.
If you don't care what they are about, then why did you claim that they did not exist?
c #593
My wife and I were discussing this in the car yesterday, and she pointed out that after 40 years of wandering, the Israelites were only permitted a glimpse of the Land of Milk and Honey and were forced to spend another 40 years in the desert before entering Canaan (she's a bit more well-read on the OT than I am, and I'm no slacker). After 80 years, the population would approach 4.4 million.
Not really, but I have a hard time letting certain things just slide on by. %-)
Hi Mike. Thank you for the defense. I wasn't going to continue to make an argument. You know that you and I don't necessarily agree on this subject and I usually stay away from them. Don't know how I got caught up in this today. I'm not getting my work done. :)
Why should they? If a bird can survive perfectly well without ever having developed human reasoning abilities, what's the problem?
And who says animals can't reason? It's not at the level of humans (although the moles in my yard have been outsmarting me recently), but there's something there (well, emotion is definitely debatable).
We just have better brains. Other animals do other things better than us ... gorillas are stronger than people, cheetahs run faster, bears can hibernate without toxins building up in the body and killing them, fish can breathe water ...
There doesn't HAVE to be something else there ... I'd like to think there is, but there doesn't HAVE to be.
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