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
You're most welcome!
"By further reflecting that the clearest evidence would be requisite to make any sane man believe in the miracles by which Christianity is supported,and that the more we know of the fixed laws of nature the more incredible do miracles become,that the men at that time were ignorant and credulous to a degree almost incomprehensible by us,that the Gospels cannot be proven to have been written simultaneously with the events,that they differ in many important details, far too important, as it seemed to me to be admitted as the usual inaccuracies of eye witnesses;by such reflections as these, which I give not as having the least novelty or value, but as they influenced me, I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation. The fact that many fake religions have spread over large portions of the earth like wildfire had some weight with me. But I was very unwilling to give up my belief; I feel sure of this, for I can remember often and often inventing day-dreams of old letters between distinguished Romans, and manuscripts being discovered at Pompeii or elsewhere, which confirmed in the most striking manner all that was written in the Gospels. But I found it more and more difficult, with free scope given to my imagination, to invent evidence which would suffice to convince me. Thus disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but was at last complete. The rate was so slow that I felt no distress, and have never since doubted even for a single second that my conclusion was correct."
( Charles Darwin in his Autobiography of Charles Darwin, Dover Publications, 1992, p. 62. )
Charles Darwin (1809-1882)
"I think that generally (& more & more as I grow older), but not always, that an agnostic would be the most correct description of my state of mind."
( Quoted from Adrian Desmond and James Moore, Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1991, p. 636. )
All I can think of is Piltdown. Archeoraptor was a fraud.
Oh no!
I'm not getting sucked into another affirm/oath bunch of crap!
Yes
All I can say is; too bad.
(Why are they STILL awaiting a Messiah, then?)
A nod and 'good morning' when passing on the street is always the polite thing to do.
Just like New Orleans, they were warned.
Just like New Orleans, they were pleaded with.
Just like New Orleans, they were sure that it wasn't going to be THAT bad.
Just like New Orleans, they were overwhelmed by destruction.
Just like New Orleans, they were blaming others for their plight.
Just like New Orleans, they are waiting to be bailed out still.
The religious history of America diverged from that of Britain with Methodism--Wesleyans who set up their own bishops rather than remaining Anglican as the Wesley brothers did--and more so with the various Baptist revivals.
Sola scriptura protestantism need not become anti-scientific, but it must either become anti-scientific or secularized, not in the sense of embracing the world, but in the sense of allowing religion to be walled off from the world into a purely private domain.
Of course, there are American particularisms about the things you value in the American experiance. One is evident on FR: American conservatism, unlike continental conservatism or even Burkian conservatism, seeks to conserve the heritage of Western civilization up to and including the Anglo-Scottish phase of the 'Enlightenment' while resisting the continental 'Enlightenment' and all its radicalisms. Properly speaking, the word 'liberal' has been stolen from us by the American socialists. (Personally, I want it back.)
Ironically, you were complaining about harassment and abuse two posts up thread.
"This is a forum for adults."
Wrong. Nothing in the User Agreement prohibits minors from registering.
"I notice you have no evidence to present since there is none, hence the childish replies."
I seem to recall that when someone posts evidence, it becomes "intellectual bullying."
Hmmmm...not entirely sure, given your somewhat "drive-by posting" style, that you really are soliciting an answer--but what the heck, I'll bite.
I think this way (about 'sola scriptura' Protestantism) by definition; truth, under this tenant, is literally available by scripture alone.
In which case, it follows, one can have no meaningful traffic with science. And althought the account is now known to be apocraphyal, the 'logic' would seem to be that attributed to Caliph Omar, said (wrongly, as it happens) to have burned all the books from the magnificent library at Alexandria on the grounds that "they will either contradict the Koran, in which case they are heresy, or they will agree with it, so they are superfluous."
That, it seems to me, is the end-point of 'sola scriptura.'
What I presume Junior means by "theatrics" is that a truly omnipotent God would not need to kill anyone to save others. If God is the origin and definition of all laws, why should He be subject to laws about how He can and cannot save people?
Please, most logical fallacies have absolutely nothing to do with formal logic. They're simply made up by the skeptical community, and anyone who's spent a significant amount of time within that community, like I have, knows exactly what I'm talking about.
That said, I'm proud to announce that those on my side of the aisle, generally do not engage in intimidation campaigns, parading about with liar lists and such.
As to your point about lying per se, I personally never try to accuse anyone of such, since intent is a quality that is extremely difficult to demonstrate. However, misrepresentation is an entirely different story, and to that end, I offer the following from a post by Ichneumon:
Yes, VESTIGIAL FEATURES do indeed provide evidence of evolution "either way", because if they linger from a common ancestor, they indicate the link to that common ancestor, and if they have been "de-selected" as you say, they also provide evidence for evolution because they leave traces of their passing, such as the fact that birds do not have teeth, but still have "broken" genes to produce teeth (which can and have been chemically triggered to produce chicks with reptile-like teeth). Even though birds have lost the teeth of their reptile ancestors, they retain clear evidence that they *did* have teeth in a distant ancestor. source
The impression here, amongst others, is that the teeth producing gene(s) were inherently avian,and that they were reptilian...both of which is incorrect.
Here's a media report:
CNN.com
and a couple of critiques:
critique
critique
For further information, the title of the research paper is:
Development of Teeth in Chick Embryos after Mouse Neural Crest Transplantations
I'll let the reader decide whether Ichneumon, lied, misrepresented, or proffered the truth.
Thanks for your help.
Now THIS I can agree with!
Category 5 should be category zero. I haven't seen any category fours that don't occasionally lapse into religion.
Again; I agree, but MERCY is what I want applied to me!
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