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
Which results in the merely "plausible"-- better science than that has to be found to build bridges that stay up, that create medicines that don't kill you instead of help you, launch a space vehicle that can locate and flick a comet that's going 100K mph...
When a better explanation for some evolutionary "incident" precludes a previous explanation--who cares?
The holder of the previous opinion just sort of fades out of the picture. No one dies, no bridges collapse, and the rocket never leaves the pad. But no one cares. That's because it's not really science, just the fruitings of the imagination.
re: How much of a luddite are you willing to be?)))
You really shouldn't let the Goon Meister write your lines for you. You were doing pretty well without him.
Now do you understand why I've begun to consider organized religion to be a confidence game?
I concluded 'organized religion' is a confidence game awhile ago.
Oy gevalt! I almost forgot that one (btw. weren't it two she-bears?).
Note to self: never mock bald people
When sombody tells me that they don't buy into evolution, I believe them. You can choose to doubt if you wish, especially since it fits your bias.
...
I also invest in pharmeceudicals--I even have a dog in this avian flu race. Lit about new meds is full of cautionary qualifiers and "indications" "maybes" -- the way real scientists who do real accountable science talk.
Good effort at putting up a pretense of respectability behind a totally unsupportable argument. Of course you'll not be documenting this vast hoard of micro-biologists you own stock in who repudiate darwinian theory. The fact remains that, dispite this pretentious buffoonery, the crushingly overwhelming majority of working biologists embrace evolutionary theory as fundamental to modern biology, and most certainly to micro-biology, as do virtually all working scientists.
LOL! How about the virtual scientists here who are clearly not working?
Then perhaps you recall this passage from I Corintians 1:
Christ the Wisdom and Power of God
18For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19For it is written:
"I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate."[c]
20Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 22Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.
26Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29so that no one may boast before him. 30It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. 31Therefore, as it is written: "Let him who boasts boast in the Lord."[d]
The statement I made about it being our understanding that is flawed is based on this passage. If you disagree with it, you need to take it up with the one who made the statement.
And while I always got bogged down in Numbers and never completed reading the whole thing, I have memorized large portions of Luke, I & II Corinthians, and the Epistles. So much for the implication of not being well read.
I don't think that anyone would want to catch up with anyone headed in your direction.
Someday you'll figure out what a scientist is. Keep scratching your head in the mean time.
I think that's the important lesson there.
Which results in the merely "plausible"--
That's all science aspires to.
better science than that has to be found to build bridges that stay up,
Huh. Do all bridges stay up? What makes you think the process of induction isn't heavily relied on in the engineering of bridges?
that create medicines that don't kill you instead of help you,
Really? Medicines never kill anyone? Interesting. Are you under the impression that statistical induction is not a fundamental part of the FDA's acceptance criteria for medicines?
launch a space vehicle that can locate and flick a comet that's going 100K mph...
You have no clear grasp of what you are talking about. Even the most intensively deductive mathematical approaches to problem solving do not dis-engage from inductive reasoning in the real world.
When a better explanation for some evolutionary "incident" precludes a previous explanation--who cares?
What are you fantisizing about now? I have no idea. Is this something you learned from all those creationist-micro-biologists the company you own stock in is chock full of?
The holder of the previous opinion just sort of fades out of the picture. No one dies, no bridges collapse, and the rocket never leaves the pad. But no one cares. That's because it's not really science, just the fruitings of the imagination.
Crops parish, people sicken, and oil probes come up dry when evolutionary theory is ignored. Bridges do, in fact, collape, rockets do, in fact, fail to leave pads, and people do, in fact, die, when they fail to use inductive reasoning to keep their deductive robots from running amok and shooting themselves and their creators in the foot.
re: How much of a luddite are you willing to be?)))
You really shouldn't let the Goon Meister write your lines for you. You were doing pretty well without him.
I recommend saving the patronizing snide remarks for someone who's as out of touch with the nature of biological science as you are, so you can be playing on a level playing field.
Too bad no scientists are here, you could take a poll.
I think that would be your already displayed area of expertise. Now where's that long list of micro-biologists working for pharmaceutical companies who repudiate evolutionary theory?
The latest med I'm looking at squeezes juice out of lizards to treat diabetics. Nothing in the lit about evo, but my! I got results I can believe in.
It's been done. See PH's list-o-links, look for the 1000 scientists named "Steve" who support evolutionary theory. Do you have a list of 10 scientists named steve who don't?
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