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
Poster #1 says when you insult him, you insult God. Dimensio properly infers that QED Poster #1 thinks he is God. Where is the lie?
Highlighted by thread master #1 here
The AM tells Dimensio to knock off the name calling. I see "arrogant and delusional" which are probably what ticked off the (very thin skinned that session) AM. No acknowledgement of any lying.
Acknowledged here
A post (a classy one at that) indicating that Dimensio didn't realize the first post was a quote and apologizing for reacting to the post as if it were the poster's own words. Not a lie, just an apology for misunderstanding.
And reinforced by thread master #2 here
The SB admonishes PatrickHenry, DaveLoneRanger, Dimensio, nmh (and implicitly everyone) for calling people liars (one must assume whether or not it is true). He also admonishes for hitting "Abuse." Nothing that says Dimensio (or anyone) is lying.
Not a single lie in your referenced posts.
I guess the AM doesn't like us to point out preveracation, but I will leave it that purposely posting a series of posts like these as an "example of Evo lying" is either a sign of a massive reading comprehension problem or purposeful reinterpretation. It is also a great example of what passes for "proof" by CRIDers.
Guess the Ark musta been one badass capacitor bank.
Replacing the degrading electrolytic capacitors must've been one hell of a job for those priests.
Hmmm... the Holy Capacitor Bank of the Covenant has a nice Pythonesque ring to it ;^)
Yep.
"I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine." -- John 17:9
Logical fallacies -- espcially non sequiteurs and strawmen as well as misrepresenting BASIC facts -- repeatedly posted when they have been demonstrably and clearly exposed move from "misunderstanding" to "flat-out-lie."
Once someone posts misinformation (a classic example is Darwin's supposed deathbed refutation of evolution) and is clearly and factually corrected, the next time they make the same post they are lying.
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.
"All Evo's are Athiests/Nazis/Athiest Nazis" isn't intimidation?????? Those of us on the Evo side of the aisle believe in truth and science's continued search for it. We offer up facts and research and conclusions, arrived at (and constantly refined) by the scientific method.
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.
As I said, a corrected misrepresentation posted a second time is a lie. A purposeful non-sequiteur is a lie. A strawman is a lie.
However, misrepresentation is an entirely different story, and to that end, I offer the following from a post by Ichneumon....
I'll let the reader decide whether Ichneumon, lied, misrepresented, or proffered the truth.
This is a very esoteric discussion between competing camps about the evolutionary source of vestigal organs. It is analagous to a discussion about what the implications of St. John contradicting St. Timothy. Posting up support for St. John that may be contreverted elsewhere is NOT lying. It is impossible to post up every side of some of the more interesting debates in the Evo community, which includes some well-read Creos who at least are arguing on a science plane.
And even by your own last line in the post you admit that you can;t tell whether Ichneumon posted up something he knows to be true, which could quickly degenerate into battling experts.
But nowhere do the critiques say "God gave us vestigal organs - {poof}."
So strike 2 on CRIDers showing a single lie by an Evo.
Gallup also did a poll in the late 1997. It found that only 5% of scientists share the creationist viewpoint.
This includes ALL scientists - I imagine the percentage is even lower among geologists and biologists. (If not, where are their creationist submissions to the mainstream peer-reviewed journals? I don't know of any.)
That is the best summary of the debate I've seen to-date. Can you recommend a book that approaches the debate in an even handed way? Without all the hysteria?
I am also a Creationist - a Christian. I have a 85 year-old lady friend I met during my evac from New Orleans. She is intelligent and an agnostic. Her upbringing as a Catholic turned her away from religion, and consequently God. I'd like to buy her a book on the subject. I want to help her find God.
Thanks, S4T.
thanks -- and it is interesting they should use your posts to "prove" their point when it was so obvious it would be the opposite
"I am God" is not an argument. Neither is "Everything that I say comes directly, inerrantly, from God".
That's not all in this context. You also offer it up as an argument that there is noticable scientific controversy regarding the acceptance of evolutionary theory as the fundamental explanation for variant species on earth--and, of course, as always, dodging and twisting doesn't make it so, no matter how good you are at it.
Aye, it seems he is heavily involved in the blowing-things-up-no-matter-how department.
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