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
Your sincerity is duly noted....
Changing-the-subject placemarker.
Koo koo ka joob.
No. You just didn't understand my post.
All we have is your assertion they said that. You could be making the whole thing up for all we know.
My point was that if abiogenesis is shown to be correct, it will have to have followed the known physical constraints of the so-called physical laws.
Religion on the other hand worships a supernatural entity that not only breaks those laws but supposedly created them along with life, the earth and the universe. This supernatural entity seems to be using magic to do all this creating. The only cite I could possibly have for this magical world would be the Bible.
If I'm wrong about this supernatural being and his/her/its use of magic I'm sure you can and will straighten me out.
That was a head-shaker all right.
maybe not
You are having fun attacking your strawmen, I see. Have at it.
God's not.
God didn't write that, Paul did.
Where's the gadfly when you need him?
Where are you?
1357? That's odd
Were the questions too difficult for you?
Would you please point to the post where I implied that someone had lied?
Please review your own statement to which I initially responded...
Yet, I defy you to find a single Evo post that contains either a purposeful logical fallacy or flat out lie.
emphasis mine...
Did you intentionally neglect or ignore a specific part of your statement? If so, that would be a purposeful logical fallacy wouldn't it?
OK lets dispatch the easy stuff first. A logical fallacy is a form of a lie. So therefore you can prove either. Becauise I abbreviated my follow-up means you have won nothing.
As a debate judge how would you score a participant who suddenly bailed on half of their argument after a single rebuttal?
There is no bailout. More importantly, your response pointed out neither a lie nor a logical fallacy.
You met neither part of my challenge. Had you pointed out a logical fallacy you MIGHT have won a small victory on my accidental truncation. But you didn't even meet the lower burden.
Your silly shenanigans with words, although amusing, have no forensic weight, much less logical weight.
My challenge stands -- have you no champion?
That is a lie.
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