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
They can be, but there is also another explanation.
Consider the time this was written. Consider the technology the world possessed at that time. Consider the vocabulary of that time. Much of what exists today not only didn't exist 2000 years ago, but they had no words for it. If John actually saw (in his Revelation) helicopters flying and shooting people, how do you think he would describe it?
Note: I'm not saying he did--this is just an example
If you saw creatures you had never seen before, non one had ever seen before, and there were no words for them, how would you describe them?
If you saw bats from a distance, and were not an expert on wildlife, how would you describe them?
Keep in mind that the book of Revelation (and many other prophetic books) were inspired by visions, not by God dictating words.
Don't forget all the stars falling to earth on judgement day (that'll be c. 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 of them. And apparently 1/3 of them already fell, swished by Lucifer's tail.
Yes, we are.
Well.... at least some of us are.
One would think the Almighty wouldn't have any problem in this regard...
...See how they fly like pigs from a sty, see how they run...
As I said--visions, not words.
What did you think of the rest of my post? Is it reasonable?
By the same token couldn't it be said that the creation story of Genesis is a story that made sense to people with the level of knowledge that they had at the time? You correctly appear to be surmising that the Bible is not a modern textbook on biology, atronomy, or physics. Yet people who reject the laws and morality of the OT on the grounds that God meant those laws for one tribe at that time (I don't see a lot of stubborn & rebellious youths being stoned, or people being stoned for working on Sundays, or slavekeeping) seem to want to treat the biology and physics in it as if it were a textbook.
"Not quite accurate. I actually do believe in God. However, I will not ask others to believe what I believe without verifiable, objective evidence. And, I absolutely will not take anyone else's word on the subject without that same evidence."
Will a belief in parachutes save you from a 20,000 foot jump, or do you actually have to put on the parachute?
"Every one of those denominations bases their beliefs on the same set of Scriptures and "revelation through the Holy Spirit" -- and yet they cannot agree! The only conclusion one can then draw is that such revelation is highly subjective and colored by an individuals own desires."
You've got that right. It's called apostasy. And It is rampant in Christianity. Just as the Bible tells us it would be.
As long as you rely on your own understanding, there is nothing that I or more importantly, God, can do for you. And that saddens me.
I am the eggman.
I thought it was the inerrant word of God. Now you seem to be reducing it, when convenient, to being men's imperfect memories of their visions, filtered through their understanding at their level of knowledge. Didn't God make sure that they wrote the right thing in His Holy Book?
Not my understanding my friend, God's. As given to us in the Holy Bible.
I am merely a man. But I am prepared to substantiate every point that I have put worth, with the Word of God. If I thought it would make any difference.
Irrelevant. I can touch, see and experience a parachute -- as can any other objective observer. The same cannot be said of mystical experience.
As long as you rely on your own understanding, there is nothing that I or more importantly, God, can do for you. And that saddens me.
So sorry. However, my relying on anyone else's understanding of God without some sort of objective standard with which to match it should also sadden you. After all, that other's understanding could also be apostasy, as you put it.
My understanding of God has to match up with reality. If it does not, then my understanding is wrong. That is why I have rejected Scripture as being the inerrant Word of God -- because it does not match up with reality.
I've also had visions and waking dreams. My recall of them later was spotty at best. Do you honestly think God would rely on such a poor method to convey such important information to mankind?
Do you honestly believe that God's visions would be "spotty"? I would think that if God wanted a vision to be taken seriously, the person having the vision would remember it well.
It is.
Now you seem to be reducing it, when convenient, to being men's imperfect memories of their visions, filtered through their understanding at their level of knowledge.
No. Not imperfect memories, but descriptions that people would understand. The bible is God's communication to His creation--us. In order for us to understand God, He makes things fairly simple (in relative terms). Thus He showed John what will happen. John wrote what he saw. Just because he experienced a revelation, does not mean he also experienced a magical increase in his vocabulary.
Didn't God make sure that they wrote the right thing in His Holy Book?
Yup. When Genesis says "day", it means "day." Not some metaphorical eriod of time.
I'm curious. I've not heard this one before. Can you point me to the passage about pi?
Thanks!
1500?
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