Churches urged to back evolution

British Broadcasting Corporation ^ | 20 February 2006 | Paul Rincon

[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

[RunningWolf]

Very Good Bump

I have made the same observations, albeit not nearly as well as you have here.

Wolf

[donh]

You seem to be profoundly confused and unhappy. Science has not provided you with the answers you so desperately seek.

I don't look to science for "answers I so desperately seek". Science is perilously slow and subborn about responding to my personal concerns.

But you are not yet willing to give up your sin, so you lash out at God and all who represent. Kind of reminds me of myself, not too long ago.

You are uninvited to tell me what I am thinking. Largely on account of your displayed lack of competence. Maybe you should consider the possibility that I'm genuinely appalled at a biblically-inspired institution that lasts for centuries while periodically committing horrors against people who disagree with it philosophically, and then this same book is held up to me as an unquestionable source of scientific and moral truth.

Are you a good person?

Hard to tell...are you presumptious, and highly distractable?

[RunningWolf]

Mr. donh now try to stay cool here but I want to know why you and the rest that show up insisting that you represent 'the science' side of a confrontation actually spend not much time in science but instead use the words of the BIBLE (which by inference you reject) as part of your argument against the non-evos.

And another thing, what is all this comparisons to crop circles etc like that is some theory. Crop circles are a bunch of kids playing a prank, and some educated people got wrapped up in the hoax that’s all. I mean you never see any DESERT CIRCLES do you? LOL

I mean you guys seem to think these sort of inferences and comparisons make your positions stronger, well dumb 'ol Wolf 'll tell you, It ain't working LOL

Actually I don’t know what you really think because you always gratuitously include this stuff in your posts.

Wolf

[RunningWolf]

//I've seen at least two Freepers have in the past advocating that the OT laws like this *ought* to be observed//

So what?

2 freepers in the PH ping list have made inferences that my life is worthless and/or absurd scenarios of taking it.

Another 2 freepers in the PH ping list put up sac-religious rants and some pretty vile imagery that occasionally has racist taints to it.

And there is more.

Then look at the performance of you people on this very thread. You want to infer some academic and intellectual supremacy, but like I said look at this performance it is pathetic.

Actually I do not consider myself a particularly religious person. I have only rarely gone to church when invited and I am not well read in the Bible. It is not really important to me how the earth is.

The only reality I can do something about is the present. What I do today makes my future and becomes my memory. Like the Cesar Romero quote 'yesterday is like a canceled check, tomorrow a promissory note, but today is like cash'

Your performance would be pathetic if it was a forum on fly fishing. You are not here for any kind of dialog.

One thing is certain though. You have found a place to have a loud voice, and your cause pretty much has carte blanche to carry on as you want as long as you pay some lip service and do a little navel gazing every now and then.

Like I said, you have your forum. But it pretty much turns on the head any ###### same, and/or abrogates any ####### statements of.

Well that’s just the way it isn’t it? Wolf can operate in a hostile environment.

Wolf

[PatrickHenry]

Counting only those killed by God in the Bible.

Doesn't the Flood count?

[donh]

Mr. donh now try to stay cool here but I want to know why you and the rest that show up insisting that you represent 'the science' side of a confrontation actually spend not much time in science but instead use the words of the BIBLE (which by inference you reject) as part of your argument against the non-evos.

I do believe I can, in fact, demonstrate a fairly substantial committment to talking about science. As I recall, it was not I, in this thread, who suggested that the bible is the unerring last word in science and morality, in fact, I defy you to find a thread where I started an argument by quoting the bible at tedious length in order to answer (or, rather, avoid) an argument. You'll find plenty where creationists jumped down this rathole rather than defend their silly pseudo-science theories as if they actually took themselves seriously.

And another thing, what is all this comparisons to crop circles etc like that is some theory. Crop circles are a bunch of kids playing a prank,

Very few of them are, that would take way more of a committment to pranksterism than seems at all likely, unless you think high school pranksters have routine access to radiation sources, theodolites, construction lasers and electro-magnetic devices strong enough to cause grasses to twist together into intricate site-uniform knots at high speed. Most crop circles are a genuine puzzle.

and some educated people got wrapped up in the hoax that’s all. I mean you never see any DESERT CIRCLES do you? LOL

What kind argument is that? What in tunkus would prevent college kids from making circles in desert sand? What would make anyone notice it if they did?

I mean you guys seem to think these sort of inferences and comparisons make your positions stronger, well dumb 'ol Wolf 'll tell you, It ain't working LOL

Oh, like you're a competent judge.

Actually I don’t know what you really think because you always gratuitously include this stuff in your posts.

No, you don't know what I think because you don't bother to pay much attention.

[Junior]

Yeah, but I figured there might have been only a few thousand people around at that point...

[donh]

However, when we get thru the ad hominems,

A relevant insult is not an ad hominem, an irrelevant insult is.

it is all about whether science demands naturalistic presuppositions in its attempt to define the world,

Well, this is entertaining, at least. Pray tell, what manner of science is it you think you can do regarding metaphysical phenomenon for which there is no tangible physical evidence? What do you think science can operate on, other than evidence? You are aware that being unable to explain something is not an open and shut demonstration that it is a metaphysical phenomenon, right? Maybe not.

life, origins, etc. I say "NO" it does not. And to insist that it does is not "science" at all.

That's utter hogwash. The Big Bang, gradual abiogensis, and the details of the origin of the earth are unexceptional grist for the science mill, just as is plate tectonics, stellar evolution, and the existence of dinosaurs. Just because something happened far in the past doesn't make it automatically a scientificlly inaccessable trespass on metaphysical or theological territory, your pouting about it to the contrary notwithstanding. If there's morphologically coherent evidence we can read as a vector back into the past, that's a science, and not a particularly unusual science, either.

[Thatcherite]

It is also pretentious nonsense.

And a straw man. If that was your point, you were wasting your time, since no-one claims that science disproves the supernatural. It simply hasn't found any evidence of it so far.

[Thatcherite]

Coming from you "pathetic contribution" is a compliment. Your contribution to these forums is purely negative.

You are not here for any kind of dialog.

And you are? ;)

It wasn't me who keeps gloatingly posting Biblical verses about horrible deaths and ghastly eternal suffering for the ungodly. I think you'll find that was the Freeper that you worship.

[P-Marlowe]

*Counting only those killed by God in the Bible. If you include "acts of God" as defined by insurance companies, the numbers done in by the Almighty would dwarf anything mere mortals could hope to achieve.

The fact of the matter is that the only reason you are still alive is because God is longsuffering. Eventually you will die. You can chalk that one up to God too.

Romans 6:23. “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

[RunningWolf]

Thachy,

While something about your post in this thread prompted that reply, it was not necessarily directed at you or just you, so the word 'you' is not necessarily you, get it? I know you do.

Now what you see as gloating from them I see as humility.

Look we are all born to die and it’s all a horrible way for the vast part. I have had death get literally right in my face and look me eye to eye more than three times. If you have not been there you will never understand what I tell you about

You talk about worship? I am glad you brought that up, it plays into what I have tried to say for so long. You consciously make your life about something, that is worship as it were. That is where the false gods, the deities as it were reign. Are you going to place your life at the altar of evo? So what if you don't have a better answer, keep searching!! Look inside!! and out.

Consciously handing over your life to a thing is different than going down the wrong path, seeing that and re-trenching.

Now Wolf might be the worst of the worst or a mediocre example at best. All I can ask is that you look deep deep into the great writings and yourself, and then juxtapose that with the message of evo, and then you make the call. Ultimately it is your choice, the writings tell you that too.

We are all on the path

It is not so important how a man dies, but how he lives.

How will we live Thachy?

Wolf

[dread78645]

No converts, no revival.

[vimto]

Yes, I know that seems odd but it is. I appreciate the civility of your response.

Disbelieving God's word (the sin in Eden) means putting self over God. Idolatry. One can never commit idolatry if you cleave to God,s Word. Kind regards,

[When_Penguins_Attack]

it is all about whether science demands naturalistic presuppositions in its attempt to define the world, Well, this is entertaining, at least.

No, it is the POINT and until you can get past a supercilious sneer you will continue to be either dishonest or cognitively deficient in your "answer" like this jewel here......Pray tell, what manner of science is it you think you can do regarding metaphysical phenomenon for which there is no tangible physical evidence? What do you think science can operate on, other than evidence? You are aware that being unable to explain something is not an open and shut demonstration that it is a metaphysical phenomenon, right? Maybe not. This is a textbook case of attacking a straw man. Like I said - it is not about science OBSERVING the basis on which one assumes the "worldview" in which science will be done. To deny that modern science today has a creed of naturalistic uniformitarianism, and an assumption that all scientific models within the cosmos must operate within that assumption -- is to proclaim that the earth is flat. The issue that launched this thread is exhibit 1. You have admitted (quite without grasping the implications, it appears), that science in incapable of making a pronouncement as to whether the universe itself is naturalistic or supernatural, nor whether the supernatural has left any footprints in the natural world. Then in the next breath, you insist that because science can only be concerned with the empirical, that science itself must adopt the presupposition that all its models for origins, life, etc must be done within a naturalistic framework, with an assumption that all events, given enough time, observation and knowledge, will be explainable by "natural" means. This is epistemological hubris, a non-sequiter of staggering dimensions, and (may I say again) NOT SCIENCE.

You should get past all the silly palaver about "Flood geology" and "young earth" and fundamentalists who don't really know what THEY believe, nor what the Bible teaches (as an aside, some wag once stated that in the USA our loyalty to the Bible is matched only by our ignorance of it....never truer than today), nor what the scientific community proclaims. These people, however misinformed (and some of them dishonest as well, it seems), sense the core of the problem, even if they can't articulate it. Modern science holds to naturalistic presuppositions as a tenet of science itself, with the laughable assertion that if it operated within any other construct, science would fly apart as centrifuges would be abandoned for bible reading and we would substitute crystal readings for crystallography (yeah, I know it is old, but the alliteration sounded cool). You people act like some cloister of mideval prelates who threaten fire and damnation and predict absurd calamaties to science itself if the naturalistic community critically examined its presuppositions. Until you cease assuming that you can substitute rhetoric, sneers and threats for answering the question, you will continue to face it. And, until you cease acting as though methodology is in itself grounds for naturalistic presuppositions (the central error you people keep bawling out, like a child who refuses to cease reaching for chocolates after his hand has been slapped), you can continue to "debate" by sneering about comic books and launching ad hominems.

[When_Penguins_Attack]

You still don't understand the issue at debate, here.

[Junior]

The fact of the matter is that the only reason you are still alive is because God is longsuffering.

You make God sound like a Mafia don.

[whattajoke]

Sidenote: There's something very Jr. High about your penchant to call me "Whatta" and Thatcherite, "Thach" etc.

Look we are all born to die and it’s all a horrible way for the vast part. I have had death get literally right in my face and look me eye to eye more than three times. If you have not been there you will never understand what I tell you about

This strikes me. "We are all born to die," and it's you folks who tell us folks that we must live miserable lives? I certainly don't view my life as merely "passing through." I prefer to make a mark and "live life." "Born to die" sounds, dare I say it, a bit martyristic.

I have not "been" there and have never nearly died. But if and when I do, and if and when I pull through thanks to modern medical science and the skills of my doctors, I assure you that I'll not write such a dime store novel description of the experience.

Are you going to place your life at the altar of evo?

Um, no. There is no such thing. Again, as you are wont to do, the world isn't all about religion to some people. Science/evolution/biology is not, and never was, a religion. Your particular brand of Christianity, however, is. And that's fine. Sheesh.

[Junior]

I have had death get literally right in my face and look me eye to eye more than three times.

To quote Death from Jingo by Terry Pratchett, "No you haven't."

[donh]

You have admitted (quite without grasping the implications, it appears), that science in incapable of making a pronouncement as to whether the universe itself is naturalistic or supernatural, nor whether the supernatural has left any footprints in the natural world. Then in the next breath, you insist that because science can only be concerned with the empirical, that science itself must adopt the presupposition that all its models for origins, life, etc must be done within a naturalistic framework, with an assumption that all events, given enough time, observation and knowledge, will be explainable by "natural" means. This is epistemological hubris, a non-sequiter of staggering dimensions, and (may I say again) NOT SCIENCE.

This is the most long-winded version of this donkey-poop I have seen in some time. SCIENCE is precisely the assumption that whatever we will find scientific answers for, we will find by looking at accessable, tangible evidence, even if you hold your breath until you turn blue. It is NOT, contrary to your absurd, and loudly repeated notion, a claim that 'all events, given enough time, observation and knowledge, will be explainable by "natural" means'. And I defy you to find a single working scientist of any significant standing in the scientific community who would mouth such arrogant rubbish. My supposition, that your understanding of science is derived from comic book stories about mad scientists appears to be well-founded after all, your protests to the contrary notwithstanding.