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
Where have you been? I suppose the fact that Israel depends on the US for its right to exist is lost on you.
What kind of dopey argument is this? Perhaps you think it would be a good defense of a mass murderer, that he always picks up his litter?
You are the one ranting that Christians hate Jews. The fact is, we consider them as our elder brother, and sincerely believe, as the Bible says, that all those who are against Israel God will destroy. Although many Christians are not Zionists, many are, and it is the so-called Christian nation of the US that stands on the side of Israel in world affairs. So my friend, your little rant is just plain ridiculous.
Christians have been officially hating jews as a Christian duty for 1400 years, as manifested in torturing and murdering them, kidnapping their children, and massacring them wholesale within the ghettos they were imprisoned. All under the careful guidance and cheerleading of their Christian spiritual advisors. 50 years of Christians behaving themselves after the Holocaust, doesn't mean the leopard has changed its spots.
Well, yes, you did. When you said:
Christian churches do not have any statues for the reason you stated, Catholic churches have many.
...
but Christians are not necessarily Catholics.
You posted there were statues in Christian churches and I said in catholic churches there are statues. You mentioned Protestant, I haven't been in a Protestant church so I didn't comment. Stop in a Christian church
I see. So neither catholics nor protestants are christians.
I don't know what Martin Luther thought but the Jewish people are God's chosen. Jesus was a Jew and his apostles and his mother, Mary. How did they win the 6-day war when everything was against them and they were out numbered? God's intervention. Recently a soldier from that war was interviewed on TV. The story was quite amazing.
I don't care who hates me, talks about me or tries to cause me harm because I'm under His protection. He takes care of His own, those that know and love Him.
I'm not asking you to agree with me, just passing on info - see for yourself.
I don't want to be testified to, and I don't think you intend to respond to my concerns in a manner that will make much sense to me. Please direct your inquiries elsewhere.
However filled with christian charity you may be, hating jews because of the bible is a long-standing christian tradition. See some of the recent postings here on this thread by Elsie. You can find plenty more christian biblically-based jewish hatred by googling ""truth in history" "Matthew 27:25"". It's far from being a musty historical embarassment. Maybe it will help if you ram your head even further into the sand.
You're still reaching. It said thirty cubits compassed it around, not a phrase one would use for an internal circumference. You can't claim ten cubits from brim to brim is an outside measurement, and thirty cubits is an inside measurement, wthout special pleading. So give it up.
Your complete failure to acknowledge (understand) my point that successful predictions cannot be tainted by bias is noted. I repeat, interpretation of existing evidence and observations is only the first step on the road. Its easy to see why creationists ignore the rest of the stages towards "theory". Thus far all forms of creation science have yet to post a single successful prediction.
As for the citations, please visit http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1435562/posts Most are scientists there.
In that list I could find exactly two quotes that have anything remotely to do with your claim that "As can be demonstrated, early evolutionary theorists confessed that they were not drawn to the idea of secularist evolution because of any scientific merit, but rather because of its implications in morality."
The two least irrelevant quotes were from Sir Julian Huxley, and Aldous Huxley (no, its not a coincidence that they share names, his brother, a novelist not a scientist). Neither of these people fit the bill of "early evolutionary theorists". Neither of them say that they weren't drawn to evolution because of scientific merit. As usual when it comes to supporting your contentions you are batting zero so far. Your "as can be demonstrated" as yet hasn't been. Do you have any citations that support the claim that you actually made?
Thanks.
It gets still worse. DLR was so smitten with that Patterson quote that he included in his list, and then he included it in his list again, further down. I've noticed before that DLR appears to have a severe short-term memory problem, to go with his reading comprehension and simple logic difficulties.
And showed EXACTLY where you did it!!!!
Something that you CAN'T do!
Your lack of a coherent response is noted. So, where are those citations then?
Coming up ...
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