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
Listen, you had a post removed, because it was very, very foul...no poster had that post removed by virtue of being someone who supported evolution...I read your post...it was vile, and deserving of being removed...had that same post been made by someone supporting evolution, that post would have been removed as well...
You should actually stop buying into some sort of conspiracy against those supporting creationism, and realize that the posts are judge for decorum, and civility, and such...the content of the posts are not what is in question...people agree and disagree...its the manner in which the disagreements disintegrate into complete mudslinging festivals, that alerts the mods...
I will tell you, you took one of my sentences, and starting using it all over one thread...true, you did ping me, however, I found the whole notion of you using my words to be rather creepy...did I call you a troll? NO...Did I call you a stalker?...NO...did I find your use of my very words, to make a point(when you certainly could have and should have used your own words)to be creepy...YES, I did...did I say anything about it at the time...NO, I did not...but I am saying it now...
Ah, sure, once again, I see, lol
Last one out is a creationist!
Ah, sure, once again, I see, lol
It's noted you've run out of things to say.
Paranoid much?
RWP is a creationist... please respond.
I just dont see the point about hitting the abuse button, tho I do know of at least two times, when someone hit the abuse button on my behalf, because what was said to me was so personal, so foul, that the offending posts were removed...
And I was Freepmailed later, from the persons who hit the abuse button on my behalf...strangely enough, it was not even on these evo/creo/ID threads...foul posts, out of control posters, and mudslinging festivals do seem to invade many seeminly innocent threads on FR...
As I said, I understand JR and the mods reasons for removing offending and foul posts..they have a valuable reason, they want to protect the good name of FR...but those foul, offending posts, as I have said before are enlightening...
Nah, you're still here....oops!
You are really quite strange...I am not hysterical, but you surely seem to be...do you think no one can post where they wish?...do you have some sort of rights on FR, that no one else has, to post, and not expect to be responded to...
You post, someone will respond...that is the FR way...
Your response when someone responds to one of your posts, is that they are chasing after you...I agree with the other posters, you do seem to be paranoid...you see conpiracies where none exist...
Yeah, you probably think this is about you.
Just for the record: the hate for the jews is justified now, and has been justified for a very long time, using the very same scripture Elsie quoted. I don't doubt Elsie's sense of brotherly love. One might also note that the officers of the inquisition expressed very similar sentiments: that it was only love for the immortal souls of the jews that forced the inquisition to desicreate, torture and murder their bodies. It is not Elsie's fault she is mouthing words from the bible that have been used to justify murdering jews. As I have been at pain to point out, it is the words that are at fault.
Thats very interesting...I must say, JR, and FR, have a high tolerance level...its got to be a very hard job, deciding what posts to allow, what posts to delete, what posters to allow to continue to post, what posters to give a warning to, what posters to give a several days time-out to, and what posters to give a permanent banning to...
Its no easy task, that, and we should all be grateful that they let us go as far as often we can go..
"Yeah, you probably think this is about you."
But I AM vain, so it's probably true. :)
Life is a kick, isn't it? I came over here to see about a math question and I've been called a troll, a hypocrite, vain, paranoid, a conspiracy theorist and more, and it's still early on a Saturday nite! It just can't get much better than this.
Don't you, don't you, don't you, yeah.
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