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
Oh yeah; then donh doesn't have to worry about Elsie showing where he stuffed words into his mouth!
I think your conjecture about the disturbed wishful thinker, is most excellent...
Oops! 43!
UH-OH...whats a coming? perhaps another Elsie Marthon?...
Now 53!!
(And if I keep posting to myself, it'll go up and up and up..)
I was called an anti Semite on another thread. I forgot that one
If SHE is really a SHE. Could be a cover story...
OMG, I never considered that alternative. I'm not sure I want to think about it.
I find it amazing that merely posting Scripture showing what happened in the past somehow qualifies the poster to be an AVDOCATE for continuing that same practice today.
Strange thinking on someones part...
Isnt Elsie a he?...I thought I remembered him telling us that....or am I thinking of someone else with a ladies name?...sorry Elsie, if I got you mixed up with someone else...
When I been gone from FR any amount of time, you guys will post a zillion things (<-- note to hyper-sensitives: this is hyperbole) that I just simply MUST reply to. So, naturally, it just LOOKS like Ol' Elsie is running hot and fast!
Well we did our best to educate him. The rest will have to come from the Lord.
That's ok. It just appears that someone may not have read my dossier completely on the EvoInfo website.
Isnt Elsie a he
As far as I know, yes. But I was referring to she who often refers to those who have requested she not ping them as he-who-must-not-be-spoken-to, or something like that.
Actually, I quite enjoy your little marathon episodes...trouble is tho, it is as you say,you have been gone away from FR, for a while, and seem to pick up where you left off, and reply to posters as you go along reading the new stuff...the trouble is, sometimes your replies are so long in time, away from the post you are responding to, that one has to waste time and try to go back finding out what you were responding to...no problem, its just that sometimes your posts dont seem to relate to anything current on the thread...which sometimes makes for a humorous juxtaposition of your posts...
Oh, I was not referring to Elsie as the disturbed wishful thinker(Heaven forbid such a thought about Elsie)...but I do know exactly who you were referring to as the disturbed wishful thinker...I was just musing that its often difficult to tell, whether a poster is male or female...
Ah, you have a dossier...impressive..
I thought it was the 'common scold'...
"I thought it was the 'common scold'..."
You are correct. You seem to have a familiarity with this particular pest already. My condolences. :)
Ah, yes, a most unpleasant exchange with this particular person...condolences are welcome...
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