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
I know what you mean..sometimes if I am late coming to a thread, and have to play catchup, I want to post as soon as I feel like responding to a post...but as you say, often, if I keep reading, I will find someone else who makes my point for me, and my little post is of no value...
I had really never thought about it til now... but, since thinking of it....
(Are you SURE that's parody site? Sure they use a lot of big, important sounding words, but....)
Helps my head hurt.
Ha!
What part of Life, LIberty and the pursuit of happiness for all do the judges not understand?
I know..but the thread was getting dreary, and about ready to die...it needed some lightening up...
placemarker
'old common scold wearing a scolds bridle' placemarker...
nitey nite all...sleep well and dream well...
"I read for 4 nights straight trying to catch up with this thread."
And those 4 nights will lost forever. As a frequent poster on this thread, I can tell you honestly, it wasn't worth it. :)
Well I've been called a jackass and a cultist.
The modus operandi for the fundamentalist "evos" seems to be insult and inflame and then when they are pinned against the wall by effective arguments, they call you a troll and then.... run away! run away!
MAYNARD: It's the legendary Black Beast of aaauuugh!
ARTHUR: Run away!
ALL: Run away! Run away!
[roar]
I quite obviously characterized your statements accurately. As you have conclusively demonstrated by your repeated unwillingness to have your opinions examined.
Audacity is thy name!
Audacity is better than disingenuous, truculent obfuscation.
How do you figure this?
Hey, it was you that quoted that jaggernaut of jew-denigrating gospel quotes, what do you think they mean? It appears to me that you said the jews today are suffering because of what the jews of the bible were accused of in those quotes. Am I mistaken? Was it someone else who said this? Do you, in fact, think the jews of today are still being punished because of what they did as reported in the bible?
On my measuring stick (arm) it's about 4.5 inches or 4 per cubit. If someone had a skinnier hand it might be slightly less. Something like 4 inches (which is what the standard handbreadth is for measuring horses) or about: 4.5/cubit.
Using the 4" to 18" ratio, you end up with an inside circumference of 30.0195422 cubits or a margin of error of slightly less than 2/100 of a cubit or .36 of an inch.
I have, in no obvious manner, made an error, mistake, or misjudgement. The exchange you keep carrying around from post to post like an albatross around your neck, is, quite obviously, an accurate characterization. That's the reason you are so oddly shy about telling me flat out what, precisely, I am wrong about.
I think amusement would be closer to the mark for my feelings towards you than hatred.
The success of predictions does not always mean the theory is correct. Suppose I have been theorizing that the great god Thor has been twisting the earth on his finger for eons, and that the great god Phoebus Apollo has been driving a great chariot of fiery horses over the celestial sphere to light our way. I have some of the Greek mythology mixed up, of course, but you see my point.
You haven't made a point. There is no prediction whatsoever in your hypothesis. Thus it resembles typical creationist thinking.
Because a prediction’s fulfillment seems to fit the theory does not mean it is true.
Of course not, but when a hypothesis racks up enough predictions, and even a small number of predictions is enough if the predictions themselves are astonishing enough (eg CMB & Big Bang), it graduates to theory. Scientists have made so many successful predictions using the theory of evolution as to place evolution beyond serious doubt. None of those predictions had to come true, indeed were evolution not true it is extremely unlikely that most of them would have come true.
Recall that scientists used to believe that an object wants to remain still until forced to move. This based on the evidence that they saw; skip a rock, it eventually comes to an end. Then the idea was proposed that an object will remain in motion until halted by something, in this case, gravity and friction.
"Scientists" prior to the Newtonian/Galilean age didn't really subscribe to the idea of experimental prediction and falsification the way that they have done since then. In that respect they were more like philosophers, and a lot like modern creationists, and that is why science has been advancing so fast since the 18th Century. Successful prediction and potential falsification are the hallmarks of modern scientific endeavour. Anyone can come up with a hypothesis that explains existing data. A hypothesis that predicts new observations successfully, when those observations have the potential to falsify the hypothesis if they came out differently is far more interesting and has the potential to advance to the exalted state of "theory". I don't think you'll ever get this, but it is all grist for the lurkers mill.
Thanks for helping me clear that up. As for the Huxley business, I suppose by pinging that one thread, I stand guilty of endorsing the whole thing again, but I’ve discussed the errors of it in the past, and I cannot verify those exact quotes by Huxley.
Do you not see how this careless repetition of known fabrications makes you, your argument, and your religion look?
So, when are you going to come up with some quotes about early evolutionary theorists who leapt at the theory of evolution because of its perceived implications for sexual morality? Or are you going to admit that you just made that claim up, or you were repeating a falsehood that someone else told you? (a creationist website repeating falsehoods? Fancy that!)
The idea you allege is that the idea of gravity is a theory just as molecule-to-man evolution is a theory.
Nope. You seem confused about facts and theories. Gravity is a fact, as you observed. Evolution, change over time, is a fact.
Newton and Einstein have 'Theories' about how gravity works. The Theory Of Evolution is about how evolution works.
And BTW, that 'molecule-to-man evolution is a theory' stuff is a gross misrepresentation (misspeaking?) and I think you know it.
I recognize many of the quotes you posted; and I know or knew a couple of the people quoted. Many of pro-evolution scientists are quoted out of context to misrepresent them; and some of the scientists do not support evolution. But you've been upbraided for quote-mining before; you've been told it's tantamount to telling falsehoods about people, something your own Decalogue tells you not to do. And yet you persist. How could I not feel contempt and disgust for an individual who spends his time and abilities doing such things, and cannot be dissuaded from that course, even by public shaming?
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