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 checked into the quote, and discovered that it was given by Aldous Huxley, Julian Huxley’s brother. Not quite in the same context, but here is the quote:
“For myself, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation, sexual and political.”"
This had nothing to do with evolution. This is also a misquote. It's also in a book arguing AGAINST nihilism. Aldous Huxley was not an atheist. Nor was he ever a scientist. 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."
is still unsubstantiated. We are waiting for some documentation.
CG and I are still waiting for any quote that backs up your statement about early evolutionary theorists being attracted by the moral and sexual implications rather than the actual evidence for the theory. As there are more where that came from ("that" being none at all that match the description, so far) presumably you can produce some of them.
I am not inclined to let you off the hook for the Julian Huxley fabrication when you'd been told about it before. Such carelessness with the truth on your part speaks volumes of your good faith in this issue.
I deny that evolution has a philosophical (or any other kind of) stance. Science, evolutionary or otherwise, is not the same thing as philosophical naturalism: whether darwinian evolutionary theory has meaning or not is outside of science's capacity to inquire.
Ahem. Deny it all you want, but the world is round, not flat. If you need a primer on exactly what philosophical assumptions do indeed underlie 'science' and its 'capacity', I have a lot of links to offer you. First in the list ... no, wait a sec...
"Google and the Internet make it duck soup.." is how it was put by a poster once...
This thread STILL going??!
Yeah, DLR made the mistake of making claims that he apparently cannot provide evidence to support and is now doing the usual creationist dance. Duck and weave, dodge and dive. When pressed he posted a link to a long list of quote-mines that have nothing to do with his claim, along with a couple of fabrications and misquotes that would vaguely support part of his claim if only they were true. Anything rather than just admit that he made it up. Fancy that, a creationist unwilling to admit to fabrication. Have you ever seen the like? This dance of denial could go on for a while yet.
Permit me to summarise:
I've already notified the appropriate authorities after Gobucks proposed his Theory of Marital Satisfaction to me about a year ago, and as soon as they have video evidence of Gobucks new-found marital bliss, along with a signed deposition from his bride, his Nobel Prize will be in the post.
Then I realised that what I was looking for was the source of denial.
Lake Victoria, last I knew....
Har-de-har har.
Ahem. Deny it all you want, but the world is round,
It's not. It's a highly irregularly surfaced, unbalanced oblate spheroid.
not flat. If you need a primer on exactly what philosophical assumptions do indeed underlie 'science' and its 'capacity', I have a lot of links to offer you. First in the list ... no, wait a sec...
Don't bother, if you want to make this point, I'd like references from the vast number of scientists who think science rules out the existence of metaphysical explanations of things--which is what philosophical naturalism, not science, assumes.
You are so much more polite now. I really appreciate it. Btw, I would suggest you at least link to the items you are referring to.
You do realize that a post made over 'a year ago' CLEARLY has made quite the impression upon you....
I think that bodes very very well for you ... still.
Do you think that if such people would just convert to Christianity they would quit bearing false witness?
Sorry, I didn't realize that was a challenge. I'm sure you can find and quote to me plenty of philosophical blovation about how philosophy underpins every worthwhile notion everyone ever had. Particularly from academic philosophers who get paid by the state to sit around and think up a philosophical storm. Science's pressing need for philosophy, however, stands on about a par with its pressing need in auto mechanics or fish farming or writing traffic tickets.
"I'd like references from the vast number of scientists who think science rules out the existence of metaphysical explanations of things--which is what philosophical naturalism, not science, assumes."
?Que? I think I might risk misunderstanding what you mean here; which assumptions to which do you mean?
"Science's pressing need for philosophy, however, stands on about a par with its pressing need in auto mechanics or fish farming or writing traffic tickets."
Right. Ok. Science is Independent of any underlying philosopical basis. Got it, trust it, I'm there. It just stands alone, sort of like Kant's first imperative. It is just 'there'. Like the sky being blue....
I get it.
'a par' .... nice attempt at using a golf metaphor though.
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