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
Cause certainly almost EVERY one of those evil Liberals know what it is and it just makes us look REALLY bad!!!
That is quite a silly response. All questions are "unanswerable" in that sense, and anyone who has taken the time to think beyond a collge bull session discussion of theology/philosophy knows it. The validation of your own existence and that of the cosmos is "unanswerable." Yet you merrily go along accepting both on FAITH, every day. Indeed, your participation in this thread assumes you accept several unverifiable assertions: Your existence, the existence of the persons to whom you respond, meaningfulness and knowability of propositional truth. None of these things can be "answerable" in the sense you post above.
Are you asserting that you never worry about ANYTHING? Unless you are a poster child for zoloft, I think not. You are concerned about many things. Probably the same bag of crap that confronts all of us, including money, career, relationships, and your place in the web of those things. You have as little means of independent verification of those things as one does of the existence or non-existence of God, yet you assume they exist and predicate much of your activities on the idea that they do exist and have meaning.
If you want to question the existence of anything, that is your prerogative and I firmly support your right to do so, whether it be God, the Bible, the validity of dialectic materialism, or some vagaries of string theory. However, if you spout out some silly nonsense implying some issues are "answerable" while others are not, and you just don't worry about those which are not, then be prepared to have someone call that asinine yawlp the rubbish that it is.
There is something logically wrong with this sentence, but I can't figure out what.....
The bottom line is that he can know NOTHING for a "fact." We can only assume the validity of certain propositions.
What, alternating ad hominems with paternostrums? I heard those nuns were tough, but come on....
I needed a rest. I'm okay now.
And if God was all-powerful, He wouldn't require a sacrifice to forgive sins. You seem to be missing the whole point.
And, God can take care of Himself. He doesn't need some two-bit, self-righteous [censored] to carry His water for Him. That's the trap into which the Moslems fall.
And, like I said, if God were truly all-powerful, then no sacrifice would be needed for Him to forgive our sins. If God requires a sacrifice then He is not all-powerful and lives by an exterior set of rules.
Sic 'im, Lord!
true
Not quite....
Just try posting Mormon secret sacred temple ceremonies and see how long they remain!
Say Rev, what was Jesus a metaphor for?
My comments cut to the heart of the debate!
No they don't. They setup a new discussion about the nature of reality. Interesting, but not germane.
I didn't quote them nor attack them.
Therefore no ping was necessary,
I am not backpeddaling one step. Show me IN MY OWN WORDS where such a thing has occurred.
I have not been even directly engaged by a single post. You setup the false dichotomy by suggesting eiter God or Diemension are lying. Neither is true therefore you are exposed for trying to set a childish wordplay trap -- and establishing a logical fallacy which is deception which is lying.
In other words standard CRIDer behavior. How do you guys sleep with all the lying you do on these threads?
Or misquoted or misunderstood.
If misquoted, then a bunch of guys who were His contemporaries got themselves killed having bad hearing (the disciples come to mind)
And yes, He is still misunderstood, even today.
Tory - There are a number of things underlying the controversy with the main issue being the absolute refusal to allow anyone to question the "theory" of evolution in a science classroom without being subject to the type of name calling and ridicule that are so prevalent from the evo's on this website. Plus, these are the civilized evo's - most of the evo's are rabid liberals and supporters of the leftist establishment on most issues. Those people are even more vitriolic in the hatred of any mention of a Creator. Then comes an even bigger rub - the monopolistic, government controlled educational system which is one of the major wings of the leftist propaganda machine on almost every issue imaginable. Conservative Christians are not only asked to fund this machine that opposes what we believe and then imposes this opposition on our children and others, we are told to shut up and quit being "irrational." This is true of not just biology class but the other disciplines as well. Many of us argue that the last 5,000 years of human history - which is really the period for which we have any type of accurate account - does much more to support the Bible's version of the origin and nature of man than the evolutionist's version. Post Christian Europe is a great example of where all of western civilization is headed. The rejection of the God of the Bible as Creator has many more consequences than what is or is not said in a high school biology class.
By the way, most Biblical Christians are not afraid to defend their beliefs in the marketplace of ideas. If evolution is just a slam dunk, let both sides present their evidence and then laugh the Christians out of the class room. The problem with the evo's is that they only want one side presented and then they want to laugh the unbeleivers out of the classroom. And if you don't like it, they'll take you to court - like the leftists do on every other issue that they can't win on when ideas are freely exchanged. I hope this sheds some light. This doesn't cover everything but I hope it gives you some insight.
I will match my education, rationality and, more importantly, the "fruit" of 53 years of living with just about anyone on this sight and I find the whole idea of man coming into existence through chance over how ever many years the evo's deem to be required at any given point in their argument to be absolutely preposterous. And there are millions like me. And no, I can't list their names. You'll see in a few minutes that this qualifies me as a liar.
Well, not if they are one of Those Who Must Not Be Spoken To--they they'll run sqealing like girls to the mods, and involve you in their distasteful hissy fits. What wusses.
Why not?
Has he a certificate that says he does his work to code or not?
One does not need to know the actual workings of flame front propagation to drive a car with an internal combustion engine!
Or was it... Monty?
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