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
Dimensio, you are a kinder soul than I.
When you nail a CRIDer and they don't have a proper response (so far they are batting zero % against yours, my and other Evo posts), they retreat immediately into logical fallacies. Setting up a strawman argument on purpose is deception, which is a form of lying.
Screen, your posts seem to come to "You must believe the Bible." You have been upbraided many times as this being a logical fallacy, yet you repeat it. After the first time, the repitition becomes a lie.
Sorry your so blind.
In the same way we wouldn't want magical levitation presented as an "alternate theory" for gravity and aerodynamics.
Creationism is not an alternate theory for evolution. It is a mythological construct and belongs in a philosophy class.
The question is, would you want your child taught that 1+1=3 because God said so? That is why it is so important this be classified properly. Evolution is science, Creation is religion/mythology/theology.
Sorry you're so stupid.
He evidently couldn't forgive mankind without killing His own son
God didn't kill His Son. Our sins did. Truly, the greatest gift of all. And what did that accomplish for you? Are you grateful? Or are you acting self-righteous and putting parameters around our Heavenly Father - so YOU CAN UNDERSTAND THINGS?
NIV 1 Peter 1:17-21
17. Since you call on a Father who judges each man's work impartially, live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear.
18. For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers,
19. but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.
20. He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake.
21. Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.
NIV 1 Corinthians 2:7
No, we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began.
NIV 2 Timothy 1:8-10
8. So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God,
9. who has saved us and called us to a holy life--not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time,
10. but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.
NIV Titus 1:1-4
1. Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ for the faith of God's elect and the knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness--
2. a faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time,
3. and at his appointed season he brought his word to light through the preaching entrusted to me by the command of God our Savior,
4. To Titus, my true son in our common faith: Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.
Because most who think they speak for Him don't. They use the authority of God to implement their own desires.
It's merely punk-eek applied to bingo.
"It's a MIRACLE!"
I've never pinged a mod on anyone but myself (to delete a double post). Methinks your paranoia is becoming uncontrollable.
Or cracker jennies?
Do we have any list of mathematicians publicly signing statements that 1+1 does not equal 2 and, therefore, other ideas should be taught? This is the problem. You want evolution taught in the same absolute format as mathematics when it just ain't so. Evolution, as it pertains to the origin of man, is not in any way similar to the mathematic certainty that 1+1=2. To believe that it is - which is really what this debate is all about - takes much more faith than believing the Bible. When the real mathematicians point out the almost statistical impossibility of man resulting from some single cell organism - they are not allowed in the classroom because it is not science. Your comparing evolution to the certainty of mathematics lifts the veil and exposes the problem that most evo's have. It is a "theory" in no way comparable to other scientific or mathematical facts. I know - now I'm going to have explained to me what a "theory" is for the thousandth time.
And many stumble over it!
Twice?
Then time has failed well I double post!
Then there's the ID crowd that claims it was all there at "inception". Anthropic principle. Fine tuned. Life is inevitable given the nature of nature.
If this is science then some of it should be testable.
Let's just say I'm kinda ambivalent about the 'roundheads' ...
Not if He is also infinitely just.
Justice demands payment for immorality. You really should not try to argue Christianity if you are ignorant of the basic tenets.
Yep. They want to bully you into signing on to what they establish as a theory.
The attempt to define the terms of debate will leave them in control of that debate--never accept the terms.
Being in control is the operative phrase--evos on FR do not argue in good faith. They're on an obsessive Control Trip.
When Evolutionists lie (think hoaxes) they are 'exposed' and then 'we move on'.
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