Posted on 01/22/2005 7:38:12 AM PST by PatrickHenry
A movement to drag the teaching of science in the United States back into the Dark Ages continues to gain momentum. So far, it's a handful of judges -- "activist judges" in the view of their critics -- who are preventing the spread of Saudi-style religious dogma into more and more of America's public-school classrooms.
The ruling this month in Georgia by Federal District Judge Clarence Cooper ordering the Cobb County School Board to remove stickers it had inserted in biology textbooks questioning Darwin's theory of evolution is being appealed by the suburban Atlanta district. Similar legal battles pitting evolution against biblical creationism are erupting across the country. Judges are conscientiously observing the constitutionally required separation of church and state, and specifically a 1987 Supreme Court ruling forbidding the teaching of creationism, a religious belief, in public schools. But seekers of scientific truth have to be unnerved by a November 2004 CBS News poll in which nearly two-thirds of Americans favored teaching creationism, the notion that God created heaven and earth in six days, alongside evolution in schools.
If this style of "science" ever took hold in U.S. schools, it is safe to say that as a nation we could well be headed for Third World status, along with everything that dire label implies. Much of the Arab world is stuck in a miasma of imam-enforced repression and non-thought. Could it happen here? Our Constitution protects creativity and dissent, but no civilization has lasted forever, and our current national leaders seem happy with the present trends.
It is the creationists, of course, who forecast doom if U.S. schools follow a secularist path. Science, however, by its nature, relies on evidence, and all the fossil and other evidence points toward an evolved human species over millions of years on a planet tens of millions of years old [ooops!] in a universe over two billion years in existence [ooops again!].
Some creationists are promoting an idea they call "intelligent design" as an alternative to Darwinism, eliminating the randomness and survival-of-the-fittest of Darwinian thought. But, again, no evidence exists to support any theory of evolution except Charles Darwin's. Science classes can only teach the scientific method or they become meaningless.
Many creationists say that teaching Darwin is tantamount to teaching atheism, but most science teachers, believers as well as non-believers, scoff at that. The Rev. Warren Eschbach, a professor at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Gettysburg, Pa., believes that "science is figuring out what God has already done" and the book of Genesis was never "meant to be a science textbook for the 21st century." Rev. Eschbach is the father of Robert Eschbach, one of the science teachers in Dover, Pa., who refused to teach a school-board-mandated statement to biology students criticizing the theory of evolution and promoting intelligent design. Last week, the school district gathered students together and the statement was read to them by an assistant superintendent.
Similar pro-creationist initiatives are underway in Texas, Wisconsin and South Carolina. And a newly elected creationist majority on the state board of education in Kansas plans to rewrite the entire state's science curriculum this spring. This means the state's public-school science teachers will have to choose between being scientists or ayatollahs -- or perhaps abandoning their students and fleeing Kansas, like academic truth-seekers in China in the 1980s or Tehran today.
We are all still waiting for you to publish the probability that your math has determined ...
Ah, so you agree that the idea of "God" is debatable. God for you.
"Festival of Rehashed Hogwash" placemarker
Why would He do that?
The perpetrators of the hoax want to be the ones who decide what evidence is. If/when they are allowed to do this, they will state that jibberjabber about "common DNA" is evidence that proves evo. It's nonsense, but they'll do it if they are allowed to. If the laughable weakness of their theory is talked about and exposed, it gets closer to the drain...
The weak force is the force that induces beta decay via interaction with neutrinos. A star uses the weak force to “burn” (nuclear fusion). Three processes we observe are proton-to proton fusion, helium fusion, and the carbon cycle. Here is an example of proton-to-proton fusion, which is the process our own sun uses: (two protons fuse -> via neutrino interaction one of the protons transmutes to a neutron to form deuterium -> combines with another proton to form a helium nuclei -> two helium nuclei fuse releasing alpha particles and two protons).
You are asking ME? That is the question YOU have to answer, not me.
Interesting. Of course, you realize that the origin of man and evolution are "natural occurrences" ...
I asked you a question and you answered with a question.
LOL - you are so much fun to mess with! Have a good evening. I'm gonna go back and watch the game now.
I guess that bit about "natural occurrences" got you!
Truthfully, I don't know what God does and I would never presume to speak for Him. I just read my Bible and pray for understanding. I'll leave the "deep thinking" to people like you.
And, I've yet to meet any male over the age of 12 that hasn't considered the thought of joining in an orgy (and anyone who says the thought's never crossed his mind is a liar). Most of us never actually act on that desire. That's the great thing about self control (and lack of opportunity).
I thought bearing false witness was a big no-no.
Nevertheless these ye shall not eat of them that chew the cud, or of them that divide the cloven hoof; [as] the camel, and the hare, and the coney: for they chew the cud, but divide not the hoof; [therefore] they [are] unclean unto you. Deut 14:7
It appears the Bible is lumping rabbits and camels together in this regard.
Google is amazing: Kosher animal quiz. (I have no idea if this is authoritative.)
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