Posted on 02/07/2005 3:50:28 AM PST by PatrickHenry
Al Frisby has spent the better part of his life in rooms filled with rebellious teenagers, but the last years have been particularly trying for the high school biology teacher. He has met parents who want him to teach that God created Eve out of Adam's rib, and then then adjusted the chromosomes to make her a woman, and who insist that Noah invited dinosaurs aboard the ark. And it is getting more difficult to keep such talk out of the classroom.
"Somewhere along the line, the students have been told the theory of evolution is not valid," he said. "In the last few years, I've had students question my teaching about cell classification and genetics, and there have been a number of comments from students saying: 'Didn't God do that'?" In Kansas, the geographical centre of America, the heart of the American heartland, the state-approved answer might soon be Yes. In the coming weeks, state educators will decide on proposed curriculum changes for high school science put forward by subscribers to the notion of "intelligent design", a modern version of creationism. If the religious right has its way, and it is a powerful force in Kansas, high school science teachers could be teaching creationist material by next September, charting an important victory in America's modern-day revolt against evolutionary science.
Legal debate
Similar classroom confrontations between God and science are under way in 17 states, according to the National Centre for Science Education. In Missouri, state legislators are drafting a bill laying down that science texts contain a chapter on so-called alternative theories to evolution. Textbooks in Arkansas and Alabama contain disclaimers on evolution, and in a Wisconsin school district, teachers are required to instruct their students in the "scientific strengths and weaknesses of evolutionary theory". Last month, a judge in Georgia ordered a school district to remove stickers on school textbooks that warned: "This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things."
For the conservative forces engaged in the struggle for America's soul, the true battleground is public education, the laboratory of the next generation, and an opportunity for the religious right to effect lasting change on popular culture. Officially, the teaching of creationism has been outlawed since 1987 when the supreme court ruled that the inclusion of religious material in science classes in public teaching was unconstitutional. In recent years, however, opponents of evolution have regrouped, challenging science education with the doctrine of "intelligent design" which has been carefully stripped of all references to God and religion. Unlike traditional creationism, which posits that God created the earth in six days, proponents of intelligent design assert that the workings of this planet are too complex to be ascribed to evolution. There must have been a designer working to a plan - that is, a creator.
In their campaign to persuade parents in Kansas to welcome the new version of creationism into the classroom, subscribers to intelligent design have appealed to a sense of fair play, arguing that it would be in their children's interest to be exposed to all schools of thought on the earth's origins. "We are looking for science standards that would be more informative, that would open the discussion about origins, rather than close it," said John Calvert, founder of the Intelligent Design network, the prime mover in the campaign to discredit the teaching of evolution in Kansas.
Other supporters of intelligent design go further, saying evolution is as much an article of faith as creationism. "Certainly there are clear religious implications," said William Harris, a research biochemist and co-founder of the design network in Kansas. "There are creation myths on both sides. Which one do you teach?" For Mr. Harris, an expert on fish oils and prevention of heart disease at the premier teaching hospital in Kansas City, the very premise of evolution was intolerable. He describes his conversion as a graduate student many years ago almost as an epiphany. "It hit me that if monkeys are supposed to be so close to us as relatives then what explains the incredible gap between monkeys and humans. I had a realisation that there was a vast chasm between the two types of animals, and the standard explanation just didn't fit."
Other scientists on the school board's advisory committee see no clash in values between religion and science. "Prominent conservative Christians, evangelical Christians, have found no inherent conflict between an evolutionary understanding of the history of life, and an orthodox understanding of the theology of creation," said Keith Miller, a geologist at Kansas State University, who describes himself as a practising Christian.
But in Kansas, as in the rest of America, it would seem a slim majority continue to believe God created the heaven and the earth. During the past five years, subscribers to intelligent design have assembled a roster of influential supporters in the state, including a smattering of people with PhDs, such as Mr Harris, to lend their cause a veneer of scientific credibility. When conservative Republicans took control of the Kansas state school board last November, the creationists seized their chance, installing supporters on the committee reviewing the high school science curriculum.
The suggested changes under consideration seem innocuous at first. "A minor addition makes it clear that evolution is a theory and not a fact," says the proposed revision to the 8th grade science standard. However, Jack Krebs, a high school maths teacher on the committee drafting the new standards, argues that the campaign against evolution amounts to a stealth assault on the entire body of scientific thought. "There are two planes where they are attacking. One is evolution, and one is science itself," he said.
"They believe that the naturalistic bias of science is in fact atheistic, and that if we don't change science, we can't believe in God. And so this is really an attack on all of science. Evolution is just the weak link."
It would certainly seem so in Kansas. At the first of a series of public hearings on the new course material, the audience was equally split between the defenders of established science, and the anti-evolution rebels. The breakdown has educators worried. With the religious right now in control of the Kansas state school board, the circumstances favour the creationists.
In a crowded high school auditorium, biology teachers, mathematicians, a veterinarian, and a high school student made passionate speeches on the need for cold, scientific detachment, and the damage that would be done to the state's reputation and biotechnology industry if Kansas became known as a haven for creationists. They were countered by John James, who warned that the teaching of evolution led to nihilism, and to the gates of Auschwitz. "Are we producing little Kansas Nazis?" he asked. But the largest applause of the evening was reserved for a silver-haired gentleman in a navy blue blazer. "I have a question: if man comes from monkeys, why are there still monkeys? Why do you waste time teaching something in science class that is not scientific?" he thundered.
Science teachers believe that the genteel questioning of the intelligent design movements masks a larger project to discredit an entire body of rational thought. If the Kansas state school board allows science teachers to question evolution, where will it stop? Will religious teachers bring their beliefs into the classroom?
"They are trying to create a climate where anything an individual teacher wants to include in science class can be considered science," said Harry McDonald, a retired biology teacher and president of Kansas Citizens for Science Education. "They want to redefine science."
Religious right
Young Earth creationism: God created the Earth, and all the species on it, in six days, 6,000 years ago
Old Earth creationism: The Earth is 4.5bn years old, but God created each living organism on the planet, although not necessarily in six days
Intelligent design: Emerged as a theory in 1989. Maintains that evolution is a theory, not a fact, and that Earth's complexity can be explained only by the idea of an intelligent designer - or a creator
Again you err, these men are filled with the same knowlege because many of them are phd's and such and have worked in the field.
You missed it again.
Sorry, but most living things have neither mouths, nor eyes, nor noses.
The correct title is:
"Biblical Christians fight the Religious Left for the heart of America"
"Saul Alinsky wrote two books outlining his organizational principles and strategies: Reveille for Radicals (1946) and Rules for Radicals (1971).
.....Rules for Radicals teaches the organizer that he must give a moral appearance (as opposed to behaving morally): “All effective action requires the passport of morality.”
The tenth rule of the ethics of means and ends states “that you do what you can with what you have and clothe it with moral arguments ... Moral rationalization is indispensable at all times of action whether to justify the selection or the use of ends or means.”
Rules for Radicals provides the organizer with a tactical style for community organization that assumes an adversarial relationship between groups of people in which one either dominates or is dominated. ....."
http://www.americanpatrol.com/REFERENCE/Alinsky-SaulRef.html
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Jim Wallis Ed. Sojourners Magazine March/April 2000 issue
Saul Alinsky Goes to Church
Faith-based community organizing is taking off---with benefits for both community and church.
by Helene Slessarev
The origins of community organizing are generally traced to the pioneering work of Saul Alinsky, who built the first community organizing effort in Chicago’s Back of the Yards neighborhood in the 1930s. Alinsky created the early community-based efforts by organizing existing groups into collective action around particular issues.
Today many communities are much less cohesive, so it is necessary to build relationships first and then take on issues that grow out of those stronger bonds. In poorer communities, churches are often experiencing the same loss of cohesiveness as they struggle to survive in an increasingly barren environment. Thus, organizing becomes a means for such congregations to reconnect with their own members and with the broader community around them. ... [snip]
http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=Soj0003&article=000311
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Book: The Religious Left - Who they are and what they believe - by Dr. Ronald H. Nash, PhD.
http://www.kfuo.org/ie_main.htm has the audio of an interview with Ron Nash. On right side of page, click on October 2004 Scroll down to October 11.
Evolution makes no claims about God, but it also doesn't go out of its way to make people who adhere to any specific religious beliefs happy either. It simply goes where the evidence leads. Members of many religious groups have a problem with anyone who doesn't immediately recognize that their belief is the only true belief and will label anyone or anything that doesn't adhere strictly to the "true doctrine" as atheistic.
The DNA of chimpanzees and gorillas are also slightly different, but both are great apes. Try again.
Our DNA is very close to that of great apes. That's all I said. Nothing more. It was in response to a question.
You've lost me. Were we arguing about something?
I thought that you were pointing out small differences in DNA as a defining characteristic proving that humans are not great apes. Sorry if I misinterpreted your post.
Well, you posted an interesting comparison. Unfortunately, all you've done is list some of the defining characteristics of humans. That does not mean that they are not apes, because none of these things are defining characteristics of apes.
I still don't consider myself a great ape.
Spoken language is not a physical difference. Taken as a form of communication, it's not all that different from the rudimentary hoots used by chimpanzees to convey information to one another. Indeed, when it comes to learned languages, chimps, gorillas and orangutans pick up a rather complex understanding of human spoken language, and chimps and gorillas have proven adept at learning sign language or communicating through simple keyboards.
My dog understands English. Big deal.
Okay. I'll give you that.
"Religious right fights science for the heart of America [Evolution vs. Creationism]"
Fairly obvious how objective (LOL) this "journalist it!
LOL!!!
It never occurs to them that science actually supports Creation! Nah, it's a "religion". LOL! If anything "evolution" is a "religion" that defies all the laws of science as well as reality.
Slightly different from a chimp, which is slightly different from a gorilla. That's what makes us separate species, but human beings are still great apes.
Have they? Where are their papers on Evolutionary biology? Their affiliation with research labs or biology departments at non-religious institutions?
I was looking for a table that placed the differences side-by-side. It happened to be from that website. The chart is cool nonetheless, and points out some of the major physical differences between us 'apes'.
Not every person who is conservative is anti-science, but almost everyone who is anti-science is conservative.
Exactly. The capacity for language is not solely the domain of man. Dogs themselves communicate with us by various means. I can tell by my dogs' barks, for instance, whether a person is walking past the house, or whether it's another dog.
I do not have the refrence at work, but there is a breakdown of the first chapter of Genesis that discusses the poetic structure of the days of creation. The first three days are paralleled to the last three days. Days 1 and 4 are parallels (creation of light on the 1st day and the creation of the sun, stars and moon on the 4th), same with 2 and 5 (ocean and sky on the 2nd and fish and birds on the 5th) and 4 and 6 (land and plants on the 3rd and all animals, including man, on the 6th). It is not a common interpretation for biblical literalists, but this structure of writing is analagous to that time period and I'm sure plenty of strict literalist that will strenuously object to this interpretation. Then again, it does not mention the basic other basic phyla such as fungi and prokaryotes so those are mislabeled according to science. They don't fit into the Genesis assignments.
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