Posted on 04/22/2005 4:21:47 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
Evolution found a home Thursday in the oldest church in Kansas during a forum about the controversy over science instruction for public school students.
"There is no conflict between evolution and the Christian faith," said the Rev. Peter Luckey, the senior pastor of Plymouth Congregational Church, 925 Vt.
Luckey was preaching to the choir during a five-hour forum that featured scientists, teachers and politicians who argued in favor of teaching students evolution because it is the foundation of science, knowledge of which will be needed to compete for jobs in the growing bioscience industry.
About 75 people attended the forum at Plymouth, which was founded in 1854 and was the first established church in the Kansas Territory. Attempts to inject intelligent design -- the notion that there is a master planner for all life -- into science class should be rejected, they said.
"Intelligent design is nothing but creationism in a cheap tuxedo," said Leonard Krishtalka, director of the Kansas University Natural History Museum and Biodiversity Research Center.
‘Think critically'
The forum was another round in the debate that has thrust Kansas on the national stage.
With control of the State Board of Education in conservative hands [AAARRGGHHH!!], state officials again will consider science standards that will guide teachers.
A committee of scientists has drafted standards that include evolution teaching, but a minority report, led by proponents of intelligent design, wants criticism of evolution included. A State Board of Education committee, comprising three conservative [AARRGHH!!] board members, plans six days of hearings that will revolve around that debate.
The speakers at Thursday's forum were adamant that evolution instruction not be reduced, watered down or dumbed down.
Gov. Kathleen Sebelius' science adviser, Lee Allison, said when the state approved a $500 million bioscience initiative, it included a provision to recruit top scholars who met the standards of the National Academy of Sciences, which supports evolution without equivocation.
"The state really has taken a position on this in a broad, bipartisan way," Allison said.
Charles Decedue, executive director of the Higuchi Biosciences Center, said teaching evolution was critical because bioscience companies want to locate in places where the work force has received a solid education in chemistry, physics and biology.
"They want people who can think critically," he said.
‘Hayseed state'
Andrew Stangl, a Kansas University sophomore, said his high school science teachers in his hometown of Andover refused to teach evolution.
He bought books and taught himself. He said fear of teaching evolution would hurt the United States in the long term. "I don't want to see other countries pass us by. We are going to economically suffer as a result," he said.
In 1999, Kansas made international news, much of it negative, when a conservative [AARRGGHH!!] board de-emphasized evolution. The 2000 election returned moderates to power, and evolution was reinstated. But with conservatives [AARRGGHH!!] back in control, international criticism was starting again, several panelists said.
Rachel Robson, a doctoral candidate at KU Medical Center, said one of her friends was applying for a job with a Japanese company, and the company officials made fun of Kansas and questioned whether good scientists could come from there.
Thursday's forum attracted national attention from National Public Radio and NBC.
Krishtalka said even though the battle over evolution was going on in several states, "Kansas will be tarred and feathered by the media as the hayseed state."
Carol and Tom Banks, of Prairie Village, attended the forum, saying they were getting tired of conservatives [AARRGGHH!!] controlling the political agenda.
"If intelligent design were taught, that would be teaching religion in public schools," Carol Banks said.
But Jerry Manweiler, a physicist from Lawrence, said he supported teaching intelligent design. "It's important to know the theory of evolution, but it's also important to understand the nature of God," he said. Manweiler said he was put off by the forum speakers' "lack of humility."
Don Covington, vice president of networking for Intelligent Design Network Inc., said he disagreed with the speakers.
"They want their kids to know how to think, but you can't develop critical thinking skills when you tell them to memorize Darwin," he said.
• May 5-7: Science standards hearings in auditorium of Memorial building, 120 S.W. 10th St., Topeka. Time to be determined later.
• May 12-14: Science standards hearings, time and location to be determined later.
to many answered prayers, to assume that.
Channeling Sam Kinison ?
hehe.
Check out the thread on the new microscope technique, and check out the names of the scientists.
Americans are abandoning science and engineering, just as the Muslims did centuries ago, and for the same reason.
In another 50 years our children doing laundry for the inheritors of our culture.
Are you going to offer an argument of your own, or do you just regurgitate quotes spewing forth the same debunked claims that heve been presented time and time again?
Quoth Julian Huxley. Note well the statement "the evolutionary pattern of thought." Hopefully, patterns of thought will have some connection to actual reality, or we humans are in big trouble. :^)
Also note this (tendentious) statement: "The earth was not created. It evolved." Which leads me to ask, insistently: Evolved from what? How can something evolve from nothing? Or was there a "something" from which it could evolve? If so, what is that?
To say that something evolves from matter according to natural laws, accounts neither for the origin of matter nor of the physical laws, let alone Life. Under these circumstances, how complete is the Darwinist explanation?
Personally, I believe in evolution -- of the "micro" type as it pertains to biological life, and of the Universe as a whole ("the evolution of a population of One"). I can't buy into macroevolution, however, because the theory "rests on thin air." And will ever rest on air, as long as the above questions are not answered. JMHO FWIW
From the standpoint of faith, I'd have to say that I do believe in a common ancestor however. To my mind, the common ancestor is: God. But God cannot be the subject of the natural sciences. Only His creation can be studied by means of the scientific method. What is not in space and time cannot be studied by science.
Thank you so much for your insightful discussion of the "politics" of contemporary science, Alamo-Girl! None of this should be political, IMHO. Worse, science should not involve itself in "religious disputation," as is clearly the case with the neo-Darwinist vs. Intelligent Design "camps."
BTW, I do not personally identify with either of these camps. I just say: Let science do its thing, let it follow all leads, let it not close its mind because it prefers a particular doctrine, or because a particular doctrine has elite support. FWIW
Well, A-Girl, if I've convinced you, I've accomplished something of value. But I'm not sure what you're getting at here:
If we are right about this turning political, the liberal candidates will themselves raise the issue in the next general election campaign for national office under the presumption that the intelligentsia will shame the religious into voting Democrat. On that point they may well again have misunderestimated the Christians like they did in letting homosexual rights onto the front burner. IOW, it just might backfire on them.
If this becomes a big issue in the next election cycle, I don't think anyone now committed to creationism/ID will be "shamed" into voting with the dems. And I doubt that will be the dems' goal. Rather, these elections are always fought over the undecided voters. The danger I see will become very real if the republicans are foolish enough to make support for creationism a party position. In that case, the dems will certainly try to showcase the conservatives as unscientific buffoons.
I will be fired from Darwin Central for saying this, but I'm not sure being identified with creationism is a net loss for Republicans in the voting booth.
Where it is a net loss is in attracting otherwise conservative university and media people. I find that most youn people are conservative except when it comes to creationism.
Maybe. At least that's the impression I get from the activity on this website. But I agree with BB that a scientific theory shouldn't be a political issue.
Where it is a net loss is in attracting otherwise conservative university and media people. I find that most youn[g] people are conservative except when it comes to creationism.
Yes. Agreed. And that's an important constituency.
I agree with your view of a mix between evolution and Intelligent Design accounting for what is observed in nature. And of course I always agree with your ordering of the proper questions that must be answered.
BTW, I do not personally identify with either of these camps. I just say: Let science do its thing, let it follow all leads, let it not close its mind because it prefers a particular doctrine, or because a particular doctrine has elite support. FWIW
I am getting a new image of what is happening in this debate. What long ago used to a battle between the atheists (who exploited evolution theory as authentication) - and the Young Earth Creationists (who condemned evolution theory as Spiritually and morally bankrupt) has spread and morphed.
More recently, a new battlefront opened between mainstream biological scientists who take the theory of evolution as a paradigm and the Intelligent Design scientists who point to the incompleteness (or inadequacy) of evolution theory to explain what is observed.
The two battlefronts were seen by many, even here on the forum, as equivalent - but they never were fighting the same battle. I strongly suspect that confusing the two battles was intentional. Every theory has weaknesses, and it is easier to create confusion by equating ID with YEC than to actually address the weaknesses.
Now a third battlefront appears to have opened between political liberals and ID supporters with the liberal side trying to paint the ID supporters and YEC with the brush of "conservatism". Politics (IMHO) is rarely happenstance (either to defend or to gain) - and thus I suspect their motive is to confuse the issue so that conservative = ID = YEC in the hopes of making the undecided voters see conservatives as people who believe in a 6000 year old universe.
This is fascinating to me, betty boop!
In the first place, I expect them to fail because the red state voters are a lot more intelligent than liberals think they are.
Secondly, there is a blowback equation of liberal = mainstream science = atheism such that anyone who would "buy into" the one sales pitch would also buy into the other and (at the moment) there are fewer atheists than believers in the voting public.
Thirdly (and most interestingly) that they would open a third front at all in addition to confusing the first two battlefronts - indicates there is a very serious fear on the anti-ID side of the debate. The debate could have, should have, ended there. Evidently, ID is winning.
Indeed, I do not expect this initiative to sway any decided voters at all. Nor do I expect that they would believe it is possible to do so.
I suspect their motive is to paint (for the undecideds) that conservatives are people who believe in a 6000 year old universe.
Personally, I know of no politician who would pick YEC as a platform - or any particular doctrine. Whereas politicians are generally Christian they are rarely dogmatic. Most wouldn't even be able to argue the doctrines.
The liberals are backing themselves into a theological corner - in a campaign, to raise this issue they will have to argue doctrine. Doctrinal debates are always contentious - troubling everyone who doesn't fully agree.
I agree with you on this, js1138. The percentage of conservatives (Republican or otherwise) who are atheists is, I imagine, rather small. They may not all be aware of issues in science, but would tend to agree that God created the world. To the extent that Darwinist thinking rejects this notion -- as is abundantly clear from the statements of its leading lights, such as Dawkins, Pinker, J. Huxley, Lewontin, Monod, Mayr, et al. -- it may be setting itself apart from "where the people actually live."
But to the extent that most people don't associate Darwinism with explicit atheism, it gets a pass from "Red State America." Should the public perception change, however, this could be risky for folks with heavy investments in neo-Darwinism.
That's because conservatives in general are likely to believe that the Creator who created the Universe is the very same Creator mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, which makes it crystal clear that the inalienable rights of human beings depend on their divine creation -- these are "natural" rights only by virtue of God-constituted human nature. IOW, these rights are "unalienable" because they are grants directly from God. There is no other discoverable basis for them. And our constitutional system is predicated on these unalienable rights.
I do deplore science being "politicized." But if the evo-crevo dispute should flare up in the public consciousness, I imagine it will be interesting to see how that plays out.
As for recruiting conservative youth to the Darwinist perspective, I think it's useful to recall that the late Pope John Paul II found his most enthusiastic audiences among young people. What they particularly appreciated, I gather, was his orthodoxy, his unblinking profession of God and His Laws. John Paul was constantly criticized for his strict orthodoxy, as likewise Pope Benedict XVI is now being criticized. But I think the point about young people is they tend to resonate to Truth, and they want something strict and firm to believe in, by which to order their lives in truth.
We'll just have to wait and see how all this plays out. We live in such "interesting times!" :^)
Thanks to PH and js for writing!
I don't see the theory of evolution (or of gravity, etc.) as a "liberal" issue. These are science issues, and nothing more. And I definitely don't think these are religious issues, although I recognize that may YEC's disagree. However -- and this is my concern -- being anti-evolution (and by implication, being anti-science in general) is being touted by the MSM (as in Kansas) as the conservative position. As a conservative I find this very troublesome.
The red state people are wiser than some FReepers on this count.
I agree Alamo-Girl. I can't wait to see this happen. :^)
Liberals really do think people who don't share their views are just plain stupid. But let them see how stupid such people are when they understand themselves to be the targets of atheist indoctrination.
Thank you so much for your penetrating analysis!
The atheist tendency of the neo-Darwinist position is not something I just made up in my head one fine day when I had nothing better to do. The observation is based on the actual statements of its leading devotees, who make no bones about atheism being putatively superior to "superstition."
Also, John Paul II's being particularly effective with the youth is extremely relevant. These are future voters and they may also represent the open-mindedness of the undecided voters. If trying to project which way a Spiritually undecided will turn when the chips are down, my bet would be against atheism.
No, you made it up on the basis of a few loudmouth writers, without even the fig leaf of an opinion poll. Using the same tactics I could tar Christianity with any perversion you could name.
An opinion poll???? js, you've got to be kidding!!!
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