Posted on 08/01/2005 10:58:13 AM PDT by wallcrawlr
The half-century campaign to eradicate any vestige of religion from public life has run its course. The backlash from a nation fed up with the A.C.L.U. kicking crèches out of municipal Christmas displays has created a new balance. State-supported universities may subsidize the activities of student religious groups. Monuments inscribed with the Ten Commandments are permitted on government grounds. The Federal Government is engaged in a major antipoverty initiative that gives money to churches. Religion is back out of the closet.
But nothing could do more to undermine this most salutary restoration than the new and gratuitous attempts to invade science, and most particularly evolution, with religion. Have we learned nothing? In Kansas, conservative school-board members are attempting to rewrite statewide standards for teaching evolution to make sure that creationism's modern stepchild, intelligent design, infiltrates the curriculum. Similar anti-Darwinian mandates are already in place in Ohio and are being fought over in 20 states. And then, as if to second the evangelical push for this tarted-up version of creationism, out of the blue appears a declaration from Christoph Cardinal Schönborn of Vienna, a man very close to the Pope, asserting that the supposed acceptance of evolution by John Paul II is mistaken. In fact, he says, the Roman Catholic Church rejects "neo-Darwinism" with the declaration that an "unguided evolutionary process--one that falls outside the bounds of divine providence--simply cannot exist."
Cannot? On what scientific evidence? Evolution is one of the most powerful and elegant theories in all of human science and the bedrock of all modern biology. Schönborn's proclamation that it cannot exist unguided--that it is driven by an intelligent designer pushing and pulling and planning and shaping the process along the way--is a perfectly legitimate statement of faith. If he and the Evangelicals just stopped there and asked that intelligent design be included in a religion curriculum, I would support them. The scandal is to teach this as science--to pretend, as does Schönborn, that his statement of faith is a defense of science. "The Catholic Church," he says, "will again defend human reason" against "scientific theories that try to explain away the appearance of design as the result of 'chance and necessity,'" which "are not scientific at all." Well, if you believe that science is reason and that reason begins with recognizing the existence of an immanent providence, then this is science. But, of course, it is not. This is faith disguised as science. Science begins not with first principles but with observation and experimentation.
In this slippery slide from "reason" to science, Schönborn is a direct descendant of the early 17th century Dutch clergyman and astronomer David Fabricius, who could not accept Johannes Kepler's discovery of elliptical planetary orbits. Why? Because the circle is so pure and perfect that reason must reject anything less. "With your ellipse," Fabricius wrote Kepler, "you abolish the circularity and uniformity of the motions, which appears to me increasingly absurd the more profoundly I think about it." No matter that, using Tycho Brahe's most exhaustive astronomical observations in history, Kepler had empirically demonstrated that the planets orbit elliptically.
This conflict between faith and science had mercifully abated over the past four centuries as each grew to permit the other its own independent sphere. What we are witnessing now is a frontier violation by the forces of religion. This new attack claims that because there are gaps in evolution, they therefore must be filled by a divine intelligent designer.
How many times do we have to rerun the Scopes "monkey trial"? There are gaps in science everywhere. Are we to fill them all with divinity? There were gaps in Newton's universe. They were ultimately filled by Einstein's revisions. There are gaps in Einstein's universe, great chasms between it and quantum theory. Perhaps they are filled by God. Perhaps not. But it is certainly not science to merely declare it so.
To teach faith as science is to undermine the very idea of science, which is the acquisition of new knowledge through hypothesis, experimentation and evidence. To teach it as science is to encourage the supercilious caricature of America as a nation in the thrall of religious authority. To teach it as science is to discredit the welcome recent advances in permitting the public expression of religion. Faith can and should be proclaimed from every mountaintop and city square. But it has no place in science class. To impose it on the teaching of evolution is not just to invite ridicule but to earn it.
Is that your parting shot? To again bear false witness by indicating I posted something I did not! And you can't say is was a mistake since I told you last time I didn't post it so you are using the "Soldier of God" Rule #3:
If you can't win the argument lie about what your opponent said.
Only when facing North.
Sorry, but the Troll density on this thread has exceeded permitted levels. PLEASE DON'T FEED THE TROLLS!
How is it you would try to use math to support a theory with no mathmatical evidence, or you assuming every science involves math, either way you've clearly been out of college so long, the mold on your brain is replacing your missing hair.
You can quite easily using radio telescopes take photos of the cosmos over time. At which point the relative center should be obvious. Hint it's not you and your little monekies turn into people brain.
The "trial" was not a real trial, but a publicity stunt. It was all planned out in advance. The law in question in Tennessee was a dead letter. It is easy to just assume the hinterland is hopelessly backward and ignorant, and stereotypes are so often so comfortable for us. The "truth" is often more complex, as it is here.
Kraut has written a rather superficial piece, so says this near atheist. What is underemphasized in secondary school science classes, is what we don't know, rather than what we do. What is underemphasized, is that often the accepted paradigms are subject to change, as more data comes in. And what is underemphasized is the difference between technology and science. Technology can tell us the properties of electricity and gravity, but not what it really is. Nobody knows, yet.
I sure hope so...no one is more confident than the fool going to hell.
Anytime I can have someone help sharpen my faith I appreciate it.
After about four posts from his link, Mr. M is probably a little sorry he ever linked us to Mr. Collins.
But not absolutely 100% proved. It is simply that a heliocentric model is simpler than a geocentric model. Ie the explaination is better. It is not a case of proof.
We have a few here that are might confident they are right and science is wrong ...
Told you. I get 10 points.
It is not science vs faith.
It is science as viewed through the eyes of faith.
You phrase the discussion differently than me and doing so consider my views incorrectly. That is an error on your part.
I am confident that the Word of God is right. Do you have a problem with that?
A Tennessee ain't so ignorant and trailer trashy, and never was, bump to you. Amazing that a non religious Yankee has it in him, isn't it?
Not as long as you don't post ignorant anti-evolution posts.
Good link. Thanks
The stooges might have micro sucked with Joe but macro sucking with 'Curly Joe' is just religion masking as history.
I need to register www.answersincurly.org. Send me (all) your money before it is too late.
I'll post what I want.
and I'll enjoy knowing that when you read it...you dont like it.
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