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.
I think it was about 6000 years ago.
I think 738,
may be a candidate
THE WAY THOSE DEVIANT STRING THEORISTS TALK, THE UNIVERSE COULD HAVE BEEN CREATED TOMORROW.
That's why we have the Humanities ...
Can't absolve Darwin from the impulse that gave rise to eugenics. Just look at some of the language of the Descent of Man, not to speak of the personal relationship with the founder of the eugenics movement.
That's why we have theology.
Thousands of posts and you think you have finally found one. But note what he said. He was referring not to God, But to your "GOD", that is your warped interpretation of God.
I guess you would also say that Dr. Teller cannot be absolved from the terrorists possible use of nuclear weapons on the US.
Why are all the creos so misinformed?
You know what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna not only believe in this brilliantly sensible theory, but I will force public schools to teach it as a "science".
I think he's got Darwin confused with Martin Luther.
Perfect example of someone rabidly making belittling statements about God on an evolution thread:
--------------------------------------------------------- Let's Have No More Monkey Trials - To teach faith as science is to undermine both ^
Posted by Dimensio to Blogger On News/Activism ^ 08/01/2005 11:10:03 PM EDT · 576 of 736 ^
But, eventually it boils down to accepting that matter always existed or God did.>
Woah, wait a minute. We have "matter". That much is directly observable. Where did you get this "God" thing? How did you derive its existence? What are its properties? What does this "God" thing's existence (or lack thereof) and/or properties have to do with the theory of evolution (which has nothing to say whatsoever on whether or not matter always existed)? ----------------------------------------------
Dimensio, I recall you having a fit making snarky remarks on the Butterfly thread too
Uh, theology is part of the Humanities ...
It may be backed up by "SOME" evidence, but not enough to make it a law. In other words, a theory is just someone's guess, usually an educated guess, about a body of evidence. Until there is enough evidence to prove, beyond any doubt, that under the exact same circumstances, the same body of evidence will yield the same results every time, it is still just a guess. The reason scientific laws are laws is the indisputable fact that the same actions will yield the same results every time. On the other hand, theories are unproven, and one has to accept their premise based solely on faith because there is no observable proof. In that mega-dump posting earlier in this thread, all of that information was impressive, but not even the author can state that his assertions are true based on observable evidence while his supposition was occurring. His evidence comes from the fossil records, but I can state that the fossil record does NOT show evolution, but a series of individual creatures who have similar attributes and my theory is just as valid as his. After all, I observe that the creatures exist in the fossil record, I observe that there is a similarity, but my conclusion is different. If my theory is not as valid as his, explain why.
quote Please show me ONE textbook that teaches evolution as fact, not theory. /quote
A theory is taught as one of many interpretations. If there are no alternatives supplied within a source material, then one must conclude that the only material supplied is factual, not theoretical.
Look we are on a witch hunt and we damn well will find a witch whether you like it or not!
Oh, in lieu of providing any examples you make up a bunch of tripe.
Again I complained about both creationists AND evolutionists trying to shove their positions down each others throats.
You at no time asked what my personal views on the subject.
You inferred what my stance is.
If you only knew what kind a of a geeky science girl I am..........LOL Anyway, you're the West Coast so you win.
It's 2:15 A.M. here. Zzzzzzzzzzzzz
YOU ARE A STRING THEORIST! I KNEW IT!
Now I understand how you come to the conclusion that the Bible is fact.
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