Posted on 08/04/2005 12:43:01 PM PDT by Crackingham
A leading Republican senator allied with the religious right differed on Thursday with President Bush's support for teaching an alternative to the theory of evolution known as "intelligent design."
Republican Sen. Rick Santorum, a possible 2008 presidential contender who faces a tough re-election fight next year in Pennsylvania, said intelligent design, which is backed by many religious conservatives, lacked scientific credibility and should not be taught in science classes.
Bush told reporters from Texas on Monday that "both sides" in the debate over intelligent design and evolution should be taught in schools "so people can understand what the debate is about."
"I think I would probably tailor that a little more than what the president has suggested," Santorum, the third-ranking Republican member of the U.S. Senate, told National Public Radio. "I'm not comfortable with intelligent design being taught in the science classroom."
Evangelical Christians have launched campaigns in at least 18 states to make public schools teach intelligent design alongside Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. Proponents of intelligent design argue that nature is so complex that it could not have occurred by random natural selection, as held by Darwin's 1859 theory of evolution, and so must be the work of an unnamed "intelligent cause."
Santorum is the third-ranking member of the U.S. Senate and has championed causes of the religious right including opposition to gay marriage and abortion. He is expected to face a stiff challenge from Democrat Bob Casey in his quest for re-election next year in Pennsylvania, a major battleground state in recent presidential elections.
SNIP
"What we should be teaching are the problems and holes -- and I think there are legitimate problems and holes -- in the theory of evolution. What we need to do is to present those fairly, from a scientific point of view," he said in the interview.
"As far as intelligent design is concerned, I really don't believe it has risen to the level of a scientific theory at this point that we would want to teach it alongside of evolution."
No one's forcing your kid to take science.
I've never met anyone who does that.
You know as well as I do that this is what the debate is about. Do we come from monkeys? Did life come from no life? This is what the average american relates the evolution debate too. Otherwise, we would not even be discussing this? Don't play naive.
It's this kind of "intellectual debate" that makes FR such a joy sometimes.
If you can't see the value in presenting the opposing sides, and thus showing what and why they lasted so long, and then presenting the scientific ideas which knocked them down from their dominance, there's no helping you.
The origins of life is what many creationists/ID'ers want to make the TOE debate about. That still doesn't change the fact that the TOE doesn't deal with this area.
This is what the average american relates the evolution debate too.
That's because, unfortunately, the TOE has been routinely misunderstood by creationists/IDers.
The abscence of a need for one to explain all the observations. The observatons have sofar been explained solely by the laws of physics. Can you show that the laws of physics require design?
Do you believe the One you claim to believe in?
Here's what He says:
Matthew 12:39
He answered, "A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.
Now tell me. Is design the sign of Jonah? If not why do you expect to find it, even though there is heretofore no evidence of it?
Matthew 13:13
"This is why I speak to them in parables: "Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand.""
It says I. Is not God one? Why would anyone attempt to contradict Him?
How is merely bringing up facts--that an article of religious faith was confronted with this new theory--"meddling"?
Thanks for your concern. Let me know the next time you see an ape turn into a human or pigs tooth turn into neanderthal.
It's just plain silly to deny that it IS in competition with science in terms of explaining man's existence.
Nice to see that our elected leaders are discussing evolution...
The weasel is running for the Presidency...he doesn't have my vote if I live that long.....
If they were really comfortable with Darwinism, they wouldn't be afraid to discuss alternative theories. It means that they believe that Darwinism requires at least some leap-of-faith to be accepted...that "faith" being a nonscientific thing.
If Darwin's theory was ironclad science, they would encourage having unreasonable theories considered alongside it because this would only help show the truth in Darwinism. They would have no problem discussing "flat earth" theory, for instance, because they can make an ironclad case that the earth is a sphere while at the same time show those who believe otherwise are crackpots.
Or perhaps you think the Bible actually sets forth the METHODS used by God in Creation? Or you believe that day meant 24 hours, even before there was a sun?
As we've seen already. I think what's most amusing is that those who share MY view--evolution, as opposed to ID--are the ones who are flipping out the most. Presenting an idea in the context of what it helped replace is so basic to teaching that I can't figure out these people. To deny that evolution was a REvolution in thinking is just plain dumb; not explaining the essence of the thinking it replaced is also just plain dumb when we see how the power of organized religion has been eroded in large part due to scientific explanations for what were previously thought to be "miracles" or acts of God.
There's nothing about ID that can't be explained without preaching it; and there's nothing anti-religious about explaining the importance of a scientific breakthrough in terms of the ongoing debate between ID and scientific evidence, theories and ideas as to how we got here. It's amusing to see how scared people from both sides are when it comes to TALKING about this stuff. I see religious people who have no fear of discussing Darwin in the context of teaching ID; I guess the pro-Darwin crowd are just afraid to bring up the competition, for some reason.
Depends on what you mean by theory, empirical etc. Most of the postings on this thread operate from little to no understanding of what ID is. A lot of postings seem to assume it is theologically based or that it assumes supernatural causation, which is simply not what ID affirms--ID says nothing whatsoever about supernatural causation. To claim that it does and that it is a form of creationism is the talking point the naturalistic evolution proponents have successfully sold to the MSM. It's a shame some Freepers have bought it.
Some of the chief criticisms of standard evolution theory actually are themselves empirically based--simply to say that ID is non-empirical and evolution theory is empirical and that that solves it is silly. Evolution theory takes empirical observations and interprets them, as all scientific explanatory models (or theories) do. But other scientists (including secular scientists) take the same empirical observations and argue that they reveal flaws in standard evolution theory. There's a debate within science over whether empirical data support or do not support standard evolutionary theory.
Some postings claim that Catholics accept evolution and that creationist opposition (which is not what ID is) comes from Protestant literalist reading of the Bible. This too is flawed. The Catholic position is that if the empirical data clearly and conclusively show evolution within or across species, then the theory has been verified by empirical data. But Catholic theology takes no position one way or the other regarding whether the empirical data support or reject macro- or micro-evolution. Theology cannot make such a judgment, only science can. Science itself is currently divided over whether the theory of evolution has complete or partial or minimal verification from empirical data. The Church leaves that debate to the scientists. Cross-species or macro-evolution could have taken place and Catholic theology can accept that but whether it has indeed taken place depends on a scientific, not a theological, judgment, and currently, some very good scientists are raising significant questions about whether the theory is verified by empirical data. Some have proposed modifications of the Darwinian theory that they believe are required by the empirical data, modifications that produce a theory so altered that Darwin would scarcely recognize it.
But some scientists who believe the classic theory (or perhaps theories--they won't choose among the rival ones but do believe that as a whole the priniciple of macroevolution is verified) is "true" then mistakenly cross the boundary into philosophy or theology and claim that the human person completely evolved from lower forms. That is not a scientifically verifiable claim. If humans are no different from animals, if the "soul" or "mind" is merely brain chemistry (pure naturalism), then this claim is more plausible (an ape brain chemistry could conceivably evolve into a human brain chemistry). But the question whether we are merely brain chemistry or whether the soul is non-material is itself a philosophical/religious claim because what Christianity or Judaism calls the soul cannot be empirically verified or de-verified. One believes it exists (and to believe such is fully compatible with empirical data but cannot be proven by empirical data) or one believes it does not exist--the belief here is a belief about a by-definition non-empirically verifiable thing, the soul. So, to claim that the human mind/soul evolved purely naturally from a non-human brain is a religious/philosophical claim, not a scientific claim. To claim that the human mind is merely brain chemistry, just like ape "mind" is merely brain chemistry, is also a religious claim and one that science can neither prove nor disprove.
So Catholic theology says that empirical data may confirm or disconfirm various aspects of evolution of bodies and matter--the human body could have evolved from an ape body but the decision about whether it did or did not rests on the best scientific evaluation of the data and the Church does not say that it did so evolve and does not say that it did not--to that degree and only to that degree Catholic theology is open to the possibility of evolution of matter but leaves it up to science to decide the question. At the same time, Catholic theology absolutely rejects any claim that the human soul or human person and therefore that the human species in its fullest sense naturally could have evolved from an ape. This is a matter of dogma declared at the highest level because the Bible says so--God directly created Man. Because it is a matter of dogma that Catholics must believe the human species to be different from all other species (precisely because it has a soul that is not mere matter or mere brain chemistry)--because Catholics believe this, any evolution theory that claims the human mind evolved from ape mind cannot be accepted by Catholics.
Thus, Catholic theology rejects the evolution of human mind/soul from ape-mind on scientific grounds (science cannot evaluate mind/soul because science can only deal with the empirically verifiable and the soul by definition is of a different order than the merely material) so the claim that human soul evolved naturally from ape-brain is just plain bad science. But Catholic theology also rejects the full evolution of the human species from apes on theological or religious grounds--because of the religious/theological belief, shared with Jews, that the human soul is categorically different from the brains/minds/emotions of the other animal species.
Therefore, Catholic teaching does not reject evolution out of hand, but do reject on both scientific and theological grounds any theory of evolution that claims full human evolution from apes. And Catholic teaching only accepts all other forms of evolution only insofar as they are truly verified by good science. Right now, science is divided over whether this or that theory of evolution is verified by empirical data and some scientists say that empirical data pretty much rule out theories of evolution (e.g., some of the arguments from irreducible complexity in cell biology etc.). On these matters, the Catholic Church will simply wait for the scientists to get their act together.
But much of the cultural debate over evolution has little to do with straight science and everything to do with a huge quasi-religious evolution industry that has grown up over the past century. That's really a religious debate, a debate about whether God exists or not, whether the natural world can be explained naturalistically or not. But of course, the answer to those questions cannot come from science alone. The problem is that too many cultural "evolutionists" claim that "science" supports their "purely naturally" (atheistic) explanation of reality. Science does not and cannot, in and of itself, resolve the question whether, in addition to the empirically observable, "natural" and material world something more exists or not because science by definition only deals with the natural, material, empirically observable. To assume that reality is made up of only the material or empirically observable is a philosophical and religious assumption/belief, not a matter of science. But in the general culture, the claim that this is a "scientifically proven" fact is widespread.
Intelligent Design does involve empirical data, combined with very complex mathematical theory. It is science, not religion. It does not claim to prove Creation or Supernatural-Creation or God-Design. It only claims to verify, based on science and mathematics, a theory or explanatory model in which some Intelligence lies behind the complexity of reality rather than mere chance or chaos. It is not a religious theory but an alternative scientific explanatory model. That its opponents reject it as mere religion is a cheap shot--instead of engaging it and pointing out its scentific or mathematical faults, they dismiss it out of hand as "religion." That's a coward's tactic. It may indeed be a bad explanatory model (as the various theories of evolution may also be) but the argument will have to be made on scientific and mathematical grounds. If it could be persuasively shown that ID is the best scientific explanatory model, then philosophy and religion could pick up where ID leaves off and offer either a single Creator-God (Christianity and Judaism) or a Demi-Urge and the Great One (Plato) or the various Buddhist or Hindu explanations of origins. But ID by itself makes no such religious claims.
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