Posted on 09/24/2005 7:20:09 AM PDT by gobucks
The brawl between evolutionists and religious neo-conservatives over how life began is coming down to the survival of the slickest.
For about 150 years Charles Darwin's evolution theory has held sway. But a new American theory, intelligent design, is getting a lot of press as scientists and intellectuals rush to the barricades to dismiss intelligent design as little else than "creationism" rebadged.
Already a DVD featuring American scientists claiming intelligent causes are responsible for the origin of the universe and life has become Australia's biggest-selling religious video and intelligent design is starting to permeate school courses.
Next year, hundreds of Catholic schools in the dioceses of Sydney, Wollongong, Lismore and Armidale will use new religious education textbooks that discuss intelligent design. At Dural, year 9 and 10 students at Pacific Hills Christian School have begun learning about intelligent design in science classes.
The chief executive of Christian Schools Australia, Stephen O'Doherty, says it is inevitable other schools will follow suit. Until last month, few Australians had heard of it. But debate broke out internationally on August 1 when the US President, George Bush, told reporters he supported combining lessons on evolution with discussion of intelligent design. "Both sides ought to be properly taught," Bush said.
Last month, the federal Minister for Education, Science and Training, Dr Brendan Nelson, gave intelligent design ministerial imprimatur, telling the National Press Club he thought parents and schools ought to have the opportunity - if they wished - for students to be exposed to intelligent design and taught about it.
Nelson's office said his comments were unplanned.
But his interest had been pricked by a parliamentary visit on June 20 by Bill Hodgson, head of the Sydney-based campus Crusade for Christ, who left a copy of a DVD Unlocking the Mystery of Life with Nelson.
The DVD featured a US mathematician, William Dembski, and other leading American intelligent design proponents claiming the complexity of biological systems is proof of an organising intelligence.
"ID is the study of patterns in nature that are best explained as the result of intelligence," Dembski said.
The DVD is distributed in Australia by a Melbourne-based Christian group, Focus on the Family. Its executive director, Colin Bunnett, says until Nelson's comments only 1000 copies had been sold over four years. "But it's taken off. We've sold thousands in the last few weeks," he says.
The intelligent design debate has more resonance in the US, partly because teaching about the beginning of life is problematic. A Harris poll in June found that 55 per cent of American adults support teaching evolution, creationism, and intelligent design in public schools yet many who favour a literal interpretation of the Bible found it difficult to accept Darwin's The Origin of Species.
One teacher, John Scopes, was convicted for violating a Tennessee ban on teaching evolution in 1925's famous "monkey trial". It was not isolated legislation. In 1968, when the US Supreme Court struck down similar laws, some states began pushing the teaching of "creationism" alongside evolution.
In Australia, the issue has been less hard-edged. The last tussle was in 1978 when Queensland's Bjelke-Petersen government bowed to creationists' opposition to social science courses. Of late, leading scientists have rebuffed intelligent design. The Nobel Prize-winning scientist Peter Doherty says it has no place in a science curriculum and the physicist Paul Davies rejects it as creationism in disguise.
Dembski, an associate research professor in the conceptual foundations of science at Baylor University in Texas, the world's largest Baptist university, said it should be taught with evolution in schools but not be mandated.
"Evolutionary theory and intelligent design both have a scientific core: the question whether certain material mechanisms are able to propel an evolutionary process and the question whether certain patterns in nature signify intelligence are both squarely scientific questions," Dembski says. "Nevertheless, they have profound philosophical and religious implications."
"Evolution is not a system. It's just a theory, with lots of supporting evidence, about how life diversifies and adapts. That's it. It's not a worldview. It's not a religion. It's not a philosophy."
These statements are just plain wrong. Esp the philosophy part...
Evolution fully adopted ensures that the vast majority of people will find Genesis rejectable on a rational level. There is no 'man' that God created. Thus, sin as a concept is rejectable. That is known as a premier attribute of secular humanistic worldview ... and it is a direct attack on the foundations of the institution of marriage.
I'm talking about intellectual honesty here. If you deny WHY Darwin came up with his godless theory, you will never question its veracity, nor use your mind to analyze what he did.
To blindly accept Darwin as a legitimate scientist on a legitimate quest for truth is to deny history and fact.
You may respond to those facts with your FEELINGS about them, but the facts remain nonetheless.
Evolution fully adopted ensures that the vast majority of people will find Genesis rejectable on a rational level.
One doesn't need the TOE to reject Genesis on a rational level. One just needs to be rational.
You have no idea what you are talking about.
"Overall, when reading about M&E you somewhat feel sorry for Marx."
Bub, Marx is the one who knocked up his maid. Marx is the one who ignored his bastard son. Marx is the one who as a Dad was so bad, three of his daughters killed themselves ...
Marx is not someone to feel sorry for...
Do the facts bother you? I mean that Darwin was motivated by philosophy and not legitimate scientific inquest?
Does that make a difference to you? Or not?
I hire people all the time and I have degree in European History with a minor in Eng Lit. I failed miserably at all sciences: Geology (I'm color blind), Chemistry (All I remember is the really cute blond who was my lab partner), Biology (In the second semester the Prof kindly suggested I drop the class).
I can honestly say I've never used a scientific method to hire people, I use gut instinct. Wait a minute that what GWB says he uses too!
Science does not have alot to do with "reading people"
the ripples edge away ... the pond remains still...
Motivations and feelings and emotions have nothing to do with whether or not a scientific theory has merit. But, you know that, don't you?
Acid? I once was offered blotter acid, a long time ago. I refused. I was labeled then, as uncool.
It takes a great deal of faith to believe in evolution. It's just that those who do, deny it.
And you clearly get emotional when it comes to defending Darwin against the revelation of the truth about who he was.
(btw, I'll bet you learned your 'history' from leftists, didn't you?)
Only in one whose understanding is limited in scope, and who denies the interconnection of the academic disciplines.
"Acid? I once was offered blotter acid, a long time ago. I refused. I was labeled then, as uncool."
It would have been a better explanation.
Actually Engles finally took responsibility for the maid and actually did support her somewhat.
http://www.tales.ndirect.co.uk/KARL1.HTML
Now there has been some argument that Marx was the father. I however have always disliked Engles much more than Marx. Without E you most like would never have had M. I subscrbe to the Engles hating club (:
"One just needs to be rational."
I know, I am told this over and over and over. In truth, I used to be as wedded to this idea as you seem to be.
It was terribly disorienting to discover that rationalism, is indeed, just another way to think. I used to think it was the only way to properly think, and all other ways of thinking were irrational. It was comfortable, I'll have to say....
I like the rationalism of God lots better, even though at times it is less comfortable. Only he calls it 'wisdom'. It is not referred to as 'wising up' for nothing...
True, but the Creationists are working hard to catch up--PNAS envy.
You cannot dispute the TOE on it's merits so you attack the alleged motivations (and feelings and emotions) of Darwin. You have no rational arguments.
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