Posted on 09/30/2005 7:45:00 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
The Campaign to Defend the Constitution, a group organized to promote the teaching of evolution, sent letters Thursday to all 50 governors, urging them to ensure that science classes teach material based on established science.
The letters were signed by more than 100 scientists and clergy of various faiths, the group said.
Although Gov. Ed Rendell had not received the letters as of Thursday afternoon, spokeswoman Kate Philips said he is committed to the idea of teaching evolution in science classes.
Rendell "believes that (intelligent design) is more than appropriate to be taught in religion classes, but has no room in science classes in public schools," Philips said. "But this is in the court's hands now, and other than his opinion, he has no influence."
But a spokeswoman for DefCon, the group's nickname for itself, said the group hopes that after governors receive the letter, they will make a public announcement opposing the teaching of intelligent design.
"It would be nice if (Rendell) took a stance and said, whether it's in the Dover district or any other Pennsylvania district, 'We need to protect the teaching of science in our science classrooms,'" Jessica Smith said.
The group named Dover its top "Island of Ignorance" in the country. It has targeted areas in the country where it says evolution is being challenged at the state level or in public school science classrooms. They include Cobb County, Ga.; Kansas; Blount County, Tenn.; Ohio; Grantsburg, Wisc.; Alabama; Utah; South Carolina; and Florida.
Advocates of intelligent design say life is so complex that it is likely the result of deliberate design by some unidentified creator, not random evolutionary mutation and adaptation.
Critics say it is essentially creationism and violates the separation of church and state when it becomes part of a public school curriculum.
"We can do better when we let science do its job, and ask religion to do its job," former ACLU executive director Ira Glasser said Thursday, "and if there's a need for conversation, please, let's not do it in the classrooms of our children."
"...alternate interpretation discussing Aristotle's belief in four elements?"
Has it been disproved?
The only reasonable alternative is that you are misinterpreting the Bible, just as Martin Luther misinterpreted it when he asserted that the earth cannot move.
Ad Just as Nicodemus misinterpreted Jesus by taking the word "reborn" literally. It's amusing that people take this story as a demand to take Genesis literally, when it's obvious that Jesus is admonishing a man for being literal and failing to see the moral point.
Why do you say I ran away if I'm here now? That's a dishonest thing to say. More importantly, why do you care what I believe anyway? I'm not a teacher so I won't be corrupting the children. I don't care that some people believe in evolution or space aliens or if they don't believe in God. Why are you so concerned with what others believe?
Not many curious people around, are there?
Yes, just like creationism.
What, Aristotle's theory? Yes. ID doesn't even rise to the level of Aristotle, however, because it makes statements that are inherently unsubjectable to academic scrutiny.
You know (if you're honest which most evos aren't) that ID has not be disproved. Nice try, though.
You ran away from one thread to the other. That's hit and run posting. You can't make unsubstantiated charges and then refuse to acknowledge them when they're refuted.
More importantly, why do you care what I believe anyway?
Simple. Because you're trying to influence others. If you kept your wrong-headed anti-scientific beliefs to yourself and didn't try to foist them on the next generation, I'd have no problem with you.
How do you know ID can't be proved? Because it hasn't been yet? Is that your idea of "scientific method"? If we can't prove it, it isn't true? Hmmm - sounds like what you accuse the IDers of doing.
Ok, tell me how ID can be proven. Or disproven. Give me a hypothetical scenario. A hypothetical experiment that would prove it one way or the other.
If we can't prove it, it isn't true?
No, if it is impossible to prove or disprove, it isn't relevant to science. Science is an evidence-based endeavor. If your basing beliefs on something other than evidence, science can't address them.
You are really getting on my nerves and if it wasn't a slow day at the office I wouldn't waste my time with you. To say I post and run is a flat-out lie. Look at my list of posts on any number of evo threads and tell me I run away. You are just one in a number of name-calling evos who feel their little world will come tumbling down if people decide they don't buy evolution. Get over it. Let students make up their own minds without the ACLU and people who are intent of keeping God out of the public arena.
ID can't be disproved, even potentially. It predicts no future evidenciary findings. That is why it is not science. Evolution could potentially be disproved, but it hasn't been. It predicts future evidenciary findings, which have and continue to support the theory. That's why it is science.
Yes, some evolutionists are liars, but evolution is definitely not a lie; it is founded on solid scientific principles.
Visit a creationist website, though, and you will see lies purveyed left and right, however. Anyone who says things like "Evolution is against the 2nd law of thermodynamics" or "evolution cannot add genetic information" or "there is evidence that humans and dinosaurs coexisted" is lying through their teeth. This kind of misinformation has no place in competent science teaching.
MLC9852: And I have yet to see proof where one species transformed into another one.
Alter Kaker: Then go back and look at my post again. I just gave you a list of transitional fossils. If you haven't read the list, read it.
Free Republic: No Replies.
Source: Here
The fact that races can mean more than - but still include - differences in human development does not take away from that fact.
I'm not an atheist and I don't want ID taught. The oppostion to ID has nothing to do with religion, and everything to do with science. ID is simply not science. To teach it as such means you have to change the definition of science and that means killing what science really is. The net result will be the introduction of supernatural causes as science in schools and that will only further diminish the education our kids will recieve. It's not an athiest agenda you are up against, but a scientific one.
In The Descent of Man, Darwin wrote:
"At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes [that is, the ones which look like the savages in structure] . . . will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla.1 "
1 Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, 2nd ed., (New York: A. L. Burt Co., 1874), 178. Quoted in Henry M. Morris, The Long War Against God: The History and Impact of the Creation/Evolution Conflict (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1990), 60.
Do you feet better about yourself now?
This statement demonstrates you do not even know the definition and meaning of evolution.
Since these are theories, and not proven facts, belief in their validity requires a leap of faith.
This is the statement that proves that you have no understanding about scientific theories. After that, everything else your wrote is moot at best.
Please educate yourself before posting things like this. People that actually know what they are talking about get tired of repreating the same facts over and over to closed IDer minds.
I heard that call. The guy made some good points. It's just too bad he completely blew away his believability by bringing up creationism. Because if he's so wrong on such a basic point of science, then he obviously can be wrong on other subjects.
He shot himself in the foot and didn't even know it.
"However, if by "definitively transitional" you mean "we can demonstrate with
absolute certainty an direct ancestor-descendant relationship between fossil
A-fossil B-fossil C- etc.", then no. Direct ancestor-descendant
relationships are well nigh impossible to demonstrate: there is always the
possibility, for example, that fossil A was the sister species (or even the
sibling species: identical in morphology but different by some
non-morphological cue) of true ancestral fossil Q. We can propose that
fossil A is the ancestor, but we cannot demonstrate. It is a possibility
which is certainly falsifiable (for example, if all specimens of fossil A
occur stratigraphically after all specimens of fossil B, then the specimens
represented by fossil A cannot be the population which gave rise to fossil
B). In some cases (taxa confined to a particular geographic region, where
the stratigraphic and fossil sampling is exceedingly good) you might have a
very good potential set of ancestors and descendants; for the most part,
though, these are scattered much farther apart in time, space, and
phylogeny."
Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
Vertebrate Paleontologist
Department of Geology Director, Earth, Life & Time Program
University of Maryland College Park Scholars
College Park, MD 20742
http://dml.cmnh.org/2000Jul/msg00315.html
Interesting.
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