[Pennsylvania] Gov. Rendell backs evolution

York Daily Record [Penna] ^ | 30 September 2005 | NICOLE FREHSEE

[narby]

I'm not a serious student of Darwin, but I believe that you need to add Darwin to your list. He also recognized there was a Creator, and did some great work in illuminating how the Creator worked.

[mlc9852]

Oh, sorry - I forget you are a godless atheist. Please ignore my previous question.

[mlc9852]

I believe in evolution - that is, natural selection. I just don't believe humans evolved from anything other than humans. And I don't believe one species evolved into another.

[narby]

It's amazing how much energy and money has been expended in this war over evolution and intelligent design.

Good point. The creationists have waged a war to impose their particular interpretation of Genesis while they should have been working to get a decent judge appointed to the supreme court that will overturn Roe V. Wade because it is a constitutional joke.

Creationists have a weird sense of priorities, and they give intelligent conservatives a bad name.

[layman]

I don't see why we need to argue about this. Can't we just choose which process gave us life and let it go at that? I am the product of alien intervention, but I have friends who are the product of intelligent design, and I have one friend in particular who is definitely the product of the imperfect process of evolution. I think there is one thing we can all agree on, and that is that none of us knows for certain how we all came to be.

[Archon of the East]

I don't have a problem with it being taught in science class or being discussed and debated in a social studies class either. But my point is that we are not diverse in our education, we refuse to confront issues such as race, religion and science in an intellectually honest way. My point is that the question of existence is THE question for all times and should be included in all curriculum's if that curriculum is to be considered truly liberal. The "science" only argument on the surface may hold water but the motivation behind it IMO is affront to real education. Do they emphasize any of the pitfalls of the theory of evolution or is taught as fact? Intellectual honesty is rare in todays utopia.

[IrishBrigade]

...creationists...give intelligent conservatives a bad name...

Perhaps, but no doubt a better name than those bestowed upon creationists by those self same intelligent conservatives...

[narby]

I just don't believe humans evolved from anything other than humans.

You've been around here long enough to have seen the links to information on the ERV virus insertions common between primates and humans. Those are the smoking guns that prove a common ancestry between primates and humans.

However you want to reconcile that with Genesis, sin, etc. is something you'll have to work out on your own. But the fact is that you carry in your body genes deposited by a virus in a single individual millions of years ago that is now the common ancestor of both you and Koko the Gorilla.

Deal with it.

[js1138]

Ah, but that's a recent evolutionary change. Up until the middle of the last century, it was impossible for members of different races to interbreed in several states in this country.

Several thousand years went by without religion noticing that slavery was evil; the change in the law took place within months of the publication of Origin. Ain't science grand.

[narby]

Perhaps, but no doubt a better name than those bestowed upon creationists by those self same intelligent conservatives...

Where this issue becomes important is the threat from the left to discredit anything proposed from the conservative side because "they're a bunch of knuckle dragging, anti-science, buffoons". It makes it easy to write off anything we say, regardless of the merits.

A particular liberal in my office hates George Bush because he thinks Bush wants to impose religious teaching in schools such as creationism. Pushing ID/creationism is 1) a lost cause, because it will never be adopted by public schools without lawsuits preventing it. 2) Is a distraction away from positive changes that conservatives could be working for. And 3) as described above, is an excuse used by many liberals to reject the logic of anything "conservative".

That's why I spend time on these threads. Hoping to stem the idiocy of this argument before it really gets into the public arena firmly associated with the political philosophy of "conservatism".

[metmom]

"For example, you no longer here about the theory of aether, the "planetary model" of the atom is no longer taught either. Medical students no longer study the "humors", and "bleeding" patients, except rare instances, is no longer practiced."

It's interesting, though, that these things, along with alchemy, were touched on in my high school and college science calsses. Of course, they weren't taught as fact but they were "taught" for the historical value. Why should creation be exempt? Mentioning it in class for the historical value is not the same as teaching it as a viable theory. If evolution is so incontrovertible, show why creation is wrong, just like alchemy or humors. This attempt to keep it out of science classes altogether smacks of an anti-God-keep-religion-out-of-schools agenda. Saying it should be taught in philosophy or religion classes is a cop out because pretty much everyone's aware that there's no way religion is going to be taught in a public school. (Except Islam to be PC) The evolutionists come out almost looking afraid of challenging the concept of creation with their attempts to completely squash the idea.

[Coyoteman]

Ping for later

[narby]

Mentioning it in class for the historical value is not the same as teaching it as a viable theory. If evolution is so incontrovertible, show why creation is wrong

I can't think of another thing that would be interpreted as "anti-God" than teaching that the Bible has been scientifically proven wrong by evolution.

The problem isn't science, the problem is a few denominations that believe that the Bible and science conflict. That's a theological problem they have with science, not a problem science has with faith.

The only viable answer is to leave religion completely out of science classes. At most, a teacher should explain that science does not seek to pose an affront to the faith of students. Only that some faiths choose to reject science.

[metmom]

No, I believe in God. I believe he reveals Himself in many ways. I believe in His magnificent creation, where He created man, with a soul in His own image and with a body that He created using the mechanism described by evolution. You clearly must believe God is a deciever, since all of the information He has put in front of us that may contradict the Bible must be wrong.

You raise an interesting issue, here. God is not a deciever yet there is a fossil record. If creation truly reflects God's nature as stated in Psalms then it reflects truth. Now I cannot believe that God would deliberately place the fossil record on this plantet for the purpose of decieving mankind. So, that leaves two possibilities as far as I see it; 1) God did use evolution as the process by which man was created or 2) the fossil record is being misinterpreted. If anyone else can see other possibilities, feel free... I know however, that #2 is not going to be real popular with some folks.

[tucker93]

Happy reading:

Charles’s humanist grandfather, Erasmus Darwin wrote on the subject of evolution by some 65 years with his book Zoonomia published in 1794. Interestingly, this is where Charlie got a majority of his "ideas".

Dr James Hutton (1726–1797), conceived a theory of selection as early as 1794. Paul Pearson, professor of paleoclimatology at Cardiff University, has recently found in the National Library of Scotland a formerly unpublished work of three volumes and 2,138 pages, written by Hutton in 1794. Entitled An Investigation of the Principles of Knowledge and of Progress of Reason, from Sense to Science and Philosophy, it contains a full chapter on Hutton’s theory of ‘seminal variation’. (Reviewed by Paul Pearson in Nature 425(6959):665, 16 October 2003)

[furball4paws]

"Up until the middle of the last century, it was impossible for members of different races to interbreed in several states in this country. "

Hardly impossible given that most Black Americans are not pure blooded. Certainly difficult and illegal in some places, but you know, hormones are hormones and pheromones are pheromones and Nature is more powerful that the rules of Man.

The most physically exciting woman I've ever known was black. Wonder if she's a Freeper??

[Antonello]

Hmmmm....wonder what his non KKK constituents think of this.

Equivocate much?

[wyattearp]

Drool! Drool!

Where? Where? (they must have photoshopped it out). ;-)

[Thatcherite]

And I don't believe one species evolved into another.

At least you can't be a young earth creationist who believes the Noah's Ark fable then (YEC insist on an incredble rate of evolutionary speciation since the flood, to avoid the notion of 20+ million species being looked after by 8 people for a year). Maybe there is hope for you yet.