Posted on 10/21/2005 10:26:36 AM PDT by Behind Liberal Lines
ITHACA, N.Y. — Cornell University Interim President Hunter Rawlings III on Friday condemned the teaching of intelligent design as science, calling it "a religious belief masquerading as a secular idea."
"Intelligent design is not valid science," Rawlings told nearly 700 trustees, faculty and other school officials attending Cornell's annual board meeting.
"It has no ability to develop new knowledge through hypothesis testing, modification of the original theory based on experimental results and renewed testing through more refined experiments that yield still more refinements and insights," Rawlings said.
Rawlings, Cornell's president from 1995 to 2003, is now serving as interim president in the wake of this summer's sudden departure of former Cornell president Jeffrey Lehman.
Intelligent design is a theory that says life is too complex to have developed through evolution, implying a higher power must have had a hand. It has been harshly criticized by The National Academy of Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which have called it repackaged creationism and improper to include in scientific education.
There are brewing disputes involving evolution and intelligent design in at least 20 states and numerous school districts nationwide, including California, New Mexico, Kansas and Pennsylvania. President Bush elevated the controversy in August when he said that schools should teach intelligent design along with evolution.
Many Americans, including some supporters of evolution, believe intelligent design should be taught with evolution. Rawlings said a large minority of Americans — nearly 40 percent — want creationism taught in public schools instead of evolution.
For those reasons, Rawlings said he felt it "imperative" to use his state-of-the-university address — usually a recitation of the school's progress over the last year — to speak out against intelligent design, which he said has "put rational thought under attack."
All I want is for evolution to be taught with the caveat that there is much to be answered before it is a proved theory. Do you agree?
And anyone, including you, can post nearly anything on FreeRepublic. What's your point? Is the Wiki article wrong?
"Over time -- lots of time -- these tiny changes in the gene pool will accumulate, and after a great number of generations the population may be quite different from the ancestral stock."
Ok. I understand now.
I was assuming a change based on too narrow a scale of time.
You explanation makes a lot of sense to me.
The ones who survive are not necessarily the strongest. It might be the quickest, smartest, darkest skinned, one with most body fat stored up, or whatever.
That's the problem. We (in the distant past) don't know what conditions are coming to where we are, or what conditions we will encounter when we move.
In most traits there is a range of variation. There are hundreds or thousands of traits. Some are visible (skin color), some are genetic (resistance to particular diseases). Some individuals are better able to survive and pass on their genes. The differences are often tiny, fractions of a percent, but with lots of time they can add up.
In time, the range of variation shifts toward one end or the other. When people migrated out of Africa and toward the northern end of Europe, skin color lightened. In Africa selection pressure favored protection from intense ultraviolet radiation, and dark skin was necessary. In northern Europe selection pressure favored vitamin D production, and the skin had to be lighter to pass the correct amount of ultraviolet radiation for vitamin D production. There is a cline, or range of variation between Africa and northern Europe, with skin color becoming lighter as you go north.
The mechanism for this is natural selection in favor of those who are best suited for a region.
It is very complex, with lots of traits involved. We study the results using current populations as well as fossils. We have a lot to learn, but there is a lot that has already been discovered.
If you think there is an iota of difference you are unfit to discuss science.
And FreeRepublic is not a primary source. Is everything on this site true or at least acceptable as an agreed upon point from which to begin a discussion?
Humans are not apes.
This quite common, especially if the person is in the sun infrequently. My wife is aboriginal and will burn some years but not others, depending on how long the winter is and how much we get out into the sun.
"Would that be due to the fact that they are living in a temperate (colder) climate?
The colder climate tends to limit exposure to the sun and the amount of tannin in the skin is reduced. All humans experience the same reaction to the sun regardless of their skin colour. There is a range of tannin levels that is generic in nature and may not be enough in extremely hot environs or too much in cold environs. In the areas where the median range of t-levels is not enough to offer protection in much of the population, those with higher levels will, through lower mortality rates, have more children (with their slightly higher upper range) than those with lower t-levels. Eventually the alleles (available alternative genes) that give the higher levels will become fixed (become dominant to the exclusion of all other alleles) in the population. This change would probably take several hundred generations (or ~.5% in each generation).
For an example of how little a change this is try a little mind experiment. Take the skin colour of the darkest person you know, and the skin colour of the lightest person you know, who like me has ancestors that were from northern very cold climes), then fit in 200 people with skin colours that represent a gradual change from the lightest to the darkest. Now pick two in the centre of the range and see if you can tell the difference in colour.
"Do Africans tan and burn as well or is their pigment different enough to shield them from there hotter environment?
See above.
BTW, if someone is interested in why Inuit and Dene (both originally nomadic) are fairly dark skinned instead of pure white, consider the amount of sunlight reflected off of snow cover and what cold dry wind does to skin. Or talk to a skier.
It references: Primate evolution at the DNA level and a classification which is
Don't take ownership of something that was not your fault. We all know where the statement came from. The author has many problems that just happen to surface here.
I agree completely with your post #280...I really do not understand why people think that evolution and belief in God cannot coexist within the same person...
I am like you, I strongly belief in God, and also belief in evolution...It does not bother me that some who believe in evolution do not believe in a God...why should it and what difference does it make? What does bother me, is when someone comes along with their brand of Christianity, and tells me that its impossible for me to believe in both evolution and God...and that has happened to me, on a number of occasions...
Belief in God, and belief in evolution can and does coexist..
Both of you have made some good points and has really helped me in understanding what 'natural selection' is all about.
thank you.
I still wonder tho if a mathematical formula is discovered in our biological makeup that shows a definate pattern for life, would that be proof of ID or would that only confirm evolution is not a 'random' selection but process with a specific pattern.
I only ask because I did see a program about a scientist who claims that our biological makeup seemed to be structured rather than random.
His point was that there seemed to be a definate 'design' to it.
But I still wonder if the design was really the result of evolution and not the result of a 'blueprint'.
Exactly. The hypocrisy of the so-called scientific intellectuals is laughable.
God will have the last laugh on these fools.
My thinking is, if you are able to go through four years of socialist brainwashing and still come out a conservative, then you are battlehardened. I graduated 5 years ago, went to law school for 3 years, which almost made Cornell seem conservative, and I still hate leftist thought.
In their eyes, I'm mentally disturbed.
Fine, now show me anything in that source that states humans are apes.
I totally disagree. The more I look at nature and the complexity of it and the human body and mind, the more convinced I am of God. It is not logical to think that such variety of life could be a random happening. Randomness usually does not create order and I have not yet seen proof that God did not create the universe and everything in it. Mankind has come so far in just the past 100 years that I have serious doubts than humans have been "evolving" over millions of years. The fact that plants and animals are able to adapt in such a variety of ways definitely makes me think there must be some "intelligence" involved. It just makes sense.
Each of us is a primary source for our arguments. They stand or fall on their own merits. If you believe an assertion of fact to be in error, then primary sources become more important.
But even primary sources are not without error, as witnessed in the current trial where a superintendent fails to recall something that happened in a meeting, even though his own notes recall the event.
The source is not as important as whether an argument stands up to scrutiny.
My son always stands in ground in his beliefs, regardless of what school he may go to...
For his third year he went into the Cornell exchange program, and studied abroad in England...now, his major was Applied Physics Engingeering...but while in England he decided to take a history course, to see how the British were teaching world history and compare that to what world history course he had taken in America...he was rather shocked at what they were teaching and more than once, challenged the professor, and voiced his concerns and views over how the professor was teaching..I have to say, my son did alienate some students, yet the professor did admit, that my son had made some very valuable points, and that they should be considered...
Altho my son and his professor were probably worlds apart in their views, still the prof gave my son an A for the course...one can go to Cornell, and remain true to conservative thought...
Humans are not apes.
If evidence that supports ID is discovered, then ID will become a serious scientific idea. Until then, the theory of evolution does the job, without the need to resort to an unidentified, unseen, and unevidenced agency.
Where do you think God fits in evolution?
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