[gobucks]

"Vaclav Paces, chairman of the Czech Academy of Sciences, called the conference "useless."

Hey hey hey there Bub ... think about the impact to the local ecomony at the least. Remember, the Red Tanks used to be the ones holding a 'conference' in Czech - how 'useful' was that?

[gobucks]

This AP story was not fully extracted from the wires in Seattle. They missed this section which I found elsewhere:

Pavel Kabrt, a Czech who served on the committee that organized the event, said the capital of the ex-communist country _ now a highly secular republic _ was a fitting backdrop for the debate.

"Communism is gone, but its main pillar, Darwin's theory, is still here ... the evolution theory is taught as dogma here starting in nursery school," said Kabrt, an electrician who lectures on intelligent design at Czech high schools.

[Coyoteman]

Here we go again ===> Placemarker <===

[aMorePerfectUnion]

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

There aren't 700 scientists anywhere in the world
who believe in ID. I know. I've read it on the Free
Republic. This is obviously made up out of whole
cloth.

[uncbob]

Unless the designer appears at the meeting how are they going to prove it

[Hodar]

Some things are observable, and observation does not support the theory that everything degenerates into chaos.

Consider a cloud of Hydrogen; instead of homogeniously spreading throughout the galaxy, it forms a cloud. The colective gravity of this cloud attracts other Hydrogen atoms; eventually the gravity causes this could to condense into a STAR (dis-order into order). The Star burns with nuclear Fission, until the star consumes the fissionable material, then turns into a Neutron Star (more order), this star then explodes, spewing more sophisticated molecules (ie. atomic weight greater than Hydrogen), which then form planets (again more order).

Or, biologically speaking, Dinosaurs were primitive comared to early mammals. Early mammals became more sophisticated (compare primitive hearts found in reptiles to the hearts in mammals).

Simply stated, Intelligent Design is a quantifiable, verifiable, observable fact.

[paudio]

Among the panelists was Stephen C. Meyer, director of Cambridge University's Center for Science and Culture, who said intelligent design was "based upon scientific evidence and discoveries in fields such as biochemistry, molecular biology, paleontology and astrophysics."

How could he be appointed a professor in Cambridge? Interesting... some universities seem to have a little bit more open mind than others... Science is not dogma. If we don't allow a tiny possibility that what we believe may be wrong, it's not science. It's called faith.

[WestVirginiaRebel]

What do you call a janitor in a room full of creationists?

The smart one.

[shuckmaster]

How many Intelligent designers can dance on the head of a Czechoslovakian pin ping

[RightWhale]

scholars boycotted the event insisting it had no scientific credence

There is a lot of scholarship that isn't science. Sociologists and psychologists might find it interesting to attend and see what is going on.

[furball4paws]

Why'd they pick on Prague?

[Prime Choice]

'Intelligent design' supporters gather (700 Scientists agree ID is "step beyond Darwin")

I'm certain on closer examination that these "700 scientists" are not scientists at all.

Never forget that every absurdity has its champions...and it doesn't make it any less an absurdity.

[AndyTheBear]

"The fact that we cannot yet explain the origin of life on Earth does not mean that there is (a) God who created it," Paces was quoted as telling the Czech news agency CTK.

The Darwinian evolution of life is an explanation, albeit not a complete one. So the fellow has a partial point...but its a red hearing. The fact that no one can explain what the universe is doing here is more relevant. The idea that it simply always was here seems to have been shot down by thermodynamics (increasing entropy, eventual heat death) and the big bang theory.

[Right Wing Professor]

So we have a one-day 'scientific conference' (which is pretty pathetic in itself)with exactly five speakers, only two of whom have real jobs. I wonder who these 700 'scinetists' are. My guess is you have 10 IDers and 690 miscellaneous Czechs who are there for the free hors d'oeuvres.

By comparison, here's the web page for the FEBS-IUBMB conference in Budapest . This is what a real scientific conference looks like.

[MHalblaub]

"... Ultimately, then, perhaps it's appropriate for the Intelligent Design conference to take place in Prague, the final resting place of astronomer Tycho Brahe, eternally ensconced in the Ty´n Church on Old Town Square. ... Perhaps, as Intelligent Design advocates visit Europe to spread their teachings, they can look to religion's own history and learn something as well."

--- Prague Post Online ---
"Faith requires no rewriting of science", October 19, 2005
http://www.praguepost.com/P03/2005/Art/1020/opinpv.php

You can post your comments there. At the moment just two creationist post something rather...

[<1/1,000,000th%]

You mean these folks who make money selling ID to the science impaired?

Yes. Non-profit corporations pay their employees.

[ml1954]

About 700 scientists from Africa, Europe and the United States attended Saturday's "Darwin and Design" conference to press their contention that evolution cannot fully explain the origins of life or the emergence of highly complex species.

That's all they could get for an international; conference on such an important issue? Just 700...a questionable number of questionable credentials, for a worldwide conference on such an important issue.

I could probably get 70 for a skins game in December in Illinois.