Posted on 10/28/2005 3:29:36 PM PDT by Crackingham
A bitter debate about how to teach evolution in U.S. high schools is prompting a crisis of confidence among scientists, and some senior academics warn that science itself is under assault. In the past month, the interim president of Cornell University and the dean of the Stanford University School of Medicine have both spoken on this theme, warning in dramatic terms of the long-term consequences.
"Among the most significant forces is the rising tide of anti-science sentiment that seems to have its nucleus in Washington but which extends throughout the nation," said Stanford's Philip Pizzo in a letter posted on the school Web site on October 3.
Cornell acting President Hunter Rawlings, in his "state of the university" address last week, spoke about the challenge to science represented by "intelligent design" which holds that the theory of evolution accepted by the vast majority of scientists is fatally flawed. Rawlings said the dispute was widening political, social, religious and philosophical rifts in U.S. society. "When ideological division replaces informed exchange, dogma is the result and education suffers," he said.
Adherents of intelligent design argue that certain forms in nature are too complex to have evolved through natural selection and must have been created by a "designer," who could but does not have to be identified as God.
In the past five years, the scientific community has often seemed at odds with the Bush administration over issues as diverse as global warming, stem cell research and environmental protection. Prominent scientists have also charged the administration with politicizing science by seeking to shape data to its own needs while ignoring other research. Evangelical and fundamentalist Christians have built a powerful position within the Republican Party and no Republican, including Bush, can afford to ignore their views. This was dramatically illustrated in the case of Terri Schiavo earlier this year, in which Republicans in Congress passed a law to keep a woman in a persistent vegetative state alive against her husband's wishes, and Bush himself spoke out in favor of "the culture of life."
The issue of whether intelligent design should be taught, or at least mentioned, in high school biology classes is being played out in a Pennsylvania court room and in numerous school districts across the country. The school board of Dover, Pennsylvania, is being sued by parents backed by the American Civil Liberties Union after it ordered schools to read students a short statement in biology classes informing them that the theory of evolution is not established fact and that gaps exist in it. The statement mentioned intelligent design as an alternative theory and recommended students to read a book that explained the theory further.
Brown University biologist Kenneth Miller believes the rhetoric of the anti-evolution movement has had the effect of driving a wedge between a large proportion of the population who follow fundamentalist Christianity and science.
"It is alienating young people from science. It basically tells them that the scientific community is not to be trusted and you would have to abandon your principles of faith to become a scientist, which is not at all true," he said.
On the other side, conservative scholar Michael Novak of the American Enterprise Institute, believes the only way to heal the rift between science and religion is to allow the teaching of intelligent design.
"To have antagonism between science and religion is crazy," he said at a forum on the issue last week.
You said that so much more better and more gracefuly than I could have...
The line that is most often used in NYC public schools and universities is: "Old Jewish men training Indian and Chinese immigrants how to win the next generation of Nobel prizes..."
So, no, the U.S. isn't becoming hostile to science, but third and fourth generation Americans are steering clear of it.
"To have antagonism between science and religion is crazy...
Taken in context, this is called hypocrisy.
You want to teach me there's no God!
Teach me about your God.
***Teach me about your God.***
http://bible.crosswalk.com/OnlineStudyBible/bible.cgi?new=1&word=John+1§ion=0&version=esv&language=en
***Why should I believe this?***
Did you finish reading it?
Yes. And I've read it before.
***Yes.***
So you read the whole Gospel in 15 min?
It took just a few minutes to read the link you posted.
This article (predictably) defines leftism as 'science.' Global warming & many other "environmental" concerns are actually backdoor socialism -- while the stem cell & Schiavo matters concerned ethics, not science at all.
***It took just a few minutes to read the link you posted.***
Actually, I meant the whole Gospel. Sorry for not being clear.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=50&version=47
(Use the next chapter button.)
I graduated first in my college class with a perfect 4.0 GPA and believe 100% in Creationism and think evoltution is stupid.
The idea that being pro-creationist means one is none-scientific is absurd. The most brilliant people I know are creationists.
I have already read the entire gospel. I appreciate your honest effort. And I respect what you believe.
ROFL! This is a parody to make evolutionist look like foolish bags of wind, right?
Junk science, junk scientists and the advancement of such clap-trap needs to go.
*** I appreciate your honest effort. And I respect what you believe.***
No problem friend.
If you have not read them in a while, perhaps you might find time to do so again. You may be suprised what you come across in them. I constantly am.
* They don't buy into the Global Warming crisis;
* They raise questions about the ethics of harvesting stem cells from aborted babies.
* They're against 'environmental protection'(?) ... I presume this has something to do with opening up ANWAR.
* They raised questions about the ethics of denying food and water to a living human being.
Sure -- count me as hostile to 'science' (so-called) then ...
You misunderstand chaos. Chaos does not eliminate determinism, it amplifies very small effects. Moreover, quantum systems seem to be far less likely to show chaos than classical systems.
My statement is simply that science cannot exclude the existence of of a higher power guiding things. You seem to think I said I can prove there is a higher power and that is not at all what I said
If a higher power is guiding things, it must invovle a suspension of or alteration in physical laws.
A larger point is that by making statements that are false that the universe is deterministic and that God is excluded then you are, rather ironically, making the same mistake of giving up that ID people are prone to make and also playing into their hands strategically - just like them you seek to cast this as science versus religion when there is no conflict for reasonable, logical men.
There is nothing false about the statement that the universe, as current physics understands it, is deterministic. Ignorance on your part does not constitute a falsehood on my part. I'm sorry you don't like the physics, but it isn't my problem to adjust science to accomodate whatever compromise you seem to deem necessary between science and religion.
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