Posted on 11/13/2005 3:49:41 PM PST by Crackingham
U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum said Saturday that he doesn't believe that intelligent design belongs in the science classroom. Santorum's comments to The Times are a shift from his position of several years ago, when he wrote in a Washington Times editorial that intelligent design is a "legitimate scientific theory that should be taught in the classroom."
But on Saturday, the Republican said that, "Science leads you where it leads you."
Santorum was in Beaver Falls to present Geneva College President Kenneth A. Smith with a $1.345 million check from federal funds for renovations that include the straightening and relocation of Route 18 through campus.
Santorum's comments about intelligent design come at a time when the belief that the universe is so complex that it must have been created by a higher power, an alternative to the theory of evolution, has come under fire on several fronts.
A federal trial just wrapped up in which eight families sued Dover Area School District in eastern Pennsylvania. The district's school board members tried to introduce teaching intelligent design into the classroom, but the families said the policy violated the constitutional separation of church and state. No ruling has been issued on the trial, but Tuesday, all eight Dover School Board members up for re-election were ousted by voters, leading to a fiery tirade by religious broadcaster Pat Robertson.
Robertson warned residents, "If there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God, you just rejected him from your city."
Santorum said flatly Saturday, "I disagree. I don't believe God abandons people," and said he has not spoken to Robertson about his comments.
Though Santorum said he believes that intelligent design is "a legitimate issue," he doesn't believe it should be taught in the classroom, adding that he had concerns about some parts of the theory.
That always happens on long threads.
What is someone watching?
Oh Well, Life in the Fast Lane.
It's an insult frenzy, which should be distasteful to both science and religion.
Maybe not watching this particular thread, but we are America and the world is always watching our internal debates.
I hope you are referring to common descent rather than abiogenesis, because abiogenesis really isn't part of the ToE. Common descent may 'logically' be traced back to original life, but 'practically' doesn't really care about the origin of life. Common descent has enough evidence behind it that viewing it as a religion is a bit disingenuous.
I'm not really sure what you mean by 'random origin of life'. Since many of the chemicals necessary to life have been found in space and elements on the primeval earth had enormous amounts of energy available to organize into complex molecules, it seems life is the result of natural physical laws rather than purely random events.
Actually, it really isn't Darwin or any of his intellectual students that is the problem. It is the socialist/materialist/athiest types that use/misuse Darwin's work to justify their own.
I think the only logical response is: Who cares, it's irrelevant. Either the ToE is an accurate model for the development of new species or it is not. The use of Darwin's original theory by others has no effect on its validity as a model.
There is virtually no connection between Darwin and Marx, other than that they were contemporaries. They never met. In fact, Marx was an active socialist agitator, who had written and published virtually all of his work, before 1859, when Darwin first published Origin of Species. The only work Marx published after that was Das Capital, which makes no mention of Darwin or evolution. Nor did Darwin's work make any mention of Marx, or his works. So there is no intellectual connection between the two.
Although Marx had never met Darwin, he knew that Darwin had become one of the most famous scientists of the time, so Marx sent him a copy of Das Capital, and requested permission to dedicate it to him. Darwin declined, saying that he knew nothing about the subject, and appears never to have read the book.
A source that most creationists accept, the Institute for Creation Research, has this article posted at their website:
Darwin's Influence on Ruthless Laissez Faire Capitalism. Yes, ICR links Darwin to good ol' capitalism.
Do these facts (which have been posted many times) ever stop creationists from claiming a "connection" between Darwin and Marx? No, of course not.
And here I thought he used the scientific method; called by some who live by their knowledge of philosophical catch phrases, methodological naturalism.
Oh yeah, I'm sure. Well then he is about as dumb as rocks, because he knew the media would claim he snubbed the president. If you are in a desperate run for your office and the leader of your party comes through town you are either there or you are snubbing him. This "prior speaking engagement" is as naive as they come.
"I must be out of date...
You are thinking of the big TOE. The ID / evolution debate is under the little ToE.
Frankly, I don't see a broader agenda beneath the Darwin thing. I do see a certain amount of fear that ID will degrade the teaching of science.
Darwinism was condered to be "bourgeois science" by the communists, just as relativity was considered to be "Jewish science."
In any case, the methodology which has served us so well is the most important factor in refusing entrance to ID *as it stands now*. Introducing anything that is above the laws of nature can only harm scientific investigation.
If that methodology is corrupted by introduction of ID, more fields of science than evolution will be affected.
Catch up classes, not dummy classes.
Why pollute your previous very cogent argumet with name calling?
I wasn't aware that I called anyone a name. What I did do was attempt to bring after dark's attention to the fact he was assigning motives to evolutionary proponents without any knowledge of their true motives.
My apologies then. I'm somewhat hyper sensitive to the tone that the debate has taken in general.
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