Posted on 01/06/2006 7:47:54 PM PST by wagglebee
(AgapePress) - A pro-family attorney is expressing dismay over a Pennsylvania school board's decision to drop a science policy that generated widespread controversy and national media attention. The newly elected Dover Area School Board has voted unanimously to rescind a policy designed to inform students that the theory of intelligent design, or ID, is an alternative to Darwin's theory of evolution.
Last month a federal judge declared the Dover Area School District's policy unconstitutional, saying it violated the Establishment Clause, or separation of church and state. Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, says the ruling and the recent school board vote have effectively inoculated the teaching of evolutionary theory in the Pennsylvania school system against any and all criticism.
"The judge specifically ordered the school board never to denigrate or disparage the theory of evolution," Thompson contends, "which now makes that theory sacrosanct and violates one of the major principles of America -- that no official, high or petty, should establish dogma or orthodoxy in a method of thinking."
The Law Center spokesman says he was astounded by the court's ruling. "Our founding fathers would be rolling over in their graves if they realized that this First Amendment language that they adopted would now be used to destroy a policy that a local school board made regarding students being made aware of the theory of intelligent design," he asserts.
However, Thompson points out, regardless of the court ruling and the school board's vote, the issue of ID theory is not likely to go away because other school boards across the United States are even now weighing the evidence and considering the idea that Darwin's theory of evolution has a lot of gaps in it. Also, he notes, many in the academic and scientific communities are realizing that evolution does not explain the complex biological systems scientists are now discovering through advanced technology.
Thompson is hopeful the ruling and the Dover Area School Board's vote will generate even more discussion about the theory of intelligent design and other alternatives to evolution.
Do you really want to expose your, and others', religious beliefs to scientific scrutiny?
Science generally leaves religion pretty much alone, and until the Wedge Strategy, religion pretty much left science alone.
Now, there has been a major Trojan horse attack on science by some creation proponents under the guise of ID.
If you bring religious belief/ID into the science or the philosophy classroom you are not exempt from a critical examination. Do you really want that?
As an example, do you want a scientific analysis of the biblical version of the global flood? The evidence for a global flood is not good.
Is it not better to leave well enough alone?
Science (and math, and literature, etc) advances as more becomes known. Modern molecular and genetic biology is based on and dependant on evolution. Would you prefer that future doctors and reseachers ignore drug-resistant bacteria because they evolve?
I'm sure people thought education was just fine when the Earth was the center of universe also.
Surely you jest.
You are going to falsify God? Do tell, how?
Maimonides and Aquinas both tell us the same thing. If science conflicts with our interpretation of the Bible, then we must reconsider that interpretation.
Or do you think it is your intellect that we should fear?
When exactly, in reference to The Theory of Evolution, has bacteria "evolved?" Does it, being the bacteria, "evolve" into a new SPECIES, or does it merely mutate. I think you are confused on the subject of evolution.
>> I am just stating, regardless of ones beliefs, ID has >> merit.
Examining weaknesses in scientific theories and proposing revisions has merit, and IS critical thinking. Claiming that anything we don't understand yet can never be known and must be the result of a supernatural designer is intellectual laziness.
Yep. These people live in a completely different world.
As an organism, such as staph bacteria, developes new adaptations, such as vandomycin resistance, significant structural and genetic differences develop between the two variants. Sometimes, in fact, demonstrating more genetic difference than sequencing has shown to be present in different species.
This is exactly the theory of evolution. The idea the something only 'evolves' if it magically changes into a completely different form simply shows how little the public knows about the theory.
Why, we have Greek myths for evidence. If goddess Athena[?] could turn Thiresius into Thiresia, that's the Intelligent Design at work for you! Higher order being [a goddess] designing, or rather redesigning, an otherwise irreducibly complex Thiresius, using the tools and processes which are beyond the knowledge and understanding of mortal humans [then and even now - sex change surgeries take longer and are more messy], and even accomplishing the task in real time, almost instantly! Later god Zeus had to perform the reverse transformation, and with the same unearthly efficiency. And - for the fun of it - try to prove that it did not happen! There are statues and myths of gods, accounts of miraculous cures effected by them, and so on - the whole mound of "indirect, but supporting, evidence".
So, when does Staph Bacteria become a NEW species, or when has any organism evolved to a new species. That is what has to eventually happen by your arguements.
"Scientific analysis of any theory concerning the creation and/or dating of the Earth "is not good." Nor is it good in regards to "occurrences" happening millions and billions of years ago. Carbon 14 dating is seriously flawed as are Potassium-Radon and Uranium-Lead methods."
You haven't got a clue what you're talking about. Long-term radio-dating is accurate and used world-wide.
But let's stay on that point, because it shows the main difference between Evolution and Creationism / ID:
- evolution has lots of evidence to back it up;
- creationism / ID has ZERO - that's right, absolutely nothing - NO evidence to back itself up.
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