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WorldWatch - Creation and Evolution in the Schools
World Watch and The Rhinoceros Times ^ | January 8, 2006 | Orson Scott Card

Posted on 01/19/2006 3:35:07 AM PST by Mr170IQ

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To: jim_trent

Why are you demanding that ID be a proven entity; obviously, so called scientists in academe require no such constraint upon themselves in teaching Darwin...the real issue here, once and for all, revolves around our zeal, or lack thereof, of seeking questions and attempting to answer them in an academic environment. When we are scholars, we are at our finest hour in seeking ideas, later on we have to earn our keep in the workaday world and this restrains our perspective. The caterwauling from the evo crowd at the mere thought of introducing material other than orthodoxy (and for them,Darwin has here supplanted the God of the Bible) speaks volumes of their refusal to infuse the academic brew with a desirable spice of variety...


21 posted on 01/19/2006 6:04:12 AM PST by IrishBrigade
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To: ClearCase_guy

Almost everything in your list is pretty true actually. The fact that Creationists deny that says more about them than it does about real science done by real scientists using actual science.


22 posted on 01/19/2006 6:04:29 AM PST by RogueIsland
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To: doc30

Well said.


23 posted on 01/19/2006 6:06:15 AM PST by RadioAstronomer (Senior member of Darwin Central)
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To: nmh

Intelligent design not science, says Vatican newspaper article

By John Thavis
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Intelligent design is not science and should not be taught as a scientific theory in schools alongside Darwinian evolution, an article in the Vatican newspaper said.

The article said that in pushing intelligent design some groups were improperly seeking miraculous explanations in a way that creates confusion between religious and scientific fields.

At the same time, scientists should recognize that evolutionary theory does not exclude an overall purpose in creation -- a "superior design" that may be realized through secondary causes like natural selection, it said.

The article, published in the Jan. 17 edition of L'Osservatore Romano, was written by Fiorenzo Facchini, a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Bologna in Italy.

The article noted that the debate over intelligent design -- the idea that certain features of life and the universe are best explained by an intelligent designer rather than adaptive evolution -- has spread from the United States to Europe.

The problem with intelligent design is that it turns to a "superior cause" -- understood though not necessarily named as God -- to explain supposed shortcomings of evolutionary science. But that's not how science should work, the article said.

"If the model proposed by Darwin is held to be inadequate, one should look for another model. But it is not correct methodology to stray from the field of science pretending to do science," it said.

The article said a Pennsylvania judge had acted properly when he ruled in December that intelligent design could not be taught as science in schools.

"Intelligent design does not belong to science and there is no justification for the pretext that it be taught as a scientific theory alongside the Darwinian explanation," it said.

From the church's point of view, Catholic teaching says God created all things from nothing, but doesn't say how, the article said. That leaves open the possibilities of evolutionary mechanisms like random mutation and natural selection.

"God's project of creation can be carried out through secondary causes in the natural course of events, without having to think of miraculous interventions that point in this or that direction," it said.

What the church does insist upon is that the emergence of the human supposes a willful act of God, and that man cannot be seen as only the product of evolutionary processes, it said. The spiritual element of man is not something that could have developed from natural selection but required an "ontological leap," it said.

The article said that, unfortunately, what has helped fuel the intelligent design debate is a tendency among some Darwinian scientists to view evolution in absolute and ideological terms, as if everything -- including first causes -- can be attributed to chance.

"Science as such, with its methods, can neither demonstrate nor exclude that a superior design has been carried out," it said.

From a religious viewpoint, it said, there is no doubt that the human story "has a sense and a direction that is marked by a superior design."

END ha


24 posted on 01/19/2006 6:08:09 AM PST by Wonder Warthog (The Hog of Steel)
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To: The Ghost of FReepers Past; ohioWfan; Tribune7; Tolkien; GrandEagle; Right in Wisconsin; Dataman; ..
ping


Revelation 4:11Intelligent Design
See my profile for info

25 posted on 01/19/2006 6:09:27 AM PST by wallcrawlr (http://www.bionicear.com/)
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To: carumba
Complex systems in advanced organisms depend on many biochemical steps, all of which must be in place for the system to work at all...

This is not evidence. THis is an arguement that lacks evidence. Sure, there are biochemical pathways that need all components to function. However, by studying the proteins and genetics involved, these pathways can be shown to be similar to other pathways in other organisms. A more complete picture is built this way and the subtractive nature of apparent complexity can be demonstrated. In other words, the IDers presume such pathways could not have evolved by adding what they call complexity. The IDer's ignore that you could have a more complicated, less efficient pathway that lost components to produce the observed, simplified pathway they use as examples. No waving of the hands to dismiss your argument. Simple observation of facts does that.

26 posted on 01/19/2006 6:21:47 AM PST by doc30 (Democrats are to morals what and Etch-A-Sketch is to Art.)
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To: js1138; doc30
If the author weren't Orson Scott Card, I wouldn't ping for this article. But ... despite all his issues, he writes good SF, so I'm cranking up the ping machine.
27 posted on 01/19/2006 6:21:57 AM PST by PatrickHenry (Virtual Ignore for trolls, lunatics, dotards, scolds, & incurable ignoramuses.)
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To: VadeRetro; Junior; longshadow; RadioAstronomer; Doctor Stochastic; js1138; Shryke; RightWhale; ...
Evolution Ping

The List-O-Links
A conservative, pro-evolution science list, now with over 340 names.
See the list's explanation, then FReepmail to be added or dropped.
To assist beginners: But it's "just a theory", Evo-Troll's Toolkit,
and How to argue against a scientific theory.

28 posted on 01/19/2006 6:23:22 AM PST by PatrickHenry (Virtual Ignore for trolls, lunatics, dotards, scolds, & incurable ignoramuses.)
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To: PatrickHenry

I just lost more than a degree of respect for Orson Scott Card. Then again, there are few science fiction authors that actually do a good job of capturing science in their writings. They have incredible imagination and creativity, and write some interesting stories, but it is fiction that they write. I guess this is another example.


29 posted on 01/19/2006 6:27:06 AM PST by doc30 (Democrats are to morals what and Etch-A-Sketch is to Art.)
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To: Mr170IQ
Now the controversy is between advocates of the theory of Intelligent Design vs. strict Darwinists. And some people want you to think it's the same argument. It isn't.

DI's "Wedge Document" is evidence against this assertion, not to mention their web site used to be much more open in its pro-supernatural "anti-material" slant.

30 posted on 01/19/2006 6:46:56 AM PST by VadeRetro (Liberalism is a cancer on society. Creationism is a cancer on conservatism.)
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To: VadeRetro
...their web site used to be much more open in its pro-supernatural "anti-material" slant.

The lovely thing about the internet is that it remembers lots of things you'd probably rather forget.

"Discovery Institute's Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture seeks nothing less than the overthrow of materialism and its damning cultural legacies. Bringing together leading scholars from the natural sciences and those from the humanities and social sciences, the Center explores how new developments in biology, physics and cognitive science raise serious doubts about scientific materialism and have re-opened the case for the supernatural."

http://web.archive.org/web/19970608130849/www.discovery.org/crsc/aboutcrsc.html


31 posted on 01/19/2006 7:03:38 AM PST by Senator Bedfellow
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To: doc30
I have to agree. I've enjoyed a number of OSC's books, especially the 'Speaker for the Dead' series and was under the impression he was as much science as religion. I guess I was wrong.

Very sad.

Very telling that one of his complaints is the use of Ad Hom by the Darwinists which he listed smack dab in the middle of his own rather lengthy Ad Hom.
32 posted on 01/19/2006 7:04:52 AM PST by b_sharp (Science adjusts theories to fit evidence, creationism distorts evidence to fit the Bible.)
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To: Senator Bedfellow
Exactly. Then you have Panda's Thumb, the "ID" book made from search-and-replacing "creationism" with "ID." Then you have the Dover, PA school board, which lied and lied and lied about what they used to proudly flaunt.
33 posted on 01/19/2006 7:09:35 AM PST by VadeRetro (Liberalism is a cancer on society. Creationism is a cancer on conservatism.)
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To: nmh
I'm so glad my God isn't an "ape" and I was created in His image. I feel sorry for those who are determined to believe their ancestors are "apes"

I believe both -- I believe I was created in God's image, out of material that was an ape.

34 posted on 01/19/2006 7:10:18 AM PST by Celtjew Libertarian
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To: VadeRetro
Panda's Thumb, the "ID" book

That's the title of Gould's book. Pandas and People is the creationism-turned-ID book.

35 posted on 01/19/2006 7:16:58 AM PST by PatrickHenry (Virtual Ignore for trolls, lunatics, dotards, scolds, & incurable ignoramuses.)
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To: PatrickHenry
Picky, picky! I bet the pandas don't care.
36 posted on 01/19/2006 7:18:40 AM PST by VadeRetro (Liberalism is a cancer on society. Creationism is a cancer on conservatism.)
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To: Mr170IQ
Physicists know this -- they don't get their dander up and demand that non-Einsteinian physics never be taught in the public schools, for instance. They recognize that at the bleeding edge of science we simply don't know stuff yet, and no past genius has authority today, if and when we come up with data that may not support his theories.

That's true only because it hasn't been put to the test. If there were a movement afoot to teach Bible-based geocentric cosmology in the schools, or "miracology", or astrology, I guarantee that physicists would fight it in exactly the same way as biologists fight ID/Creationism (yes, Mr. Card, they are so nearly the same thing as makes no odds).

37 posted on 01/19/2006 7:27:58 AM PST by Physicist
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To: VadeRetro
Now the controversy is between advocates of the theory of Intelligent Design vs. strict Darwinists. And some people want you to think it's the same argument. It isn't.

DI's "Wedge Document" is evidence against this assertion, not to mention their web site used to be much more open in its pro-supernatural "anti-material" slant.

Link to The Wedge Strategy.

38 posted on 01/19/2006 7:28:39 AM PST by Coyoteman (I love the sound of beta decay in the morning!)
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To: Senator Bedfellow
Looks like it's all about the science to me.


39 posted on 01/19/2006 7:30:47 AM PST by VadeRetro (Liberalism is a cancer on society. Creationism is a cancer on conservatism.)
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To: Coyoteman
Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions.
Yep! It's just about science. How could anyone think it isn't?
40 posted on 01/19/2006 7:35:18 AM PST by VadeRetro (Liberalism is a cancer on society. Creationism is a cancer on conservatism.)
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