Posted on 02/20/2006 5:33:50 AM PST by ToryHeartland
Churches urged to back evolution By Paul Rincon BBC News science reporter, St Louis
US scientists have called on mainstream religious communities to help them fight policies that undermine the teaching of evolution.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) hit out at the "intelligent design" movement at its annual meeting in Missouri.
Teaching the idea threatens scientific literacy among schoolchildren, it said.
Its proponents argue life on Earth is too complex to have evolved on its own.
As the name suggests, intelligent design is a concept invoking the hand of a designer in nature.
It's time to recognise that science and religion should never be pitted against each other Gilbert Omenn AAAS president
There have been several attempts across the US by anti-evolutionists to get intelligent design taught in school science lessons.
At the meeting in St Louis, the AAAS issued a statement strongly condemning the moves.
"Such veiled attempts to wedge religion - actually just one kind of religion - into science classrooms is a disservice to students, parents, teachers and tax payers," said AAAS president Gilbert Omenn.
"It's time to recognise that science and religion should never be pitted against each other.
"They can and do co-exist in the context of most people's lives. Just not in science classrooms, lest we confuse our children."
'Who's kidding whom?'
Eugenie Scott, director of the National Center for Science Education, which campaigns to keep evolution in public schools, said those in mainstream religious communities needed to "step up to the plate" in order to prevent the issue being viewed as a battle between science and religion.
Some have already heeded the warning.
"The intelligent design movement belittles evolution. It makes God a designer - an engineer," said George Coyne, director of the Vatican Observatory.
"Intelligent design concentrates on a designer who they do not really identify - but who's kidding whom?"
Last year, a federal judge ruled in favour of 11 parents in Dover, Pennsylvania, who argued that Darwinian evolution must be taught as fact.
Dover school administrators had pushed for intelligent design to be inserted into science teaching. But the judge ruled this violated the constitution, which sets out a clear separation between religion and state.
Despite the ruling, more challenges are on the way.
Fourteen US states are considering bills that scientists say would restrict the teaching of evolution.
These include a legislative bill in Missouri which seeks to ensure that only science which can be proven by experiment is taught in schools.
I think if we look at where the empirical scientific evidence leads us, it leads us towards intelligent design Teacher Mark Gihring "The new strategy is to teach intelligent design without calling it intelligent design," biologist Kenneth Miller, of Brown University in Rhode Island, told the BBC News website.
Dr Miller, an expert witness in the Dover School case, added: "The advocates of intelligent design and creationism have tried to repackage their criticisms, saying they want to teach the evidence for evolution and the evidence against evolution."
However, Mark Gihring, a teacher from Missouri sympathetic to intelligent design, told the BBC: "I think if we look at where the empirical scientific evidence leads us, it leads us towards intelligent design.
"[Intelligent design] ultimately takes us back to why we're here and the value of life... if an individual doesn't have a reason for being, they might carry themselves in a way that is ultimately destructive for society."
Economic risk
The decentralised US education system ensures that intelligent design will remain an issue in the classroom regardless of the decision in the Dover case.
"I think as a legal strategy, intelligent design is dead. That does not mean intelligent design as a social movement is dead," said Ms Scott.
"This is an idea that has real legs and it's going to be around for a long time. It will, however, evolve."
Among the most high-profile champions of intelligent design is US President George W Bush, who has said schools should make students aware of the concept.
But Mr Omenn warned that teaching intelligent design will deprive students of a proper education, ultimately harming the US economy.
"At a time when fewer US students are heading into science, baby boomer scientists are retiring in growing numbers and international students are returning home to work, America can ill afford the time and tax-payer dollars debating the facts of evolution," he said. Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/sci/tech/4731360.stm
Published: 2006/02/20 10:54:16 GMT
© BBC MMVI
It's improper to refer to the Catholic Church as a "sect of Christianity".
Your posting continues to reverberate with me, thanks again. If your analysis is correct (and I certainly find it intriguing), there are many ironies here. Today, it is the British Left which claims descent from the tradition of Cromwell and the Roundheads; the Labour party (socialist) claims Methodism as much as Marx among its roots.
One lower court ruling under a bit different circumstances. There was no individual claiming they were damaged by his discrimination, which might have changed the outcome of that case. Interesting that he won though. Letters of recomendations have been the grounds for many lawsuits in employment circumstances. I don't think anyone is dumb enough to try it in todays environment.
them on the way to a career where their irrational beliefs
Those that believe in God and His Creation don't need your help with their career. God is their source, not you.
It would be a PR nightmare, surely. But you would face no legal sanctions, likely, in the end.
I'm curious, are you aware of any such case? I've never heard of anyone being successfully sued for their personal reccommendations.
Do you know of any cases?
Given that his declaration was discriminating against religion he would lose in court since he was a state paid employee announcing on a state paid for web site his intentions to discriminate based on religion.
Give it a shot.
Not true!!
NIV 1 Chronicles 28:9
9. "And you, my son Solomon, acknowledge the God of your father, and serve him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the LORD searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts. If you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will reject you forever.
1. The Spirit of God came upon Azariah son of Oded.
2. He went out to meet Asa and said to him, "Listen to me, Asa and all Judah and Benjamin. The LORD is with you when you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will forsake you.
4. The people of Judah came together to seek help from the LORD; indeed, they came from every town in Judah to seek him.
4. In his pride the wicked does not seek him; in all his thoughts there is no room for God.
1. One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples."
27. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.
6. And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
Not constitutionally.
Then he is wrong.
That even evolutionists 'interpret' in various ways.
or
Tell me, are you aware of any case in which someone has been successfully sued over their personal criteria for letters of reccommendation?
Unless you can point me to an example, this concept sounds like just a fantasy in your mind.
In the legal world an affirmation has a different meaning than an oath. But this was not in a court of law.
Now, if you wish to keep saying it's an oath, please show me some definition somewhere that agrees with you.
affirm - establish or strengthen as with new evidence or facts;
2. affirm - to declare or affirm solemnly and formally as true; "Before God I swear I am innocent"
And here
3. affirmation - (religion) a solemn declaration that serves the same purpose as an oath (if an oath is objectionable to the person on religious or ethical grounds)
The first thing to understand is that those who "assault" Darwinism are not assaulting science, despite the fact that many scientists have embraced Darwinism. Both Creation and Darwinism are, fundamentally, religions. Christian Creation cannot be proven, though an excellent case can be made that it takes less faith to accept Creationism than it does to accept Darwinism.
Darwinism cannot and has not been proven. The fossil record does not support a slow morphing of species into each other and the timelines that scientists parrot at every opportunity are sheer speculation. The process of carbon dating relies on assumptions that are unscientific and unproveable, besides unlikely like: the rate of carbon depletion is constant, the rate of carbon depletion is unaffected by external conditions, there are no traces of the daughter element to be found in the original specimen. These are all unproveable and highly improbably, generally speaking. To sum up: Darwinism is unscientific, ergo attacking Darwinism is not attacking science.
It should seem rather self-evident why this is such a heated topic. It is heated because there is infinitely more at stake here than mere origins. It is a fundamental clash of creeds. Whether we are humans created in the image of a merciful, fearful, loving, merciful, just, all-powerful God granted human equality with others of our race and endowed with the dignity due a being made in God's image or a chance smattering of atoms, whose very existence under the cosmology of the average Darwinist is a more bizarre mystery than the Trinity, a developed ape and the universe's joke is a broader issue than simply "where did I come from?". It is the root of philosophy. If you were created in God's image (and I would assert that you were), then equity, justice, honor, duty, and sacrifice have logical origins. If not, then none of these can be justified in the worldview that Darwinism must logically imply. Rather, the only just government is an anarchy where only the fittest may survive. Justice is an illusion and honor is a dream. Self-sacrifice is for fools and duty is for the naive. Yet none of this is relevant if it is true (it would be a fallacy to assert otherwise)--but the implications of that truth are far reaching.
This is not intended to give you an impulsive emotional response to Darwinism, but to explain what is really at stake in the debate.
I admit that my position is based on faith which, in and of itself, is far more intellectually honest than the Darwinist who cannot accept that he does not know that of which he is absolutely sure. I freely admit that I cannot prove my position--but he (the Darwinist) cannot prove his either. Furthermore, I would argue that we can never definitively, imperically prove how the world began as none of us were there and the experience is not reproducible. Even if, tomorrow, you were to go ahead and show in a labratory that everything the Evolutionist believes is possible, you cannot show that it actually occurred in pre-history.
If, then, all we have is faith then you must look around you and decide which is more plausible. I firmly believe that the Creationist account of the world requires less faith than the evolutionists'. If you are interested any further, I would recommend http://www.answersingenesis.org/ I do not agree with everything written on that site, but it is, overall, quite good.
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it." John 1:1-5
I have spoken my piece and, while I don't expect to convince you of anything, I hope I have shed more "light than heat."
Y'all are postin' fastern I can reed!
Levin can write all the books he wants he just can't post on his state paid for website that he will discrimiante against blacks. If he does that he will lose in court.
I doubt that God is in conflict with His creation. I also doubt that scripture -- when properly understood -- is in conflict with creation. Personally, I wouldn't be comfortable in a church that claimed such conflicts exist. But that's just me. Unlike others around here, I don't claim to be an authority on God.
LOL!
no change has ever or will ever occur
Explain what you mean by change. Like animal to human?
I'd love to see his position on this if 2/3 of the country turned Wiccan and wanted schools to teach "Mother Earth Theory".
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