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
We would if it said so in the Bible. Remember this argument breaks into 2 essential parts: "The Bible Says So" and "it is too complicated." My argument addresses the first. Let me then move on -- how about the theory of Gravity? String Theory? There are significant debates about these within the scientific community, but the foundations are available as science.
This is the problem. You want evolution taught in the same absolute format as mathematics when it just ain't so. Evolution, as it pertains to the origin of man, is not in any way similar to the mathematic certainty that 1+1=2. To believe that it is - which is really what this debate is all about - takes much more faith than believing the Bible. When the real mathematicians point out the almost statistical impossibility of man resulting from some single cell organism - they are not allowed in the classroom because it is not science.
Show me one accredited publication where such a statement is made.
Your comparing evolution to the certainty of mathematics lifts the veil and exposes the problem that most evo's have. It is a "theory" in no way comparable to other scientific or mathematical facts. I know - now I'm going to have explained to me what a "theory" is for the thousandth time.
1. I was being exemplary, but nonetheless evolution belongs in the science milieu, creationism belongs in the philosophical one. Your complex strawman attacking evolution does not resuscitate Creationism as an "alternate theory." Creationism is mythology.
2. You don't get to frame the debate by stealing the terms (I judged debate for many years). You can post what you think is a "theory" until the cows come home.
But true, nonetheless.
My understanding of Enoch is that it is consistent with the standard near-east flat-earth cosmology. But I'd be interested in hearing your view.
As to whether the earth hangs on nothing, it definately appears to hang on nothing, and to that extent, the description in Job is accurate for the purpose of the statement, and the context thereof.
Something that is hanging is suspended or fixed so that the acceleration of the gravity to which it is subject is arrested. The Earth, however, is neither suspended nor fixed, and the acceleration of the Sun on the Earth is not arrested. The Earth is constantly falling in toward the Sun, although its tangential velocity is sufficient to miss hitting the Sun, and it means that the Earth is constantly falling around the Sun.
I don't see how this can accurately be described as hanging, in any factual sense.
He is most certainly free to do exactly that.
Yes, and it is other Evolutionists who find these haxes because of the strict application of the scientific principle.
The hoaxes don't undermine the underlying theory and are almiost always some individual shooting for fame and glory (think Falwell of Gene Scott for Religion).
OTOH, CRIDers lie on these threads. We have exposed them time and time again. Yet, I defy you to find a single Evo post that contains either a purposeful logical fallacy or flat out lie. I can do so for CRIDers.
You are right.
Oh no. You made no actual, specific argument against any of the descriptions of the biblical items I mentioned. As such, there is no "burden of proof" because there is no argument. I'm not the public library. Do your own research. Nice try.
I thought that was Australia!
No, wait; that was criminals.
Which we doubtless need again!
Now, what would be the point of that, when you'd just redefine "lie" or "fallacy".
I can point you to a thread about a "new species" of fruit fly being launched where no new species existed, nor exists now (three years later). It's a thread full of wishful thinking and hopeful expectations, but no new species was created. Just an outlandish claim--a lie, as most people understand lying. I'm sure you'd just say that "new species" does not really mean "new species" and that I need to get back to biology class.
FRevos argue in bad faith--
The context is that the bible's cosmology is consistent with that of the authors' contemporaries in Egypt and Mesopotamia--i.e., a flat earth surrounded with water covered by a vaulted heaven on which the sun, moon and stars traversed. What kind of context are you looking for?
but even taking them at face value, the two that are underlined actually suggest the relationship of a [raised] point on a curve, rather than a [raised point on a straight line.
True, they are consistent with a flat surface and with some curved surfaces. (I say some, because if the curve was steep enough, it would be inconsistent) However, they are wholly inconsistent with a raised point on an oblate spheroid, such as the Earth. Which is the point I am making.
Well stated. It is important we stay true to the principles of science.
But I just didn't want to watch this degenerate into a debate on terminology. I don't have enough stack space to keep BR14 back (IBM M/F joke).
Some folks are complaining that others on this thread SPEAK for God.
You, however, know how HE works!
Right! The only reason I'm here on this forum is to discredit the Conservative movement.
Which side of this war is the ACLU on?
And in the last 50 years, what issue have they ever been "right" on?
HMmmm..... ;^)
On the whole, they are inconsistent, without a great deal of interpretation and apologetics, with anything approaching the modern understanding.Kinda works into the poetic/literal thingy; eh?
As poetry, it is fine. Poetry is art; it is inherently subjective. My point is that is isn't factually accurate. The claim that the bible, literallly speaking, contains scientifically accurate and true cosmological statements (which is the essence of the "the bible is scientifically prescient" claim) is objectively false.
I was being ironical, a little bit.
Man, it looks like yer FINGERS failed!
Didn't you mean WHEN?
--EvoDude
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