Churches urged to back evolution

British Broadcasting Corporation ^ | 20 February 2006 | Paul Rincon

[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

[CarolinaGuitarman]

"So the evolutionists are then justified because they *exposed* these hoaxes?"

The only hoax I am aware of is Piltdown Man (Haeckel's drawings are more exaggerations, though you can add that if yo want; they were not nearly as important as anti-evos claim they were). It's not even certain who perpetrated it. The rest of the so-called *hoaxes* that get thrown around by anti-evos are either mistakes that were quickly fixed (Nebraska Man) or were never problematic to begin with (Peking Man, the peppered moth studies).

[When_Penguins_Attack]

Then you contend that suffering has transactional value? But how does that square with a just god?

No. That is, in fact the point. An act of cosmic treason can never be "paid for." It is an infinite crime with infinite consequences.

By the way, thank you for the tone of your question.

[ShadowAce]

The rest of the so-called *hoaxes* that get thrown around by anti-evos are either mistakes that were quickly fixed (Nebraska Man) or were never problematic to begin with (Peking Man, the peppered moth studies).

So you don't count all the fake fossils that are flooding the market?

[donh]

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).

Balderdash. Fruit flies are frequently speciated in labs. Just because you insist they're still fruit flies--and that that somehow means something significant--does not mean they didn't speciate. Speciate means "can't breed together", it doesn't mean whatever you want it to mean.

[donh]

So you don't count all the fake fossils that are flooding the market?

Fake fossils are a part of biological science? Which part?

[js1138]

I really don't appreciate your responding to a discussion of lies by claiming you could point to a specific thread, then failing to show us a link to that thread when asked. Your search leads to nothing.

I would like to see the thread.

[Mamzelle]

it doesn't mean whatever you want it to mean.)))

Once again, attempting to control the debate by defining terms to suit yourselves. You can make a list--you can spam it and spam it--we'll see if you can enforce it. You clearly can't persuade, so enforcement is the only other option.

[CarolinaGuitarman]

No, because they are either not fakes or were never accepted by science.

[ShadowAce]

Fake fossils are a part of biological science? Which part?

The same part the Piltdown man and Nebraska man are when they were referenced in the post I was replying to.

[Mamzelle]

I've posted it several times. You could always go to Girley Man's famous archives.

[js1138]

I've posted it several times. You could always go to Girley Man's famous archives.

You said you could point us to it. Were you lying?

[When_Penguins_Attack]

As I've explained, I can verify my own existence.

And that is all we need to read to know that either 1) you don't have a clue as to what you are talking about, or 2) you have the greatest mind since DesCartes, who upon whose axioms of "self" awareness rest most of modern thought. He could not "verify" his own existence, but posited that denial of self was an absurdity, since there had to be a "self" to issue a denial. The rest of the ball of wax (the world and his interaction with it), rested on the supposition of a merciful God who would not "trick" us by creating senses that did not correspoond with "reality." Modern rationalism has simply substituted the evolutionary process for the creation of a merciful God. Both grow out of a Cartesian mindset which ASSUMES the validity of self and its interaction with the cosmos, but can VERIFY neither.

Dolts who proclaim otherwise are simply too stupid to see they are arguing in a circle. Theists have their faith planted on one bastion, you have yours in another, but don't come up with some idiotic crap about being able to "verify" anything while others are hopelessly mired in "faith." You clearly have no idea what you are talking about.

[CarolinaGuitarman]

" The same part the Piltdown man and Nebraska man are when they were referenced in the post I was replying to."

Nebraska Man had a scientific lifespan of about 3 years. It was never accepted by the majority of scientists and was quickly discarded when it was shown to be a mistake. It was never a hoax.

[ShadowAce]

No, because they are either not fakes or were never accepted by science

If they were never accepted, then they wouldn't be the problem, would they? However, many scientists and museums are buying these fake fossils and they are a problem in the community.

[Mamzelle]

See? "Changing One Gene Launches New Species"--it's simple. date--2003 on FR. That's the title. Anyone reading will know how to find it if they care to do so, and they know you're just playing the goading little evo at the behest of a chicken band leader-- But if you want to ask again, I'll post the title again. Advertise yourself and your bad faith as often as you like.

[donh]

You want evolution taught in the same absolute format as mathematics when it just ain't so.

At what university or high school is evolutionary theory taught in this manner? Do understand what the word "theory" means?

[furball4paws]

This puppy needs to go in the trash can.

[Mamzelle]

re: Do understand what the word "theory" means?)))

LOL!

[js1138]

You said you could point us to it. Were you lying?

[The_Reader_David]

I think the real issue has its roots in the fact that a great deal of the American religious landscape is dominated by various species of "sola scriptura" protestantism most of which arose not in the Western reformation, but in various post-'Englightenment' religious revivals. Even some American Christians whose own tradition (Latin or Orthodox) has a regard for Holy Tradition (or in the Anglican case, the disected version 'Scripture, Tradition and Reason'), have their approach to Scripture colored by the general milieu.

I would summarize that milieu as a mind-set which accepts the rationalistic conception of truth promulgated by the 'Enlightenment', while at the same time holding to the truth of the Christian Scriptures.

The conflict stems from this attitude. On the one side folks argue a reductio ad absurdum of all varieties of Darwinism because they are all are contrary to Scripture read as if it were written by and for post-'Enlightenment' rationalists. On the other, folks argue a reductio ad absurdum of Christianity on the basis of the manifest truth of evolution (and the purported sufficiency of the neo-Darwinian synthesis as an explanatory theory), because these are contrary to the same sort of reading of Scripture.

The whole thing is a row within post-'Enlightenment' rationalism between the rationalists who still believe in Divine revelation and those who don't.

(The scornful quotes around 'Enlightenment' are really necessary when an Orthodox Christian writes--Enlightenment or Illumination properly refers to the gift of the Holy Spirit in Baptism and Chrismation, which gift most of the 'Enlightenment' seems intent on fighting.)