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US Scientists enlist clergy in evolution battle
Reuters ^ | 2/20/2006 | Maggie Fox

Posted on 02/20/2006 10:58:43 AM PST by curiosity

ST. LOUIS, Missouri (Reuters) - American scientists fighting back against creationism, intelligent design and other theories that seek to deny or downgrade the importance of evolution have recruited unlikely allies -- the clergy.

And they have taken their battle to a new level, trying to educate high school and even elementary school teachers on how to hold their own against parents and school boards who want to mix religion with science.

While they feel they have won the latest round against efforts to bring God into the classroom, the scientists say they have little doubt their opponents are merely regrouping.

"It's time to recognize that science and religion should never be pitted against one another," American Association for the Advancement of Science President Gilbert Omenn told a news conference on Sunday. The AAAS has held several sessions on the evolution issue at its annual meeting in St. Louis.

"The faith community needs to step up to the plate," agreed Eugenie Scott, Executive Director, National Center for Science Education in Oakland, California.

Scott said many people held the "toxic" idea that "you are either a Christian creationist or you are a bad-guy atheist".

Recent court and electoral battles have made clear that judges and voters will reject efforts to sneak creationism into the classroom under the guise of making a scientific curriculum clearer or fairer, Scott said.

By a vote of 11 to 4, the Ohio Board of Education last week pulled a model lesson plan it had approved in 2004. The plan had permitted science teachers to encourage students to look at questions about evolution, something proponents of "intelligent design" call "teaching the controversy."

Last year in Pennsylvania, a federal court ruled the theory could not be taught in a public school and the school board in Dover, Pennsylvania, which approved the teaching, was voted out.

Intelligent design proponents see the hand of God behind evolution because, they say, life is too complex to be random.

"As a legal strategy intelligent design is dead. It will be very difficult for any school district in the future to successfully survive a legal challenge," Scott said. "That doesn't mean intelligent design is dead as a very popular social movement. This is an idea that has got legs."

But pastors are speaking out against it. Warren Eschbach, a retired Church of the Brethren pastor and professor at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania helped sponsor a letter signed by more than 10,000 other clergy.

"We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests," they wrote.

Catholic experts have also joined the movement.

"The intelligent design movement belittles God. It makes God a designer, an engineer," said Vatican Observatory Director George Coyne, an astrophysicist who is also ordained. "The God of religious faith is a god of love. He did not design me."

Gerry Wheeler, executive director of the National Science Teachers Association said some teachers feared losing their jobs if they taught evolution. "The pressures come from the students and the parents," he said.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: crevo; crevolist; evolution; faithandscience; intelligentdesign; scienceeducation; soupmyth
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1 posted on 02/20/2006 10:58:45 AM PST by curiosity
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To: narby; Varda; betty boop; Alamo-Girl; PatrickHenry; marron; D-fendr; Junior; Aquinasfan; ...

Faith and Science Ping.


2 posted on 02/20/2006 10:59:42 AM PST by curiosity
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To: curiosity

If evolution was baised on science, Then the believers of evolution have nothing to fear


3 posted on 02/20/2006 11:04:01 AM PST by zipp_city
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To: curiosity

Thanks for the ping!


4 posted on 02/20/2006 11:05:54 AM PST by Alamo-Girl
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To: curiosity
I don't pay much attention to these threads because invariably the posts disclose that the supporters of Darwinian theory have not undertaken even the most superficial impartial study of ID theory. It's hard to hear the calm voice of reason amid the deafening noise of ten thousand knees jerking.

This thread will be no different.

5 posted on 02/20/2006 11:06:34 AM PST by JCEccles
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To: zipp_city

you better get your asbesthos suit on. All the atheist evolution worshiping libs are going to come out gunning for you.;)


6 posted on 02/20/2006 11:08:04 AM PST by 05 Mustang GT Rocks
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To: curiosity
"The intelligent design movement belittles God. It makes God a designer, an engineer," said Vatican Observatory Director George Coyne, an astrophysicist who is also ordained. "The God of religious faith is a god of love. He did not design me."

So an ordained astrophysicist now knows who God is and isn't, and what God is and isn't capable of achieving?

Strange....

7 posted on 02/20/2006 11:15:22 AM PST by The_Victor (If all I want is a warm feeling, I should just wet my pants.)
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To: zipp_city
If evolution was baised on science, Then the believers of evolution have nothing to fear

No one fears that evolution will be supplanted as a scientific theory. There is no controversy about it among real scientists.

What I (and other pro-science freepers) fear is that the teaching of ID, because it is pseudo-scientific garbage, will destroy science education in primary and secondary schools, making us lose our scientific edge, which in the long run will threaten our position as a world power.

As a conservative, I fear that the embrace by the right of ID pseudo-science will greatly damage the conservative movement politically. Indeed, it already has. Thankfully, GOP politicians, at least at the national level, seem to be fleeing this nonsense like rats a sinking ship.

As a Christian, I also fear that rejection of solid science like evolution by so many Christians will discredit Christianity educated peoples' eyes and greatly harm evangelization efforts.

8 posted on 02/20/2006 11:15:39 AM PST by curiosity
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Comment #9 Removed by Moderator

To: curiosity
My favored solution of the moment: a non-required religious education class for each major religious denomination in the local community, which gives high schoolers elective credit. Possibly even have credited private tutoring for those in very minority faiths.

Even if catering to individual religious groups doesn't pass constitutional muster, religion really needs to be better incorporated into Literature and History classes, minimum, simply for a better understanding of the object of study.

10 posted on 02/20/2006 11:20:02 AM PST by Dumb_Ox (http://kevinjjones.blogspot.com)
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Comment #11 Removed by Moderator

To: JCEccles
I don't pay much attention to these threads because invariably the posts disclose that the supporters of Darwinian theory have not undertaken even the most superficial impartial study of ID theory.

I've read many articles by Behe and Dembski. I think I know what it's all about. It's not that complicated. Let me state ID "theory" as I understand it, and you tell me where I'm wrong. Okay?

Some features of life are complex and have many parts, and all those parts are necessary for them to function. If you take away one part, it ceases to function. IDers argue that such a system cannot have evolved in a Darwinian manner, because Darwinian evolution requires the addition of one part at a time, which is impossible for a system that needs all parts to function. Hence such systems must have been designed, since that is the only way in which we, as humans observe such systems to have been formed.

Now there is a lot of poor logic in the above, but it is the ID argument as I see it. Do I have it right?

12 posted on 02/20/2006 11:21:49 AM PST by curiosity
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To: curiosity
There's already a thread on this: Churches urged to back evolution.
13 posted on 02/20/2006 11:27:35 AM PST by PatrickHenry (Virtual Ignore for trolls, lunatics, dotards, scolds, & incurable ignoramuses.)
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To: DaveLoneRanger
If evolution is not a religion, and should be kept separate from religion, why do they seek the approval and assistance of the churches to disseminate their message?

They're not. They're seeking the assistance of churches against the POLITICAL opposition of some bibilical literalists, who constitute a minority of Christians worldwide.

14 posted on 02/20/2006 11:28:57 AM PST by curiosity
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To: The_Victor
Really not surprising to find a closeted antinominalist in the Vatican. Their "God is Love" argument all too readily turns into "God forgives everything" and that turns into "God forgives everything all the time", and then they strip off their clothes and dance naked in the square in front of the cathedral.

Other churches have these characters as well ~ not sure they really add anything to the evolution vs. panspermia debate.

15 posted on 02/20/2006 11:30:01 AM PST by muawiyah (-)
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To: everyone

"Unlikely allies," the article says. This is naive. Liberal clergy are among the easiest, and often among the most eager, of allies for liberal causes.


16 posted on 02/20/2006 11:33:47 AM PST by California Patriot ("That's not Charlie the Tuna out there. It's Jaws.")
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To: DaveLoneRanger

> If evolution is not a religion, and should be kept separate from religion, why do they seek the approval and assistance of the churches to disseminate their message?


For the same reason biologists and doctors would seek help from churches to disseminate information regarding, say, the germ theory of disease. Ignorance kills.


17 posted on 02/20/2006 11:35:26 AM PST by orionblamblam (A furore Normannorum libra nos, Domine)
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To: curiosity
What I (and other pro-science freepers) fear is that the teaching of ID, because it is pseudo-scientific garbage, will destroy science education in primary and secondary schools, making us lose our scientific edge, which in the long run will threaten our position as a world power.

If you are truly teaching scientific method in science class then the presentation of ID/creationism will be recognized as unscientific quackery which is easily debunked in the application of scientific principles. Granted, my first "if" is rather significant, but science, which is attempting to find the truth, has nothing to fear from presentations of falsehood.

18 posted on 02/20/2006 11:39:28 AM PST by The_Victor (If all I want is a warm feeling, I should just wet my pants.)
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To: curiosity
As a Christian, I also fear that rejection of solid science like evolution by so many Christians will discredit Christianity educated peoples' eyes and greatly harm evangelization efforts.

Evolution = "solid science?" As a biochemist myself, few atheistic evolutionists are nearly so confident in your statement of belief as you are -- you, who call yourself a Christian.

As a Christian do you also agree with the vatican "astrophysisist" that God did not design you? I suspect he calls himself a "Christian" too.

The Christian knows that death entered the world by one man's sin, even as Paul writes in the book of Romans. Do you, as Christian believe this?

The finger of God wrote in tablets of stone the Law known to us as the ten commandments. In the writing of that Law the finger of God wrote that "...in six days the Lord made heaven and earth the sea and all that in them is." This resides in direct opposition to premise of millions of years of an evolutionary path from molecules to man. As a Christian, who in your opinion is right -- the Cretaor who designed it all in the beginning or today's speculators who clearly were not?

Jesus Christ without exception endorsed the writings of Moses as true. Genesis is the first book containing the writings of Moses. Do you, as a Christian have a problem with Christ's affirmation of the writings of Moses?

Jesus Christ, speaking specifically in the context of man, declared that He who made them in the beginning made the male and female. As a Christian, please square the words of Jesus Christ -- the Creator Himself, with the "solid science" of evolution that you believe to be true.

19 posted on 02/20/2006 11:44:23 AM PST by Agamemnon (Intelligent Design is to evolution what the Swift Boat Vets were to the Kerry campaign)
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To: PatrickHenry
It has a slightly different angle, so I posted it. Sorry if you find it redundant.
20 posted on 02/20/2006 11:47:35 AM PST by curiosity
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