Posted on 02/21/2006 6:57:32 PM PST by gobucks
A GROWING number of science students on British university campuses are challenging the theory of evolution, saying that Darwin was wrong.
Some are being failed in university exams because they quote sayings from the Bible or Koran as scientific fact and at one college in London, most biology students are now thought to be creationists.
Earlier this month, Muslim medical students in London distributed leaflets that dismissed Darwin's theories as false. Evangelical Christian students are also increasingly vocal in challenging the notion of evolution.
In the US, there is growing pressure to teach creationism or "intelligent design" in science classes, despite legal rulings against it. Similar trends in Britain have prompted the Royal Society, Britain's leading scientific academy, to confront the issue head-on with a talk next month entitled "Why Creationism is wrong", when the award-winning geneticist and author Steve Jones will deliver the lecture and challenge creationists, Christian and Islamic, to argue their case rationally.
"There is an insidious and growing problem," said Professor Jones, of University College London. "It's a step back from rationality. They [the creationists] don't have a problem with science, they have a problem with argument. And irrationality is a very infectious disease, as we see from the US."
Leaflets that question Darwinism were circulated among students at the Guys Hospital site of King's College London this month as part of the Islam Awareness Week, organised by the college's Islamic Society. One member of staff at Guys said that he found it deeply worrying that Darwin was being dismissed by people who would soon be practising as doctors.
The leaflets are produced by the Al-Nasr Trust, a charity based in Slough, west of London, set up in 1992 with the aim of improving the understanding of Islam.
The passage quoted from the Koran says: "And God has created every animal from water. Of them there are some that creep on their bellies, some that walk on two legs and some that walk on four. God creates what he wills for verily God has power over all things."
A 21-year-old medical student and member of the Islamic Society, who asked not to be named, said the Koran was clear that man had been created and had not evolved as Darwin says. "There is no scientific evidence for it [Darwin's Origin of Species]. It's only a theory. Man is the wonder of God's creation."
He did not feel that a belief in evolution was necessary to study medicine, although he added that, if writing about it was necessary for passing an exam, he would do so. At another London campus, some students have been failed because they have presented creationism as fact. They have been told by their examiners that, while they are entitled to explain both sides of the debate, they cannot present the Bible or Koran as scientifically factual if they want to pass exams. David Rosevear, of the Britain-based Creation Science Movement, which supports the idea of creationism, said that there was an increasing interest in the subject among students.
"I've got no problem with an all-powerful God producing everything in six days," he said, calling it an early example of the six-day week. Most of the next generation of medical and science students could be creationists, according to a biology teacher at a leading London college. "The vast majority of my students now believe in creationism," she said, "and these are thinking young people who are able and articulate and not at the dim end at all."
I didn't know that. Which book?
The very first reason is not quite accurate. For most of recorded human history civilizations were polytheists, they believed in many gods. Most of them were gods of items and events. Like Ra the sun god or Mars was the god of war.
Did you read the article or just the title?
Yes they'll be oblivous to their patient's "evolving", and they'll fail to treat their patients like simians. /sarc
If the shoe fits .....
I don't see what the selective pressure for that would arise from. With grooming, any social bias against excessive hair can now be circumvented, so I doubt the very recent associated reduction in genetic fitness will extend into future generations.
Hmmm. Now that you mention it ... I guess it is ok to print the Koran stuff in newspapers, but the Bible stuff... well.... that would be troublesome...
Yes... at that time (1800's) most naturalist were clergymen of some sort. Like Gregor Mendel, who is considered the founding father of genetics, was a monk.
It has to do with disease and sex.
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s876284.htm
Not going away. The Evol-Doers will actually have to start supporting there fantasies with evidence and no longer assume abject obedience.
No I read it all and I disagree with it. Not every culture believed in one being creating everything even if they were polytheist.
You think John Galt would have been a creationist?
LOL!
I heard someone say the other day that the end of the Enlightenment was coming because of Evangelicals and conservative Catholics. Best compliment I have heard in a while
Interesting.
Your problem is your significant misunderstanding of the difference beween scientific theory and scientific law.
A law is simple, and explains what happens. Like the law of gravity.
A theory is complex, and explains how things happen.
That someone is wrong. It will come because of the Islamic fundamentalists, if anyone.
I cringe.
Lotta anti-God attitudes in France. Amoral and immoral and two-faced...
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