Posted on 05/24/2006 2:05:53 PM PDT by flixxx
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Religious arguments have permeated debates on the role of the law in medical practice at the beginning and the end of life. But nowhere has religion played so prominent a role as in the century-old quest to banish or marginalize the teaching of evolution in science classes. Nor has new genetics research that supports evolutionary theory at the molecular level dampened antievolution sentiment.1 Requiring public-school science teachers to teach specific religion-based alternatives to Darwin's theory of evolution is just as bad, in the words of political comedian Bill Maher, as requiring obstetricians to teach medical students the alternative theory that storks deliver babies. Nonetheless, stork lore is not religious lore, and the central constitutional objection to banning evolution from the public-school curriculum or marginalizing it is that this would violate the "establishment clause" of the First Amendment, which provides that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." The United States has had two waves of religion-inspired antievolution activism, and a decision by U.S. District Court Judge John E. Jones III made just before Christmas 2005 marks the end of the third wave.2
(Excerpt) Read more at content.nejm.org ...
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Dumb question, how do I join a Ping list?
iirc, the AMA has defined "gun violence" as a disease.
I don't much care for 'em when they get into politics.
Yeah, the AMA was the first to publish the nonsense ratio (the ratio of non-justifiable to justifiable gun homicides) and claimed it to be meaningful measure of the public utility of legal gun ownership.
How that one slipped by peer review is beyond me.
This article seems to be pretty good, though.
A decent, if abbreviated, summary. I would have liked to have seen more about the creationism trials of the 1980s and more details about the Dover case. But these are available elsewhere, so that's not necessarily a weakness of the article -- but I do think there should have been some mention of the "Wedge Strategy" -- which gives away the religious underpinnings of the ID movement, and puts the lie the claims to the contrary.
The other key element in that area -- the attempt to cover the religious nature of the movement -- can be found in this section of the article:
"The court heard extensive testimony about whether intelligent design qualifies as science and whether intelligent design took into consideration that there could be any other intelligent designer than God. The petitioners introduced into evidence early drafts of the book on intelligent design referred to by the Dover School Board, Of Pandas and People, some of which had been written before *Edwards v. Aguilard* and some of it after the opinion had been rendered. This evidence helped to persuade Judge Jones that intelligent design was just a new term for creationism"
This is followed by three things that convinced the judge of the religious nature of the movement -- and of its attempts to hide it:
"By comparing the pre and post Edwards drafts of Pandas, three astonishing points emerge:
"(1) the definition for creation science in the early drafts is identical to the definition of ID [intelligent design];
"(2) cognates of the word creation (creationism and creationist) which appeared approximately 150 times were deliberately and systematically replaced with the phrase ID;
"and (3) the changes occurred shortly after the Supreme Court held that creation science is religious and cannot be taught in public school science classes in *Edwards*."
Devastating. Add to this the evidence of lying on the part of several witnesses for the school board -- and this decision is going to provide a very strong precedent.
Now I await the inevitable claims that:
1) ID is not religious, and it is not about creationism.
and
2) Those who oppose ID are just anti-religious/anti-God/etc.
We might get lucky and hear these two claims from the same person again.
LOL. Who was it that invited a Muslim zealot to help argue for ID?
NEJM is published by the Massachusetts Medical Society, not AMA.
Not like they're not raving liberals, but they write a good journal (can't be wrong on everything).
<< Not like they're not raving liberals, but they write a good journal (can't be wrong on everything). >>
Case in point: This article is hardly more than a brief historical summary. The facts given are easily confirmed. The only "conjecture" is that the "fourth wave" of creationism will be "teach the controversy" -- and I think that is already in evidence.
Liberals can be wrong on a lot of things, sure -- but I have known some pretty good mathematicians who were political liberals. Didn't seem to hurt their math skills.
Patient to Doctor: "Do you have any sex toys in your home?"
Doctor to Patient: "OK, no more gun questions."
"Brought to you by the same journal that brings you this garbage."
In the gospels, when Jesus is introduced to Nathaniel, Nathaniel hears that Jesus is from Nazareth, and he says, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?"
Same logic.
No it's not. You would have a point if the journal was named the New England Journal of Medicine and Political Lunacy. No points for you. Spin again.
Do you find errors in the reporting of the facts in the article?
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