Posted on 06/21/2006 8:33:46 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
In a veiled attack on creationism, the world's foremost academies of science on Wednesday called on parents and teachers to provide children with the facts about evolution and the origins of life on Earth.
A declaration signed by 67 national academies of science blasted the scriptural teaching of biology as a potential distortion of young minds.
"In various parts of the world, within science courses taught in certain public systems of education, scientific evidence, data and testable theories about the origins and evolution of life on Earth are being concealed, denied or confused with theories not testable by science," the declaration said.
"We urge decision-makers, teachers and parents to educate all children about the methods and discoveries of science and to foster an understanding of the science of nature.
"Knowledge of the natural world in which they live empowers people to meet human needs and protect the planet."
Citing "evidence-based facts" derived from observation, experiment and neutral assessment, the declaration points to findings that the Universe is between 11 and 15 billion years old, and the Earth was formed about 4.5 billion years ago.
Life on Earth appeared at least 2.5 billion years ago as a result of physical and chemical processes, and evolved into the species that live today.
"Commonalities in the structure of the genetic code of all organisms living today, including humans, clearly indicate their common primordial origin," it said.
The statement does not name any names or religions, nor does it explain why it fears the teaching of evolution or the scientific explanation for the origins of planetary life are being sidelined.
Signatories of the declaration include the US National Academy of Sciences, Britain's Royal Society, the French Academy of Sciences and their counterparts in Canada, China, Germany, Iran, Israel and Japan and elsewhere.
It comes, however, in the context of mounting concern among biologists about the perceived influence of creationism in the United States.
Evangelical Christians there are campaigning hard for schools to teach creationism or downgrade evolution to the status of one of a competing group of theories about the origins of life on Earth.
According to the website Christian Post (www.christianpost.com), an opinion poll conducted in May by Gallop found that 46 percent of Americans believe that God created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years or so.
Scientists say hominids emerged around six million years ago and one of their offshoots developed into anatomically modern man, Homo sapiens, about 200,000 years ago, although the timings of both events are fiercely debated.
Nearly every religion offers an explanation as to how life began on Earth.
Fundamentalist Christians insist on a literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis in the Bible, in which God made the world in seven days, culminating in the creation of the first two humans, Adam and Eve.
A variation of this is called "intelligent design" which acknowledges evolution but claims that genetic mutations are guided by God's hand rather than by Charles Darwin's process of natural selection.
US President George W. Bush said last August that he believed in this concept and that he supported its teaching in American schools.
The academies' statement says that science does not seek to offer judgements of value or morality, and acknowledges limitations in current knowledge.
"Science is open-ended and subject to correction and expansion as new theoretical and empirical understanding emerges," it adds.
I know this must be difficult for you to accept, but there are people willing to admit they don't know everything and probably never will. This is not a belief. It is humility.
Your last name isn't McToober is it?
You are right. Because if the only place children learned what they know was public school, more than 13% of the country would believe in a Godless creation of the universe (according to a recent survey in the Washington Times).
There are no other religions, just various mistaken beliefs
You have much to learn.
Here would be a good place to start:
"Your last name isn't McToober is it?"
Depends who's asking. You some kind of narc, or what?
Call me when you guys have faked another Piltdown man.
If you are asking me to demonstrate my intellect so that everyone may see that I am lacking, then it is as you say, I am not as smart as many here at FR or even on this thread. However, suffice it to say that evolution and creationism are both faiths. They are both incongruent and they are mutually exclusive.
And perhaps His appendages were Noodly!
Living things are designed, and we know a lot about the process of design. It is called natural selection.
If you wish to assert an alternative, you are free to do so, but asserting things were poofed into existence will not cut it in science. Certainly not after a century and a half of observing natural selection.
Dave's not here, man!
"And perhaps His appendages were Noodly!"
I have no knowledge of such things. I am a non-sectarian atheist, along with being non-evangelical. "Whatever entity blows your dress up." That's my motto.
"Dave's not here, man!"
Dave? Dave?
That's after my time, Dude.
Thank you for joining the discussion. What moves?
Like I said. You have much to learn.
Feel free to list all your observations.
On a slightly different note, the story of Piltdown Man is hilarious. Dropping a fake half-man, half-orangutan skull into the laps of Darwiniacs is kind of like dropping forged Texas Air National Guard documents into the middle of the CBS News World HQ. It just has to be true! It just has to be! Uhh, care to authenticate that? Why? Its gotta be true!
"That's after my time, Dude."
Yeah, right.
No one, and I mean NO ONE, knows how the first life occurred or how millions of different species of animal and plant life came into existence. The scientific mind relentlessly attempts to find out, and it's hard, hard work with meager results due to the nature of the extremely fragmentary evidence. The creationist mind doesn't seem to care much about investigating anything. After all, "(insert your deity here) did it, and that's that". P-r-e-t-t-y easy way to dispose of anything and everything one doesn't want to deal with or isn't interested in. Poof, it's here, poof, it's gone. No problems, no loose ends, no unanswered questions. Using that logic, there's no need to ever investigate murder or theft, because it's (insert your deity here)'s will.
I consider that the worst kind of intellectual bigotry and the worst waste of human intelligence. Heck, aeronautical engineers are still arguing about how airplane wings generate lift to keep the plane in the air. The subject is so technically difficult to work with that nobody yet has a rock solid answer that everyone agrees with. They keep trying to find out, though, and that's the definition of an open mind.
If I were to be condemned to death by stoning for heresy, I would much rather my heresy be agnosticism rather than fundamentalism.
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