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.
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Well, they can fight back, but it's a losing proposition. I guarantee you that every evolutionist will at some point personally see the folly of evolution. I just hope that their realization happens on this side of their breath.
Evolution supported by "testable theories"?
How laughable. These people bend real science beyond recognition to fit their belief in this hooey.
Well put...We have always said the Master will say to them "I never knew you." (Since they say, I never knew the Master.)
>>>origins of life on Earth.>>>
Which is still a THEORY.
</Luddite_Mode>
Condemnation of evolution supporters to damnation by post #3. That must be close to a record.
And that 'guarantee' you speak of...by what authority do you 'guarantee'? You really have no idea what you are talking about, do you?
You just wanted to jump up on your soap box and condemn passers by, didn't you?
LOL
Yes, this subject does get folks riled up. I'm handicapped by having worked and played in technical fields my whole life. I can't see electricity but I can prove in many ways that it exists. The whole concept of provability prevents me from being able to blindly accept celestial magic and the Poof Theory about how the whole universe got here 6000 years ago. I feel that people should be free for believing or not believing without being condemned and chastised. I believe in investigation and research arriving at the best possible explanation for anything, and if a theory is *proven* to be wrong, then set it aside and try again. It's a perpetual process of refinement and reaffirmation of known facts and the exploration of new data and theories. It's a process far from perfect and far from complete, but IMHO it beats the Poof Theory by a very wide margin.
This is the official face of ID. Actually, most of the ID advocates on the Internet do not accept evolution and are exceedingly cagey on questions of what they do believe. Far and away most of THEM seem to be evangelicals, oddly enough.
You mean it might not exist? Just a figment of my imagination?
So do you accept the Big Bang theory?
"Folly?
dust hanging around, packs itself into a dot, BOOM - it expands, a planet just happens to appear at just the right spot from the sun, somehow there was mud, the mud slowly came to life, this life continued to change, and wala - we're here!
And you call that folly, - That's science!"
Not everybody sitting on cracker barrels around the pot-bellied stove at the ol' general store knows the jokes from the real news.
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