Welcome to the Dark Side, Rades.
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.
Hmmmm, I guess I got tripped on some kind of syntax issue that I'm not aware of. I'm basically a soldering iron jockey, not a nuclear physicist or radio astronomer. I can dig a Jansky okay but get lost on string theory. :^)
"Why is it that certain evolutionists think science will be doomed, and mankind with it, if we do not all subscribe to their pet philosophy of history?"
Name one of those, please.
Let me get this straight. I have to believe in evolution as fact before I can accept that the age of fossils can be determined by their fluorine content?
Do I have to believe in evolution as fact in order to accept anything science has accomplished, whether it involves the evolution-creationism debate or not?
How about carbon dating? Schrodinger's Equation? Quantum Leap reruns?
This statement is misleading by the implication that "leading evolutionists" means either all evolutionists, or some consensus thereof. This seems to be the implication that you'd like people to draw, but it's not correct. At least not prior to the discovery of Piltdown II.
The fact is that there was initially NOT a consensus such as you describe. Many scientists remained agnostic or otherwise refrained from comment, and others (incl for instance Marcellin Boule, probably the single most important physical anthropologist of the day) came out against the reality of Piltdown, arguing that it was just a fortuitous association of a human skull and an ape's jaw.
If anything a consensus was threatening to develop against Piltdown. So the hoaxer was compelled to use leftover materials and engineer a second find (Piltdown II) which supported the association of the skull and the jaw in order to silence or convert the critics.
The story of the revisionist historians was that Piltdown Man sent evolutionists down the wrong track. (I found that explanation courtesy of everyone's favorite liberal network PBS.) Only after it was revealed to be a fake did evolutionists say, Oh, we knew it was a fake all along. It, uh, yeah, was inconsistent with our theory.
That's not "revision". It's accurate, at least after genuine hominid fossils began to accumulate from Asia and Africa. The real fossils all showed the pattern of jaws becoming more human first with brains remaining apelike longer, exactly the opposite pattern from Piltdown. As a result Piltdown was indeed progressively ignored, shunted off to the side, included in phylogenies as a side branch not ancestral to human, and etc.
You accept ratiometric dating? This is not a trivial question.
My questions are directed at creationists, and I haven't seen any on these threads that accept radiometric dating.
I am aware that folks like Behe, Denton and Dembski accept an old earth and common descent, but I haven't found any evolution critics on FR willing to stand with them on this.
And not much point if they were. The relevant field is palaeontology.
Neither have I... and I'm including threads from DU in that assessment.
There is no such thing
It's more an exegetical debate. Got my KJV right here. (thump)
Exegetics is a science.
Radiometric dating is fine by me.
As for Behe, Denton, and Dembski, I have only seen summaries of their work. I plan to read some of their books in the future. My guess is that I'd be willing to stand with them on the old Earth and common descent but I want to see exactly what they wrote before I take a stand. Do I believe the Earth is less than 10,000 years old? No, I do not. Do I believe everything came about completely at random? No, I do not.
It sounds like you are saying that you believe neither has been proven and you have an open mind, but the rest of your language shows me that you believe in most of the doctrines of evolution. The number one being that believing in creation is wrong until God stand right in front of you and says He created the universe.
True. Nothing is science is provable.
...and merely an unsupported assertion...
Utter nonsense. It is supported by centuries of evidence gathering and dozens of independent lines of reasoning.
I have not ignored you posts. I merely point out that the design conjecture has been around unmodified since at least 1802, and has not resulted in any science. Even the Discovery Institute bemoans the fact that there is no research, and no proposals for research, that would shed light on the methods, motives, or activities of the alleged designer. This would not be true if one found a watch or airplane in an uninhabited desert.
Hummmm ....
Rev Paley published his Watchmaker argument in 1800.
Meditating?
So long as humans cling to their superstitious notions of God and religion...
Hmm, who to believe... the scientific evidence of a universe billions of years old that formed and evolved and sparked life? Or some crazy men who 6000 years ago decided that irrational fear of an invisible God will help keep the peasants in line?
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