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.
That would mean it has been around since at least 1802.
"Got my KJV right here. (thump)"
I'll see your KJV, and raise you a Cruden's.
1800 is not only correct but easier to remember.
Who would that be, exactly?
Come now, no vague statements. Either make specific charges against individuals (and support them), or stop spouting nonsense.
6000 years.
For every google hit citing 1800, there are a hundred saying 1802. There are multiple revisions and dates of publication. I suspect that the 1802 edition is the one that became widely distributed, and influenced people like Darwin.
Never saw the 1902 edition. Got the 1800 edition. Paley would be an evolutionist were he alive now.
And what do yo think the age of the earth is?
You have a copy printed in 1800? Or a reprint? Who published your copy?
"Who exactly decides what is and isn't a scientific theory?"
Scientists, not religious fanatics.
"Macroevolution should only be a hypothesis, not a theory"
Please describe, in conventional scientific terms, what the difference is. If you can, then you MIGHT be marginally qualified to state your opinion.
"The scientific method cannot be applied to it"
Wrong. The scientific method IS applied to it. Every day by scientists working in the field.
"(nor can it to Creationism)."
RIGHT! One out of four!
My beef isn't really with biologists. It isn't really even with scientists. It is with those who use evolution as a means to legitimize their belief that no God exists. They believe no God exists, because if He did, and they believed it, then the stuff that they do would make them feel guilty, and feeling guilty sucks. So they spread that around, and try to get everyone to believe what they believe, so there won't be anyone left who does believe in God who might eventually make them feel guilty.
If evolution were proven and not simply a theory, it would even make sense to me if the guiding hand of God was behind it all (if, for example, the mutations were not a result of random acts, but the work of intelligence). However, since it is a theory touted by the atheists, it doesn't look very attractive to me at all at this point.
One of the few sites on the internet that says 1800,
http://www-phil.tamu.edu/~gary/intro/paper.paley.html
has this link:
http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/p/paley.htm
which says 1802 (although there's a typo in the title).
Seriously doubtful. Since I'm one of those you "guarantee you that every evolutionist will at some point personally see the folly of evolution" pay up. You lose.
The one with the Wankel engine? (Better than the Fiat Lux which has a 2 cylinder 2-stroke and no headlights.)
So many gods, so few maidens....
"However, since it is a theory touted by the atheists, it doesn't look very attractive to me at all at this point."
It's the missing link between a bi-polar human, and a bipolar transistor.
Science and biology have nothing to say about the existence of God. They do, however, have something to say about physical history. If that is a problem, I suspect it will go the same way it went with Galileo.
I don't see many people arguing that the movement of the earth destroys religion.
But there is a clue here. It is not science that causes people to lose faith. It is the self-proclaimed religionists denying the findings of science that make religion look stupid. There is a difference between accepting every new conjecture and claim of science, and acception conclusions based on centuries of evidence and argument.
"So many gods, so few maidens....
"
Ah, but, you see...if you're an atheist, you get to keep the maidens for yourself. No need for the sacrifices. Keep that under your hat, though...we don't need more competition for the few maidens still left.
Referring to the size of DNA, maybe, but it minuscule size only serves to make it's gigantic informational content all the more fantastic.
It is astonishing to think that this remarkable piece of machinery, which possesses the ultimate capacity to construct every living thing that ever existed on Earth, from giant redwood to the human brain, can construct all its own components in a matter of minutes and weigh less than 10-16 grams. It is of the order of several thousand million million times smaller than the smallest piece of functional machinery ever constructed by man.
Michael Denton
How in the world does a biotic language, or a convention, or code, or whatever you want to call it, that itself is entirely independent of the chemical makeup of the DNA molecule, originate from chemicals?
"The origin of the genetic code presents formidable unsolved problems. The coded information in he nucleotide sequence is meaningless without the translation machinery, but the specification for his machinery is itself coded in the DNA. Thus without the machinery the information is meaningless, but without the coded information, the machinery cannot be produced. This presents a paradox of the 'chicken and egg' variety, and attempts to solve it have so far been sterile."
John Walton
DNA is not the kind of thing that is "almost nothing".
Cordially,
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