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.
Relativity was a word and a technical term in use in other disciplines long before Einstein's ST was published.
"Yup, that's exactly where I was, before I believed."
You see, great minds think alike. Maybe some day I'll have the faith that multitudes have tried to force upon me one way or another. I've never felt an emotional need for that kind of thing, or felt a lack of anything like that, either.
The only religious speculation I can remember doing for decades now is wondering if I might be killed by a Muslim or a Rastafarian. :^)
"I am sure you could get closer today with modern instruments."
Oh, no doubt, but it's still flawed in several ways. There are numerous influences on the speed of light in real space. Many of those cannot be measured from Earth, but are easy enough to understand.
Given those influences, which include gas clouds, gravitational influences, and even Earth's atmosphere, the measurement can only be an approximation.
You can also use Marshmallows. :-)
http://www.physics.umd.edu/ripe/icpe/newsletters/n34/marshmal.htm
I can't tell if this is from the "staff" or from the "declaration." It's about a third of the way down, no quotes.
It seems to come out of nowhere, linking ages before to evolution of that follow-on life.
It sounds like an assumption of abiogenesis....do you all agree?
Nope. Actually "c" (the speed of light) is a defined constant. Everything else adjusts to that constant.
I'm a bit confused by this statement. You seem to be saying that my post falls afoul of the "No true Scotsman" test, but that was not my point. Obadiah has taken the position throughout this thread that anyone who doesn't take a literalist interpretation of Genesis must not know God. I was merely pointing out that, long before common descent was thought of, a man who knew God about as well as any in this world said that Genesis need not be taken literally.
Simply and continually jumping to conclusions that are not supported by scientific evidence.
I gave you probably the best available summary of the evidence. You'd better hope no one else read it. Much of it cannot credibly be spun as "common design."
We see the forensic trail in the molecules. The ERV stuff is particularly hard to call "design."
We see the forensic trail in modern species, including ring species. We see it in the fossil record.
But here, maybe a different compilation: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1437264/posts?page=52#52.
Bradley got this idea while sailing a boat on a pond. In other words, the best thing he ever did he did while doing nothing.
Brilliant! I hadn't seen that one before. 5% isn't too bad for such a measurement. Amazing!
What then? The no clock method?
"Nope. Actually "c" (the speed of light) is a defined constant. Everything else adjusts to that constant."
Yes, but the observed speed of light is variable, is it not? When that experiment was done a couple hundred years ago, the constant was not known. Therefore, my objections would stand, right?
We're talking experiments, not constants.
That's evolution to a creationist only.
You can also save a pile on your car insurance by selling your nice car and buying a pile.
Piltdown didn't fool as many scientists as creationists would like to believe. Some researchers recognized early on that Piltdown didn't fit. Friedrichs and Weidenreich had both, by about 1932, published their research suggesting the lower jaws and molars were that of an orang (E.A. Hooton, Up from the Ape, revised edition; The MacMillan Co., 1946). And they were right.
How many fakes of this kind can you name in the last 150 years? Five? Three? Just this one? And scientists straightened them out, not creationists, who generally can't tell one bone from another and don't much care.
Norbert the narc would make a most excellent thread cop, doncha think, always lurking around ...
Meant to ping you to #327
If only more people were more familiar with Natural Science...
;?)
Cool, I did not know this. (or if I did, I did not remember it) :-)
Einstein was not thinking in particular of the propagation of light as a means of measuring occurrence of events. He assumed the propagation of light as his standard for defining time only because it was the best known and steady such process. He also, as some may recall, gave examples using the propagation of sound.
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