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 is because gravity is trivially experienced by the layperson. But the evidence for evolution involves more specialized background knowledge in order to appreciate it.
Cheers!
Besides, I like the puns :-)
Indeed, it sounds like they now want to include abiogenesis in the "theory of evolution". If that is the case, then "Katy bar the door" - because we have a mountain of issues concerning that subject. LOL!
Well - one of us has a problem..... I just hope and pray that you find the solution before it's too late.....
First baby steps, as one might say.
Cheers!
No they shouldn't.
Alex, may I have, "Begging the question" for $200, please?
The questions may roughly be summarized in this order:
1) Is there a God?
2) Does God intervene in the affairs of people, or in the natural world?
3) Did God, as part of His intervention, revealed any truths (say) to the ancient Hebrews?
4) Did the Hebrews get it down correctly?
5) How badly did mistranscriptions, typos, and cultural influences distort any message?
6) If the message did make it through, was it intended to be taken literall in a formulaic, more or less rigorous, engineering sense? If not, is it still useful by analogy, or as a metaphysical guide, so to speak? E.g. even in University science classes, much of what is taught at the 101 classes is found to be BS or crude approximations by the time you reach graduate school...
You apparently skipped right to step 6.
Cheers!
"Knowledge of the natural world in which they live empowers people to meet human needs and protect the planet."
Non-sequitor.
Evolution has nothing to do with protecting the environment.
I am pretty much on the middle on this issue, but this was pretty weak.
How do you support the global flood story? Do you rely strictly on belief, or do you try to find scientific confirmation?
No! For the third time I will try to explain this to you.
The term "crevo" is a contraction, a merging of two words. Those two words are creationist and evolutionist. You take the "cr" from creationist and the "evo" from evolutionist, and combine them. You get "crevo."
This is a term used to refer to threads where creationists and evolutionists contend issues and ideas. Nothing more.
It is one of the few terms you will find here that is purely descriptive, and not derogatory in any way.
Why don't you help this old man, who has senior moments, and type out the definition of "crevo" for me in your own words. What does it mean as to beliefs? The contraction comment leaves this poster with aging synapses confused. Thanks in advance. Cheers.
Are you suggesting that anyone who posts on this topic is a "crevo?" I can understand the term "crevo threads" in that context, but not the term "crevo" as a dump on a specific poster, unless the dump is meant as to characterize one who bothers to post on the topic of origins, rather than spend their time on the really important threads, such as the merit or lack of merit, of Ann Coulter's rack.
It is an abbreviation, and it means nothing in terms of beliefs.
Here on FR, occasionally creationists and evolutionists will start debating on a thread.
This is happening with increasing frequency.
Many of the same posters are involved in what has become almost a day-to-day passtime.
Some of these folks are creationists (or IDers).
Others are evolutionists.
As a shorthand, to refer to these frequent threads, somebody combined the names into a single word. As I explained in a previous post, the initial letters of the words CReationist and EVOlutionist were combined into a new word, CREVO to refer to these threads.
The meaning is: a thread where creationists and evolutionists are exchanging posts (and usually disagreeing with one another). It has no connotations.
I don't understand why you are casting about for a deeper meaning for this. As far as I know, there is none.
At this point, I think we have beaten this drum until it has no sound, but I appreciate your participation in beating the heck out of the instrument, to a beaten and useless pulp. Hopefully, none in the future will refer to a poster as a "crevo" in derogatory terms, thanks to just the two of us. Ain't that grand?
The term is not used for specific posters.
unless the dump is meant as to characterize one who bothers to post on the topic of origins
The topic of origins is different from the topic of evolution.
rather than spend their time on the really important threads, such as the merit or lack of merit, of Ann Coulter's rack.
Did you see the high school picture of Ann as a fencer?
(That is a least as good a non-sequitor as yours. And, as we old fencers used to say, "May your swash never buckle!")
"Sorry. Won't work. Read a few science books if you want to know how it happened. But you aren't going to have the grey matter to understand it, so you will just end up back at Genesis, comfortable with the Jeanie story. This is the one thing I will never understand about you creo's [sic]. You laugh at physical evidence that dates back millions and millions of years. BUT, you have no problem saying that it just all POOFED into existence. What are you scared of?"
OK, maybe "creos" means creationist, as opposed to "crevos" which means a participatant on Crevo threads. LOL.
In a way, so does the scientific explanation, given the Big Bang theory and the like.
The Big Bang theory is an admission the universe is an immaculate conception... not at all scientific...
Likewise in fallacy, evolutionary theory claims the earth is the center of the universe...
Illogical captain... If there was no universal dissatifaction for inevitable mortality and lack of a connection to something eternal, why does it matter to humans at all?
First...
"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.
The origin of life is from the earth is testable??? Life didn't come from somewhere else? How can you test this? You cannot...
There is no more evidence that Terran life began or evolved here than there is for it being brought or engineered here by extraterrestrials...
Equal in absurdity, there is just as much fallacy to say life came from a flying spaghetti monster or from a pot of boiling primordial spaghetti sauce...
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