Posted on 06/22/2006 1:28:41 PM PDT by Tim Long
600 dissenters sign on challenging claims about support for theory
More than 600 scientists holding doctoral degrees have gone on the record expressing skepticism about Darwin's theory of evolution and calling for critical examination of the evidence cited in its support.
All are signatories to the Scientific Dissent From Darwinism statement, which reads: "We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged."
The statement, which includes endorsement by members of the prestigious U.S. National Academy of Sciences and Russian Academy of Sciences, was first published by the Seattle-based Discovery Institute in 2001 to challenge statements about Darwinian evolution made in promoting PBS's "Evolution" series.
The PBS promotion claimed "virtually every scientist in the world believes the theory to be true."
The list of 610 signatories includes scientists from National Academies of Science in Russia, Czech Republic, Hungary, India (Hindustan), Nigeria, Poland, Russia and the United States. Many of the signers are professors or researchers at major universities and international research institutions such as Cambridge University, British Museum of Natural History, Moscow State University, Masaryk University in Czech Republic, Hong Kong University, University of Turku in Finland, Autonomous University of Guadalajara in Mexico, University of Stellenbosch in South Africa, Institut de Paleontologie Humaine in France, Chitose Institute of Science & Technology in Japan, Ben-Gurion University in Israel, MIT, The Smithsonian and Princeton.
"Dissent from Darwinism has gone global," said Discovery Institute President Bruce Chapman. "Darwinists used to claim that virtually every scientist in the world held that Darwinian evolution was true, but we quickly started finding U.S. scientists that disproved that statement. Now we're finding that there are hundreds, and probably thousands, of scientists all over the world that don't subscribe to Darwin's theory."
The Discovery Institute is the leading promoter of the theory of Intelligent Design, which has been at the center of challenges in federal court over the teaching of evolution in public school classes. Advocates say it draws on recent discoveries in physics, biochemistry and related disciplines that indicate some features of the natural world are best explained as the product of an intelligent cause rather than an undirected process such as natural selection.
"I signed the Scientific Dissent From Darwinism statement because I am absolutely convinced of the lack of true scientific evidence in favor of Darwinian dogma," said Raul Leguizamon, M.D., pathologist and professor of medicine at the Autonomous University of Guadalajara, Mexico.
"Nobody in the biological sciences, medicine included, needs Darwinism at all," he added. "Darwinism is certainly needed, however, in order to pose as a philosopher, since it is primarily a worldview. And an awful one, as Bernard Shaw used to say."
Tim, Are you saying you disagree with Ken Ham? If so, please explain.
While a lot of them support the theory of Global Warming.
The judge's charge is to weigh the evidence and testimony. This is a reality-based, not a metaphysical, exercise.
PS: what definition of "metaphysics" are you using here?
I was on a grand jury last year. One of the cases we heard was a nighttime hit-and-run. The witnesses all agreed the car was "dark", but was it green, black, blue, or something else? Ford, Chevy, domestic, foreign? The pieces of headlight found at the scene fit like a jigsaw puzzle into the broken light of a particular car. We indicted for murder 2 based on that.
" Believe what you want! Teach creation in church where it belongs and evolution in science class where it belongs "
Why would anyone want to teach a lie in science class ?
" there is no evidence in the fossil record, as Darwin said there should be, to subsatntiate the theory.
Ludicrously false. "
I'd sure like to see a link to any evidence you can point out.
His... 
How about the transformation, documented by a series of intermediates, of a fully terrestrial animal into a fully aquatic one?
I SALUTE YOU!
Even though you happen to be utterly, ludicrously and demonstrably wrong about the truth value of evolutionary theory as science, you are nevertheless a breath of fresh air!
Eventually one is simply sickened by the mewling, pusillanimous, mealymouthed intellectual relativism of every other antievolutionist in these threads, many of whom likewise claim that evolution is a "lie," but won't say that it therefore shouldn't be taught! Can you beat that?! Instead they devolved to a cowardly intellectual clone of multiculturalism, demanding to "balance" evolution with antievolutionary assertions in curricula.
Thank God for a conservative who recognizes that ideas should be included in, AND excluded from, curricula based on merit and truth value! (Even if you're confused about which ideas so qualify.)
They've been teaching lies for a long time now, things like the world is a sphere, those points of light in the night sky are distant solar systems much like ours, and the only heavenly body that revolves around the earth is the moon. Lies, you should have been around way back when to put a stop to it before people began to believe.
Paralogs are assumed and 'tracing' their 'common descent' is also assumed.
Evolution doesn't predict anything, yet explains everything.
It is unfalsifiable.
Nope, only if the purported events are limited to the unobservable past does the metaphysical part of the definition come into play.
Yes, that's correct.
Alan Sheppard is safe though. The time frames involved are strictl limited. Not so w/ cosmology or evolution.
No, it just means that it is metaphysical.
Just like evolution.
So you don't believe in science or Jesus.
That's finding the middle ground.
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