Posted on 10/14/2006 11:16:50 AM PDT by lizol
Keep Darwin's 'lies' out of Polish schools: education official 2 hours.
WARSAW (AFP) - Poland's deputy education minister called for the influential evolutionary theories of Charles Darwin not to be taught in the country's schools, branding them "lies."
"The theory of evolution is a lie, an error that we have legalised as a common truth," Miroslaw Orzechowski, the deputy minister in the country's right-wing coalition government, was quoted as saying by the Gazeta Wyborcza daily Saturday.
Orzechowski said the theory was "a feeble idea of an aged non-believer," who had come up with it "perhaps because he was a vegetarian and lacked fire inside him."
The evolution theory of the 19th-century British naturalist holds that existing animals and plants are the result of natural selection which eliminated inferior species gradually over time. This conflicts with the "creationist" theory that God created all life on the planet in a finite number.
Orzechowski called for a debate on whether Darwin's theory should be taught in schools.
"We should not teach lies, just as we should not teach bad instead of good, or ugliness instead of beauty," he said. "We are not going to withdraw (Darwin's theory) from the school books, but we should start to discuss it."
The deputy minister is a member of a Catholic far-right political group, the League of Polish Families. The league's head, Roman Giertych, is education minister in the conservative coalition government of Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski.
Giertych's father Maciej, who represents the league in the European Parliament, organised a discussion there last week on Darwinism. He described the theory as "not supported by proof" and called for it be removed from school books.
The far-right joined the government in May when Kaczynski's ruling conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, after months of ineffective minority government, formed a coalition including LPR and the populist Sambroon party.
Roman Giertych has not spoken out on Darwinism, but the far-right politician's stance on other issues has stirred protest in Poland since he joined the government.
A school pupils' association was expected to demonstrate in front of the education ministry on Saturday to call for his resignation.
I know this gets old, but the teaching of other "theories" will have to wait until there are other theories. A theory is not just an opinion; it is an explanatory and predictive statement that has survived years or decades of rigorous testing.
You are right, charlatans abound everywhere...and you are right again, about charlatans not being able to eliminate actual miracles...that should go without saying...
However, who makes the determination of what is and what is not a true miracle?...and who makes the determination of what is fake... its purely subjective...people see and believe what they want to see and believe...and the opposite is true as well...refusing to see and believe is just as common...
That was a bright spot for sanity. The climate on FR swings back and forth, but I see that my tune hasn't changed.
I started out wishing these crevo threads would go away, as they messed with the perception that FR was a refuge of sanity in a world that had accepted Clinton. Since then there has appeared a concerted state-by-state campaign against science education in this country, an unwinnable war against the way the universe works. The attempt to hijack the conservative movement in this country to fight that war must be defeated within the conservative movement. Thinking conservatives everywhere should be telling the creation/ID crowd to put a sock in it.I'm reminded of Ronald Reagan on the subject of his Democrat past. [Paraphrase:] "I didn't leave the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party left me."
Judging from the thread on the President's staff making fun of extremists, the party hasn't really been hijacked by comet hoppers.
People who try to impose religion on political parties will always be held in check by the need to get a majority. You can see reality looming over the democrats as the election approaches. The anti-war crowd has been muzzled.
Ideally at the same time we should make sure that in science lessons we teach about crystal healing, tarot, astrology, lay lines, the hollow-earth theory, geocentrism, Lamarkism, Lysenkoism, alchemy, Noah's Ark, phlogiston, ether, the benefits of human sacrifice, the angry God theory of earthquakes, the demonic possession theory of mental illness, etc, etc, etc. With any luck there will be a few minutes left after that to teach well established science like the theory of evolution.
Believe whatever you want to believe.
Indeed it is gone because I personally hit the abuse button.
In the beginning there was no earth to live on, but up above, in the Great Blue, there was a woman who dreamed dreams.
One night she dreamed about a tree covered with white blossoms, a tree that brightened up the sky when its flowers opened but that brought terrible darkness when they closed again. The dream frightened her, so she went and told it to the wise old men who lived with her in their village in the sky.
"Pull up this tree," she begged them, but they did not understand. All they did was dig around its roots, to make space for more light. But the tree just fell through the hole they had made and disappeared. After that there was no light at all, only darkness.
The old men grew frightened of the woman and her dreams. It was her fault that the light had disappeared forever.
So they dragged her toward the hole and pushed her through as well. Down, down she fell, down toward the great emptiness. There was nothing below her but a heaving waste of water. She would surely have been smashed to pieces, this strange dreaming woman from the Great Blue, had not a fish hawk come to her aid. His feathers made a pillow for her and she drifted gently above the waves.
But the fish hawk could not keep her up all on his own. He needed help. So he called out to the creatures of the deep. "We must find some firm ground for this poor woman to rest on," he said anxiously. But there was no ground, only the swirling, endless waters.
A helldiver went down, down, down to the very bottom of the sea and brought back a little bit of mud in his beak. He found a turtle, smeared the mud onto its back, and dived down again for more.
Then the ducks joined in. They loved getting muddy and they too brought beaksful of the ocean floor and spread it over the turtle's shell. The beavers helped -- they were great builders -- and they worked away, making the shell bigger and bigger.
Everybody was very busy now and everybody was excited. This world they were making seemed to be growing enormous! The birds and the animals rushed about building countries, the continents, until, in the end, they had made the whole round earth, while all the time they sky woman was safely sitting on the turtle's back.
And the turtle holds the earth up to this very day.
My God Dave. Do you save every slight no matter how small? Sheesh! You are on a fast track to either a loony bin or a heart attack.
The common misconception is that Darwin theory denies God or superior intelligence role in the life creation and development.
This is completely untrue. Even if we all agree that evolution is 100% valid theory and all other theories are wrong and scientifically are unprovable through observation or experiment, the numerous other questions immediately come to mind. For instance, who or what causes evolution, why life is developing from simple organisms to more elaborate ones, who or what started the organic life on earth, who or what sets the parameters of evolution and who or what designed DNA--the vehicle transmitting genetic information from one generation to the next of the species--in the first place ? I recently went to the Field Museum of Chicago to see the exhibit dedicated to Mendel and genetics(and King Tut by the way !).
At the Mendel exhibit, there is a stand dedicated to recently completed Human Genome project designed to map out human genes with DNA Model.
The findings of this monumental US/UK project are truly amazing. The average human contains DNA with 25,000 genes and 3 billion chemical pairs. Knowing these facts you can't help but wonder is it mathematically possible that such an elaborate creature as human being could have been evolved from primitive organisms (as Darwin theory states if I recall it correctly) over time without certain guidance or involvement of some form of superior intelligence. If yes, was it evolved by mere chance or by elaborate design contained within DNA ?
Could have a universe which is a human body appeared by the game of chance ? The probability of that is nearly 0. If it was programmed in DNA for organisms to evolve from primitive to elaborate, who or what programmed it ?
For anyone, who asks these questions about evolution, the possibility of God or Superior Intelligence is not only diminished but to the contrary--strengthened.
ALS was the first to try to run science into a ditch. He was a bit different from you in personality. He openly stated his goal of getting crevo threads off the site.
Alas for him, he is gone and the threads remain.
I think your enthusiasm will wane as you realize the articles you post do not support your worldview. I don't know how long this will take, but I'm 61 years old and have seen enthusiasts come and go. Fighting science with creationism is taking a water pistol up against an M61 Vulcan.
You will be happier and saner in the long run when you come to realize that true religion does not fight against the facts of the physical world.
I'm not sure what you are arguing against, but it isn't evolution as understood by biologists.
Basically I was arguing against idea that evolution rejects the idea of God or Superior Intelligence. My point is to show that Evolution does not reject the idea of God or Superior Intelligence.
The origin is unnecessary. The point is that you cite scripture in order to influence a discussion on science, and in that case an Iroquois creation myth is just as valid.
Yes you do. But unlike Santa Claus and the tooth-fairy, some fantasies are hard to let go.
1. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope,
Why would Paul need to announce his authority and credentials to his closest disciple, the one that he had circumcised in Acts 16:3 ?
... you may command certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer
What false doctrines? And how long had they've been teaching it?
Accepting that Paul died 64CE under Nero, there were only two teachings in the Judeo-Hellenist community of the time; The Jewish law of Moses, and the emergent Christian heresy of Apostle Paul.
The 'Judaizers' of the Jerusalem Church had scattered after the fall of Jerusalem in 70CE.
Gnosticism (the "science falsely so called" of I Tim 6:20) was the second century problem for the Church.
I & II Timothy along with Titus was the counterattack, or counter-reformation, against Marcion of Sinope, who venerated Paul. What better authority to denounce the Gnostic heresy of Marcion than Paul?
Likewise for the structure of Church hierarchy, the second justification for the Pastoral letters. The Pastorals presuppose a distinction between clergy and laity, which was not the case in Christian congregations during Paul's ministry.
And finally there's the emphasis on teaching of tradition. What tradition? Paul was the Evangelical to the Gentiles; There was no body of Christian thought outside of what Paul had preached.
The Pastoral letters accomplish three things:
None of which were a problem in Paul's lifetime. It's pretty impressive that 'ol rascal Paul should foresee and address the issues of the Church 90 years after his death ...
Ain't it amazing the things one learns on FR!
Indeed. But sometimes that learning just don't take.
Biologists are individual human beings. A few very vocal ones have been openly hostile to religion. This would be true of any profession from plumber to bishop.
Biologist in general follow the precepts of Isaac Newton, and look for regular phenomena and natural causes. Science neither denies nor invokes God.
let's establish some things we can all agree upon:
1. scientists can't prove or disprove the existence of God
2. believers in God can't prove there is a God, that's why they call themselves 'believers'
3. the theory of evolution isn't concerned with the existence of a God. that idea is outside of its scope.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.