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.
Fine, you want unordered? Take the smoke from a cigarette, unordered chaos. Disproved.
How specific do you want it to be?
It would help if you stated that you expect a specific ordered thing to appear in the future, that its appearance is best explained by your theory. Or, since we're going forensic, that an existing specific ordered thing should be found that isn't easily explained by competing theories. The ToE did this.
To say intelligent design predicts order, and that order may considered a product of intelligent design is to place the intelligible universe into a scientific paradigm that has been used since the beginning.
I've read about this paradigm, as it's the one that had people thinking that lightning was caused by angry gods.
At times there is direct involvement. At times it is residual. Nothing supernatural about that. Or do you get all religious when you see a machine running by itself with no operator standing at its side?
Now you repeat back to me what I proposed earlier -- that God set up the mechanism and left it alone to this end result. Of course, that in no way affects the validity of the ToE, as it would be just as accurately describing God's machine.
The word "supernatural" can only be applied subjectively by each observer. It has no scientific merit.
What part of "natural science" do you not understand?
On the contrary, it is precisely because they are public schools paid for by the public that they may allow teaching of intelligent design both as a scientific and as a religious subject.
As a religious subject, I'll agree, but it's still not science.
Are you deliberately misunderstanding the text? The term "Dark Ages" as most people us it refers to the time AFTER the fall of the Empire in the West. Nobody but Fester thinks it was dark because people didn't sit around in monasteries copying religiouis texts. That's one thing they did lots of and it was dark anyway. It was dark because people lived in squalor and political anarchy. It was dark because barbarian hordes of various types ran riot. It was dark because nobody had an education beyond that of the average YEC on FR.
Another, which I cannot locate immedately, specifically connects the Dark Ages to a lack of use of the biblical texts.
If you can find one source to support your delusion somewhere, you're still wrong. The world has been using that term with only minor variations from the time of Petrarch. Anyone who thinks a dark age is when people don't read their bibles is using it to describe the wrong era and thus not using it as you advertise.
Ummm... Bzzzttt... WRONG! LOL!
Looking over all the other posts to you, it seems you are alone in your view. When the whole world stands up and says "hey bud - your wrong", you may just want to go re-think your position.
You don't know who you're talking to. Fester's not that kind of guy.
Well, that's nice.
What does Romans have to do with the Pastoral epistles?
Upon further reading it appears the phrase "Dark Ages" has been assigned more than one meaning throughout history. Those who use the phrase as if to blame Christianity for a lack of progess have taken up a new meaning and are perpetrating an incorrect version of history. "Popular culture has further expanded on the term as a vehicle to depict the Middle Ages as a time of backwardness, extending its pejorative use and expanding its scope."
Who ever said this?
"As a rock on the seashore he standeth firm, and the dashing of the waves disturbeth him not."
About 130 years after Petrarch coined the term "Dark Ages."
I'm going to make allowances that I'm talking to a nine-year old who plays in superhero costume on the Net. We're having a discussion about whether what people call the Dark Ages was named for its notorious inattention to biblical texts. Fester says it is. It's always fun when he says something wrong and then goes on for about 30 thread pages trying to tell everyone black is white.
Now you know what we're talking about, so you can rethink what YOU're talking about. If you're proving that a Renaissance eventually happened in spite of witch doctors like you, that's already pretty well known.
Is everybody but you using it wrong? Was Petrarch using it wrong?
Sorry...'thought the discussion was related to highlights/interesting points of of Pauline letters, not restricted to Pastoral epistles.
Intelligent design is not the antithesis of evolution. Evolution as long as we have observed it has always taken place within limits. That, too, is something we would expect of intelligent design.
What part of "natural science" do you not understand?
What part of arbitrary and subjective do you not understand? The word "natural" is not a scientific term, but philosophical. What is supernatural about intelligent design when you do it all the time? Are you supernatural and beyond the scope of the so-called natural sciences?
I think, when one understands the context in which the phrase is used, he will have to decide whether is is being used incorrectly or not. It seems to have a wide range of meaning, both perjorative and not. If at some point above I accused one of you of using the phrase incorrectly, then I should take back my words until I review its use.
Some historians use the phrase to denote a period of time where we simply do not have access to the information available. Innocuous enough. As your source denotes, however, contemporary culture has picked up the phrase and used it to bash Christianity as if it were responsible for fostering a lack of progress while engaged in superstition. This appears to be a revised version of history.
Notice anything a little odd about that wikipedia page? Like the first paragraph? WTF??!
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