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.
The bible. Look at all the different species and varieties within them. Someone had to design them. They didn't crawl up out of the water. There's no evidence, especially fossil evidence, for Darwin's theory.
There are scientists who believe in creationism and not Darwinism. What do you do about them? They're still scientists aren't they?
Being intelligible is a specific property? We know how smoke happens, but the smoke is subject to chaotic, unordered conditions.
Speaking of lightning, science still cannot predict where it will strike.
True, but thanks to materialistic science we know it's not from angry gods, and we can to some extent influence where it will strike in an area.
Intelligent design is not the antithesis of evolution.
Intelligent Design is evolution, only saying God did it instead of it happening naturally.
What part of arbitrary and subjective do you not understand?
Science works under rules, and you can call it arbitrary if you want, but those rules have done well for us. Natural science is the study of the natural world, not the supernatural. Religion does belong in another branch of science though -- the social sciences, as religion is a factor in human interaction.
However, there are many historical cases where what was considered supernatural was finally able to be measured and verified, thus becoming in our view natural. So keep working at ID, and if you ever succeed in directly detecting and verifying the "designer," (not just the opinion "it looks designed to me" or "I know in my heart God is real") you may find greater acceptance as science.
You have to -- oh my gosh, what a concept -- compete on the scientific merits of your case instead of acting like a liberal trying to get your views through the back door.
Because they are two sides of the 'story.' Let people make up their own minds on the subject. I know a young teacher who teaches creationism in a local school. He's brilliant. It's amazing they allow him to do that but he's been there for years. His talks in public on the subject are amazing and full of common sense.
Actually, that happens not to be the case.
There is fossil evidence; I spent hundreds of hours (in grad school) studying casts of most of the important hominid fossil finds.
Perhaps you are just unwilling to see the evidence, or perhaps someone has deliberately misled you.
We have the fossil record our models of geology and evolution would tell us to expect.
I don't do anything about them.
What scientists say or "believe," on any/either side of this issue (or any other) is irrelevant to determining the content of science. What matters, and the ONLY thing that matters, is what scientists DO. That is to say, what theories, laws or principles they actually employ or implicate in the conduct of ongoing, productive and original research.
For instance Einstein, one of the greatest physicists of all time, famously disbelieved in quantum mechanics and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. However Einstein's disbelief did nothing to change the content of science. The only way he could have done that was to come up with a deterministic theory that explained the relevant facts better than QM, and on that score he failed.
Because scientific research is reported in a professional literature -- e.g. science journals and the proceedings of learned societies -- it is usually possible to objectively determine, by consulting this literature, whether or not a given idea is part of science in the sense that it is being used to actually DO science.
On this objective criteria evolution is part of science, and creationism and ID aren't. Creationism isn't and can't be science until and if someone comes up with a creationistic theory that can be and is applied to advance knowledge. It's not enough, for the purpose of genuinely making it part of science, to just defend creationism (or attack evolution). You have to DO creationism. So far there's no good or compelling case of anyone DOING creationism as science.
As I was suggesting before, the only legitimate and acceptable way that creationism or ID can come to be included in science curricula is on the basis of demonstrated merit. Anything else is just intellectual affirmative action and intellectual relativism.
Yup... there's lots more of it now!
No. It is only the appearance of chaos. Smoke behaves in a manner as designed, under laws that have been established to govern it.
. . . but thanks to materialistic science we know [lightening is] not from angry gods . . .
Really? How does science know this?
Intelligent Design is evolution, only saying God did it instead of it happening naturally.
I suppose if you must infer a deity by capitalizing the words "Intelligent Design" then it may be understood you are attributing intelligent design to God. You are correct in stating that evolution is no better explained by naturalism than it is by deism. But cases where organized matter performs specific functions are best understood as examples of intelligent design asopposed to some alternative. What alernative would you propose as the cause behind organized matter? Or would you just throw up your hands and say, "Nature did it!"
. . .and if you ever succeed in directly detecting and verifying the "designer" . . .
So all of sudden direct observation has become the benchmark for acceptable science. Looks like those concocted histories of billions of years just went out the window as "science."
yes
"A vulture boards an airplane, carrying two dead raccoons. The stewardess looks at him and says, 'I'm sorry, sir, only one carrion allowed per passenger.'"
"[T]here was the person who sent ten different puns to friends, with the hope that at least one of the puns would make them laugh. No pun in ten did."
-International Pun Contest
You contradict yourself, and in the same way as I noted in #476. Why do you say there are "two sides" when you say, just a few posts previous in #821, that: "There's no evidence [...] for Darwin's theory"?
Notwithstanding the ludicrousness, indeed the blatant falsity, of this claim, IF you actually believe there's "no evidence" for evolution, then you can't meaningfully speak of it's having a "side" in any scientific debate.
Again I ask, why the schizophrenia (and embrace of intellectual relativism)? Not that it's unique to you, but rather quite common to creationists. Why do you (all) make claims -- along the lines that evolution is patently false, an outright lie, has no evidence, etc -- and then turn right around and implicitly deny obvious implications or your claims?
Acts 4:13-2113. When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.
14. But since they could see the man who had been healed standing there with them, there was nothing they could say.
15. So they ordered them to withdraw from the Sanhedrin and then conferred together.
16. "What are we going to do with these men?" they asked. "Everybody living in Jerusalem knows they have done an outstanding miracle, and we cannot deny it.
17. But to stop this thing from spreading any further among the people, we must warn these men to speak no longer to anyone in this name."
18. Then they called them in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus.
19. But Peter and John replied, "Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God's sight to obey you rather than God.
20. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard."
21. After further threats they let them go. They could not decide how to punish them, because all the people were praising God for what had happened.
Muzzled?!
The 'IRAQ is dragging us down' crowd are as vocal as ever!
Yup; that's what ALL of us do!
So you were offended and whined about it.
Sure is!
Just like the OTHER writers, whose words STILL have meaning in this 'modern' day and age!
It's chaos. Initial conditions can influence the general parameters of the action of the smoke, and it will exhibit ordered laminar flow initially, but it quickly breaks down into chaos. If you'd like to win a Fields Medal, then be my guest and prove how it isn't chaos.
Really? How does science know this?
Rational observation and experimentation.
I suppose if you must infer a deity by capitalizing the words "Intelligent Design" then it may be understood you are attributing intelligent design to God.
I capitalize because that's the name of the movement as coined by its originators, who themselves hold the Christian god as the designer.
But cases where organized matter performs specific functions are best understood as examples of intelligent design asopposed to some alternative.
You haven't shown such a case. Forget Behe, he's been discredited.
Or would you just throw up your hands and say, "Nature did it!"
No, we objectively observe and see how life adapts to its environment.
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