Yep.
Posted on 10/24/2006 10:55:25 AM PDT by lizol
Neanderthal man walks among us, Poland's far-right says by Jean-Luc Testault
Mon Oct 23, 11:22 AM ET
WARSAW (AFP) - Poland's far-right League of Polish Families (LPR), which is part of the coalition government, claims Darwin's theory of evolution is all wrong, that humans lived alongside dinosaurs and that Neanderthal man is still among us.
Last week, Poland's deputy education minister Miroslaw Orzechowski, a member of the LPR, bluntly rejected British naturalist Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection and his postulate that man is descended from apes.
"The theory of evolution is a lie, a mistake that we have legalised as a common truth," said Orzechowski.
"We must not teach lies, just as we must not teach evil in the place of good and ugliness in the place of beauty."
This weekend, Orzechowski was given some high-level support when European lawmaker for the far-right party, Maciej Giertych -- the father of LPR leader Roman Giertych -- told a seminar that Neanderthal man still roams the planet, notably in the United States where examples can be spotted in a boxing ring.
"A scientist showed me a picture of an American boxer. He had all the traits of Neanderthal man. These people are among us. They are part of the human race, probably more prevalent once upon a time, but who still exist," Giertych, who has a doctorate in biology, told the seminar.
Taking up the mantra of creationists -- who have a strong following among Christian fundamentalists in the United States, but whose theory that God created all living creatures at the same time has not won a huge following in Europe -- Giertych also propounded that man and dinosaurs roamed the earth together.
"Research shows that dinosaurs and man were contemporaries. In every culture, there are indications that we remember (dinosaurs). The Scots have Loch Ness, we Poles have Wawel dragon (in Krakow), Marco Polo spoke of an imperial carriage in China which was pulled by a dragon," Giertych said.
Giertych's son Roman, currently Poland's education ministry, insisted, however, that such anti-Darwinist outlooks would not impact on the school curriculum.
"The status of the theory of evolution will not change in Polish schools," he said Monday in a radio interview.
But he held back from condemning those who have criticised Darwin.
Meanwhile, teachers appear to fear there could be a backlash, with only those who toe the creationist line making it through the selection process in Poland's education system.
Centre-left daily Gazeta Wyborcza reported last week that a high school in the central city of Lodz had removed posters showing the evolution of man from the australopithec to homo sapiens.
Teachers' fears are understandable as LPR has been trying, since it joined the three-way coalition government in May, to stamp its ideology on Poland's education system.
In June, the head of a teacher training school in Poland was fired for publishing the Polish language version of a Council of Europe brochure that the education ministry said encourages contact between pupils and gay groups.
Under Giertych, the education ministry has also tried to take the works of Polish 20th century writer Witold Gombrowicz off the curriculum in Polish high schools, arguing that he was not patriotic enough.
To counter the LPR's anti-Darwin message, Poles have turned to the late pope John Paul II, who in a speech to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 1996 said: "Truth cannot contradict truth."
"Today, almost half a century after the publication of the Humani Generis encyclical (in 1950 by Pius XII), new knowledge has led to the recognition of the theory of evolution as more than a hypothesis," John Paul II said.
"It is remarkable that this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers, following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge. The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favor of this theory," the pope said.
We now have a significant amount of DNA from Neanderthal sources. The analysis is not complete, but any interbreeding in the last 100,000 years is somewhere between extremely unlikely and impossible.
That reminds me...what's Dan Dierdorf doing now?
I always expect a response. Not necessarily an informed response, but I have never encountered a creationist who allowed lack of knowledge to impede verbal production.
He tells the waiter "I don't have much of an appetite, thank you"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OihnFQj4ec
LOL! Indeed. :-)
Neanderthals ? Big deal. Papa G. claims that people lived at the same time together with dinosaurs.
Yep.
Well over a full day. Gee, who would have thought that someone might have something to do besides post to FR.
Dave's had time to post a couple of new threads, not to mention several dozen other posts. He has openly admitted to being too ignorant to discuss evolution rationally, and has also said this of the people on his ping list. So I don't expect an informed response.
I see. . .so you think you're the center of his universe or something.
Hang on there pal. You're talking to fan numero uno.
Okay okay rocking in the free world is annoying, but i just like his style.
"The analysis is not complete"
It will never be complete, dude.
Sorry, mtDNA does not match.
And we'll have some DNA pretty soon.
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