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To: Aric2000
I see, so since Evolution has been used for BAD things, things that it was never meant to be used for, we should get rid of it.

Even if it is the BEST scientific theory to explain the available scientific evidence?

Sorry, but it is not the best theory and I never said we should "get rid of it." I do demand that evolution be taught honestly and other alternative theories such as creationism be taught as well.

Oh, so you're for gun control as well? I mean they are dangerous, and are used for bad things too, so maybe we ought to outlaw guns? Perhaps we should also outlaw computers, I mean people use computers for immoral purposes, child porn, terrorism etc, perhaps we should get rid of computers as well?
Guns and computers are inanimate objects. They make no ideological judgment calls on anything. Evolution is a philosophy. It is also a philosophy which even in Darwin's day was full of moral implications. In spite of Darwin's protestations against slavery, he was a racist who taught that blacks were less evolved than whites. Even the title of his Origin of the Species indicates this: "Origin of the Species by means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of the Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life." With this same philosophy, he mourned taking care of the mentally ill and other weak specimens of humanity. With such a view in its beginning, it is blind at best to say that evolution is just science. It is a philosophy about life that has implications, and Hitler et al were quite consistent about how they applied that theory.

With savages, the weak in body and mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilised men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick; we institute poor laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of everyone to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands who, from a weak constitution, would formerly have succumbed to smallpox. Thus the weak members of civilised society propagate their kind.

No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but, excepting in the case of man himself, hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.

The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered in the manner previously indicated more tender and more widely diffused. Nor can we check our sympathy, even without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature … We must, therefore, bear the undoubtedly bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their kind.
Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, 2nd Ed., pp. 133–134, 1887

Come on, evolution is NOTHING more then a scientific Theory, if someone makes use of it for some social experimentation, which of course the theory NEVER claims to have ANY answers for, then it is the person that came up with such a felacious idea, that has the responsibility.


Gee, and Roe V Wade is just a law. If someone makes use of it to murder their own child, then it is the person that murdered the child's entire responsibility. The judges have absolutely no culpability in that decision whatsoever.

Evolution is a theory, a tool, a SCIENTIFIC tool, NOTHING more, it should be and is taught in the science classroom, as it should be. Everyone should understand the theory, so that they will understand how science works.
I never said it shouldn't be taught. I said that it should be taught HONESTLY and that other theories of origins should be taught as well.

But to say that evolution somehow is to blame for Hitlers ideas, or the idea of communism etc is ridiculous and shows a very shallow mind.
No, sir. To say that evolution doesn't bear any responsibility in Hitler's thinking shows a reckless mind that refuses to think of the implications of what one is saying.

Hitler was consistent with evolution. You may not like his application of it, but as an evolutionist, you have no moral basis to say it was wrong.

Conservatives, I thought, believed in PERSONAL responsibilty, I know that I do, so if you ACTUALLY are a conservative, to say that evolution is somehow to blame for such stupidity is hypocritical in the extreme.

Did I ever say that Hitler was not responsible? No, I did not. But the facts are you can't even say that Hitler was "stupid". That is a moral judgment call for which you have no foundation. At best, you can say "I did not like what Hitler did." As a conservative Christian, I am being VERY consistent and not at all hypocritical. Christianity has a firm foundation for moral truth and the Bible, while not a science book, gives a very feasible theory regarding the origins of life on this planet (a theory which also has much evidence if the open-minded evolutionist would ever be willing to consider it).

Also, to say that the Public school system is somehow responsible for giving children their moral compass is ridiculous. It is the PARENTS responsibility to give that to their children BEFORE they even get into the public school system.
OH POPPYCOCK!!!!!! Public schools pound philosophies into the minds of kids from kindergarten forward. They have them 7 or 8 hours a day all during their formative years. What is ridiculous is to let the Public schools skate on their responsibility regarding teh children's morality. Should they teach morality? No. But they do, every day. And to give them a pass and say "the parent's should have countered all of this bull crap the schools throw at the kids in the first 5 years of life" is irresponsible at best and insane at worst.

It is the parents responsibility to give their children their moral compass, NOT the public schools, shall I say that again?

I agree here, but that isn't how it works. And, you know that. I will not send my children to public schools, but many do. Those parents are taking a horrible risk as far as I'm concerned. Not all public schools are bad, and not all teachers are. But when the NEA controls what is taught, you are playing Russian roulette if you send your kids to such institutions (which frankly should never have been under government control in the first place).

If you feel that somehow evolution is going to change the attitude of a child, change their moral compass, etc, then I believe it is the parents failure, NOT the schools.
Be realistic. Kids are not super-human and authority figures hold sway. If a kid is taught one thing in the first 5 years of life and then teacher after teacher pounds it into his head that this one thing is wrong, it is very likely to shake his beliefs if uncountered.

The schools responsibility is to TEACH children, give them knowledge that they will need in the future, NOTHING more.

Uh, yeah. But do they?

It used to be that the schools were for teaching children how to think, but that I am afraid is NO longer true.
It isn't true. And the evolution/creation debate is a perfect example. There is SCIENTIFIC evidence that supports intelligent design. But are kids taught that? No. They are told WHAT to think, not how to think. They aren't taught the laws of contradiction/non-contradiction or anything that will truly help them sort things out in the future. And, now we have a generation of kids that has no belief in absolutes whatsoever. The schools are to blame, and some parents have some responsibility (other's may have tried to counter it but werent' sufficiently developed enough to do it themselves).

Anyway, Science and scientific theories should be taught in school, evolution, astronomy, geology, etc, etc, they should get a small taste of each discipline so that they at least have an inkling of what science is about.
Agreed. And evolution should be taught as a theory, not as fact, alongside with other theories. That is a true picture of science.

But to say that Evolution will turn these moral little creatures into Amoral monsters is taking the reponsibility away from the parents and laying it at the schools and evolutions feet, when it should be EXACTLY the opposite.
Should be? What basis do you have to say how things should be? Your advocacy here may seem to be responsible to you but it is highly irresponsible. It doesn't seem to matter what the schools are teaching, because it is the parent's responsibility to make it all right. There is no accountability in what you are saying for the schools and philosophies have no implications whatsoever.

It is the PARENTS responsibility to teach their children to be moral.

Personal responsibility, a conservative tenet that you seem to have forgotten.


Part one, I agree with. Part two is asinine and I won't even bother to dignify it.
184 posted on 08/15/2003 10:22:08 AM PDT by DittoJed2
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To: DittoJed2
I'm starting to believe these evolutionists are inhabited - possessed by space aliens - devils !
185 posted on 08/15/2003 10:29:11 AM PDT by f.Christian (evolution vs intelligent design ... science3000 ... designeduniverse.com --- * architecture * !)
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