I thought George Burns was....
Oh, you must mean Bill Cosby
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???
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Posted on 02/18/2002 4:59:53 AM PST by cracker
The Dispatch tries to verify the identity of those who submit letters to the editor, but this message presented some problems. It arrived on a postcard with no return address:
Dear Representative Linda Reidelbach: Evolution is one of my creations with which I am most pleased.
It was signed, God.
The Dispatch cannot confirm that this is a divine communication, but the newspaper does endorse the sentiment it expresses: that there is room in the world for science and religion, and the two need not be at war.
The newspaper also agrees that Reidelbach, a Republican state representative from Columbus, is among the lawmakers most in need of this revelation. She is the sponsor of House Bill 481, which says that when public schools teach evolution, they also must teach competing "theories'' about the origin of life.
Reidelbach says the bill would "encourage the presentation of scientific evidence regarding the origins of life and its diversity objectively and without religious, naturalistic or philosophic bias or assumption.''
What this appears to mean is that any idea about the origin of life would be designated, incorrectly, a scientific theory and would get equal time with the genuine scientific theory known as evolution.
Those who correctly object that the creation stories of various religions are not scientific would be guilty, in the language of this bill, "of religious, naturalistic or philosophic bias or assumption.''
Never mind that science is not a bias or an assumption but simply a rigorous and logical method for describing and explaining what is observed in nature.
What Reidelbach and her co-sponsors are attempting to do is to require that science classes also teach creationism, intelligent design and related unscientific notions about the origin of life that are derived from Christian belief.
So bent are they on getting Christianity's foot in the door of science classrooms that they apparently don't mind that this bill also appears to give the green light to the creation stories of competing religions, cults and any other manifestation of belief or unbelief. Apparently, even Satanists would have their say.
But the real problem is that Reidelbach's bill would undermine science education at the very moment when Ohio should be developing a scientifically literate generation of students who can help the state succeed in 21st-century technologies and compete economically around the globe.
The fact is that religious ideas, no matter how much they are dressed up in the language of science, are not science. And subjecting students to religious ideas in a science class simply would muddle their understanding of the scientific method and waste valuable time that ought to be used to learn genuine science.
The scientific method consists of observing the natural world and drawing conclusions about the causes of what is observed. These conclusions, or theories, are subject to testing and revision as additional facts are discovered that either bolster or undermine the conclusions and theories. Scientific truth, such as it is, is constantly evolving as new theories replace or modify old ones in the light of new facts.
Religious notions of creation work in the opposite fashion. They begin with a preconceived belief -- for example, that God created all the creatures on the Earth -- and then pick and choose among the observable facts in the natural world to find those that fit. Those that don't are ignored.
The scientific approach expands knowledge about the natural world; the religious approach impedes it.
The classic example of this occurred 369 years ago when the Catholic Church forced Galileo to recant the Copernican theory that the Earth revolves around the sun. That theory contradicted the religiously based idea that man and the Earth formed the center of God's creation. Had the church's creationist view of the solar system prevailed, Ohioan Neil Armstrong never would have set foot on the moon.
Today, Copernican theory is established and acknowledged fact.
When it comes to evolution, much confusion grows out of the understanding -- or misunderstanding -- of the words theory and fact. Evolution is a theory, but one that has become so thoroughly buttressed by physical evidence that, for all intents and purposes, it is a fact. No one outside of the willfully obstinate questions the idea that new life forms evolved from older ones, a process conclusively illustrated in biology and the fossil record.
Where disagreement still exists is over how the process of evolution occurs. Scientists argue about the mechanism by which change occurs and whether the process is gradual and constant or proceeds in fits in starts. But while they debate over how evolution occurs, they do not doubt that it does occur.
Another way to understand this is to consider gravity. Everyone accepts the existence of this force, but many questions remain about just what gravity is and how it works. That scientists argue about how gravity works doesn't change the fact that gravity exists. Or, as author Stephen Jay Gould has put it, "Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome.''
Just as with gravity, evolution is a fact.
Those who persist on questioning this fact are a tiny minority, even among people of faith. But they are a loud minority and, to those not well-grounded in science, their arguments can sound reasonable, even "scientific.'' But their arguments are little more than unfounded assertions dressed up in the language of science.
This minority also insists on creating conflict between religion and science where none needs to exist. Major faiths long since have reconciled themselves to a division of labor with science. Religion looks to humankind's spiritual and moral needs, while science attends to the material ones.
The Catholic Church, which once tried to hold back the progress of science, now admits that it was wrong to suppress Galileo. More than a billion Catholics draw sustenance from their faith untroubled by the knowledge that the planet is racing around the sun.
Religion, in turn, provides spiritual and moral guideposts to decide how best to use the awesome powers that science has unlocked and placed at humankind's disposal.
Nor are scientists themselves antagonistic to religion. Albert Einstein, one of the greatest scientific geniuses in history, was deeply reverent: "My comprehension of God comes from the deeply felt conviction of a superior intelligence that reveals itself in the knowable world,'' he once said.
Others have made similar observations. The more the scientific method reveals about the intricacies of the universe, the more awestruck many scientists become.
The simplest way to reconcile religion and evolution is to accept the view propounded early last century by prominent Congregationalist minister and editor Lyman Abbott, who regarded evolution as the means God uses to create and shape life.
This view eliminates conflict between evolution and religion. It allows scientists to investigate evolution as a natural process and lets people of faith give God the credit for setting that process in motion.
As for what to do about creationism and evolution in schools, the answer is easy. Evolution should be taught in science classes. Creationism and related religiously based ideas should be taught in comparative-religion, civics and history classes.
Religion was and remains central to the American identity. It has profoundly shaped American ideals and provided the basis for its highest aspirations, from the Declaration of Independence to the civil-rights movement. There is no question that religion is a vital force and a vital area of knowledge that must be included in any complete education.
But not in the science classroom, because religion is not science. There is no such thing as Buddhist chemistry, Jewish physics or Christian mathematics.
The Earth revolves around the sun regardless of the faiths of the people whom gravity carries along for the ride. Two plus two equals four whether that sum is calculated by a Muslim or a Zoroastrian.
Reidelbach and her supporters genuinely worry that a crucial element -- moral education and appreciation of religion's role in America -- is missing in education. But they will not correct that lack by injecting pseudoscience into Ohio's science curriculum.
And Reidelbach is not the only one making this mistake. Senate Bill 222, sponsored by state Sen. Jim Jordan, R-Urbana, is equally misguided. This bill would require that science standards adopted by the State Board of Education be approved by resolution in the General Assembly. This is a recipe for disaster, injecting not only religion, but also politics, into Ohio's science classes.
These two bills should be ignored by lawmakers.
In a few months, when the State Board of Education lays out the standards for science education in Ohio's public schools, it should strongly endorse the teaching of evolution and ignore the demands of those who purvey pseudoscience.
If you mean your link way back in post#29, it was not proof of anything, least of all of macro-evolution. All it gave proof of is that evolutionists call any article link "proof" in the hope that no one will follow it. However, if I missed that momentous moment which no one seems to want to refer to, kindly give us all the number of the post where the proof was shown. We are all waiting on baited breath to hear it.
Yes evolution should not be taught as a scientific theory. It should not be allowed in the schools until they can give clear, incontrovertible proof that macro-evolution does indeed occur (which they cannot).
Well, evolutionists constantly deny God, they deny the Bible, they attack those who believe in the Bible as yahoos and worse. They certainly deny the Word, they certainly deny that God created all living things, they certainly deny that God created man. Remember the Scopes trial? (which BTW the evolutionists lost). They love to attack religion.
That the above features do often occur in most mammal species is undeniable. But that is not the point. The point is that an animal such as the platypus is considered a mammal because it has mammary glands even though it lacks many of the above features.
The larger point as I have mentioned several times, and you evolutionists totally ignore, is that extrapolation just confirms prejudices, it adds no new knowledge. For example, using the platypus as an example again. If it was not a living species, it never would have been classified as a mammal, none of its uniqueness such as its killing poison, it's sensory radar, it's egg laying, its not having separate excretory and sexual ducts and many other interesting features would have never been known. It would have been just one more set of bones like any other stuffed into some procrustean bed by lazy paleontologists.
Yes, that's why I mentioned chemosynthesis. It is not very common, and the process is not very well understood yet, but it is even more complicated than photosynthesis and that is why as a source of nutrition for the first life form it is just as unlikely as photosynthesis.
Good ol' Chuckie! Like all the evos after him, he always hedged his bets and spoke out of both sides of his mouth!
No. The platypus is considered a mammal because it shares these features in addition to having mammary glands. If there were no know extant platypi (sorry, Plato) their fossilized remains would still be classed as mammalian because of these other features.
Since when? I'm a church-going, Bible studying (and believing) Roman Catholic. There are some parts of the Bible meant to be taken as poetic allegories, and guess what? Genesis is one of those. The only folks we "attack" are those who cling to a faulty interpretation of the Bible regardless of the evidence. In other words, when your beliefs fly in the face of reality, it is time to reexamin those beliefs. Don't worry, though, this will not make you a Satan-worshipping atheist -- though if you become RC, many here will consider it the same thing.
The reality, is that evolutionists after 150 years of saying that evolution is true, cannot give proof for their theory. The reality is that evolutionists use this totally unproven theory to attack the beliefs of Christians. A famous example is the Scopes trial. Another good example is the writings of the virulent atheist, and current banner bearer of evolution Richard Dawkings. While Darwin, dishonestly, never professed himself an atheist, most of those around him were self-professed atheists.
Face it, "Junior", you're not bright enough to "run numbers". You can barely handle a keyboard.
Ted, I cringe when others insult you for lack of courtesy and common sense. It hurts me when I do it to others too, even when I am returning fire. Junior is no more in error than our spelling mistakes.
I thought George Burns was....
Oh, you must mean Bill Cosby
.
???
!
So science doesn't always proceed in a logical, organized way. To your comment:
This is a side trip into science because evolutionists keep denying that science gives any proof.
This isn't a side trip, it goes to your mantra about "proof". I'm not sure that the evos are denying science gives proof. For some folks posting, overwhelming evidence is close enough to call proof. Myself being more the mathematician, I still call it overwhelming evidence rather than proof. And I would like more of the details filled in before calling anything in biology proof.
And for the record, I'm not an "evo", I'm a "thevo". I thought we settled that.
Oldcats
I'm not sure that can be concluded. The record seems to indicate a loss of faith which resulted in agnosticism.
One cannot give "proof" for anything. One can present evidence that one's theory is the best one going to explain certain phenomena -- and that's precisely what evolution does. No one yet has presented any evidence that Biblical creation is a better theory; all they can do is harp on a theory for which they have only a passing aquaintance. If, for example, you could show how creationism is better than evolution at explaining the fossil record and the diversity of life around us, then you would have a dog in this hunt. However, you can't so you don't. Rale against progress all you want -- science is pretty much going to just ignore you and go about its business.
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