Posted on 08/01/2005 10:58:13 AM PDT by wallcrawlr
The half-century campaign to eradicate any vestige of religion from public life has run its course. The backlash from a nation fed up with the A.C.L.U. kicking crèches out of municipal Christmas displays has created a new balance. State-supported universities may subsidize the activities of student religious groups. Monuments inscribed with the Ten Commandments are permitted on government grounds. The Federal Government is engaged in a major antipoverty initiative that gives money to churches. Religion is back out of the closet.
But nothing could do more to undermine this most salutary restoration than the new and gratuitous attempts to invade science, and most particularly evolution, with religion. Have we learned nothing? In Kansas, conservative school-board members are attempting to rewrite statewide standards for teaching evolution to make sure that creationism's modern stepchild, intelligent design, infiltrates the curriculum. Similar anti-Darwinian mandates are already in place in Ohio and are being fought over in 20 states. And then, as if to second the evangelical push for this tarted-up version of creationism, out of the blue appears a declaration from Christoph Cardinal Schönborn of Vienna, a man very close to the Pope, asserting that the supposed acceptance of evolution by John Paul II is mistaken. In fact, he says, the Roman Catholic Church rejects "neo-Darwinism" with the declaration that an "unguided evolutionary process--one that falls outside the bounds of divine providence--simply cannot exist."
Cannot? On what scientific evidence? Evolution is one of the most powerful and elegant theories in all of human science and the bedrock of all modern biology. Schönborn's proclamation that it cannot exist unguided--that it is driven by an intelligent designer pushing and pulling and planning and shaping the process along the way--is a perfectly legitimate statement of faith. If he and the Evangelicals just stopped there and asked that intelligent design be included in a religion curriculum, I would support them. The scandal is to teach this as science--to pretend, as does Schönborn, that his statement of faith is a defense of science. "The Catholic Church," he says, "will again defend human reason" against "scientific theories that try to explain away the appearance of design as the result of 'chance and necessity,'" which "are not scientific at all." Well, if you believe that science is reason and that reason begins with recognizing the existence of an immanent providence, then this is science. But, of course, it is not. This is faith disguised as science. Science begins not with first principles but with observation and experimentation.
In this slippery slide from "reason" to science, Schönborn is a direct descendant of the early 17th century Dutch clergyman and astronomer David Fabricius, who could not accept Johannes Kepler's discovery of elliptical planetary orbits. Why? Because the circle is so pure and perfect that reason must reject anything less. "With your ellipse," Fabricius wrote Kepler, "you abolish the circularity and uniformity of the motions, which appears to me increasingly absurd the more profoundly I think about it." No matter that, using Tycho Brahe's most exhaustive astronomical observations in history, Kepler had empirically demonstrated that the planets orbit elliptically.
This conflict between faith and science had mercifully abated over the past four centuries as each grew to permit the other its own independent sphere. What we are witnessing now is a frontier violation by the forces of religion. This new attack claims that because there are gaps in evolution, they therefore must be filled by a divine intelligent designer.
How many times do we have to rerun the Scopes "monkey trial"? There are gaps in science everywhere. Are we to fill them all with divinity? There were gaps in Newton's universe. They were ultimately filled by Einstein's revisions. There are gaps in Einstein's universe, great chasms between it and quantum theory. Perhaps they are filled by God. Perhaps not. But it is certainly not science to merely declare it so.
To teach faith as science is to undermine the very idea of science, which is the acquisition of new knowledge through hypothesis, experimentation and evidence. To teach it as science is to encourage the supercilious caricature of America as a nation in the thrall of religious authority. To teach it as science is to discredit the welcome recent advances in permitting the public expression of religion. Faith can and should be proclaimed from every mountaintop and city square. But it has no place in science class. To impose it on the teaching of evolution is not just to invite ridicule but to earn it.
Mars and a few other locations have been investigated....was it some moon or otherwise of Saturn or Jupiter?
In any case, of the places investigated, there has been no life found.
And have you forgotten that the lack of intelligent life is the button that gets pushed by the evo's when alien seeding is discussed? :>)
Nothing like assuming the answer.
I simply responded to the arrogance implicit in using as a premise the belief that all was known about other planet's life status when we have absolutely no idea whether they contain life or not.
No, strong, well-grounded theology trumps weak, poorly-supported theology.
Darwin hated God? Darwin hated man? You have some way of showing this I hope.
ten years...same
20 years...same
100 years....same >
Therefore, my statement that it is a low probability is on the right track.
(After all, I can prove that creation by God has a probability of one....I am here, donchaknow.)
We are in agreement on both your points.
In Catholic theology, the world is a broken place due to Original Sin, meaning Man's breach with God as described in Genesis. Faith and science have their respective places, and science is not looked to for a vindication of faith, at least not Catholic faith. From that standpoint, Creationism and Intelligent Design are questionable theology, not just questionable science.
Here is more appeal to authority:
http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?command=download&id=443
What is that? I notice it's got a capital P.
"investigated....was it some moon or otherwise of Saturn or Jupiter? "
Europa. They were not investigated closely enough to say whether they have life or not.
"In any case, of the places investigated, there has been no life found.
That is true, but just viewed from a logical perspective that can not be used to support a conclusion that no life is to be found anywhere. The sample size is just too small.
"And have you forgotten that the lack of intelligent life is the button that gets pushed by the evo's when alien seeding is discussed? :>)
I think you misunderstand. We don't say the lack of extra-terrestrial life is the problem. What makes seeding very unlikely is the vast distances between planets and the limitations of the time it would take to travel those distances.
And let's face it -- there's no shortage of bright, hyper-motivated people around.
BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA!
Then again, to the blind, a one-eyed man is probably assumed to be incredibly bright and hyper-motivated.
Look at India and China. They have highly-motivated and incredibly bright people coming out of their ears. Then look at the Asian and Indian immigrant populations in this country. Also highly motivated and bright. Ditto the Eastern European immigrant population.
Those are the cities.
Then go to the suburbs with a strong professional class of lawyers and doctors -- country club suburbs -- and you'll find a core group of kids who have been tracked to the Ivy Leagues since conception. Ditto the elite prep schools.
What these groups have in common is the absolute certainty that they'll be competing in a global marketplace.
Would you rather I assumed the same answer you assume?
From Ol' Darwin to Karl:
Dear Sir:
I thank you for the honour which you have done me by sending me your great work on Capital; & I heartily wish that I was more worthy to receive it, by understanding more of the deep and important subject of political Economy. Though our studies have been so different, I believe that we both earnestly desire the extension of Knowledge, & that this is in the long run sure to add to the happiness of Mankind.
I remain, Dear Sir
Yours faithfully,
Charles Darwin
Letter from Charles Darwin to Karl Marx
October, 1873
Karl on Darwin:
Although it is developed in the crude English style, this is a book which contains the basis of natural history for our views.
Karl Marx on Darwin's Origin of Species
December, 1860
Denying Divine creation is a hatred of sorts. A man troubled by his demons perhaps.
500 million years?
Marx to Engels on Darwin:
"Darwin's book is very important and serves me as a natural scientific basis for the class struggle in history. One has to put up with the crude English method of development, of course."
So what ? how many products of science you use daily are/ have been invented by communists, atheists, liberals or fascists ? Would you hold science itself accountable for their foibles and stop using them ?
Elsie, this doesn't concern you.
The letter you posted is a hoax.
500 million years.....I didn't know you could live that long. Maybe I'll have to sign on with your deity.
Observable time says, "No way." Experiments say, "no way."
But, just cause I'm a really, really nice guy, I'll give you the 500 million and raise you 6.5 billion more. The inanimate stuff in your test tube will always be inanimate stuf.
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