Posted on 10/07/2005 4:59:16 AM PDT by shuckmaster
How should evolution be taught in schools? This being America, judges will decide
HALF of all Americans either don't know or don't believe that living creatures evolved. And now a Pennsylvania school board is trying to keep its pupils ignorant. It is the kind of story about America that makes secular Europeans chortle smugly before turning to the horoscope page. Yet it is more complex than it appears.
In Harrisburg a trial began last week that many are comparing to the Scopes “monkey” trial of 1925, when a Tennessee teacher was prosecuted for teaching Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. Now the gag is on the other mouth. In 1987 the Supreme Court ruled that teaching creationism in public-school science classes was an unconstitutional blurring of church and state. But those who think Darwinism unGodly have fought back.
Last year, the school board in Dover, a small rural school district near Harrisburg, mandated a brief disclaimer before pupils are taught about evolution. They are to be told that “The theory [of evolution] is not a fact. Gaps in the theory exist for which there is no evidence.” And that if they wish to investigate the alternative theory of “intelligent design”, they should consult a book called “Of Pandas and People” in the school library.
Eleven parents, backed by the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State, two lobby groups, are suing to have the disclaimer dropped. Intelligent design, they say, is merely a clever repackaging of creationism, and as such belongs in a sermon, not a science class.
The school board's defence is that intelligent design is science, not religion. It is a new theory, which holds that present-day organisms are too complex to have evolved by the accumulation of random mutations, and must have been shaped by some intelligent entity. Unlike old-style creationism, it does not explicitly mention God. It also accepts that the earth is billions of years old and uses more sophisticated arguments to poke holes in Darwinism.
Almost all biologists, however, think it is bunk. Kenneth Miller, the author of a popular biology textbook and the plaintiffs' first witness, said that, to his knowledge, every major American scientific organisation with a view on the subject supported the theory of evolution and dismissed the notion of intelligent design. As for “Of Pandas and People”, he pronounced that the book was “inaccurate and downright false in every section”.
The plaintiffs have carefully called expert witnesses who believe not only in the separation of church and state but also in God. Mr Miller is a practising Roman Catholic. So is John Haught, a theology professor who testified on September 30th that life is like a cup of tea.
To illustrate the difference between scientific and religious “levels of understanding”, Mr Haught asked a simple question. What causes a kettle to boil? One could answer, he said, that it is the rapid vibration of water molecules. Or that it is because one has asked one's spouse to switch on the stove. Or that it is “because I want a cup of tea.” None of these explanations conflicts with the others. In the same way, belief in evolution is compatible with religious faith: an omnipotent God could have created a universe in which life subsequently evolved.
It makes no sense, argued the professor, to confuse the study of molecular movements by bringing in the “I want tea” explanation. That, he argued, is what the proponents of intelligent design are trying to do when they seek to air their theory—which he called “appalling theology”—in science classes.
Darwinism has enemies mostly because it is not compatible with a literal interpretation of the book of Genesis. Intelligent designers deny that this is why they attack it, but this week the court was told by one critic that the authors of “Of Pandas and People” had culled explicitly creationist language from early drafts after the Supreme Court barred creationism from science classes.
In the Dover case, intelligent design appears to have found unusually clueless champions. If the plaintiffs' testimony is accurate, members of the school board made no effort until recently to hide their religious agenda. For years, they expressed pious horror at the idea of apes evolving into men and tried to make science teachers teach old-fashioned creationism. (The board members in question deny, or claim not to remember, having made remarks along these lines at public meetings.)
Intelligent design's more sophisticated proponents, such as the Discovery Institute in Seattle, are too polite to say they hate to see their ideas championed by such clods. They should not be surprised, however. America's schools are far more democratic than those in most other countries. School districts are tiny—there are 501 in Pennsylvania alone—and school boards are directly elected. In a country where 65% of people think that creationism and evolution should be taught side by side, some boards inevitably agree, and seize upon intelligent design as the closest approximation they think they can get away with. But they may not be able to get away with it for long. If the case is appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, intelligent design could be labelled religious and barred from biology classes nationwide.
I would have to argue that life is almost, but not entirely unlike tea.
Subtly 8n't them.
The worst blasphemy is believing that the handiwork of god is defective or tainted.
And you, sir, are as handsome as you are intelligent.
Why, thank you. :)
It wasn't a compliment.
It's only a matter of time before all of sissy socialist Europe is facing Mecca 5 times a day.
That guy in your drawing looks like the elephant man to me. Wasn't he english? hahaha.
Nope, as God said it, for I know that what happened is that God told them what to write and they wrote it just as He told them to.
Why is it not hard to accept the fact that if you get a letter from President Bush or the undersecretary to the phone answer at Senator Collins office that they probalby didn't write it, that they probably dictated it and a person in the dictation pool took what they said down and that a typist typed it and a machine signed it. Yet you won't allow God the same privleges. Read 2 Timothy and 2 Peter.
6,417 years ago the first animal died, probaly a sheep, God killed an animal or two so as to make clothes for Adam and Eve and to establish the need for blood in sacrifice for the atoning of sins.
No, I answered your questioon, you just don't like my answer. But how I answered it is how I answered it and if you don't like my answer, well tough.
Why did I deem it a lie? Read Genesis one, two, three, and four. then read Genesis five to see that we are all kin.
Ether genesis 1-5 is untrue or darwin's http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-origin-of-species/ is untrue, I believe God's word, therfore I deemed Darwin to be a lair and his book untrue.
So, you can observe, prove and test the theory of evolution? Now that I want to see.
You're like the drowning man who, sitting on his roof, waved away rescuers in a canoe, a boat and a helicopter, believing God would come to his rescue. When he stood before the throne, asking God why He did not provide, God said: "I sent two boats and a helicopter. What were you waiting for?"
Yours is the true blasphemy, the belief that the mind of God can be neatly wrapped and placed in this room by the Gideons. His creation is intricate in its complexity and infinite in its variety, and if you try to boil it down to something that fits your narrow little understanding, you're ignoring most of it.
Now, I have had enough of your insulant bull. Let’s get something straight, those of us who believe that God created all things in six days are saying He did it right the first time. You who believe in evolution say He needed millions of millions of years and that things where not right to start, as He had made them so they need to evolve.
Some of our more Neanderthal posters fail to remember that there are a number of intelligent, freedom-loving European posters on these threads. On the crevo threads we have a couple from Great Britain and at least one from Sweden.
Honestly, how do you know this to be the case? What evidence do you have that the Bible is a direct dictation from the Almighty?
Refusal to answer a simple question noted. False claim that you have already answered the question noted. You responded to the question with irrelevancies and evasions, but you did not answer it.
Ether genesis 1-5 is untrue or darwin's http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-origin-of-species/ is untrue, I believe God's word, therfore I deemed Darwin to be a lair and his book untrue.
So in what way did Darwin lie? Be specific.
Now, I have had enough of your insulant bull. Let’s get something straight, those of us who believe that God created all things instantly are saying He did it right the first time. You who believe in a literal 6 day creation say He needed 6 days and that things where not right to start, as He had made them so they needed tinkering with until they came right.
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