Why is everyone in such a heated uproar over this? Do you all not realise that you are debating apples and oranges? Evolution and ID are NOT mutually exclusive. Evolution has nothing to do with the origins of the universe. ID has to do with the origins but not with the modus operandi since then. Evolution doesn't even attempt to address how everything was created in the beginning, ID does address this. ID does not define how everything operates after the beginning, evolution does this. One does not contradict the other, in fact they really have nothing to do with each other. One addresses the beginning, the other addresses the continuing. Neither position requires a person to reject the other. In fact, a person can believe in both positions without contradiction. I believe that God created the universe and also uses evolution as the instrument of continuation and to the fruition of the universe. I love science and I see it as a great tool for understanding what God has created. Science cannot either prove or deny God, in fact, at least at this time in our history, it has no evidence either way, and therefor cannot comment on the matter. But science should continue in it quest for truth, eventually it will uncover evidence one way or the other. Until then, science cannot deny ID, or even address it with facts; just as ID cannot deny the facts of evolution - after all, if God did create everything (as I believe He did), and He did not tell us the 'hows' of how He did it, could He not have easily used evolution as His chosen tool for the continuation of life? Of course! Apples and oranges, people.
bump
That's why all the intelligent folks on Venus and Mars are hiding from us. /sarcasm
I think Casey could use a brush up on the issues.
Why would this damage the conservative movement? Do we all have to agree on EVERYTHING?! Geez, it isn't like it's Mao's Red Guard or something.
No one is going to vote for Dems on account of this.
The Templeton Foundation, a major supporter of projects seeking to reconcile science and religion, says that after providing a few grants for conferences and courses to debate intelligent design, they asked proponents to submit proposals for actual research."They never came in," said Charles L. Harper Jr., senior vice president at the Templeton Foundation, who said that while he was skeptical from the beginning, other foundation officials were initially intrigued and later grew disillusioned.
"From the point of view of rigor and intellectual seriousness, the intelligent design people don't come out very well in our world of scientific review," he said.
While intelligent design has hit obstacles among scientists, it has also failed to find a warm embrace at many evangelical Christian colleges. Even at conservative schools, scholars and theologians who were initially excited about intelligent design say they have come to find its arguments unconvincing. They, too, have been greatly swayed by the scientists at their own institutions and elsewhere who have examined intelligent design and found it insufficiently substantiated in comparison to evolution.
"It can function as one of those ambiguous signs in the world that point to an intelligent creator and help support the faith of the faithful, but it just doesn't have the compelling or explanatory power to have much of an impact on the academy," said Frank D. Macchia, a professor of Christian theology at Vanguard University, in Costa Mesa, Calif., which is affiliated with the Assemblies of God, the nation's largest Pentecostal denomination.
By coupling undirected, purposeless variation to the blind, uncaring process of natural selection, Darwin made theological or spiritual explanations of the life processes superfluous.to "refute" Krauthammer by saying
Thus when Krauthammer thrashes the Kansas State Board of Education for calling Neo-Darwinian evolution "undirected," it seems that it is Kansas -- not Krauthammer -- who has been reading the actual textbooks.Well, no it's variation which is undirected according to the theory, not evolution. They impugn K and Will for not having "read much by the design theorists they rebuke" but evidently can't remember their own writing from one paragraph to the next.
What bothers me about this article is that it encourages people to see this as an "either or" situation. In point of fact, both Creation and Evolution are completely consistent, and the pursuit is to understand how the Creational dyanmic unfolds through the generations. Certainly it is an ongoing phenomenon.
William Flax
This is a horrible misrepresentation. No one is "preaching" that religious conservatives should stop being religious. Good heavens, where do people get this stuff? For the record, I have no problem with prayer in school, students led prayer at commencement, school bible clubs, etc. Personally, I find praying over football games a little, well, kind of a trivial thing to bother the Lord about, but that's just me. Students have every right to express themselves and make statements of faith. I think if you ask anyone on "my side" of the issue, you'll find they have no problem with any of this, either. All I want is for biology class to teach the prevailing scientific view of biology. Nothing more. We want kids in science class to get science, not culturally-sensitive science.
The future of political conservatism will not be impacted by this, either way, nor should it be.
read later
BS! Social "conservatives" deserted our President -- if not outright backstabbed him -- on the Social Security reform issue.
If you look back at the earlier years of the last century, some supporters of Darwinian evolution supported eugenics and other efforts to "improve the race." So did plenty of other people whose notions of humanity's origins were not derived from Darwin. After Hitler, most people rejected such ideas of eugenics, selective breeding, or the elimination of the "unfit." They saw clearly where such ideas could lead. That held for Darwinians, non-Darwinians, and anti-Darwinians.
Now we've come full circle. New techologies create new possibilities and some rush to embrace them. Some Darwinian evolutionists are in the lead, but they aren't the only ones. It will take some time to sort things out. It's doubtful that Darwinians will ever be won over to intelligent design. The question is whether we can adopt a moral consensus that can prevent dangerous policies from being put into effect. There are extreme Darwinians and extreme anti-evolutionists. Most people fit in somewhere in the middle, and are more concerned with doing the right thing in practice, rather than with asserting this or that vision of the universe.
Future of Conservatism: Darwin or Design?
Design by God.
That's because all of the interesting, lively and important debates in America are happening w/i the conservative movement. Liberalism is brain dead and completely incapable of engaging public debate.
I like it.
bump for the fireworks
Future of Conservatism: Darwin or Design?
Designed by the almighty God and the proof is everywhere.
Bump. Just checking in.