Posted on 03/22/2006 6:22:07 PM PST by Central Scrutiniser
Huge crowds extend Darwin exhibit in New York
Wed Mar 22, 2:54 PM ET
NEW YORK (AFP) - A monumental Charles Darwin exhibition in New York has been extended by five months amid an overwhelming public response to what was touted as a scholarly rebuke to opponents of teaching evolution in US schools.
The American Museum of Natural History said Wednesday that nearly 200,000 people had visited "Darwin" since it opened three months ago.
Originally slated to close at the end of this month, the exhibition will now run through August 20, said museum spokesman Joshua Schnakenberg.
"Darwin" had opened amid furious debate in many school districts over the teaching of the 19th century naturalist's evolutionary theory and the first trial on the teaching of the God-centered alternative favoured by many religious groups, "intelligent design," or ID.
That trial, in Pennsylvania, ended in defeat for the evangelical right with the judge in the case decrying the "breathtaking inanity" of the school board in the town of Dover which backed the concept that nature is so complex it must be the work of a superior being.
"Our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom," the judge said in his ruling in December.
An early section of the New York exhibit is devoted to the question, "What is a Theory?" and seeks to clarify the distinction between scientific theories and non-scientific explanations about the origins and diversity of life.
"This is really for the schoolchildren of America. This is the evidence of evolution," said the exhibit's curator, Niles Eldridge.
In a Gallup poll released last October, 53 percent of American adults agreed with the statement that God created humans in their present form exactly the way the Bible describes it.
Thirty-one percent stood by the "intelligent design" stance, while only 12 percent said humans have evolved from other forms of life and "God has no part."
So the faithful come out to worship him. It's likely the same group that thought Brokeback Mountain was fine art.
Yes, and it's visited regularly by people who have less IQ points than they have teeth.
TToE is silent on God. Your assertion (as usual) is complete bunk.
Just because everyone doesn't buy into your 1st century thinking doesn't make them athiests.
You can scream "athiest" until you are blue in the mouth and it will make no difference.
But it is sad to see you so desperate to make everyone see things your way.
btw: how is your alchemy class coming? Turn any lead into gold this week?
The following is an op-ed (my wife's) that will run shortly in the Ann Arbor News:
Fundamentalist Progressivism:
I have no axe to grind about evolution. I’m not a fundamentalist. If I were, of course, I wouldn’t dare suspect that Darwin’s account of material reality was true.
But did you know that no self-respecting progressive is allowed to suspect that it might be false? You might call it an epidemic of progressivist fundamentalism. At least, that’s my amateur diagnosis after following recent evolution court cases in the news.
There was that school board in Georgia that placed stickers reading “Evolution is a theory, not a fact…[and] should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered” on textbooks. (Teachers, please note, were then free to teach Darwin for the rest of the year.) This set off a lawsuit. The plaintiffs, like heretic-hunters of old, objected strongly to anything that smacked of questioning authority—Darwin’s, at least.
In Kansas, the state’s Board of Education adopted a set of science curriculum standards that call for students—in the standards’ own words—“to learn about the best evidence for modern evolutionary theory, but also to learn about areas where scientists are raising scientific criticisms of the theory…the Standards do not include Intelligent Design...” Op-ed pages around the country reported this modest aspiration as if the Flat Earth Society had taken over the state of Kansas.
Then, in Dover, Pa., the school board wanted teachers to read a single paragraph intimating that a controversy exists, and giving students the option of checking a single pro-intelligent-design book out of the school library—before proceeding with instruction in Darwinian biology. This provoked another lawsuit. The plaintiff refused to tolerate the free expression of the idea that some scientists (not preachers, scientists) question evolution, and was apparently—this was kind of charming—expecting students to rush off to the library to indulge in optional research.
People who’ve been devoting only sporadic attention to the evolution wars can certainly be forgiven for thinking that somebody out there is trying to rid the country of Darwinism, or maybe of science itself. But the careful reader will note certain traits common to all these cases: None proposes to ban the teaching of evolution. None requires teaching intelligent design instead of it or even alongside it. And none, one Ann Arbor News cartoon to the contrary, proposes to replace science textbooks with the book of Genesis. All they seek is to subject a mainstream scientific view to a token amount of scientific scrutiny.
Certainly you can argue, as plenty of judges and journalists have, that that’s not what ID advocates really want—that they’re out to replace science with their own theology, just feigning interest in the findings of molecular biologists. But speculations about their deep, dark theocratic intentions don’t count as a refutation of their points.
It’s all very confusing: the journalistic template to dust off for an evolution story is supposed to be “Irrational Fundamentalists Feel Threatened by Academic Freedom.” In this corner, fighting for Reason, is the fearless scientist, disposed to follow the evidence wherever it may lead; in this corner, representing Faith, we have some poor, well-intentioned guy who believes what he believes for no particular reason.
Intelligent design is accused of not constituting “real” science because it clearly has religious implications. The trouble, of course, is that Darwinism, most especially the way it’s taught in school textbooks, also has implications about religion.
Intelligent design is also accused of being unpopular among scientists. And criticism of Darwinism is clearly outside the current mainstream—but then, so was Ignaz Semmelweis, who introduced the inconvenient and wildly unpopular idea of doctors washing their hands between conducting autopsies and delivering babies. So was Copernicus. The history of science is crammed with people who were ostracized for unpopular ideas that turned out to be correct.
And the unpopularity in this case is not all that ubiquitous—Princeton, Harvard and Cambridge (and U of M) have produced scientists who question Darwinism. It will no longer fly to sneer, as Richard Dawkins did back in 1989, that “if you meet someone who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane….” These days you look, well, fundamentalist, if you give the impression that that’s your idea of a refutation.
So whatever your theological convictions, or lack thereof, please don’t be a fundamentalist progressive. Don’t protest when someone suggests that your favorite ideas “be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered.”
That is a pretty stupid statment, you manage to paint people who practice real science as gay and athiests. Are you really that ignorant?
You made the assertion that evolutionists are liberal.
I think its faulty logic on your part, based on nothing but your emotions and not any actual research or evidence.
"The (intelligent) people have spoken."
Actually, the opposite is true. The large crowds are generally drawn to things which require very little intellect. Events and places which are more.. cerebral.. generally do not appeal to large numbers. Professional wrestling has a larger regular crowd than the public library.
The fact that a thing draws large numbers of people makes the real intellectual value of it highly suspect.
Central, I didn't. I made a suggestion that's similar to the one in post # 47. Liberalism? No. Popular ideas, yes. Simon & Garfunkel would draw the same number to Central Park. I joke and provoke about the crevo debate, but this exhibition proves nothing one way or the other. Cheers.
Then why did you make fun of New York, and assume that the people going to see the exhibit would equally be enthuasiastic to see Marx?
The exhibition proves that its popular and that the creationists were unsucessful in trying to keep it from being shown. Just as they are unsucessful in blocking evolution from the schools and replacing it with their farcical dogmatic pseudo science.
Charles Darwin practices "real science" as opposed to whom? His analogy is correct, those who are atheists do embrace Darwin in a like manner as judeo-christians embrace Moses. BTW, are you saying only gay people like Brokeback Mountain? I think it was YOU who said that scientists are gay.. he was merely saying that they have lousy taste in art.
Thanks for the ping.
Or photosynthesis?
The Point: There isn't a single theory in the typical secondary school science textbook, out of hundreds covered, that is taught LESS dogmatically or "matter of factly" than evolution. Most are taught so "factually" that they aren't even identified AS theories (although they certainly are). Yet we never, ever hear complaints from creationists/antievolutionists about teaching any of these other theories (except maybe those related to the age of the earth/universe) "as fact". Even though they are taught that way much, much more commonly than is evolution.
Why is this?
The Truth: Creationists/antievolutionists aren't really in favor of teaching science in general less dogmatically, any more than "peace activists" are really in favor of peace. Their protestations on such matters are completely cynical. In fact they prefer that all theories excepting evolution be taught as dogmatically as possible, and taught as fact, so that evolution can be made to seem weak or uncertain by contrast.
Catholics repudiate the "tweaking." And so do several Protestant sects, I believe the Lutherans, for one.
It's a fundamental difference in point of view. Catholics believe God doesn't need to "tweak." He set it all in motion billions of years ago.
God created the Universe, and everything in it, and then stood back and let evolution happen over time.
It is the choice that is still 100% consistent with observed reality and fits God (very importantly) into the equation. It is the position adopted by the Catholic church (which is no longer afraid of exposing its members to things like science, logic, and independent thinking). ID posits, at best, (all forms of it I have heard of at least) that God interfered in the evolutionary process at several key instances.
I accept that the God-given tools of observation, together with our God-given (both bestowed by God through the process of evolution) ability to reason, can lead to an understanding of God's creation. And I accept that there is a God as an article of faith that has no basis in observation - material justification is antithetical to faith. I use the bible to understand my relationship with God, and my senses - given to me by Him - to understand my relationship with His creation.
Amen.
Yes, this is true, but the idea of ID still covers their school of thought as well. All ID is really saying is that it seems an intelligence had some involvement, somewhere along the way. Thats a pretty big umbrella. What I have a problem with is those sects being as dogmatic in repudiating a thing without evidence proving or disproving.
In the field of Science, nothing should be taken as fact until proven, nor discarded until disproven.
I couldn't care less if the clerk in the nearby shoestore (or my neighbor) doesn't believe in evolution.
Why do the anti-evolutionist care what scientists believe? A lot of these creationists are as annoying as the professional atheists who sue the local government to take down the Ten Commandments.
I suspect they have the same motivation as teenagers who do drive-by mooning of adults.
Playing semantics is not your strong suit.
You are as tranparent as glass.
You want to be a creationist and believe in the bible literally, go ahead, just teach it in your church, not in our public schools.
You are correct that a 'hands off' God (as well as an apathetic God that completely ignores us, or a clueless God that doesn't even realize we exist) Qualifies as ID. The problem is that there is no scientific evidence of any 'tweaks', let alone of an intelligence behind the original creation of the universe. Further, there is no practical scientific value in choosing to believe that goddidit whenever we face an unanswered question.
So, while I personally lean towards a Deist perspective philosophically and thus technically acknowledge the possibility of an Intelligent Designer on that level, for all scientific purposes that belief is irrelevant. The evidence speaks for itself, and it says that evolution is the design and natural selection coupled with genetic drift is the designer. Pretending that ID is a valid alternative way to view the evidence about how life developed just to support a philosophical belief is a dishonest waste of time.
#####The exhibition proves that its popular and that the creationists were unsucessful in trying to keep it from being shown.#####
Did creationists try to stop the exhibit from being shown? Do you have any information to support this claim?
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