Posted on 10/14/2006 11:16:50 AM PDT by lizol
Keep Darwin's 'lies' out of Polish schools: education official 2 hours.
WARSAW (AFP) - Poland's deputy education minister called for the influential evolutionary theories of Charles Darwin not to be taught in the country's schools, branding them "lies."
"The theory of evolution is a lie, an error that we have legalised as a common truth," Miroslaw Orzechowski, the deputy minister in the country's right-wing coalition government, was quoted as saying by the Gazeta Wyborcza daily Saturday.
Orzechowski said the theory was "a feeble idea of an aged non-believer," who had come up with it "perhaps because he was a vegetarian and lacked fire inside him."
The evolution theory of the 19th-century British naturalist holds that existing animals and plants are the result of natural selection which eliminated inferior species gradually over time. This conflicts with the "creationist" theory that God created all life on the planet in a finite number.
Orzechowski called for a debate on whether Darwin's theory should be taught in schools.
"We should not teach lies, just as we should not teach bad instead of good, or ugliness instead of beauty," he said. "We are not going to withdraw (Darwin's theory) from the school books, but we should start to discuss it."
The deputy minister is a member of a Catholic far-right political group, the League of Polish Families. The league's head, Roman Giertych, is education minister in the conservative coalition government of Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski.
Giertych's father Maciej, who represents the league in the European Parliament, organised a discussion there last week on Darwinism. He described the theory as "not supported by proof" and called for it be removed from school books.
The far-right joined the government in May when Kaczynski's ruling conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, after months of ineffective minority government, formed a coalition including LPR and the populist Sambroon party.
Roman Giertych has not spoken out on Darwinism, but the far-right politician's stance on other issues has stirred protest in Poland since he joined the government.
A school pupils' association was expected to demonstrate in front of the education ministry on Saturday to call for his resignation.
The May 19 issue of Molecular Cell.
I've been there too. That's why I posted that pic. It's a beautiful place.
On probability, it's a bit more confusing than you may think. For example, are you stating the argument that us being here today is highly improbable?
He admits that he is not a mathematician, as honest academics do. Sewell tried to apply his discipline to other disciplines.
I really dislike the 747/junkyard analogy or Sewell's computers/scrap metal analogy. The natural universe as it exists lends itself to the creation of certain forms through natural processes, some of which appear very ordered, such as snowflakes, spheres and cells, and some which don't, such as turbulence in fluid dynamics. But as it exists, it does not naturally result in 747s or computers. That might be so in some freaky alternate universe, but not this one. The analogies just fall apart.
Great. Do you have a title, author, page number?
Dimensio, I don't give a crap whether you believe it or not. I'm not on my way out. I just don't recall details. By bye.
As long as you pledge to include this part of Patterson's quote:
In terms of mechanism, or causes of evolutionary change, the neutral theory of molecular evolution is a scientific theory; it can be put in law-like form: changes in DNA that are less likely to be subject to natural selection occur more rapidly. This law is tested every time homologous DNA sequences are compared, and explains observations (summarized in Chapters 9 and 10) that are otherwise inexplicable. But neutral theory assumes (or includes) truth of the general theory - common ancestry or Darwin's 'descent with modification' - and 'misprints' shared between species, like the psuedogenes or reversed Alu sequences are (to me) incontrovertible evidence of common descent. I see the general historical theory, common descent, as being as firmly established as just about anything else in history.
"Given sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. ..." placemark
Thanks. I will look forward to researching this more in depth the next chance I have of obtaining the journal article. From the summary, though, I would suggests this is not really a measure of an organism's "evolution", but of it's short-term adaptability to a controlled change in it's environment. It will be interesting to read whether they demonstrated any long term changes, or if the organism reverted back after the environment equalized back to normal.
This is my biggest thread so far, I think :-)))
What on earth do you think evolution is?
This is what evolution is. There is no other definition used by biologists.
"Quote-mining the bible" placemark
Oh, I see. Then it is not about one animal species morphing into some other previoulsy never existing animal species. It is just about an animal species making changes to the environment so that they can continue to live in that environment. Sort of like when a dog's coat changes when the season changes from either hot or cold. I get it now.
Yes, it's about changes in the population over generations.
Sort of like when a dog's coat changes when the season changes from either hot or cold. I get it now.
No, it's not about that at all.
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