Keep Darwin's 'lies' out of Polish schools: education official

AFP via Yahoo! News ^ | October 14, 2006

[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.

[Fester Chugabrew]

What is your objection to inferring in this context?

I have more than one objection, the first two being similar. Such inferences are often presented with a unjustified certitude. They are labeled as hard science when in fact they are nothing of the kind. There is ample room for misinterpretation of the evidence when it is assumed from that start that common forms are the result of common history (it's called intellectual laziness). Those who draw them not only think their ideas are entitled to an exclusive hearing by law in public schools but also proceed to use the courts to enforce them. Other than these I am aware of no further objections, your Honor.

[thomaswest]

Amusing. Did you "conveniently forget" or deliberately ignore that there are a dozen or more court decisions on the subject of creationism and ID in schools. For example, the SCOTUS decision Aquillard vs. Edwards. The Dover case was simply the latest in a long string over 40 years where courts in GA, AL, LA, VA, SC addressed these issues. In EVERY case, the creationist/ID side lost.

In fact, Judge Jones in Dover wrote that whatever his personal biases might be, he had no choice under the rule of deference to previous decisons and to the SC.

You are pursuing a losing line of argument here.

[nmh]

Nice webpage.

It's refreshing to read your thoughts.

[Da_Shrimp]

It is insufficient to wave hands and say God did it. One must be able to say, "ah it happened here at this time, and all the evidence points to it.

As I said, I'm willing to entertain the idea that a Divinity had some input into evolution. However, at this time it is not measureable. What is clear is that the evidence from geology precludes the theory of a 6-day creation and a global flood etc. This means that the Bible is simply a book of allegories and stories.

[Coyoteman]

What is clear is that the evidence from geology precludes the theory of a 6-day creation and a global flood etc. This means that the Bible is simply a book of allegories and stories.

Don't forget the tower of Babel story.

(How high can you build using dried mud?)

[thomaswest]

experimentation and observation (both directly and indirectly) on a small scale

Well, measurements that show the earth is about 4.5 billion years old and the Universe about 14 billion years old do not seem to me "small-scale".

One of the many beauties of evolution is that it incoporates a vast age that is fully supported by physics and astronomy and geology in many converging lines of evidence.

But can you prove via your criteria (direct experimentation/observation) that Caesar or Jesus actually existed?

[My2Cents]

What makes you think pitching Darwin out the window depreciates their science education?

[Fester Chugabrew]

. . . the validity of an idea is to be determined by its utility or usefulness.

I don't doubt idea of homosexuality is so fervently believed that it is put into practice (and is even believed to be beneficial by some people) even though myself and the greater part of the population do not practice it. Is the idea of homosexuality "invalid." No. I did not use the quality of "usefulness" as a means of discrediting evolution in any other regard than the value of its usefulness on the face of it, not its validity as one philosophy of history among many.

I am grown up enough to understand that not everyone has the same philosophy of history I do. I am also smart enopugh to know the difference between science and philosophy, a point that seems to be lost on Judge Jones et al.

[curiosity]

Hey, I just noticed your tag. It sounds familiar, for some reason...;) I like it!

[thomaswest]

intellectual laziness

What greater "intellectual laziness" exists than that of ID?

The IDists hyave reported no laboratory results, have never gone on a field expedition, and the Discovery Institute has never discovered a single thing.

How lazy is it to simple take a text written 2000 years ago by people in a trbal society who had not notion of an atom, no coherent notion of the Earth, no notion of cause and effect as presently unde4rstood, and then claim this represents "scientific and spiritual truth" for all time?

That is surely lazy thinking.

[4CJ]

What's amazing to me is that the evos insist that anyone not agreeing with them is dumb, stupid, illiterate etc, incapable of understanding physics, calculus and higher math, chemistry etc.

God gave us brains for a reason.

[Coyoteman]

Watch how nasty evolutionists get on this thread.

We're tarred and feathered before the battle is even begun. That's not very nice.

For THEM, evolution is THEIR RELIGION.

Actually, no. Evolution is a theory, one of many in science. I can prove its not a RELIGION: I did six years of grad school, with many courses in evolution and related subjects. Not once did they pass the collection plate!

Never mind that there is NO, absolutely NO evidence to support their HYPOTHESIS. Yes, hypothesis.

There are entire floors in libraries devoted to the evidence supporting the theory of evolution. As one tiny example, check out the articles in the latest issue of American Journal of Physical Anthropology. And that is only one of many journals. Your statement about no evidence is clearly incorrect. As for the theory of evolution being a hypothesis, don't you think scientists who actually study the field are more qualified to judge this than rank amateurs who read creationist websites and Jack Chick comics?

It's not even a theory by their OWN definition of a theory. Yet that doesn't stop them from touting it now as a "fact".

The theory of evolution meets all the criteria for a theory. It is also a fact that critters change from generation to generation. That fact is called evolution (as opposed to the theory of evolution, which explains the facts).

It only goes to show just how far they are removed from reality.

Sorry, no. (Its amusing to hear those who follow ancient mythical stories criticize scientists who deal in the verifiable facts of the natural sciences.)

Evolutionists live in a fanatical dream world supported by JUNK science.

Sorry, no again. Perhaps you should let scientists judge what is and is not science. They have the training and education for it.

[Ichneumon]

Never mind that there is NO, absolutely NO evidence to support their HYPOTHESIS. Yes, hypothesis.

Don't you get tired of just outright lying all the time? You have been shown huge amounts of this evidence you claim doesn't exist, by many people many times, including for example by myself here, here, here, and here, to name just a few.

And yet you keep coming back falsely claiming that there is "NO, absolutely NO evidence" to support evolutionary biology, pretending that you've never before been presented with huge amounts of that very evidence. Don't you know that there's a Commandment against bearing false witness?

Can someone explain to me why the anti-evolutionist kooks are such shameless liars? I just don't get it.

[Fester Chugabrew]

I don't throw the words "inference" and "proof" around so lightly. It is observations on a small scale that lead some scientists to make inferences on a wider scale regarding the age of the earth. I do not count the proposition of a 4.5 billion year old earth as unreasonable or preposterous. It cannot be from direct observation and experience that this figure is proposed. I certainly see no reason to accept this figure as the only one allowed by law in public schools, and would posit that most people accept this figure, like they accept a heliocentric solar system, not by experience but on the basis of testimony from others.

My faith in the historic existence of Caesar (whichever one you might suggest) and Jesus depends upon the testimony of others outside myself and not by direct observation and experience.

Must run off to a gig. Thanks for the correspondence.

[Ichneumon]

What's amazing to me is that the evos insist that anyone not agreeing with them is dumb, stupid, illiterate etc, incapable of understanding physics, calculus and higher math, chemistry etc.

Actually, what's amazing is how often the anti-evolutionists make up false slanders like this in order to accuse "the evos" of things they've never said.

If you had any honor, you'd retract that false accusation and apologize. Are you mature enough to do so?

I repeat my question from an earlier post: Why are anti-evolutionists such shameless liars?

[dread78645]

Darwin was never a vegetarian. ...

Although there's no definitive evidence that he was himself a vegetarian, Darwin believed that man evolved with a frugivorous diet similar to the apes.
The true amount of meat that's consumed by chimpanzees wasn't discovered until a century later.

[thomaswest]

Science itself cannot objectively determine what is or is not supernatural.

You have a big time logical inconsistency here. Let's say for the moment that via experiment and observation and inference (your terms) that there comes about a scientific finding of a supernatural event. This would be very powerful. There would be an experiment or observation that was repeatable, that via objective reality, all who looked at the evidence could agree on it.

The job of science is to describe how the natural world actually works. The unnatural is not part of science. By definition, this "supernatural effect" becomes a description of the natural.

The result is that God is dethroned. Any mystery is now reduced to being an effect that can be examined in a laboratory, measured, and known. So evidence for a "supernatural" influence actually destroys the supernatural by making it part of the natural, verifiable, measureable part of existence.

[thomaswest]

Your point being about fruits and nuts on the ID side?

[RightWingNilla]

Can someone explain to me why the anti-evolutionist kooks are such shameless liars?

Thats an easy one. Its because there is nothing in the real world which supports their position. Their only options are to deliberately misrepresent evidence and to outright lie.

[Hoplite]

Swipe.