For the lowdown on Chuck Darwin, stupidest white man of all time and his BS theory, and on the continuing efforts of feebs like Steve Gould and Niles Eldredge to keep the charade going for another generation:
Posted on 06/07/2002 11:35:28 AM PDT by jennyp
To Seattle area residents the struggle over how evolution is taught in public high schools may seem a topic from the distant past or a distant place.
Don't bet on it. One nearby episode in the controversy has ended, but a far-reaching, Seattle-based agenda to overthrow Darwin is gaining momentum.
Roger DeHart, a high-school science teacher who was the center of an intense curriculum dispute a few years ago in Skagit County, is leaving the state. He plans to teach next year in a private Christian school in California.
The fuss over DeHart's use of "intelligent design" theory in his classes at Burlington-Edison High School was merely a tiny blip in a grand scheme by promoters of the theory.
The theory is essentially this: Life is so complex that it can only be the result of design by an intelligent being.
Who is this unnamed being? Well, God, I presume. Wouldn't you?
As unlikely as it may seem, Seattle is ground zero for the intelligent-design agenda, thanks to the Seattle-based Discovery Institute and its Center for Renewal of Science and Culture (CRSC).
Headed by one-time Seattle City councilman and former Reagan administration official Bruce Chapman, the Discovery Institute is best known locally for its savvy insights on topics ranging from regionalism, transportation, defense policy and the economy.
In the late '90s, the institute jumped into the nation's culture wars with the CRSC. It may be little known to local folks, but it has caught the attention of conservative religious organizations around the country.
It's bound to get more attention in the future. Just last month, a documentary, Icons of Evolution, premiered at Seattle Pacific University. The video is based on a book of the same name by CRSC fellow Jonathan Wells. It tells the story of DeHart, along with the standard critique of Darwinian evolution that fuels the argument for intelligent design.
The video is part of the anti-Darwin agenda. Cruise the Internet on this topic and you'll find something called the Wedge Strategy, which credits the CRSC with a five-year plan for methodically promoting intelligent design and a 20-year goal of seeing "design theory permeate our religious, cultural, moral and political life."
Last week, Chapman tried to put a little distance between his institute and the "wedge" document. He said it was a fund-raising tool used four years ago. "I don't disagree with it," he told me, "but it's not our program." (I'll let the folks who gave money based on the proposed strategy ponder what that means.)
Program or not, it is clear that the CRSC is intent on bringing down what one Center fellow calls "scientific imperialism." Surely Stephen Jay Gould already is spinning in his grave. Gould, one of America's most widely respected scientists and a prolific essayist, died just two weeks ago. Among his many fine books is one I kept by my bedside for many weeks after it was published in 1999, "Rock of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life."
In "Rock of Ages," Gould presents an elegant case for the necessary co-existence of science and religion. Rather than conflicting, as secular humanists insist, or blending, as intelligent-design proponents would have it, science and religion exist in distinct domains, what Gould called magisteria (domains of teaching authority).
The domain of science is the empirical universe; the domain of religion is the moral, ethical and spiritual meaning of life.
Gould was called America's most prominent evolutionist, yet he too, was a critic of Darwin's theory, and the object of some controversy within the scientific community. There's a lesson in that: In the domain of science there is plenty of room for disagreement and alternative theories without bringing God into the debate.
I have no quarrel with those who believe in intelligent design. It has appeal as a way to grasp the unknowable why of our existence. But it is only a belief. When advocates push intelligent design as a legitimate scientific alternative to Darwinian explanations of evolution, it is time to push back.
That's what they continue to do in Skagit County. Last week, the Burlington-Edison School Board rejected on a 4-1 vote a proposal to "encourage" the teaching of intelligent design. Bravo.
Despite proponents' claims of scientific validity, intelligent design is little more than religion-based creationism wrapped in critiques of Darwin and all dressed up in politically correct language. All for the ultimate goal — placing a Christian God in science classrooms of America's public high schools.
12 posted on 6/7/02 12:24 PM Pacific by jennyp
Talk about twisted...evolution is reverso-whacko-sicko 'science'.
Creation was founded on natural design...Adam Smith---'the invisible hand'.
Communism--fascism is from EVOLUTION---inevitable progess---TYRANNY!
53 posted on 6/7/02 1:12 PM Pacific by f.Christian
Pegged it. These people make any attempt at intelligent discussion a waste of time.
This is so much more a plausible theory than: Complex life just sponteously Combusted into it's complex closed cirvo form.
Futhermore there is much more evidence for ID than evolution...Entropy alone puts evolution to shame.
Really? Could you explain this for us?
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!
Laugh all you want, Reep; you will be the last generation of your own family who ever believes in in an Egyptian history going back to 3000 BC; they won't even be teaching that in schools five years from now. This is the one area of Velikovsky's research which has pretty much found general acceptance amongst experts at this point.
But don't take my word for it. Do your own google searches on 'chronology' and 'revision', and see if what turns up is the one or two hits you'd expect if this was something two or three weirdos believed in.
For the lowdown on Chuck Darwin, stupidest white man of all time and his BS theory, and on the continuing efforts of feebs like Steve Gould and Niles Eldredge to keep the charade going for another generation:
I guess that if this prediction doesn't pan out:
1) You'll shut up and go away in five years (least likely), or
2) You'll say it was the mainstream science/history conspiracy that suppressed the truth, or (most likely)
3) You'll be posting the same spam with the same words, meaning the effective date of your claim slides into the future at the rate of one day per real day.
I'm making a note of this so that I can have a good chuckle at your expense June 8, 2007.
Paraphrase from Keith Preston
Whatever the date of it's inception (and I'm OK with approx. 3000 BC), both modern Archaeology and the Bible both place a well-established Dynastic Egypt long before 1000 BC.
It would appear Sweeney is a rather ambitious "debunker."
I'll be stealing that, thanks.
Would you please show in writing where I passed such a test. Either that or apologize.
If all you can do is shout "communist" at those you disagree, why should one pay attention.
Maybe it was partly the Bear Ale (thank you, Scotland), but that just made me laugh out loud!
I think that to a real philosopher, nothing is more important than a good belly laugh!
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