Posted on 02/20/2006 5:33:50 AM PST by ToryHeartland
Churches urged to back evolution By Paul Rincon BBC News science reporter, St Louis
US scientists have called on mainstream religious communities to help them fight policies that undermine the teaching of evolution.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) hit out at the "intelligent design" movement at its annual meeting in Missouri.
Teaching the idea threatens scientific literacy among schoolchildren, it said.
Its proponents argue life on Earth is too complex to have evolved on its own.
As the name suggests, intelligent design is a concept invoking the hand of a designer in nature.
It's time to recognise that science and religion should never be pitted against each other Gilbert Omenn AAAS president
There have been several attempts across the US by anti-evolutionists to get intelligent design taught in school science lessons.
At the meeting in St Louis, the AAAS issued a statement strongly condemning the moves.
"Such veiled attempts to wedge religion - actually just one kind of religion - into science classrooms is a disservice to students, parents, teachers and tax payers," said AAAS president Gilbert Omenn.
"It's time to recognise that science and religion should never be pitted against each other.
"They can and do co-exist in the context of most people's lives. Just not in science classrooms, lest we confuse our children."
'Who's kidding whom?'
Eugenie Scott, director of the National Center for Science Education, which campaigns to keep evolution in public schools, said those in mainstream religious communities needed to "step up to the plate" in order to prevent the issue being viewed as a battle between science and religion.
Some have already heeded the warning.
"The intelligent design movement belittles evolution. It makes God a designer - an engineer," said George Coyne, director of the Vatican Observatory.
"Intelligent design concentrates on a designer who they do not really identify - but who's kidding whom?"
Last year, a federal judge ruled in favour of 11 parents in Dover, Pennsylvania, who argued that Darwinian evolution must be taught as fact.
Dover school administrators had pushed for intelligent design to be inserted into science teaching. But the judge ruled this violated the constitution, which sets out a clear separation between religion and state.
Despite the ruling, more challenges are on the way.
Fourteen US states are considering bills that scientists say would restrict the teaching of evolution.
These include a legislative bill in Missouri which seeks to ensure that only science which can be proven by experiment is taught in schools.
I think if we look at where the empirical scientific evidence leads us, it leads us towards intelligent design Teacher Mark Gihring "The new strategy is to teach intelligent design without calling it intelligent design," biologist Kenneth Miller, of Brown University in Rhode Island, told the BBC News website.
Dr Miller, an expert witness in the Dover School case, added: "The advocates of intelligent design and creationism have tried to repackage their criticisms, saying they want to teach the evidence for evolution and the evidence against evolution."
However, Mark Gihring, a teacher from Missouri sympathetic to intelligent design, told the BBC: "I think if we look at where the empirical scientific evidence leads us, it leads us towards intelligent design.
"[Intelligent design] ultimately takes us back to why we're here and the value of life... if an individual doesn't have a reason for being, they might carry themselves in a way that is ultimately destructive for society."
Economic risk
The decentralised US education system ensures that intelligent design will remain an issue in the classroom regardless of the decision in the Dover case.
"I think as a legal strategy, intelligent design is dead. That does not mean intelligent design as a social movement is dead," said Ms Scott.
"This is an idea that has real legs and it's going to be around for a long time. It will, however, evolve."
Among the most high-profile champions of intelligent design is US President George W Bush, who has said schools should make students aware of the concept.
But Mr Omenn warned that teaching intelligent design will deprive students of a proper education, ultimately harming the US economy.
"At a time when fewer US students are heading into science, baby boomer scientists are retiring in growing numbers and international students are returning home to work, America can ill afford the time and tax-payer dollars debating the facts of evolution," he said. Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/sci/tech/4731360.stm
Published: 2006/02/20 10:54:16 GMT
© BBC MMVI
I don't recall a survey on this website. College graduates are somewhat more likely to be atheists than others, and that's true of scientists as well. But all the articles I've seen on this say that loads of scientists are religious. I don't recall any percentages; but I think it's well more than half. (I'm not speaking of people in the "social sciences" because they're mostly all commie whackjobs.)
As for the evolution ping list, now about 354 names, and virtually all pro-evolution, I think about a dozen or so have declared themselves to be atheists. Far more have said the opposite. The rest haven't said anything on the topic (it's really not relevant in a science thread, notwithstanding your example), so believe whatever you like about them.
Affirming a belief is the equivalent to a religious test. You can't affirm that you believe in a creator and that you believe in a total scientific explaination for the origion of life. Affirming that you believe in a completely scientific explaination for something that has no real scientific explaination only purpose is to weed out creationists. A creationist can not answer that question without disavowing his/her beliefs. Instead of defending your answer, you resort to name-calling.
>Well, as an Anglican (which presumably counts as a 'mainline' church), all I can offer here is to agree to disagree about this. But I take it your view confirms that the 'debate' around Darwin really isn't about the science, but about religion? I can understand that.
My comment is really related to the headline of your post: "Churches urged to back evolution." Churches shouldn't really be backing anything except the Bible and its principles. It may make "mainline" churches popular with the secular press and liberals to "back" evolution, gay rights, abortion, or a number of other issues that are not traditional Christian values, but invariably churches that do so will die, and fundamentalist churches (the ones that "back the Bible") will prosper.
I generally avoid discussions on FR about creation and evolution because it always degerates into what I call a "food fight." I consider myself a creationist, not for religious reasons, but for scientific ones.
Thanks for your posting, though I don't think the above bit is quite accurate. Darwin did not set out to reject the idea of creation (indeed, at one point, he was studying to be a clergyman), held conventional religious beliefs of his day throughout his 5-years as ship's naturalist on board HMS Beagle, and only formulated--reluctantly--his theory of speciation years later, when he came to evaluate the data he had gathered. Whether you agree with Darwin's interpretations or not, I don't think it can be held that Darwin set out to reach specific conclusions, he was following the evidence, at least as he best understood it. If anything, abandoning religious tenants he had held in youth was painful to him (not least because of the distress he feared it would give to his wife, Emma Wedgewood), though it may be relevant that the tragic loss of one of his daughters made him even more sceptical of a benevolent diety.
Janet Browne's biography of Darwin is a magnificent read, whatever views one may hold of Darwin's work.
Glad I'm not a Christian. Makes it easy for me to accept logic and reason.
Well, then, Thomas. Like I said, I am happy for you. It may have come from Aldous's grandfather being a part of the mix that sent me off penning "THOMAS" as everyone whom I quoted.
However your experiences may have been, I can assure you once again that I have not lied, nor misrepresented these people. They clearly stated that they "wanted" certain things to be true and one of them chose an ideology based on that desire, while the other had a personal motivation to make discoveries in the natural world which would render the supernatural unnecessary, if not ridiculous. They simply stated the usntated desire of many persons who "hope" that they can depend on reason alone to build a comprehensive construct of life.
I don't see much difference between that kind of faith and the religious kind....., except that one pretends it isn't faith, or just less so.
If you affirm a belief in a scientific explaination for the origin of life, you can not believe in a creator. They are two incapatible ideas. That is like making someone affirm a belief that the grass is purple, when it is really green. You are taking a position that the professor did not force the student to deny his belief that the grass is green, but in doing so he has, just not directly. You may disagree with me on a technicallity, but calling me a liar is an asine comment. But that is how these threads go. There is no room for any intelligent conversation.
So among the nation's top scientists, between 2/3 and 3/4 are atheistic by conventional definition; 15 - 20% are agnostic, and the rest are theists.
Excellent point; I'm not passing judgement on this, just keen to understand. I feel we are very much at a crossroads in the UK, have both hopes and fears about Mr. Cameron, and fond memories of the days of the Reagan/Thatcher alliance that did so much to better the world.
Because that is just what other men have told them.
Interesting.
I think it is clear what the intent of the professor was. The professor wanted no part of a creator in your beliefs of how humans originated. You can say 'wink, wink, he really did not ask them to disavow their beliefs', but it is clear to me what his intentions were. You can disagree, but the BS of people calling me a liar is outrageous.
Aldous Huxley, by the way, spent a large part of his life engaged in the study of mystical religions. He was in no way hostile to religion.
If you don't like being called a liar, I have a wonderfully effective solution.
The threat was clearly implied, whether you admit it or not. To ask for a student to provide the scientific explaination for the origin of humans is one thing. To ask a student to 'truthfully and forthrightly affirm a scientific answer' is repugnant and bigoted in my book. I see no different than forcing a student to truthfully and forthrightly affirm their worship of satan. It is a religous test, not a scientific one.
And I have a solution for you if you don't like being called a bigot.
On the other hand you have to understand that what you propose is not what this conflict is about. As far as most scientists are concerned you can teach in a theology/philosophy class whatever you want as long as you don't claim it is science.
But this is not what many creationsts are satisfied with. They want to pass off their theological opposition to evolution, geology, astronomy, radiology, etc. as equally valid as mainstream science.
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