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
Unless God then asked you why you wasted the brain he gave you; ignoring the the wonder of evolution that he created and set out for you to discovery in favor of near idolatry of a book written by men. Then your problem is probably greater.
But we're asking about the word, "affirm".
Using that site you linked to, the definition is,
af·firm (ə-fûrm')
v., -firmed, -firm·ing, -firms.
v.tr.
1. To declare positively or firmly; maintain to be true.
2. To support or uphold the validity of; confirm.
v.intr. Law.
To declare solemnly and formally but not under oath.
In fact, this is the exact same definition as the other links.
Nowhere in there does it say anything about 'affirm' means to take an oath . . .
Three of them.
You won't understand this . . . but . . . you can't understand this.
This line of argument never made any sense. If a person is an atheist, then that have no fear, let alone a deathly one, of God, because they believe his no more real than Cap't Crunch or Darth Vader. The atheist believes God is fictitious. Are you afraid of Mighty Mouse or Scarlett O'Hara? Why then would you believe the atheist has a deathly fear of God?
Actually, have you seen the new evidence suggesting that the 'Rig Veda' flood story may actually refer to the flooding from the end of the last ice age, ~9000 years ago?
"Underworld" is a fascinating book . . .
Author, please. You can't dangle something like that out in front of me and not give me the details, or at least the background.
Maybe the fella in question wanted an affirmation because he thought an anti-evolutionist might lie. Perish the thought! :-D
But you still have doubts...
According to certain interpretations of the Bible nothing died prior to Adam's sin. That means every fruit or veggie that Adam and Eve picked and ate STAYED ALIVE even after being digested.
I am not making this up.
There is not a shred of evidence that supports the queer notion of life out of nothing, and the fossil/geologic evidence clearly concurrs with the biblical description of the flood. More importantly, God's inerrant word clearly states that evolution did not happen, and the two are mutually exclusive.
Sure, if you view things in the "Protestant manner," (i.e., Baptist v. Calvinist v. Catholic v. Anglican v. Lutheran... etc., etc.) But if you view it in the "Catholic manner," (i.e., Catholic v. Protestants), then original post is correct, and Catholics are in the minority.
In the Jo Nuvark dictionary "affirm" means to bear witness as in agree with what has been attested.
It's a very excellent book, I'm amazed at the amount of research, evidence, etc he has in there. And he's very carful not to claim, "it's proven!"
I'm only 1/2 way thru the book. It's all about the melting at the end of the last ice age.
Right now I'm reading about India -- specifically, "Kumari Kandam", an 'atlantis' type lost civilization that was suppose to be south of India. And Hancock got maps of what the sea levels were 12000 to 9000 years ago, and sure enough, Sri Lanka was once connected, and they've already found ruins under the sea.
I'm a big fan of this kind of stuff, and I'm amazed I've never heard of it before.
It is interesting to me that evolutionists refuse to deal with the origin of information - and how new information required for the blueprints of life comes into existence. Even Richard Dawkins has absolutely no answer to these questions!
My stance is that this could be a symbolical story, and what is meant by death is actually spiritual death.
Your little "I am not making this up" quip is not well-received by me. The Protestants may be wrong on this one, but they are still much closer to the truth than you are.
:-D
I see.
Well, I'm having a hard time finding that anywhere else, I'm afraid.
So until I do, it'll remain that the definition of 'affirm' is to assert an affirmative, as all the dictionaries seem to say.
It's important, not only for the sake of obediance to the Lord, but also for the protection of true, objective, honest science that we resist the evolution propagandists who are destroying science, and morality, rapidly.
I'll see ya'll in the morning.
Especially Dawkins has no answers, since he depends on solely his own desires for answers.
Not all Protestants are the same, dude. So don't paint them all the same color.
You have faith in a book written by men --you are welcome to that belief. You don't know squat about what I believe so don't pretend you do so.
Evolution is simply not science.
There is not a shred of evidence that supports the queer notion of life out of nothing, and the fossil/geologic evidence clearly concurrs with the biblical description of the flood. More importantly, God's inerrant word clearly states that evolution did not happen, and the two are mutually exclusive.
If you choose to hold those that need recommendation letters hostage, so be it. It only shows what you are about - the need to control.
What's down goes up and what's up goes down. That includes students and professors. One day you may meet them and they just may repay the compliment. Life has ways of teaching those that are unteachable. What you sow, you reap.
It's probably the monkey brain doctors that are getting sued and/or loose their license. Although, there are many many good doctors. One being the highly acclaimed and sought after, Don Colbert, M.D.
BINGO!
From the sketchy research I've done on the Rig Veda, internal clues point to it being written in the Bronze Age (NLT 1200 BCE) in India. Other clues make the earliest it could possibly have been written about 1500 BCE.
Take your Bible-bashing elsewhere. You are not welcome.
"Life does not evolve from nothing."
Luckily, scientists have not said it does. :)
The existence of the world doesn't prove God's presence
God's presence where?
So you are God, and any disagreement with you is Bible Bashing?
Religion need not be specifically theistic to be religion.
The Bhagavad Gita is Hindu sacred texts. I was making the point that one should not be surprised that atheists promote ideas that aren't in keeping with Christianity any more than one should be surprised that a Protestant promotes ideas that aren't in keeping with Hinduism.
I wonder why all copies weren't lost in Noah's flood?
I will go to whatever thread interest's me.
What I want to know is, when exactly did a letter of recommendation become an entitlement?
I bet it was right after I graduated... (grumble grumble)
Science is limited. Accept it.
I believe the first written texts and alphabet were found at Ur of the Chaldeas. So it is possible that Moses wrote the Pentateuch.
FROM KARL RANDOLPH: Let’s go back to archeology: unless the reports I heard were wrong, the tablets at Ebla mentioned that there were two cities named Ur, one was Ur of the Sumerians and the other Ur of the Chaldeas. Two, the Bible (the only ancient document that records Abraham’s existance) states that he came from Ur of the Chaldeas. The conclusion I draw is that the Bible’s claim rules out that Abraham was from Sumeria.
So there were a lot of Semites who intermingled with the Sumerians? That doesn’t change the above equation, unless you can show that Ur of the Sumerians and Ur of the Chaldeas were one and the same city. Then how do you explain the Ebla reference? Karl W. Randolph. http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/b-hebrew/2005-May/023497.html
First Alphabet Found in Egypt Volume 53 Number 1, January/February 2000 by Elizabeth J. Himelfarb
Along an ancient road in Egypt's western desert at the Wadi el Hol (Gulch of Terror), Yale archaeologists John and Deborah Darnell have discovered two inscriptions representing the earliest-known phonetic alphabet. The script, which incorporates elements of earlier hieroglyphs and later Semitic characters, was carved into a natural limestone wall alongside hundreds of Egyptian inscriptions about 4,000 years ago.
Although a few glyphs look familiar to readers of semitic languages and ancient Egyptian, the alphabet has not yet been deciphered. "Within a couple seconds you realize it's pretty odd-looking," says John Darnell. http://www.archaeology.org/0001/newsbriefs/egypt.html
THE FOUR VEDAS... together represent ancient Hindu thought at its most beautiful and esoteric and belong to the period 1500 - 1000 BC. wwww.indiaheritage.com/religion/hindu/vedas.htm
VEDAS not old enough.
Separate sheep from goats
Actually, the bible, taken as a whole, is consistent with a flat-earth cosmology. This should be of no surprise, as this was the cosmology common in the Middle East at the time its authors wrote it. It is unsurprising that they had beliefs similar to their contemporaries and expressed that in their writings.
The Bible's references to the earth's four corners, its "foundations", about a tree so high that it could be seen from the furthest reaches of the Earth, a mountain so high that the ends of the earth could be seen by someone on the mountain, that the earth is fixed and immovable, that the heavens are a "vault" etc. are totally consistent with a flat earth cosmology. On the whole, they are inconsistent, without a great deal of interpretation and apologetics, with anything approaching the modern understanding.
Makes you wonder what they were reading when Galileo shocked them with the fact the earth was NOT flat.
Galileo's issue was professing belief in a heliocentric solar system, not a Earth roughly spherical in shape.
There is plenty of proof that meets scientific rigor of TTOE. Physical, empirical, observable proof. Or are the Red Shift, string theory, alterations to the Theory of Gravity which, surprise, is NOT what you see as a layperson, all scientists "guessing?"
Sorry, I still think both sides need to be presented, just not necessarily in the same class.
I have already said that religion can and should be taught in public school as theology or philosophy.
Knowledge can only grow when concepts are freely exchanged and discussed.
Allowing only ONE point of view is abhorrent to a People whose entire country is built around the ideals of Freedom
Agreed, so long as the topic at hand is subject to "viewpoints." Viewpoints about string theory may be subject to debate, but that debate is amongst scientists with the proper background and knowledge. Pastry Chefs (for example) with no scientific knowledge are not qualified to present a "viewpoint" on string theory even if they hold an opinion on it.
Evolution belongs with science, Creation with theology.
I think you are more in agreement than not with me.
Your best bet is to ignore these fallible mortals as I do and believe what God states.
Doubts? No. As an agnostic, I know for a fact that the question is unanswerable. So I don't worry about it.
No argument here.
(Also, you really should correct that gaping ignorance of yours. It does the conservative movement no good when conservatives display ignorance of an elementary fact of the world, such as the identity of the Bhagavad Gita.)
A truly splendid post! Thank you.
The Bible's references to the earth's four corners, its "foundations", about a tree so high that it could be seen from the furthest reaches of the Earth, a mountain so high that the ends of the earth could be seen by someone on the mountain, that the earth is fixed and immovable, that the heavens are a "vault" etc. are totally consistent with a flat earth cosmology.
BOOK AND VERSE PLEASE.
The Bible has proven conjecture to be fact more often than the reverse.
Humans ARE animals
Only to those who have been brainwashed by their professors. They make you 'beg' for a good grade or recommendation letters!
BTW, are you house trained or do you just run wild, as in your thinking.
I always took it to mean that our soul, you know, the eternal part of us, the real part of us, was the part of us made in God's image, not our gangly bodies.
So, no, the Bible does not predate the Vedas, no matter how much you'd like them to.
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