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
Welcome Tory, Glad you are posting now.
Science and religion are not in conflict.
Intelligent Design or as Grandma called it "Divine Design"
was never meant to be taught as science, but as theology.
We all knew what she meant and believed it and knew it to be true.
Denying the theory of evolution doesn't make it any less true, just as denying God's divine plan doesn't make it any less true.
And, as Grandma always said "God can do evolution,He can do anything"
Very well said, thank you.
I don't see anything controversial here. My daughters, who are Biblically literate (for their ages) are taught Darwin at a Church School and will determine their own beliefs as they grow. What's controversial here?
"Most scientists are liberals who support our opponents"
I have to respectfully disagree. We have many friends and family members who are scientists and they are deeply religious Christians. There is no conflict. The more evolved the scientist, the more likely they are to have strong faith.
Pure desperation.
My wife is a research biologist -- and also the one in the family most apt to pull the rest of us to Church of a Sunday. We don't find any conflict in this, either. But each to his own...
You have mail.
The tower of Babel came AFTER the flood.
It's amazing how LANGUAGE 'evolves', isn't it!
Kinda works into the poetic/literal thingy; eh?
You have been warned before.
Knock off the name-calling and ad hominem attacks.
Don't align yourself with "compartmentalizers" like that (false) virtue's paragon and acme -- William Jefferson Blythe Cinton.
You overlooked my reply to another objecter.
As I said, I was just supplying a list of lines of argument that might be used. They don't reflect my personal beliefs in this matter.
That has to be the stupidest post I have read in the 6 years I have been here.
Congratulations.
Just LOOK what comes along later!
NIV Revelation 21:9-27
9. One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me, "Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb."
10. And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.
11. It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal.
12. It had a great, high wall with twelve gates, and with twelve angels at the gates. On the gates were written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel.
13. There were three gates on the east, three on the north, three on the south and three on the west.
14. The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
15. The angel who talked with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city, its gates and its walls.
16. The city was laid out like a square, as long as it was wide. He measured the city with the rod and found it to be 12,000 stadia in length, and as wide and high as it is long.
17. He measured its wall and it was 144 cubits thick, by man's measurement, which the angel was using.
18. The wall was made of jasper, and the city of pure gold, as pure as glass.
19. The foundations of the city walls were decorated with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third chalcedony, the fourth emerald,
20. the fifth sardonyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, and the twelfth amethyst.
21. The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of pure gold, like transparent glass.
22. I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.
23. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.
24. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it.
25. On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there.
26. The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it.
27. Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life.
NIV Revelation 22:1-5
2. down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.
3. No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him.
4. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.
5. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.
There is something logically wrong with this sentence, but I can't figure out what.
An electrician who thinks electricity is white magic usually results in blue smoke ...
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