Posted on 10/24/2006 10:55:25 AM PDT by lizol
Neanderthal man walks among us, Poland's far-right says by Jean-Luc Testault
Mon Oct 23, 11:22 AM ET
WARSAW (AFP) - Poland's far-right League of Polish Families (LPR), which is part of the coalition government, claims Darwin's theory of evolution is all wrong, that humans lived alongside dinosaurs and that Neanderthal man is still among us.
Last week, Poland's deputy education minister Miroslaw Orzechowski, a member of the LPR, bluntly rejected British naturalist Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection and his postulate that man is descended from apes.
"The theory of evolution is a lie, a mistake that we have legalised as a common truth," said Orzechowski.
"We must not teach lies, just as we must not teach evil in the place of good and ugliness in the place of beauty."
This weekend, Orzechowski was given some high-level support when European lawmaker for the far-right party, Maciej Giertych -- the father of LPR leader Roman Giertych -- told a seminar that Neanderthal man still roams the planet, notably in the United States where examples can be spotted in a boxing ring.
"A scientist showed me a picture of an American boxer. He had all the traits of Neanderthal man. These people are among us. They are part of the human race, probably more prevalent once upon a time, but who still exist," Giertych, who has a doctorate in biology, told the seminar.
Taking up the mantra of creationists -- who have a strong following among Christian fundamentalists in the United States, but whose theory that God created all living creatures at the same time has not won a huge following in Europe -- Giertych also propounded that man and dinosaurs roamed the earth together.
"Research shows that dinosaurs and man were contemporaries. In every culture, there are indications that we remember (dinosaurs). The Scots have Loch Ness, we Poles have Wawel dragon (in Krakow), Marco Polo spoke of an imperial carriage in China which was pulled by a dragon," Giertych said.
Giertych's son Roman, currently Poland's education ministry, insisted, however, that such anti-Darwinist outlooks would not impact on the school curriculum.
"The status of the theory of evolution will not change in Polish schools," he said Monday in a radio interview.
But he held back from condemning those who have criticised Darwin.
Meanwhile, teachers appear to fear there could be a backlash, with only those who toe the creationist line making it through the selection process in Poland's education system.
Centre-left daily Gazeta Wyborcza reported last week that a high school in the central city of Lodz had removed posters showing the evolution of man from the australopithec to homo sapiens.
Teachers' fears are understandable as LPR has been trying, since it joined the three-way coalition government in May, to stamp its ideology on Poland's education system.
In June, the head of a teacher training school in Poland was fired for publishing the Polish language version of a Council of Europe brochure that the education ministry said encourages contact between pupils and gay groups.
Under Giertych, the education ministry has also tried to take the works of Polish 20th century writer Witold Gombrowicz off the curriculum in Polish high schools, arguing that he was not patriotic enough.
To counter the LPR's anti-Darwin message, Poles have turned to the late pope John Paul II, who in a speech to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 1996 said: "Truth cannot contradict truth."
"Today, almost half a century after the publication of the Humani Generis encyclical (in 1950 by Pius XII), new knowledge has led to the recognition of the theory of evolution as more than a hypothesis," John Paul II said.
"It is remarkable that this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers, following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge. The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favor of this theory," the pope said.
It's not, in any literal or figurative sense, "refreshing" to science if they do so without original research results, perspicuous and valid criticism, or a coherent and substantive alternative theory with prospect of being the basis for productive research. And unfortunately the current crop of evolution critics bring none of the above. Therefore their contributions -- being focused almost entirely on popular and political controversialism -- are the very opposite of "refreshing".
- the fox is guarding the henhouse again - I wouldn't trust a darwinist to give me facts about darwinism
- in Science vol. 277 July 11, 1997, pp. 176-178. The method used to extract the DNA (on Neanderthals) was the polymerase chain reaction, which on old and damaged DNA is highly error prone.
- I repeat "highly error prone" coyote, but this is no problem for you, since all proofs for darwinism are highly error prone.
Son, I am afraid you have missed some of the details in this process.
PCR, or polymerase chain reaction, earned its inventor a share of the Nobel Prize. Kary Mullis shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Michael Smith in 1993 for this discovery. They don't give Nobel Prizes for junk science.
As Mullis has written in the Scientific American: "Beginning with a single molecule of the genetic material DNA, the PCR can generate 100 billion similar molecules in an afternoon. The reaction is easy to execute. It requires no more than a test tube, a few simple reagents, and a source of heat." Source.
You may not "trust a darwinist to give me facts about darwinism" but you are arguing against 99+% of the world's scientists. (Hint: don't bet the rent money.)
Do you really think the scientists who sequenced the Neanderthal mtDNA just took the first data that popped out? Don't you think they checked it a few dozen times?
Are you aware that DNA labs keep the sequences of their staff on file, so that they can detect contamination?
It really would make for a better argument if you knew what you were arguing about. This is pretty well established science. The details are all over the internet, just waiting for somebody to look and learn.
But I think you have decided that your religious belief supersedes scientific discovery, and you have no inclination to actually learn something. Quote mining is just as good and takes a lot less time.
Fine. But don't confuse your religious belief with scientific evidence.
By the way, you neglected to cite the source for your quote, above,
Its from a creationist website. As such, I would not trust it without confirming the quote against the original article. Creationists have a bad habit of quote mining, and sometimes changing the meaning of quotes by 180 degrees--if it will produce results that they can agree with....in Science vol. 277 July 11, 1997, pp. 176-178. The method used to extract the DNA (on Neanderthals) was the polymerase chain reaction, which on old and damaged DNA is highly error prone
This is dishonest, and its not science. Its apologetics.
And you know that how? Oh, I see, from the ever credible MSM, that we all spit on every day here. (Or excuse me, are you a defender of the MSM?My sincere apologies, but the line you spout just concidentally mirrors the leftist propaganda lies of the American MSM.) Having a cake and eating it too?
Oh... I don't know, maybe GROWING UP under successive European dictatorships? That might have colored my perspective, just a little bit.
or excuse me, are you a defender of the MSM?
You sir are delusional.
Ah yes, those nasty right-wing dictatorships! Franco, Salazar, whatsisname. Sorry about that. No, really. Was it Greece, Portugal, Spain? Oh, never mind, your private business. Nationalism bad, Internationalism, good.
Standard (American) Creationism currently suggests that Neanderthals were people who obeyed the order to spread out after the Flood, and while fully human, were somewhat distinct from the rest of humanity that lives today (and whose ancestors were pressured to spread out after Babel).
Macroevolutionists tend to overlook that fact--that Neanderthal's cranium was bigger than modern humans.
Cinematic magic...on the small screen.
Here's your Neanderthal girl.
And don't try to pin down Creationism as being racist, it is clearly stated that all mankind are descended from one man (twice, Adam and more recently Noah), and that mankind is of one blood, and that there is neither Jew nor Greek, etc. In contrast, Macroevolution states that mankind has been separated for many thousands of years (according to them, homo sapiens--used to be homo sapiens sapiens) is some 200,000 years old?) during which evolution is still occuring, including evolution of the brain. It brings the rules of natural selection from the animal, plant, protist, fungi, and bacteria kingdoms (etc.) and tries to apply it to humans, too, even today, after the explicit term Social Darwinism is shunned.
And you're supposed to ping people you mention, especially when it is criticism of them.
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