Keep Darwin's 'lies' out of Polish schools: education official

AFP via Yahoo! News ^ | October 14, 2006

[lizol]

Keep Darwin's 'lies' out of Polish schools: education official 2 hours.

WARSAW (AFP) - Poland's deputy education minister called for the influential evolutionary theories of Charles Darwin not to be taught in the country's schools, branding them "lies."

"The theory of evolution is a lie, an error that we have legalised as a common truth," Miroslaw Orzechowski, the deputy minister in the country's right-wing coalition government, was quoted as saying by the Gazeta Wyborcza daily Saturday.

Orzechowski said the theory was "a feeble idea of an aged non-believer," who had come up with it "perhaps because he was a vegetarian and lacked fire inside him."

The evolution theory of the 19th-century British naturalist holds that existing animals and plants are the result of natural selection which eliminated inferior species gradually over time. This conflicts with the "creationist" theory that God created all life on the planet in a finite number.

Orzechowski called for a debate on whether Darwin's theory should be taught in schools.

"We should not teach lies, just as we should not teach bad instead of good, or ugliness instead of beauty," he said. "We are not going to withdraw (Darwin's theory) from the school books, but we should start to discuss it."

The deputy minister is a member of a Catholic far-right political group, the League of Polish Families. The league's head, Roman Giertych, is education minister in the conservative coalition government of Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski.

Giertych's father Maciej, who represents the league in the European Parliament, organised a discussion there last week on Darwinism. He described the theory as "not supported by proof" and called for it be removed from school books.

The far-right joined the government in May when Kaczynski's ruling conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, after months of ineffective minority government, formed a coalition including LPR and the populist Sambroon party.

Roman Giertych has not spoken out on Darwinism, but the far-right politician's stance on other issues has stirred protest in Poland since he joined the government.

A school pupils' association was expected to demonstrate in front of the education ministry on Saturday to call for his resignation.

[dread78645]

RPN placemark

[Jaguarbhzrd]

Ahh, I see, so you are changing the definition of the hypothesis of ID in order to fit your worldviews.

Not what I would call scientific, and thank goodness, is not something that evolution does.

Then again, evolution is scientific, ID, and your socalled ID is not.

[Jaguarbhzrd]

Cover those ears NMH, cover those eyes NMH, and most of all cover the mouths of those Evil scientists that actually understand evolution, because you don't wish to.

It does not fit into your worldview, and therefore, it must be wrong.

Sorry, science does not work that way, then again, you probably already know that, which is why you do your best to pervert it into something that it is not.

Enjoy yourself, but you are not going to make evolution wrong, by holding your breath until you turn blue, or having little hissy fits and claiming that it is impossible.

Your personal feelings have nothing to do with the scientific evidence.

[StevieJ]

Christianity gave rise to the greatest civilization of all times and all that is known in science.

Wow. To dismiss in a single sentence the immense body of scientific work carried out before zero AD by the Romans, Greeks, Egyptians and Chinese (amongst others) is breathtaking in its ignorance.

Please tell me you forgot the sarcasm tag.

[Da_Shrimp]

Not to mention that modern science only REALLY got going after the power of the Church was much reduced by the Reformation...

[sirchtruth]

Of course, there is also the DNA evidence, but you probably won't accept that either.

No, I will accept it if you can you point out the last significant "change" and about when it occured in man?

[A. Pole]

"The falsehood of Darwinism is the claim that the universe is a dead purposeless machine ruled by chance."

Do you care to point out the passage where Darwin claims "that the universe is a dead purposeless machine ruled by chance?" I've read him extensively, and never have I run accross such a passage.

I do not mean actual Darwin. I mean "Darwinism" as it is being propagated today.

[A. Pole]

Do you care to point out the passage where Darwin claims "that the universe is a dead purposeless machine ruled by chance?" I've read him extensively, and never have I run accross such a passage.

And I have a question to you. Do you reject then the view "that the universe is a dead purposeless machine ruled by chance"? If you do, please explain, maybe we can come to agreement.

[GarySpFc]

Interesting, since some of the major backers of the intelligent design types at the Discovery Institute, such as Jonathan Wells, are in fact Moonies, i.e., followers of the Rev. Moon. Who has announced himself as the Messiah.
The Moonie backing of ID is one reason why the ID propaganda has not gained acceptance in most Christian churches.

Name one Moonie in addition to Jonathan Wells at the Discovery Institute or admit you told a bald-faced lie?

[Tribune7]

after the power of the Church was much reduced by the Reformation...

And did you know that the Reformation was the time of the wtich burnings?

Anyway, the history of European science.

[antiRepublicrat]

Still do. Obviously they possess a capacity to doubt

Scientific doubt is fine, it's one way science (including ToE) advances. This guy has a religious-based foregone conclusion.

[antiRepublicrat]

What makes you think pitching Darwin out the window depreciates their science education?

Because it is the current state of science in that area. Replace it with something else if you want to, but replace it with a real scientific theory that is better and more tested than ToE.

[antiRepublicrat]

There are hundreds of theories taught in the typical biology textbook and curricula, the vast majority of which are taught entirely "matter of factly" and aren't even identified as "theories".

Forget Evolution. I was taught Newton as "matter of factly," then I was taught Relativity the same way, and Newton was full of holes. Now I'm finding that Quantum Theory is doing the same to Relativity.

Newton was "dogma" far more than ToE ever was, and science accepted other theories filling in where it was wrong. The same will happen to ToE -- if a better scientific explanation comes along.

[antiRepublicrat]

The fossil record does not offer an observed instance of man evolving from another species. It offers samples from which, by observation, we may reasonably infer as much.

Police forensic science is useless by that logic. The police don't observe that a guy was murdered, they just take samples from which, by observation, we may reasonably infer as much.

[Coyoteman]

Since you and your evolutionist comrades make the assertion that man is descendant from apes, about you and your friends giving us all the evidence for once?

You can't because there is none.

All the evidence? Do you know how many floors of library shelves that would take? And how many museum basements?

But it wouldn't matter anyway. You and your anti-science comrades would deny it all no matter what.

But, here is one piece of evidence for you. Deny away:

---

Herto skulls (Homo sapiens idaltu)

Some new fossils from Herto in Ethiopia, are the oldest known modern human fossils, at 160,000 yrs. The discoverers have assigned them to a new subspecies, Homo sapiens idaltu, and say that they are anatomically and chronologically intermediate between older archaic humans and more recent fully modern humans. Their age and anatomy is cited as strong evidence for the emergence of modern humans from Africa, and against the multiregional theory which argues that modern humans evolved in many places around the world.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/herto.html

[4CJ]

Actually, what's amazing is how often the anti-evolutionists make up false slanders like this in order to accuse "the evos" of things they've never said.

The false assumption is that you live in a closed universe (FreeRepublic) and have read every single post. Neither is true, and I can hear derogatory comments from evos every day apart from FreeRepublic.

If you had any honor, you'd retract that false accusation and apologize. Are you mature enough to do so?

If I was guilty of anything, I 'd certainly be man enough to apologize. Not everyone that refuses to accept the ToE as scientific FACT is a brain-dead moron. Given a choice between a theory based on a plethora of assumptions or believing the man in God's account, I'll choose what He said. He also commands us not to lie. The question is, are YOU man enough to apologize. On this same thread see

#11: Now it seems Poland is slipping into fundamentalism and anti-scientific paranoia.

#15: It isn't. These are just few idiots.

#17: The education minister is part of a fringe fundamentalist party, ... whose primary following is in the poor, rural parts of Poland. ... Unfortunately, head of the current governing coalition could not form a majority without bringing in these freaks.

#29: [Y]ou might actually learn some real science before this day is out

#57: Yes, dumbing down a whole country is certainly the path to riches.

#65: Good thing they now will know that angels hold airplanes aloft and that using this "science" thing is evil EVIL, I tell you.

#85: Don't forget the tower of Babel story. (How high can you build using dried mud?) [The Biblical account states '[L]et us make bricks and fire them thoroughly']

#124: In science they will be behind 50-100 years, just on step ahead of us (since their anti-science infection didn't start as early as ours).

#192: No, I'm lashing out against stupid fundamentalists.

I'll wait for YOUR apology.

I repeat my question from an earlier post: Why are anti-evolutionists such shameless liars?

Logically, the lie you accused me of has been thoroughly disproven, making my statement factual.

[Coyoteman]

If we are descendant from apes, how come apes are still around?

About 6 million years ago the forests of Africa were shrinking. After a while there probably were too many apes for the resources. Some, probably the less capable got squeezed to the edges of the forest, the low-rent real estate.

They had to figure out how to make a living on the edges of the savanna, while the top dogs were still living high on the hog in the forests. Pretty soon, the two groups diverged, one adapting to the new environments they had been forced into, the other still living in the forests and changing little.

Over time the savanna group evolved into a different species, then into a different genus. The forest group changed little.

That is why there are still apes.

It is the same answer for many Americans, those of European descent. You could ask, Why are there still Europeans? But that would be pretty silly, right?

[dread78645]

"Why are there still Jews" placemark

[Fester Chugabrew]

Police forensic science is useless by that logic.

No, it is not "useless." It is not an exact science either. Police, witnesses, juries, and all can be fooled precisely because they enjoy neither direct observation of the events of which they treat nor direct insight into the motives of the accused.

Nevertheless I trust police forensic science which treats of a narrow line of questioning far more than I trust the typical evolutionist who accepts a tale regarding a 4.5 billion history of unobserved events and then goes on to invoke the law of the land to support his story exclusively as "science."

[Fester Chugabrew]

You have a big time logical inconsistency here.

No. It is you who persist in a logical inconsistency. You say that science cannot investigate the supernatural when science cannot even define it in the first place. How is science capable of determining what is or is not supernatural without indulging purely subjective semantics? Are you scientifically certain the Law of Gravity is not supernatural? On what basis do you draw this conclusion? Merely because we "understand" it (which we do not understand anyway in regard to its ultimate cause)?

You tell me, if it is possible, how science can decide objectively what is or is not supernatural. So far no evolutionist has been forthcoming without indulging a tautology. "Supernatural is whatever is not natural." Yeah. Right.