Wisconsin School OKs Creationism Teaching

If the religious right wasn't trying to ram their religion down our throats by renaming creationism to Intelligent Design and trying to slip it into our kid's science classes, I don't think there would be such sensitivity to the issue. In a non-advarsarial situation, a science teacher might spend a bit of class time discussing the differences between religion and science, and then put the class back on track to learning science, and tell the kids to ask the social studies teacher about religion in society.

It's unfortunate that the situation has become so advarsarial. But the blame falls squarly on the shoulders of those who are trying to insinuate their religion into public school.

YEP, IT IS BY THE CONSTANT PUSHING TO REFRAME THE CONSTITUTION THAT THE CREATTION/ID SIDE WILL GET JUST THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT THEY REALLY WANT.
I AGREE WITH ROSBORNE ABOUT TAKING TIME TO DISCUSS THE HISTORY OF THE SCIENCE, THE VARIOUS ORIGIN BELIEFS THROUGHOUT THE WORLD, AND THEN BACK TO SCIENCE , BUT WITH A MORE INCLUSIVE SPIRIT GIVEN TO FOUNDATION BELIEFS. BY DEMANDING THAT THE CONSTITUTION BE REFRAMED, IT FORCES THE SCIENTISTS TO BE MORE EXCLUSIVE IN HOW SCIENCE IS DEFINED, EMPLOYED, AND WHAT THEORIES ACTUALLY HOLD

IN THE US, ITS ACTUALLY AN EXTREMELY SMALL PROPORTION OF THE RELIGIONS THAT ARE PICKING THHIS FIGHT. MOST MAINSTREAM RELIGIONS ACTUALLY PREACH EVOLUTION AND , FOR EXAMPLE, THE CATHOLICS EMBRACE IT IN THEIR POST VATICAN II DOCTRINE. IVE POSTED A LINK ON THE ISTORY OF CREATIONISM IN THE US AND EUROPE. IF YOURE INTEERESTED, I CAN POST IT AGAIN (I DOWNLOADED IT TO A NOTEBOOK )

I'd be interested. I think one of the most refreshing things I'd seen was in London's Royal Kew Gardens, where there is a full building dedicated to Evolution... even called the Evolution House. When we first visited it a few years ago, the first thing both Mr.P & I said was... will we ever get public funds for something like this in the states again?

Farmerman wrote:



Hey, Farmerman - Help me out, here. If major religions (given that calling themselves "religions" presupposes belief in an Intelligent Creator) are espousing evolution, doesn't that mean that what they are endorsing is the concept of Intelligent Design?

I am sure farmerman can give you a better answer. Personally, though, I think the religious belief in creation or intelligent design does not need to be disguised as a science. Science restricts itself to the natural world. Religion is supposed to transcend the natural world. The people who are trying to push creationism as a science are actually doing a disservice to religion.

The average parent wants science to be taught as science and religion to be taught as religion.

Well, I'm sure you're answering something, but it certainly ain't what I asked. I'm not interested in stoking the already white-hot flames of the "creationism vs. evolution" drama, or the subplot "what are they doing to our kids?". In this particular debate, I think I actually lean more toward trying to find resolutions that are amenable to the majority of reasonable adults.

snood,

your original question was asked in the context of farmerman's assertion that mainstream religions are not endorsing creationism. creationism is a religious belief disguised as science. or did you think that farmerman was treating creationism as a religious idea only? i think his objection is that it is being wrongly pushed as a science.

Whatever. I think if Farmerman is allowed to speak for himself, we can probably clear things up nicely.

i am sorry if i interrupted your dialog with farmerman.

...and I'm sorry if that sounded snippish. I was just interested in his answer, since he brought up the Catholic Church and evolution.

Well put, wandeljw. Welcome to a2k and I hope you stick around.

You are right, pushing creationism is a disservice to religion. I am totally against teaching religious dogma in our schools and certainly not in our science classrooms -- they barely have enough time for science.

I wish, however, that the Bible was taught as literature along with other major religious texts. The least we could do is teach a comparative religions course. No education is complete without this knowledge.

This path our country has taken towards fundamentalism is to be discouraged in every way and especially in our classrooms.

Snood, I am sure Farmerman will come back, share his link as he offered and answer your question.

If you don't mind me stepping in... I can offer you a bit of history to mull on, while you're waiting.

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/vaticanview.html

SNOOD-SORRY ABOUT THE FLAMING, MY LAPTOP KEYBOARD HAS NOT BEEN REPAIRED AND MY MAIN COMPUTER IS GETTING SOME NEW STUFF ADDED.

FIRST--EVOLUTION IS PRESENTLY SILENT ABOUT ORIGINS OF LIFE. THERE ARE NUMEROUS HYPOTHESES BUT NOT A CONVINCING ARGUMENT OR THEORYTHAT STANDS UP . THERE IS MUCH WORK AND RESEARCH BEING DONE, BUT TTHEY ARE EASILY ARGUED AWAY.
THEREFORE CREATION IS A SUBJECT THAT , CORRECTLY DEFINED, CONSISTS ONLY OF THE VERY BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. THE CREATIONISTS AND INTEL DESIGNERS DONT OCCUPY A POSITION OF DISCUSSION BASED ON ANYTHING BUT THEIR RELIGIOUS POVS. THHEY ABHOR ANYTHING THAT COMES OUT OF SCIENCE BECAUSE THEY CLAIM IT IS CLOSED MINDED ABOUT RELIGIION , WHEN JUST THE OPPOSITE IS TRUE. THHE CREATIONISTTS HAVE THEIR MINDS ALREADY MADE UP BASED UPON FAULTY DATA. BY USING A BOOK , LIKE THE BIBLE, AS SCIENTIFIC DOCUMENTATION , IS JUST ILLOGICAL. WE KNOW, BY DATA , THAT THE VEERY ACCOUNT OF LIFE IN GENESIS IS ALL WRONG IN SEQUENCE AND IN PHYSICS.

THE MAINLINE RELIGIONS ENDORSE EVOLUTION (WITHOUT INTELLIGENT DESIGN) AS A MODE OF LIFES DVELOPMENT.AN EMINENT JESUIT PALEONTOLOGIST HAS SUMMARIZED THE VIEW , THAT SINCE ENVIRONMENTS HAD CHANGED SEVERELY IN THE PAST, AND AT LEAST 2 TIMES LIFE WAS ALMOST EXTINGUISHED, THE PROCESS OF ADAPTATION TO THE NEW ENVIRONMENTS WAS OPPORTUNISTIC AND SELECTIVE BASED ON EVOLUTTIONARY CULLING. iT WASNT A DESIGN PLAN. IF IT WERE , THEN THE ARGUMENT WOULD NEED TO INCLUDE THAT THE DESIGNER WAS CAUSING ALL THE ENVIRONMENTAL CATASTROPHIES WHICH SPURRED EVOLUTION.

THE MODEL FOR THE ORIGINS OF LIFE HAVE BEEN TRACED BY AN ARCHEAN ENVIRONMENTAL "FOSSIL RCORD" WE KNOW THHE SEQUENCE OF THE STARTUP OF LIFE AND IT CORRESPONDS , AGAIN, O MAJOR ENVIRONMENTAL OPPORTUNITIES.

AT PRESENT, EG WE CAN "CREATE" SELF REPLICATING MOLECULES AND BIO- MEMBRANES. WE HAVE CREATED PROTO CELLS. THE BIG JUMP IS HOW DID RNA/DNA BECOME THE PREDOMINANT MESSENGER AND WERE MITOCHONDRIA ORIGINALLY FREE LIVING CELLS THAT WERE ASSUMED BY PROKARYOTES?

IF YOU NOTICE MY POSTS, IVE NEVER DISCUSSED ORIGINS OF LIFE EXCEPT IN PASSING. WE HAVE NO REAL HARD DATA OTHERTHAN THE WORK OF RADIO- CHEM LABS AND A SPOTTY FOSSIL RECORD FROM A PROTO WORLD THAT GOES BACK TO ABOUT 3.8 BILLION YEARS. THHE PROGRESSION OF LIFE, FROM THAT POINT IS FASCINATING AND,LOGICAL. HOWEVER, EVERY BAZILLION MILLENIA OR SO, ONE OF THESE BIG EXTINCTIONS COMES UP AND WIPES OUT ENTIRE SPECIES LINES THAT I ALWAYS THOUGHT WERE ALREADY PRETTY WELL ADVNCED. THEN, FROM THE REMAINING ASHES OF LIFE COMES ENTIRELY NEW LINES.
RIGHT NOW THE BIG DISCUSSIONS ARE IN WHAT TRIGGERED THE 2 BIGGEST EXTINCTIONS, THE ORDOVICIAN AND THE REALLY BIG PERMIAN. PALEO CHEMISTRY SUGGESTS THAT IN THE PERMIAN END, A LOWERING OF OXYGN AND A PARALLEL INCREASE IN HYDROGN SULFIDE CAUSED ALMOST 90% EXTINCTIONS OF CLASSES OF ANIMALS. THIN K ABOUT THIS, IF THE PERMIAN EXTINCTION HAD NOT OCCURED, MAMMALS MAY NOT HAVE RISEN FROM TERASPID REPTILES, AND TODAYS WORLD MAY HAVE REQUIRED VERY DIFFERENT KEYBOARDS SO WE COULD SEND E-MAILS WITH OUR CLAWS.

IN REVIEW

TTO SCIINCE, CREATION IS DIFFERENT FROM EVOLUTION
SCIENCE IS STUDYING CREATION(ORIGINS OF LIFE), BUT THATS IN A DIFFERENT LAB
CREATIONISTS HAVE TRIED TO BIFURCATE EVOLUTION TO INCLUDE CREATION, SO FAR THHEY HAVENT SUCCEEDED TO MOST OF THE SCIIENCES
WHILE SCIENCE ONLY HAS IM PERFECT EXPLANATIONS, RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS HAVE NONE. (THEY DONT REQUIRE ANY EVIDENCE, JUST FAITH)
IF THE RELIGIOUS POV WERE BASED ON CREDIBLE EVIDENCE , WELL WE WOULD HAVE A WHOLE NOTHER DISCUSSION
ILL NEVER DENY YOUR POV AS VALID , ITS JUST NOT TIED TO ANY EVIDENCE
I CANNOT, IN GOOD CONSCIENCE TEACH THE RELIGIOUS POV IN SCIENCE BECAUSE , INSTEAD OF POINTING OUT 'FLAWS" OR "GAPS" IN
EVOLUTION, ID BE SHOOTING GIANT HOLES IN THHE CONCEPT OF INTELLIGENT DESIGN


THE CREATIONIST POSITION IS CLEARLY ONE THAT DOESNT USE EVIDENCE AND TAKES A POSITION WITHOUT DOING THE WORK. THATS SLOPPY SCIENCE. AS WE GET CLOSER TO THE ANSWR OF HOW LIFE BEGAN, WHO KNOWS WHAT WE WILL FIND. IVE BEEN FOLLOWING A NUMBER OF PAPERS ON PROTO PROTEINS THAT ARISE FROM THE SURFICIAL CHEMISTRY OF CLAYS WITH LONG CHAINED AMINO ACIDS.
IN SCIENCE , WE ASK FOR A HIGHER LEVEL OF PROOF THAN DOES RELIGION.

NOW, AS FAR AS YOUR ORIGINAL QUESTION, THE CATHOLIC CHURCH FULLY ACCEPTS EVOLUTION . tHEY CONSIDER THE PROCESS DEVINELY INSPIIRD AND SO IT IS TAUGHT IN THEIR OWN PAROCHIAL SCHOOLS.

God and Darwin

Monday, January 24, 2005; Page A14

Washington Post Editorial

WITH THEIR SLICK Web sites, pseudo-academic conferences and savvy public relations, the proponents of "intelligent design" -- a "theory" that challenges the validity of Darwinian evolution -- are far more sophisticated than the creationists of yore. Rather than attempt to prove that the world was created in six days, they operate simply by casting doubt on evolution, largely using the time-honored argument that intelligent life could not have come about by a random natural process and must have been the work of a single creator. They do no experiments and do not publish in recognized scientific journals. Nevertheless, this new generation of anti-evolutionists, arguing that children have a "right to question" scientific truths, has had widespread success in undermining evolutionary theory.

Perhaps partly as a result, a startling 55 percent of Americans -- and 67 percent of those who voted for President Bush -- do not, according to a recent CBS poll, believe in evolution at all. According to a recent Gallup poll, about a third of Americans believe that the Bible is literally true. Some of these believers have persuaded politicians, school boards and parents across the country to question their children's textbooks. In states as diverse as Wisconsin, South Carolina, Kansas, Montana, Arkansas and Mississippi, school boards are arguing over whether to include "intelligent design" in their curriculums. Last week, in Pennsylvania's Dover School District, an administrator read a statement to ninth-grade biology students saying that evolution is not fact. Over the objections of ninth-grade science teachers and of parents who have filed suit, he offered "intelligent design" as an alternative. Also last week, a Georgia county school board voted to appeal a judge's decision to remove stickers describing evolution as a "theory, not a fact" from school textbooks. In both cases, the anti-evolutionists have been very careful in their choice of language, eschewing mentions of God or the Bible. Nevertheless, their intent was clear. As the lawsuit filed by Dover parents states, "intelligent design is neither scientific nor a theory in the scientific sense; it is an inherently religious argument or assertion that falls outside the realm of science." Discussion of religion in a history or philosophy class is legitimate and appropriate. To teach intelligent design as science in public schools is a clear violation of the principle of separation of church and state.
It also violates principles of common sense. In fact, the breadth and extent of the anti-evolutionary movement that has spread almost unnoticed across the country should force American politicians to think twice about how their public expressions of religious belief are beginning to affect education and science. The deeply religious nature of the United States should not be allowed to stand in the way of the thirst for knowledge or the pursuit of science. Once it does, it won't be long before the American scientific community -- which already has trouble finding enough young Americans to fill its graduate schools -- ceases to lead the world.

An interesting recent article on this subject.
************************************
Unintelligent Design
By JIM HOLT
New.York Times Magazine, February 20, 2005

Recently a school district in rural Pennsylvania officially recognized a supposed alternative to Darwinism. In a one-minute statement read by
an administrator, ninth-grade biology students were told that evolution was not a fact and were encouraged to explore a different explanation
of life called intelligent design. What is intelligent design? Its proponents maintain that living creatures are just too intricate to have arisen by evolution. Throughout the natural world, they say, there is evidence of deliberate design. Is it not reasonable, then, to infer the existence of an intelligent designer? To evade the charge that
intelligent design is a religious theory -- creationism dressed up as science -- its advocates make no explicit claims about who or what this
designer might be. But students will presumably get the desired point.
As one Pennsylvania teacher observed: ''The first question they will ask is: 'Well, who's the designer? Do you mean God?'''

From a scientific perspective, one of the most frustrating things about intelligent design is that (unlike Darwinism) it is virtually impossible to test. Old-fashioned biblical creationism at least risked
making some hard factual claims -- that the earth was created before the sun, for example. Intelligent design, by contrast, leaves the
purposes of the designer wholly mysterious. Presumably any pattern of data in the natural world is consistent with his/her/its existence.

But if we can't infer anything about the design from the designer, maybe we can go the other way. What can we tell about the designer from the design? While there is much that is marvelous in nature, there is also much that is flawed, sloppy and downright bizarre. Some nonfunctional oddities, like the peacock's tail or the human male's nipples, might be attributed to a sense of whimsy on the part of the designer. Others just seem grossly inefficient. In mammals, for
instance, the recurrent laryngeal nerve does not go directly from the cranium to the larynx, the way any competent engineer would have arranged it. Instead, it extends down the neck to the chest, loops around a lung ligament and then runs back up the neck to the larynx. In a giraffe, that means a 20-foot length of nerve where 1 foot would have
done. If this is evidence of design, it would seem to be of the unintelligent variety.

Such disregard for economy can be found throughout the natural order. Perhaps 99 percent of the species that have existed have died out.
Darwinism has no problem with this, because random variation will inevitably produce both fit and unfit individuals. But what sort of designer would have fashioned creatures so out of sync with their environments that they were doomed to extinction?

The gravest imperfections in nature, though, are moral ones. Consider how humans and other animals are intermittently tortured by pain
throughout their lives, especially near the end. Our pain mechanism may have been designed to serve as a warning signal to protect our bodies from damage, but in the majority of diseases -- cancer, for instance, or coronary thrombosis -- the signal comes too late to do much good, and the horrible suffering that ensues is completely useless.

And why should the human reproductive system be so shoddily designed? Fewer than one-third of conceptions culminate in live births. The rest
end prematurely, either in early gestation or by miscarriage. Nature appears to be an avid abortionist, which ought to trouble Christians
who believe in both original sin and the doctrine that a human being equipped with a soul comes into existence at conception. Souls bearing
the stain of original sin, we are told, do not merit salvation. That is why, according to traditional theology, unbaptized babies have to languish in limbo for all eternity. Owing to faulty reproductive
design, it would seem that the population of limbo must be at least twice that of heaven and hell combined.

It is hard to avoid the inference that a designer responsible for such imperfections must have been lacking some divine trait -- benevolence or omnipotence or omniscience, or perhaps all three. But what if the designer did not style each species individually? What if he/she/it merely fashioned the primal cell and then let evolution produce the
rest, kinks and all? That is what the biologist and intelligent-design proponent Michael J. Behe has suggested. Behe says that the little protein machines in the cell are too sophisticated to have arisen by mutation -- an opinion that his scientific peers overwhelmingly do not share. Whether or not he is correct, his version of intelligent design
implies a curious sort of designer, one who seeded the earth with elaborately contrived protein structures and then absconded, leaving the rest to blind chance.

One beauty of Darwinism is the intellectual freedom it allows. As the arch-evolutionist Richard Dawkins has observed, ''Darwin made it
possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.'' But Darwinism permits you to be an intellectually fulfilled theist, too. That is why Pope John Paul II was comfortable declaring that evolution has been
''proven true'' and that ''truth cannot contradict truth.'' If God created the universe wholesale rather than retail -- endowing it from
the start with an evolutionary algorithm that progressively teased complexity out of chaos -- then imperfections in nature would be a
necessary part of a beautiful process.

Of course proponents of intelligent design are careful not to use the G-word, because, as they claim, theirs is not a religiously based
theory. So biology students can be forgiven for wondering whether the mysterious designer they're told about might not be the biblical God after all, but rather some very advanced yet mischievous or blundering intelligence -- extraterrestrial scientists, say. The important thing, as the Pennsylvania school administrator reminded them, is ''to keep an
open mind.''

In May, seven out of nine seats on the Dover, PA school board will be on the ballot. Dover has a new citizens group, Citizens Actively Reviewing Education Strategies, to support candidates that oppose the current board's decision to introduce "intelligent design" into science curriculum.

The real trend in the Georgia and Pennsylvania cases are that individuals are trying to force biology teachers to issue "evolution disclaimers". All scientific theories are theories. However, evolution is being unfairly singled out with disclaimers such as those in Georgia and Pennsylvania.

There's a thought, C.I. - God as a blundering inventor. <sigh>

If there is a God and he did indeed create what we are. I am convinced that along with that creation he gave us the free will to make of it what we will.I wonder if he is satisfied with his experiment.

Battle on Teaching Evolution Sharpens

By Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 14, 2005; Page A01



WICHITA – Propelled by a polished strategy crafted by activists on America's political right, a battle is intensifying across the nation over how students are taught about the origins of life. Policymakers in 19 states are weighing proposals that question the science of evolution.

The proposals typically stop short of overturning evolution or introducing biblical accounts. Instead, they are calculated pleas to teach what advocates consider gaps in long-accepted Darwinian theory, with many relying on the idea of intelligent design, which posits the central role of a creator.
The growing trend has alarmed scientists and educators who consider it a masked effort to replace science with theology. But 80 years after the Scopes "monkey" trial -- in which a Tennessee man was prosecuted for violating state law by teaching evolution -- it is the anti-evolutionary scientists and Christian activists who say they are the ones being persecuted, by a liberal establishment.

They are acting now because they feel emboldened by the country's conservative currents and by President Bush, who angered many scientists and teachers by declaring that the jury is still out on evolution. Sharing strong convictions, deep pockets and impressive political credentials -- if not always the same goals -- the activists are building a sizable network


"Continued"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32444-2005Mar13.html?referrer=email

Bush said this? I wonder who he was pandering to at the time.