Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

I can't see what flaggelum and blood clotting has to do with this debate, nor variations on creation mythologies. There's billions of the former to look at and thousands of the latter.

Society fights battle royal over creationism, global warming
(By Tom Hundley, Chicago Tribune, November 14, 2006)

LONDON - When Christopher Wren, Robert Boyle and other deep thinkers of the day founded the Royal Society in 1660, "science" as a field of knowledge did not yet exist. So they called their new organization the Royal Society of London for Improving of Natural Knowledge.

The idea, according to Stephen Cox, the Society's current executive secretary, was "to replace unsound thinking about the world with knowledge based on observation and experimentation."

The Royal Society quickly became the embodiment of the Enlightenment, and over the centuries its greatest minds - from Newton and Darwin in the 18th and 19th centuries to Crick and Watson in the 20th - have profoundly changed the way we look at the world.

These days, the Society occupies a row of stately mansions overlooking London's St. James' Park. The buildings once housed the Prussian Legation and later became the Third Reich's embassy.

The society's library is open to the public, but the best stuff is stashed away in the basement archives: Newton's telescope, his death mask, a lock of his hair and some wooden rulers supposedly made from the apple tree that provided Newton with his eureka moment.

The Royal Society can still boast of being on science's cutting edge, but in recent months it has found itself fighting an unexpected rear-guard battle against what is considers "unsound thinking" and bad science - most notably on the part of big oil companies that dispute climate change, and proponents of creationism and intelligent design who question Darwin's theory of evolution.

Given Darwin's close historical ties with the Royal Society, it is easy to understand why the organization feels compelled to come to his defense.

"Darwin's contribution to the way we see the world is one of history's great steps forward," said Cox, a former diplomat who described intelligent design, which holds that living creatures must be the work of an intelligent designer (i.e., a Creator), as a "movement," not a science.

"It has to be contested because it just cannot be sustained by the evidence we have about the world," said Cox.

Earlier this year, at a lecture sponsored by the Royal Society, Steve Jones, the British geneticist, noted that more than half of all Americans, including President Bush, believe in some from of creationism, and that creationism was "beginning to find a significant toehold in the UK."

Jones called this a "step back from rationality." As in the U.S., main proponents of creationism are religious fundamentalists. In Britain's case, however, the fundamentalists tend to be Muslims rather than Christians.

Earlier this year, Muslim medical students at one London university caused a stir when they distributed leaflets challenging Darwin's theory and citing a verse from the Quran that says God created every animal from water.

Last November, Robert May, a zoologist, physicist and mathematician, used his valedictory address as the Royal Society's outgoing president to warn that the core values of science were "under serious threat from resurgent fundamentalism, West and East."

"The really sad thing," May said, "is that none of these fundamentalist beliefs are grounded on, or representative of, the mainstream religions they profess to serve. Fundamentalist Christianity is widely considered as irrelevant to modern theology as it is to modern science. The extremist views and acts of fundamentalist Islam find little sanction in the Quran."

The Royal Society has lately become embroiled in a public dispute with Exxon Mobil over the oil giant's funding of various organizations that attempt to cast doubt on the science of climate change.

Environmental groups have long complained that Exxon Mobil lags its competitors in investing in alternative energy development while channeling millions into "think tanks" and "experts" who claim global warming is a myth.

At a meeting with the Royal Society in July, Exxon Mobil officials said it would stop funding these activities.

But in a letter to Exxon Mobil a few weeks ago, the Society asked when the corporation planned to carry out its pledge. It also asked for a list of the organizations that have been receiving funding so that it could "work out which of these have been similarly providing inaccurate and misleading information to the public."

"To which they have never replied," said Cox.

Refer back to page one and the title of this thread. Its "dealers option"

Jones called this a "step back from rationality."

Could anybody advise me of the population count in the USA for 'Native Americans' ie the 'Red Indian?'

Head of class a real possibility
(By Chris Moon, The Topeka Capital-Journal, November 15, 2006)

Topeka's Bill Wagnon appears poised to jump from the vocal minority to the bearer of the gavel on the Kansas State Board of Education.
The 10-year veteran of the state school board is expected to be elected chairman of the panel when its new six-member moderate majority takes control in January.

"I would like to be chairman," Wagnon said before Tuesday's board meeting, one of the last under conservative leadership. "I've got 10 years' experience of working toward the improvement of schools."

The 2006 election cycle was tough on the board's conservative majority as it struggled to overcome a backlash from moderate and liberals against decisions to include criticism of evolution in the state's science standards and hire a nontraditional state education commissioner.

During the Republican primary election, the conservatives' 6-4 majority on the board flipped to a 6-4 moderate majority.

Moderate control of the panel virtually is guaranteed to undo the science changes and end the short-lived education department career of Bob Corkins. The education commissioner is expected to be fired -- if he doesn't resign first -- during the first meeting of the new board in January, or possibly soon after.

But the first step for the board in January is to elect a chairman who will hold sway over the board's agenda and control the timetable for the undoing of conservative initiatives.

Conservative Steve Abrams, R-Arkansas City, has served as chairman for the past two years.

But Democrat Janet Waugh, a member of the new moderate majority, said she would nominate Wagnon, who appears to be the only moderate to be interested in the job.

"Bill's got a lot of experience and a lot of background on the board," said Waugh, of Kansas City. "He's been on the majority, the minority and on the board when it's been split. His background will serve him well."

Wagnon was first elected to the board in 1996 and re-elected in 2000 and 2004. He already has said he won't seek re-election in 2008.

A Washburn University history professor, Wagnon never has served as chairman of the board, but during the past two years he has been one of the most vocal members of the board's moderate minority.

Like if youre driving at the speed of light and you turn on your headlights, does anything happen?

Y'all come........hint hint, Spendi, Wande, Farmerman and all......

The 2006 election cycle was tough on the board's conservative majority as it struggled to overcome a backlash from moderate and liberals against decisions to include criticism of evolution in the state's science standards and hire a nontraditional state education commissioner.