| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"" |
| Date: |
30 Mar 2005 11:33:51 PM |
| Object: |
FYI: Biologists snub 'kangaroo court' for Darwin |
This week in Nature:
http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v434/n7033/full/434550a_fs.html
(may require subscription)
Biologists snub 'kangaroo court' for Darwin
GEOFF BRUMFIEL
Kansas scientists protest revisions to how evolution is taught.
[WASHINGTON] Kansas biologists are set to boycott upcoming board of
education hearings on the future of science teaching in the state.
The researchers contend that the hearings are being set up to serve as a
thinly veiled showcase for 'intelligent design' — the theory that a god
shaped the course of evolution.
Over six days in early May, the board hopes to hear arguments from
proponents of intelligent design and scientists about whether there is
evidence for the intervention of a deity in the process of evolution.
"We view this hearing as an opportunity to educate the committee and the
public," says Steve Abrams, a veterinarian in Arkansas City and chairman
of the board of education. The hearings are part of a review of the
state's science curriculum.
But so far, no evolutionary biologists have agreed to participate in the
hearings. They say that the board has already decided to include
language that is friendly to intelligent design in the new science
standards. "We will not participate in their kangaroo court," says Harry
McDonald, president of Kansas Citizens for Science. "We will lose and
the creationists will win if we lend our credibility to these hearings,"
he adds.
Kansas Citizens for Science is a group of pro-evolution researchers and
science teachers that successfully opposed a 1999 drive to drop the
teaching of evolution in the state (see Nature 400, 701; 1999). The
attempt outraged researchers and embarrassed state officials; in 2001 a
newly elected school board voted to reaffirm the requirement to teach
Darwin's theory.
But last November, conservatives regained a majority on the board, and
are again considering revisions to the way evolution is taught. This
time, however, the changes are more subtle. The revised plans were drawn
up by a minority group on a 25-member panel that was appointed last June
to write a science curriculum for Kansas.
The plan will introduce a definition of science that includes the
possibility of the supernatural, and will point out several "weaknesses"
of macroevolutionary theory, such as gaps in the fossil record, says
John Calvert, managing director of the Intelligent Design Network based
in Shawnee, Kansas. "The idea is simply to open up the discussion of
evolution," he says.
[[Me wonders if this plan will point out any "weaknesses" of ID or the
"supernatural", like the absence of any observable evidence.]]
Abrams says the purpose of the hearings is to help educate board members
about the proposed changes. But McDonald maintains that board members
are not interested in hearing researchers' opinions. "They're just doing
this as a political smokescreen," he says.
The Kansas case comes amid a wave of efforts by religious conservatives
to limit the teaching of evolution nationwide. In October last year a
school board in Dover, Pennsylvania, passed a policy requiring teachers
to describe evolution as "not a fact". Other states, such as Alabama,
are now revising their science standards to diminish the role of evolution.
McDonald says that Kansas Citizens for Science is planning a response to
the May hearings. The board of education will decide on a final set of
standards in June.
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| User: "satyr" |
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| Title: Re: FYI: Biologists snub 'kangaroo court' for Darwin |
31 Mar 2005 06:25:08 AM |
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On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 18:33:51 -0500, "j.m.1491@gmx.net"
<j.m.1491@gmx.net> wrote:
The researchers contend that the hearings are being set up to serve as a
thinly veiled showcase for 'intelligent design' — the theory that a god
shaped the course of evolution.
Over six days in early May, the board hopes to hear arguments from
proponents of intelligent design and scientists about whether there is
evidence for the intervention of a deity in the process of evolution.
This is the dirty little secret of ID. It acknowledges the fact that
evolution led to the diversity of life on Earth. Whether god
manipulated the DNA on a molecular level or simply willed the change
to happen, ID is saying man evolved from a (nonhuman) ape.
This could be seen as just part of the continual shrinking of the gap
that god is of. But it seems to me that this fact blows Christianity
out of the water, at least the fundamentalist variety. If animals
evolved to man over billions of years, then there was no garden, no
tree, no Adam, no Eve, no apple, no snake and no original sin. No
original sin, no universal need for salvation. No salvation, no
savior.
--
satyr #1953
Chairman, EAC Church Taxation Subcommittee
Director, Gideon Bible Alternative Fuel Project
Supervisor, EAC Fossil Casting Lab
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: FYI: Biologists snub 'kangaroo court' for Darwin |
31 Mar 2005 06:29:37 PM |
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satyr wrote:
On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 18:33:51 -0500, "j.m.1491@gmx.net"
<j.m.1491@gmx.net> wrote:
The researchers contend that the hearings are being set up to serve as a
thinly veiled showcase for 'intelligent design' — the theory that a god
shaped the course of evolution.
Over six days in early May, the board hopes to hear arguments from
proponents of intelligent design and scientists about whether there is
evidence for the intervention of a deity in the process of evolution.
This is the dirty little secret of ID. It acknowledges the fact that
evolution led to the diversity of life on Earth. Whether god
manipulated the DNA on a molecular level or simply willed the change
to happen, ID is saying man evolved from a (nonhuman) ape.
This could be seen as just part of the continual shrinking of the gap
that god is of. But it seems to me that this fact blows Christianity
out of the water, at least the fundamentalist variety. If animals
evolved to man over billions of years, then there was no garden, no
tree, no Adam, no Eve, no apple, no snake and no original sin. No
original sin, no universal need for salvation. No salvation, no
savior.
Within the Roman-Catholic church the acceptance of evolution and a
universe with an age of billions of years goes back already a pretty
long time. The religious texts have to be taken as a story outlining the
core events (like creation) in a form suitable for a bronce age culture,
and not as literal truth. And of course this places the god in the gap
where science was not yet successfull inprovididng a alternative
explanation. This gap will be defended by the church as good as they can.
I'm not sure if this way is a weakness or a strength of the theists
following it. On the one side, as you point out, they have to
automatically dismiss most of the texts as irrelevant and have to adjust
the believe whenever science pushes the gap further, leaving the
religious concepts floating in thin air. They are left with a
pick-what-you-like situation. But this is part of Christianity since the
days they searched the Jewish texts for things they liked and dismissed
the remainder.
On the other side, there is nothing one can do to show the religion is
wrong. When science pushes the gap, the believe will be adjusted and the
process repeats.
Independent of this, my bigest problem with the ID concept currently
pushed in the US (and to a far lesser extent in other countries) is that
I think it is just a smoke screen for the full version of hard-core
creationism.
ID became popular after all atempts to put creationism in the schools
failed. So the believers regrouped, watered the story down to make is so
vague that it has a chance of passing and now they are pushing as hard
as they can.
The main problem is that they want it tought as science. I grew up in a
coutry with religious education in schools. But it was called
"Religion", in clear distinction to the "Science" classes. The one was
tought as believe, based on pretty stories (the rivers of blood and
mountains of skulls were conviniently left out), faith, hope and
rituals; the other based on evidence and the methods used to test
theories against the evidence. I have no problem with that. The one
explained to me what I'm supposed to believe to save my "soul" from the
angry god in the sky, the other gave me methods to test the stories.
Somehow religion failed the tests.
ID tries to push a concept of science that does not include the
necessity of evidence. It takes the absence of evidence as sufficient to
validate a "theory", and the "theory" is formulated so vague that it can
pass a constitutional prohibition and not what they actually want to
teach. This alone shows that it can not be considered science, but it is
supposed to be tought in a "science" class.
I take it as an attempt to undermine the understanding of science and
its methods to prepare the arrival of creationism in the next wave.
Creationism thought as science, not as religion, but of course linked to
the only "true" religion.
j.m.
#1491
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| User: "L. Raymond" |
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| Title: Re: FYI: Biologists snub 'kangaroo court' for Darwin |
01 Apr 2005 08:23:09 PM |
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On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 18:33:51 -0500, wrote:
This week in Nature:
http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v434/n7033/full/434550a_fs.html
(may require subscription)
Biologists snub 'kangaroo court' for Darwin
...
Over six days in early May, the board hopes to hear arguments from
proponents of intelligent design and scientists about whether there is
evidence for the intervention of a deity in the process of evolution.
How biblical of them. They're allotting as much time to the
destruction of science as it took their god to create the Earth.
--
L. Raymond
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