Re: paleonet From a blue state!

["Nikolaus Malchus" <n.malchus@xxxxxxx>]

Creationists simply underestimate GOD'S intelligence. If he designed
something it was evolution itself. 

Happy NEW Year,

Niko

  

> Evolution Shares a Desk With 'Intelligent Design'
> By Michael PowellWashington Post Staff Writer
> Sunday, December 26, 2004; Page A01 
> DOVER, Pa. -- "God or Darwin?" 
> Lark Myers, a blond, 45-year-old gift shop owner, frames the question and
> answers it. "I definitely would prefer to believe that God created me than
> that I'm 50th cousin to a silverback ape," she said. "What's wrong with
> wanting our children to hear about all the holes in the theory of
> evolution?" 
> Charles Darwin, squeeze over. The school board in this small town in
> central
> Pennsylvania has voted to make the theory of evolution share a seat with
> another theory: God probably designed us. 
>  Dover area high school sophomores Katie Froman, left, and Brittany Cook,
> wait for their ride near the school. The school board wants intelligent
> design taught in science classes in addition to evolution. (Carolyn Kaster
> -- AP) 	
>  	
> 	
> If it survives a legal test, this school district of about 2,800 students
> could become the first in the nation to require that high school science
> teachers at least mention the "intelligent design" theory. This theory
> holds
> that human biology and evolution are so complex as to require the creative
> hand of an intelligent force. 
> "The school board has taken the measured step of making students aware
> that
> there are other viewpoints on the evolution of species," said Richard
> Thompson, of the Thomas More Law Center, which represents the board and
> describes its overall mission as defending "the religious freedom of
> Christians." 
> Board members have been less guarded, and their comments go well beyond
> intelligent design theory. William Buckingham, the board's curriculum
> chairman, explained at a meeting last June that Jesus died on the cross
> and
> "someone has to take a stand" for him. Other board members say they
> believe
> that God created Earth and mankind sometime in the past ten thousand years
> or so. 
> "If the Bible is right, God created us," said John Rowand, an Assemblies
> of
> God pastor and a newly appointed school board member. "If God did it, it's
> history and it's also science." 
> This strikes some parents and teachers, not to mention most evolutionary
> biologists, as loopy science. Eleven parents have joined the American
> Civil
> Liberties Union and filed suit in federal court in Harrisburg seeking to
> block mention of intelligent design in high school biology, arguing it is
> religious belief dressed in the cloth of science. 
> "It's not science; it's a theocratic idea," Bryan Rehm, a former science
> teacher in Dover and a father of four. "We don't have enough time for
> science in the classroom as it is -- this is just inappropriate." 
> This is a battle fought in many corners of the nation. In Charles County,
> school board members recently suggested discarding biology textbooks
> "biased
> towards evolution." In Cobb County, in suburban Atlanta, the local school
> board ordered that stickers be placed inside the front cover of science
> textbooks stating: "Evolution is a theory, not a fact." State education
> boards in Ohio and Kansas have wrestled with this issue, as well. 
> In 1987, the U.S. Supreme Court seemed to settle this question, ruling
> that
> Louisiana could not make creationism a part of the science curriculum. The
> state, Justice William J. Brennan wrote, cannot "restructure the science
> curriculum to conform with a particular religious viewpoint." (Justice
> Antonin Scalia dissented, arguing that creationism could be "valuable
> scientific data that has been censored from the classrooms by an
> embarrassed
> scientific establishment.") 
> Of late, conservative school boards have launched a counteroffensive,
> often
> marching under the banner of intelligent design. This theory has lingered
> on
> the margins of mainstream scientific discourse with just enough
> intellectual
> heft to force its way into some discussions of evolutionary theory. 
> Essentially intelligent design posits that the human cell, among other
> organisms, is too finely tuned to have developed by chance. "The human
> cell
> is irreducibly complex -- what we find in the cell is stuff that looks
> strongly like it was designed by an intelligence," said Michael J. Behe, a
> biology professor at Lehigh University and leading advocate of intelligent
> design. 
> Behe acknowledges this theory might lead one to postulate the existence of
> a
> supernatural force, such as God. But he said this is unknown and rejects
> those who would portray him as a creationist. "Our starting point is from
> science, not from Scripture," Behe said. 
> Few biologists buy that. There is, they say, a central evolutionary theory
> embraced by mainstream scientists worldwide: That life on Earth has
> evolved
> over billions of years and in fits and starts from one-celled organisms to
> modern humans. That this theory is pockmarked with unexplained gaps, and
> subject to debate, is how science is crafted. 
> "People have an impatience about science," said Kenneth R. Miller, a Brown
> University biologist and author of the biology textbook used in Dover.
> "They
> think it's this practical process that explains how everything works, but
> that's the least interesting part. 
> "We understand a lot of the mechanisms of evolution but it's what we don't
> understand that makes it exciting." 
> Even today many residents are not sure how Dover, a former farm hamlet
> become a bedroom community for York and Harrisburg, came to occupy the
> ramparts in a century-long war over Darwin's theories. 
> In the 18th century, an erudite French shopkeeper settled in this valley
> and
> gave the name Voltaire to his village. German and English settlers, a
> local
> history notes, soon discovered that Voltaire was "a French atheist" and "a
> disbeliever in revealed theology" and changed the town's name. 
> Dover's modern politics are resolutely Republican -- President Bush polled
> 65 percent of the vote here -- and its cultural values are Christian, with
> an evangelical tinge. To drive its rolling back roads is to count dozens
> of
> churches, from Lutheran to United Church of Christ, Baptist, Pentecostal
> and
> Assemblies of God. 
> Many here speak of a personal relationship with Christ and of their
> antipathy to evolutionary theory (A Gallup poll found that 35 percent of
> Americans do not believe in evolution). Steve Farrell, a friendly man and
> owner of a landscaping business, talked of Darwin and God in the Giant
> shopping center parking lot. 
> "We are teaching our children a theory that most of us don't believe in."
> He
> shook his head. "I don't think God creates everything on a day-to-day
> basis,
> like the color of the sky. But I do believe that he created Adam and Eve
> --
> instantly." 
> Back in the town center, Norma Botterbusch talks in her jewelry store,
> which
> has been a fixture here for 40 years. "We are a very lenient town," she
> said. "But why should a minority get to file a lawsuit and dictate school
> policy? Most of our kids already know who created them." 
> The evolution revolution in Dover began as a dispute about property taxes.
> The previous school board spent too much money, and a conservative group
> defeated them. Last June, board member Buckingham criticized a new biology
> textbook as "laced with Darwinism." He added, according to the ACLU's
> lawsuit, that "our country was founded on Christianity and our students
> should be taught as such." 
> Neither Buckingham nor the board president nor the school superintendent
> responded to requests for interviews. 
> In October, the Dover school board passed this motion: "Students will be
> made aware of gaps/problems in Darwin's theory and of other theories of
> evolution including, but not limited to, intelligent design. Note: Origins
> of Life is not taught." 
> Several board members resigned in protest. When the remaining board
> members
> chose replacements, they subjected certain candidates to withering
> questions. "I was asked if I was a liberal or conservative, and if I was a
> child abuser," recalled Rehm, who was known as an outspoken opponent of
> intelligent design. 
> In the end, the York Daily Record reported that the board picked a
> fundamentalist preacher, a home-schooler who does not send his kids to
> public school for religious reasons, and two more who in effect pledged to
> support the board. 
> Dover's evolution policy has left many teachers deeply uncomfortable. One
> science teacher noted that he avoids talking about the origins of life.
> "We
> don't do the monkeys-to-man controversy," he said. "It's just not worth
> the
> trouble." 
> The Discovery Institute in Seattle, which is regarded as a leader in
> intelligent design theory, also opposes the Dover school board's policy in
> part because it seems to take three steps into old-fashioned creationism.
> "This theory needs to be debated in the scientific sphere," said Paul
> West,
> a senior fellow. "It's much too soon to require anyone to teach it in high
> school." 
> Miller, the Brown University biologist and textbook author, hopes the day
> that it is taught in high school never arrives. "It's very clear that
> intelligent design has become a stalking-horse," Miller said. "If these
> school boards had their druthers, they would teach Noah's flood and the
> 6,000-year-old design of Earth. 
> "My fear is that they are making real headway in the popular imagination."
> 
> 

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