Re: paleonet NYTimes editorial on Creationism

["Ernest Olsen" <ernest_h_olsen@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

You have to understand that (dumb guess on my part) 90% of medical 
practioners are just technicians of the human body (and just earning a 
living) and do not have to understand any science as an ongoing activity, 
they understand just what is already known year-by-year in their medical 
journals (as is convient).  They do not pursue any scientific research.

The "god of the gaps" arguments can floweth over in all this.

A PHD in Medicine is not necessarily equal to a PHD in Geology, Physics, 
etc. (except for the internship hours).

The majority of the public does not understand this.  To them a PHD is a 
PHD, and they are all equal,  and some more so in truth.

Until the practioners of the bio and geo sciences can adequately describe 
this to the general public, we will be fighting a losing skirmish in the 
greater battle.

I see a much greater passion for overall knowledge exercised in the 
paleontological community, which we all admit is generally not the road to 
riches, then is apparent in the medical community, which can be considered 
to be a road to riches.

We have to distinguish between technicians, engineers and scientists. A 
degree does not suffice.

Ernest Olsen

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dr. Lisa E. Park" <lepark@uakron.edu>
To: <paleonet@nhm.ac.uk>
Sent: Monday, January 24, 2005 9:35 AM
Subject: paleonet NYTimes editorial on Creationism


> Not to belabor this ID/Creationism v. Evolution discussion, because I fear
> that it might be annoying those outside of the US, but here is an 
> excellent
> New York Times Editorial on the subject (see below).
>
> By the way, I attended a study session at a local Lutheran church on
> Intelligent Design yesterday morning.  I figured that I should educate
> myself on what exactly is being said in churches about Evolution and
> Intelligent Design.  The speaker was a medical doctor, head of internal
> medicine at a local Children's Hospital.  He also teaches at one of our
> regional medical schools.  He said things like:
>
> "61% of people in America believe in the Biblical account of Creation. 
> They
> have the microphone, but they are losing ground."
>
> "Evolution is a religion." (ironic that I was in a church, when he said
> that.....)
>
> "When children learn about Evolution, that is when we start to lose them."
>
> "They [people who study evolution] do not believe in a personal God."
>
> "Evolutionists do not hypothesis test and therefore do not do science."
>
> When comparing Intelligent Design to evolution: "Darwinism tells you where
> you came from, where you are going, and what you should do along the way."
>
> "As I get older there are fewer and fewer things that I am certain of. 
> But,
> one thing that I am certain of is that you should not trifle with Sacred
> things."
>
> When explaining the increased resistence of bacteria to antibiotics he 
> said,
> "sure they change, but there are no new structures, and no new
> functions....they are still bacteria."
>
> The scariest moment is when he told the audience that Joseph Stalin once
> told a fellow seminary student that "They are fooling us--there is no God"
> and then he gave his friend a copy of Origin of Species.  He then went on 
> to
> remind the audience that Stalin went on to kill hundreds of thousands of
> people, making the direct link with believing in evolution and mass 
> murder.
>
> It was a little troubling, to say the least, that evolution was attacked 
> in
> this way.  Clearly, this man, a medical doctor and head of a large unit at 
> a
> major hospital, as well as a faculty member in a medical school does not
> understand modern evolutionary theory.  But that is sort of beside the
> point.  This was the third of eight sessions.  The last session is going 
> to
> be dedicated to "What we can do about this."  I am at a loss at what we, 
> who
> study evolution, should do about ID.  Any thoughts and suggestions would 
> be
> welcome......
>
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> The article below from NYTimes.com
>
> Editorial: The Crafty Attacks on Evolution
>
> January 23, 2005
>
> Critics of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution become more
> wily with each passing year. Creationists who believe that
> God made the world and everything in it pretty much as
> described in the Bible were frustrated when their efforts
> to ban the teaching of evolution in the public schools or
> inject the teaching of creationism were judged
> unconstitutional by the courts. But over the past decade or
> more a new generation of critics has emerged with a softer,
> more roundabout approach that they hope can pass
> constitutional muster.
>
> One line of attack - on display in Cobb County, Ga., in
> recent weeks - is to discredit evolution as little more
> than a theory that is open to question. Another strategy -
> now playing out in Dover, Pa. - is to make students aware
> of an alternative theory called "intelligent design," which
> infers the existence of an intelligent agent without any
> specific reference to God. These new approaches may seem
> harmless to a casual observer, but they still constitute an
> improper effort by religious advocates to impose their own
> slant on the teaching of evolution. .
>
> The Cobb County fight centers on a sticker that the board
> inserted into a new biology textbook to placate opponents
> of evolution. The school board, to its credit, was trying
> to strengthen the teaching of evolution after years in
> which it banned study of human origins in the elementary
> and middle schools and sidelined the topic as an elective
> in high school, in apparent violation of state curriculum
> standards. When the new course of study raised hackles
> among parents and citizens (more than 2,300 signed a
> petition), the board sought to quiet the controversy by
> placing a three-sentence sticker in the textbooks:
>
> "This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is
> a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living
> things. This material should be approached with an open
> mind, studied carefully, and critically considered."
>
> Although the board clearly thought this was a reasonable
> compromise, and many readers might think it unexceptional,
> it is actually an insidious effort to undermine the science
> curriculum. The first sentence sounds like a warning to
> parents that the film they are about to watch with their
> children contains pornography. Evolution is so awful that
> the reader must be warned that it is discussed inside the
> textbook. The second sentence makes it sound as though
> evolution is little more than a hunch, the popular
> understanding of the word "theory," whereas theories in
> science are carefully constructed frameworks for
> understanding a vast array of facts. The National Academy
> of Sciences, the nation's most prestigious scientific
> organization, has declared evolution "one of the strongest
> and most useful scientific theories we have" and says it is
> supported by an overwhelming scientific consensus.
>
> The third sentence, urging that evolution be studied
> carefully and critically, seems like a fine idea. The only
> problem is, it singles out evolution as the only subject so
> shaky it needs critical judgment. Every subject in the
> curriculum should be studied carefully and critically.
> Indeed, the interpretations taught in history, economics,
> sociology, political science, literature and other fields
> of study are far less grounded in fact and professional
> consensus than is evolutionary biology.
>
> A more honest sticker would describe evolution as the
> dominant theory in the field and an extremely fruitful
> scientific tool. The sad fact is, the school board, in its
> zeal to be accommodating, swallowed the language of the
> anti-evolution crowd. Although the sticker makes no mention
> of religion and the school board as a whole was not trying
> to advance religion, a federal judge in Georgia ruled that
> the sticker amounted to an unconstitutional endorsement of
> religion because it was rooted in long-running religious
> challenges to evolution. In particular, the sticker's
> assertion that "evolution is a theory, not a fact" adopted
> the latest tactical language used by anti-evolutionists to
> dilute Darwinism, thereby putting the school board on the
> side of religious critics of evolution. That court decision
> is being appealed. Supporters of sound science education
> can only hope that the courts, and school districts, find a
> way to repel this latest assault on the most well-grounded
> theory in modern biology. .
>
> In the Pennsylvania case, the school board went further and
> became the first in the nation to require, albeit somewhat
> circuitously, that attention be paid in school to
> "intelligent design." This is the notion that some things
> in nature, such as the workings of the cell and intricate
> organs like the eye, are so complex that they could not
> have developed gradually through the force of Darwinian
> natural selection acting on genetic variations. Instead, it
> is argued, they must have been designed by some sort of
> higher intelligence. Leading expositors of intelligent
> design accept that the theory of evolution can explain what
> they consider small changes in a species over time, but
> they infer a designer's hand at work in what they consider
> big evolutionary jumps.
>
> The Dover Area School District in Pennsylvania became the
> first in the country to place intelligent design before its
> students, albeit mostly one step removed from the
> classroom. Last week school administrators read a brief
> statement to ninth-grade biology classes (the teachers
> refused to do it) asserting that evolution was a theory,
> not a fact, that it had gaps for which there was no
> evidence, that intelligent design was a differing
> explanation of the origin of life, and that a book on
> intelligent design was available for interested students,
> who were, of course, encouraged to keep an open mind. That
> policy, which is being challenged in the courts, suffers
> from some of the same defects found in the Georgia sticker.
> It denigrates evolution as a theory, not a fact, and adds
> weight to that message by having administrators deliver it
> aloud. .
>
> Districts around the country are pondering whether to
> inject intelligent design into science classes, and the
> constitutional problems are underscored by practical
> issues. There is little enough time to discuss mainstream
> evolution in most schools; the Dover students get two
> 90-minute classes devoted to the subject. Before installing
> intelligent design in the already jam-packed science
> curriculum, school boards and citizens need to be aware
> that it is not a recognized field of science. There is no
> body of research to support its claims nor even a real plan
> to conduct such research. In 2002, more than a decade after
> the movement began, a pioneer of intelligent design
> lamented that the movement had many sympathizers but few
> research workers, no biology texts and no sustained
> curriculum to offer educators. Another leading expositor
> told a Christian magazine last year that the field had no
> theory of biological design to guide research, just "a bag
> of powerful intuitions, and a handful of notions." If
> evolution is derided as "only a theory," intelligent design
> needs to be recognized as "not even a theory" or "not yet a
> theory." It should not be taught or even described as a
> scientific alternative to one of the crowning theories of
> modern science.
>
> That said, in districts where evolution is a burning issue,
> there ought to be some place in school where the religious
> and cultural criticisms of evolution can be discussed,
> perhaps in a comparative religion class or a history or
> current events course. But school boards need to recognize
> that neither creationism nor intelligent design is an
> alternative to Darwinism as a scientific explanation of the
> evolution of life.
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/23/opinion/23sun1.html?ex=1107531814&ei=1
> &en=873c77e4a92e582e
>
> Lisa Park
>
>
>