DI comments on Evolution Sunday

“Evolution Sunday is the height of hypocrisy,” says Bruce Chapman,
president of Discovery Institute the nation’s leading think tank
researching scientific challenges to Darwinian evolution. “Why do
Darwinists think it is not okay for people to criticize Darwin on
religious grounds, but it is just fine to defend him on religious
grounds?”

Sunday marks the 197th birthday of Charles Darwin and to celebrate 400
ministers have announced they will deliver pro-evolution sermons in
conjunction with “Evolution Sunday.”

“Our view is not that pastors should speak out against evolution, but
that the Darwinists are hypocrites for claiming--falsely--that
opposition to Darwinism is merely faith based, and then turning around
and trying to make the case that Darwinism itself is faith based,”
added Chapman.

According to Dr. John West, a Discovery Senior Fellow, Evolution
Sunday is part of a much larger campaign by Darwinists to explicitly
use religion to promote their theory, a campaign that extends to
public schools. “In California, Darwin supporters have spent more than
a half-million dollars in federal tax money for a website that directs
teachers to use theological statements endorsing evolution in science
classes,” said West. Noting that the website is now the subject of a
federal lawsuit for violating the separation of church and state, West
asked: “What secular purpose is served by the government trying to
convince students what their religious views on evolution should be?”

Chapman pointed out that increasingly the only time religion is
brought up in the debate over evolution is when Darwinists falsely
charge that anyone criticizing Darwin’s theory is religiously
motivated.

“We maintain a list of hundreds of scientists who are skeptical of
Darwinian evolution because of the unresolved scientific problems with
the theory, not because of any so-called religious motivation,” said
Chapman. The Scientific Dissent From Darwinism is available on the
Institute’s website at www.discovery.org.

“This isn’t science versus religion, it’s science versus science,”
added West. “It’s a standard part of science to raise evidence
critical of an existing scientific theory or paradigm. That’s what
good science is about—analyzing evidence and asking tough questions.
Scientists have a duty to raise critical questions about existing
scientific theories.”

Discovery Institute, the nation’s leading think tank dealing with
scientific challenges to Darwinian evolution, seeks to increase the
teaching of evolution. It believes that evolution should be fully and
completely presented to students, and they should learn more about
evolutionary theory, including its unresolved issues. The Institute
opposes any effort to mandate or require the teaching of intelligent
design by school districts or state boards of education.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Read it at
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2006/02/on_evolution_sunday_its_give_m.html

J. Spaceman

I have no problem with people attacking Darwin on religious grounds.
However, I do have a problem with people attacking Darwin on religious
grounds and lying that their attack is based on science.

Who on earth is trying to make the case that Darwinism is faith based?
It isn't. However, the point of "Darwin Day" is that acceptance of the
findings of science in respect of evolution does not conflict with
faith, as many creationists claim.

which is an outright lie..

So by insisting that religion is not taught as science, they are using
religion to promte their theory?

Not theological statements endorsing evolution, but the statement that
for most of the world's christians there is no conflict between
accepting the findings of science and religious belief.

.... a lawsuit which is highly frivolous and won't go anywhere...

Nobody is trying to convince anyone about religious views on evolution
other than the creationists and their lie that one cannot be a
christian and accept the findings of science.

Within the scientific community there has always been plenty of
criticism of Darwin's theory on the basis of argument and evidence.
Nobody within that community accuses anyone else of religious
motivation. However, when the criticism is religiously motivated, as is
the case with ID, then the charge that such criticism is religiously
motivated has been upheld by the courts.

...and is a statement with which no scientist could disagree. In
science one has to be skeptical about everything. However, a skeptical
analysis of Darwin's theory provides not one iota of support for ID.

A blatant lie. As was made very clear in the Dover trials, the matter
is one of science against religious conviction.

Quite so. But ID has raised no evidence.

> That's what
> good science is about-analyzing evidence and asking tough questions.

Quite so. But ID not only fails to ask tough questions, it studiously
ignores the answers to those rather weak questions it does raise.

Quite so, and they do. However, as ID is a religiously motivated
movement which has had no success whatsoever in publishing in science
journals, they are not in much of a postion to claim that they have
raised "critical questions".

In what way is adding the religious assertion of intelligent design
increasing the teaching of evolution?

Which will make it a rather demanding course for the students. How
about also teaching them about the unresolved issues in the theory of
gravitation as well?

Well, having had been completely humiliated in the courts in the Dover
trials, I would imagine they would be.

And who would know more about hypocrisy than him?

He obviously hasn't been reading the post-Dover editorial pages.

--
Bobby Bryant
Austin, Texas

What?! Who's saying that it's faith based?

As soon as I heard about this Evolution Sunday, I knew creationists would
start saying, "See, I told ya so! Darwinism is a religion!"

>... 的t痴 a standard part of science to raise evidence
> critical of an existing scientific theory or paradigm..."

But it's not a 'standard part of science' to make the same wrong
assertions over and over without even acknowledging (much less
addressing) the ways they've been shown by science, over and over again,
to be junk.

The only thing ID has proved so far is that it is not and does not want
to be a part of science. This guy knows he's a snakeoil salesman, and
that's the kind of reception he, his colleagues and their transparent
scam deserve.

Unfortunately, these crooks are ensuring that all of religion will seem
a little more like a scam from now on. Mainstream religion needs to
recognize it's being smeared by ID and take a more unified public stand
against it.

CT

I have my doubts about deliberately promoting science via religion,
though religion is free to do so if it wishes.

BS. They're defending the integrity of Xianity and its obligation to
tell the truth. Why don't you DI guys learn about integrity?

As far as "defending Darwin in the churches", that should be as
allowable as teaching creationism in churches, if not more so. Don't
you IDiots ever get anything right? We're not faulting Dembski for
telling lies in the churches, only when he turns around and lies again
by claiming that ID isn't religious.

Oh, nice bit of misdirection. So you're claiming that opposition to
"Darwinism" is not "merely faith based". Tacitly you're admitting that
it is faith-based in large part, thus we may infer that it has no place
in American science instruction. What is more, we're much not troubled
by mere "opposition to Darwinism" (though I don't really like
"opposition to Darwinism", since that would typically be understood to
be different from making "objective criticisms of Darwinism"--which are
well and good), but rather by your attempts to force religion into the
sciences.

Btw, moron, the point is that evolution is not faith-based, but that
some religious folk don't insist on fighting everything that is not
faith-based. Learn something, dumbass.

Where' the evidence for the claim above? Oh that's right, you guys
don't believe that claims need evidence.

Another bit of misdirection. There is something to the earlier claim
that religion is being used to defend "Darwinism", but no good basis
for claiming that religion is being used to "promote their theory".
We're not trying to promote a theory, we're trying to keep meddling
IDiots from destroying the normal processes of scientific investigation
and of the education that would be expected to follow from new and old
findings. That we need to counter your lies is your fault.

That one might be a bit questionable. Tough call, really, because if
students are making religious objections to evolution, is it really
beyond all reason to use statements of theologians which mostly just
claim that religion and evolution are compatible, and that, for
instance, religious freedom leaves religion out of science classes?
True or not, those opinions are as "objectively reasonable" as the ones
claiming otherwise (I base this claim on the fact that there are no
"objective standards" that can tell us what religion should or should
not agree with or allow).

Of course the lies continue, in that the statements in question are not
necessarily regarded as "theological statements" at all, but in many
cases are probably saying no more than what any reasonable person would
say, only in these cases it is religious authorities saying it. Does
the DI really think that statements from religious figures should be
stricken from all public education?

My own doubts about it, however, come from the fact that I don't think
it is the government's role to save religion in science classes, and I
prefer teaching the science with a minimum of discussion about the
implications (none would be best, but I realize that some discussion
may be needed). It is not obviously the government's place to concern
itself with the implications of "objective science".

What business is it for Jonathan Wells to promote religiously-motivated
"questions about evolution" among naive students? Is DI religious
meddling never to be discussed in religious terms? IOW, why don't you
fools quit injecting religious lies into the educational arena, and
then we could forgo religious issues altogether.

Again the misdirection. The issue is not "criticizing Darwin's
theory", it is religiously-motivated and poorly based attacks on
evolution, plus the promotion of pseudosciences like ID. Try going one
day without lying, you vile perverted evildoers.

"Darwin's theory" is criticized all the time, which is what shows that
it is a living scientific theory, and not even really "Darwin's theory"
per se any more. It's criticized, it stands up to criticism as a
whole, and the parts that don't stand up are changed. Very unlike a
religious doctrine like ID, which only changes in order to avoid the
falsification that did in Paley's version of ID.

How many are actually "scientists", and more importantly, how many of
the actual scientists have degrees and knowledge in evolutionary
biology? Very few, I know.

Bullshit. You have vanishingly few non-religious scientists on your
list, and we have every reason to suppose that religion colors the
acceptance of the mindless tripe that you cretins put out.

Scientific criticism of "Darwinism" is science versus science. The
lies Jonathan Wells puts out, along with the rest of the DI nonsense,
is far from reaching the level of scientific criticism.

> good science is about-analyzing evidence and asking tough questions.

Yes, do you have any tough questions? You know, tough questions
actually relating to the evidence, not to your misconceptions of
science. And btw, there are some tough questions out there for
evolution, but even if you use them it was the scientists
("evolutionists" to you) themselves who actually came up with them.

Would that you morons could raise any that don't already exist in the
scientific literature.

Really? Is that what Jonathan Wells' list of YEC pratts intended to
accomplish?

How about teaching the scientific method of following the positive
evidence to productive areas of thought? That's how science is usually
taught. One presents the reasons why an idea arose in the first place,
and shows how objections were met and how the evidence for, say,
evolution continued to mount, from homologies to the vestigial organs
predicted by evolutionary theory and predicted not to exist by any
reasonable intelligent design theory (later we gained even better
evidence through DNA, but the scientific battle for evolution had been
long won by that time). The considerable evidence amassed for present
scientific theories is the first thing to teach, and then (probably
mostly in college) the remaining problems can be put into the context
of the overwhelming amount of positive evidence during the relevant
courses.

We know the DI, what you want to do is to obscure the positive evidence
with a bunch of claptrap, not to put remaining problems into proper
context.

What's the difference between your "teach the criticisms" from teaching
ID anyhow? ID is only really complaints and caviling about legitimate
science, so you don't change anything if you opt for "attacking
Darwinism" rather than "teaching ID". The fact is that lying about
Darwinism is what ID is about, so injecting your lies about Darwinism
is the teaching of ID in all but name.

Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/b8ykm

What the Hell does the behavior of ministers have to do with science?
If ministers want to talk about Heaven or Hell or right or wrong or
evolution or Noah, that is no concern of science, nor does science have
any control over it. His whole, unbelievably stupid premise seems to
be that because some clergy members find the ravings of people like him
unrepresentative of their religious beliefs, that therefore this
represents an intrusion of science into the religious realm or a
religious position taken by science.

KP

Chapman is the guy that got caught lying about what the Discovery
Institute had tried to do in Dover. Who would believe anything that he
claimed? His own side called him on his lie. It isn't like the
science side had to correct him. This tirade seems to be just made up
with no basis in reality. It is like Saturday Night Live, but the
other Discovery Institute scam artists don't have the nerve to tell the
guy that he has it all wrong, so he can't even say "never mind" as a
punch line.

Ron Okimoto

[...]

The boys from DI have to get their story together. Here is Phil Johnson
recently at Campbell University (a Baptist institution)*:

A federal judge ruled recently that intelligent design cannot be
taught in biology classes in a Pennsylvania school district because
the teaching of the Bible does not belong in science classes, but
Johnson isn’t concerned about the theory being taught in public
schools.

“We want to discredit Darwinism,” Johnson said. “This theory has
had an enormous impact on secularization because it eliminates
the Creator. We thought that if the theory of evolution was cast
into doubt, it would have a big cultural impact, just as it did
when it was discovered.

<http://www.campbell.edu/news/releases/sp06/ns_rel.0028.html>

Funny how the message of the IDeologists changes depending on the audience,
ain't it?

[...]

* Thanks to Pat Hayes' excellent blog, _Red State Rabble_, for pointing the
Johnson PR piece out: <http://redstaterabble.blogspot.com/>

--
---------------
J. Pieret
---------------

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And of the butterfly
And of the breeze, amen

- Emily Dickinson -

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