Ahh rc green, never one to let a mountain of evidance get in the way of your fairy tale
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Ahh rc green, never one to let a mountain of evidance get in the way of your fairy tale
There is intelligence out there....
Quote:
A court in the US has ruled against the teaching of "intelligent design" alongside Darwin's theory of evolution.
A group of parents in the Pennsylvania town of Dover had taken the school board to court for demanding biology classes not teach evolution as fact.
The authorities wanted to introduce the idea that Earth's life was too complicated to have evolved on its own.
Judge John Jones ruled the school board had violated the constitutional ban on teaching religion in public schools.
The 11 parents who brought the case argued that teaching intelligent design (ID) was effectively teaching creationism, which is banned.
We find that the secular purposes claimed by the board amount to a pretext for the board's real purpose, which was to promote religion
Judge John Jones
They complained that ID - which argues life must have been helped to develop by an unseen power - was tantamount to religious education.
The separation of church and state is enshrined in the US constitution.
The school board argued they had sought to improve science education by exposing pupils to alternatives to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.
But Judge Jones said he had determined that ID was not science and "cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents".
In a 139-page written ruling, the judge said: "Our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom."
He accused school board members of disguising their true motives for introducing the ID policy.
"We find that the secular purposes claimed by the board amount to a pretext for the board's real purpose, which was to promote religion in the public school classroom," he said.
He banned any future implementation of the policy in Dover schools.
The case, the first of its kind, sets an important precedent in a country where several states have adopted the teaching of ID, reports the BBC's James Coomerasamy in Washington.
Ironically, he adds, it is a somewhat academic ruling in the Dover area since parents there voted last month to replace the school board members who brought in the policy.
That move provoked US TV evangelist Pat Robertson to warn the town was invoking the wrath of God.
A lawyer for the parents said the ruling was a "real vindication" for those families who challenged the school board.
Trust Pat Robertson to Chime in with the same old your all going to hell diatribe....that really gets the ID point across eh!...
Source ;)
Just thought I would bring this one up to date, as I feel there is hope out there for the clear headed folk.......(keep Religion out of the "Public Classrooms"), if you want your kids to learn about religion, then IMO send them to a (tax exempt, still public in a way) religious school, where they can debate about the start of life to their hearts content, while leaving the rest of the world to come to their own informed decisions about how this world came to be..... ;)
Course I do find it absurd that.....kinda deflates it a bit, but the point remains.....keep it out of the classrooms.....Quote:
Ironically, he adds, it is a somewhat academic ruling in the Dover area since parents there voted last month to replace the school board members who brought in the policy.
dalek: Seeing that this was a federal court thsi ruleing was hugh
Religion in school will always be a touchy subject to many people. As far as in American schools, I do think (imho) it should be Christianity. Why? That is what America was founded on. Christian beliefs. That is America. That is the majority. IMHO, you deal with that. Before I get a million negatives, this is only my opinion. I myself do not know if religion should be in school, but yeah... ...if it is... ...Christianity. If I go to other countries, I take the time to learn their (the majority) beliefs and ways. I go by that (for the most part) while there. That is called respect for that country’s ways. That's my 2 cents.
That's all well and good, I can remember having to stand in class, and say the Lord's Prayer as well as say God Save the Queen until it got changed to Oh Canada (when we got our own flag), the problem I have now because of "multiculturism" in this country and the sensitive feelings our young have,is that the times have changed, I feel to teach christianity in the classroom is to do so at the exclusion of other's.Quote:
Religion in school will always be a touchy subject to many people
This is bigotry or biasness, you can't have your cake and eat it too, that is why I am all for keeping religion out of classrooms,politics,(my bedroom :D )
To force other students of other religions to have to hear the Lord's prayer each morning is insulting, then to go so far as to offer them the option of leaving the classroom is doubly insulting, the argument becomes moot, if the "Public Schools" were to follow the laws, in the first place. By having a majority of christians on school boards you run the risk of them influencing curriculum...for example anytime you hear of a "Public School" banning a certain book (Huckleberry Finn, A tree Grows in Brooklyn) it is because of certain so called christian individuals....this is pure censorship and is BS.Or the very fact that they will try to censure science texts and replace them with religious ideology..
I believe that if your faith is that strong and you feel that your children should be exposed (beware of some Catholic Priests) then by all means, send them to a Catholic School, they will then grow up singing Jesus Loves Me, and will want everyone around them to know it (insert flippancy).
My other (better) half went to a school run by Nuns, now there is a scary story not for the faint of heart....(I thank my Pappy everyday for making me an Anglican, so I could avoid that stuff). ;)
DISLEX: If we are talking about private school, then yes there is no problem with religion in schools...but religion has no place in science class.
Oh and look at your us history, it was founded on theist and masonic belifes had very little christianity in the early foundign fathers.
Given current examples of mutations within species, for instance a nectarine does not conclude evolution is NOT correct because a gene must mutate into something new. Although surely you can see that given external influences of the environment through perhaps radiation damage or even biological damage that mutations can occur.Quote:
First, a spontaneous mutation must happen to a gene. the mutated gene must be truly
different from the original, enough to cause the species to change in some significant
way. This doesn't include such characteristics that were already in the gene pool,
but something that didn't exist before.
What using examples DOES do is reinforce the idea through observation of genetic mutation that the THEORY of evolution has substance. Is it conclusive? No but it proves the thought process.
BTW the whole ID thing, a fetish, is blown way out of proportion. ID does not debase evolution. It does not say evolution doesn't exist. That's where it gets the very basis of the word. However it does place some higher intelligence at the conception of organic based life.
Right.....and until some big SOB comes out of the clouds to tell me the experiment is over, and that we are to be terminated due to a lack of funding, I'm sticking with the "Apes" easier on my "conscience and ulcers"......(I'm a good Prod)..... ;)Quote:
However it does place some higher intelligence at the conception of organic based life.
"YOU DAMN DIRTY APES!"Quote:
I'm sticking with the "Apes" easier on my "conscience and ulcers"......(I'm a good Prod).....
Apes is more reasonable to me. Or more appropriately protein strands is some viscous liquid filled with nutrients on some ancient sentient seashore. But saying OK we evolved to a point but something helped the first process isn't much to worry about. Is it science? Perhaps not, and considering the vast nature of world religions outside of Christianity to include even Wicca, it's more a philosophical point than religion or science. Although bordering on all. but it doesn't bother me. Its a fetish for both sides. Like abortion. Dalek, it won't be some big SOB... it will be a pair of tiny white mice who are really protrusions into our own limited dimensional construct as shadows of hyper intelligent pan dimensional beings named appropriately.... Frankie and Benjy. On the flip side, it is quite possible they will be Deleks sent to destroy us before announcing our cosmological insignificance. :D