Darwin under Attack by the Intelligent Design movement

[krsna]

 

 

From Lalitanatha dasa

 

Posted May 7, 2005

 

The April issue of the respected science magazine Nature has a feature article on the Intelligent Design movement. The magazine also devotes its entire front page to the topic, and there is an editorial stating that although Intelligent Design is wholly unscientific and fundamentally wrong, it is making big inroads in the scientific world and amongst students and therefore must be dealt with.

The Intelligent Design movement is a movement of scientists, who on strictly scientific grounds criticize the theory of evolution and claim that life has features that can only be explained in terms of an intelligent cause. The scientific establishment has been fighting vigorously against this movement for the last ten years but seemingly to no avail. It appears in these years that more and more scientists are rejecting the theory of evolution (thus fulfilling Srila Prabhupada's desire).

 

You can read the article in Nature at http://www.nature.com/news/2005/

050425/full/4341062a.html

and some comments from the Intelligent Design movement at www.idthefuture.com.

 

Your servant,

Lalitanatha dasa

 

© dipika.org May 7, 2005

[theist]

You are too fast on the post. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

I'll delete mine on spititual discussions

[Guest guest]

What arguments are made against it? And if those arguments are so infallible, why is there such a movement in science to declare that there is an intelligent cause?

[theist]

any arguments against it must be unintelligently designed.

[Guest guest]

>>why is there such a movement in science to declare that there is an intelligent cause?

 

There isn't. The number of trained scientists who oppose evoloution is tiny. The movement is almost entirely outside the scientific community among religous grousp. However, if a small number of people make enough noise, and a large number of people opposing them keep quiet, everyone else will think they're about 50:50. It's not.

[krsna]

 

 

 

Kansas school board concludes hearings on teaching evolution

 

BY JOSH FUNK

 

Knight Ridder Newspapers

 

 

TOPEKA, Kan. - (KRT) - The State Board of Education's three days of hearings challenging evolution ended Saturday as they began: with testimony from leaders in the national intelligent design movement and a good deal of acrimony against them.

 

All said they don't want teaching intelligent design to be required.

 

"We're not asking for it to be taught, only permitted," retired attorney John Calvert said in his closing testimony. "If you outlaw it, you're endorsing an ideology."

 

Calvert, who runs the Intelligent Design Network out of Lenexa, Kan., has helped spread the arguments for intelligent design nationwide, and he presented the case challenging Kansas' proposed standards. Proponents of the intelligent design theory say the universe is so complex it must have been created by a higher power.

 

Current standards call for Kansas students to know and understand evolution.

 

Most of the 23 witnesses that Calvert led through scripted questions favor intelligent design over evolution. Only four of those witnesses were Kansans.

 

Pedro Irigonegaray, a Topeka lawyer, represented pro-evolution scientists in the hearings by questioning witnesses to expose their motives and inconsistent testimony.

 

"We should not allow the minority, in essence, to hijack education and send it back to the 16th century," he said.

 

On Thursday, Irigonegaray will present a response to defend evolution and "counter all of the ridiculous ideas we've heard in the last three days."

 

Mainstream scientists refused to participate but still attended the hearings to criticize the attacks on evolutionary theory.

 

The minority group wants the state board to endorse a more critical approach to evolution and expect teachers to explain some of the holes in the central theory of biology. They also want to change the way science is defined as a search for "natural explanations," because they say that represents an endorsement of naturalism and atheism.

 

A committee of three state board members - Steve Abrams, Connie Morris and Kathy Martin - heard all the testimony this week. On Saturday, the three other conservative Republican board members who help control the board also attended.

 

Many of the pro-intelligent–design witnesses are affiliated with the Discovery Institute think tank in Seattle that was created in 1996 to promote intelligent design, and they have testified in other states. Two of Discovery's senior fellows, Stephen Meyer and Michael Behe, testified here Saturday.

 

One of the other witnesses was a Turkish newspaper columnist with no science background but a nearly 10-year-old interest in intelligent design. Mustafa Akyol testified that the naturalistic bias in Kansas' science standards contributes to the ill will between the Muslim world and the United States.

 

He urged the board to adopt the critical approach to help alleviate that ill will.

 

"This is not the only reason for anti-Westernism, but it is an important one," he said.

 

After the hearings, Irigonegaray dismissed Akyol's testimony.

 

"I think he has very little relevancy to what we do in Kansas," Irigonegaray said.

 

Throughout the hearings and again Saturday, witnesses repeated the objection that the proposed standards are biased against intelligent design and against religion because they describe science as a search for natural explanations.

 

Philosophy professor Angus Menuge said that bias in favor of naturalism would rule out any scientific evidence that would support a theistic religion, making the standards like a religion.

 

When Irigonegaray asked him about the thousands of scientists who accept evolution and are religious, the Concordia University professor angered many of the mainstream scientists in the room.

 

"It might be that some of these people are confused," he said.

 

Rachel Robson, a doctoral student studying pathology at the University of Kansas, mocked Menuge's statement.

 

"I understand how it would be good for their case if believing in evolution meant you were an atheist," Robson said. "If that were true, I'd be on their side. But it's not."

 

Later, some of the religious evolution supporters in the crowd started wearing name tags with the word "confused" on them.

 

After the hearings ended, Calvert said he was ecstatic with the testimony and felt certain the intelligent-design proponents had made it point.

 

"There is a clear and undeniable controversy over the origin of life," Calvert said.

 

The mainstream scientists, like Jack Krebs, weren't convinced.

 

"These folks are trying to redefine science as an atheistic philosophy, so they can advance their theological goal," said Krebs, vice president of the pro-evolution Kansas Citizens For Science.

 

State board members will vote on a new set of science standards later this summer.

 

Some changes in the way evolution is treated in the science standards are expected because conservative Republicans control six of the 10 seats on the state board.

 

When conservatives last controlled the Kansas board in 1999, they voted to de-emphasize evolution in the standards, leaving the decision whether to teach it up to local school boards.

 

That decision earned the state ridicule nationwide and prompted voters to elect a moderate majority to the board. Moderates restored evolution to the standards in the spring of 2001.

 

---

 

© 2005, The Wichita Eagle (Wichita, Kan.).

 

 

[theist]

All mention of God without accepting this pricinple of ID is simply sentimentalism and that is where the atheist scientists want to keep it, that is in the sentimental churchs and such and not in the classroom.

 

It is easy to see the undermining of spiritual life will be accomplished this way as they pollute the intelligence of the young and religionists become viewed as stupid sentimentalists who believe in old fairy tales of the past.

 

In many ways I think we can see this is a front line issue.

 

It is also another reason to provide good quality theistic schools for kids. Big friends don't let atheists near the minds of their little friends.

[Guest guest]

Darwinism doens't oppose intelligent design, NEO-Darwinism DOES. And Neo-darwinism states that life has no puprose, including preservation or extinction of a species. that natural selection and evolution are pretty random.

[Guest guest]

design, as it's a BELIEF. And there's no PROOF.

 

However, these scientists are really being pig-headed and rather infantile.

 

For one thing, intelligent design does not contradict Darwin, it COMPLEMENTS his theory. The idea that there is intelligence behind evolution does not invalidate evolution. Evolution is merely a mechanism.

 

The issue should be whether a BELIEF in a higher power should be taught in schools.

 

And this is what both groups, intelligent design advocates and critics, seem to fail in addressing. Rather, they're too wrapped up in trying to prove their own theories correct like they are children.