evolution rules, thank God, in Dover
The Love of the Lord has been spurned! So, claimed televangelist Pat Robertson on a broadcast of the Christian Broadcast Network's "700 Club". Not content with solely that claim, the good reverend topped it off with another. And it's a doozie. Ostensibly entitled by this latter claim, he scolded the rural Pennsylvania town of Dover for expurgating their high school science curricula of "intelligent design" ... at bottom, creationism in tailored clothing.
Oh, alright (!) already, so, maybe it would be nice of me to re-iterate here the details, regarding the election that replaced an entire school board with a religious bent with one with a scientific bent. But I won't. For a couple days, our 24/7 cable news channels have been harping on just such details. The way I figure it, why (?) tell people, who are truly interested in reading this piece, with stuff they already know ... aaaay, c'mon, whoever (?) said I'm nice, anyway!
Oh, just for the heck of it, I'm going to quote from a missive I recently e.mailed to the editor of PIPE DREAM,
a student bi-weekly that's published on the campus of Binghamton University. So, here goes.
Nearly two hundred years ago, the great philosopher Immanuel "Manny" Kant opened the way for faith by showing reason its constraints. And that does have a momentous implication for people of reason. Specifically, it behooves them to respect the constraints on reason. If that's taken just a bit further, one can assert something like so:
... Just as people of reason should respect the constraints on reason, so should people of faith respect the constraints on faith. ...
Oh well, I can easily conjecture that readers expect me to elucidate that immediately preceding statement. But I won't. I'm leaving that for another time and place. Who knows? Maybe, it behooves me to leave that as a task for some other "wild-eyed iconoclast". Here in the meanwhile, I'm going to jump onto a related topic.
Just as I learned the details about the good reverend's scolding an entire town from a 24/7 cable channel, I also learned something interesting about my colleague Americans.
Some fifty-one percent (51%) of same concur, in the essential details, with the good reverend about how human beings came into existence. In short, it boils down to the answer to the very first question in the Roman Catholic Baltimore Cathecism. The question is very easy to remember, and it was "Who made you?". The answer was short and snappy, and it was "God made me.".
Only some fifteen percent (15%) hold with the view, for whose sake the voters of Dover incurred the wrath of the televangelist.
This raises an interesting question. What (?) on earth could've motivated the supporters for evolution to go through the trouble, involved in replacing an entire school board.
I do believe that yours truly has a reasonable answer to that question. Here I go, quoting myself again ... with some revision.
"It is only reasonable for us to desire the benefits that we hope can be provided by medical research. Here on this earth and in our time, we necessarily pin our hopes on modern-day medical research. Eventually, so we hope, people afflicted with diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's et cetera will be provided with successful treatment in our medical facilities. Certainly, we for our very selves or for loved ones, who are in the grip of such misfortune, would welcome, in our own time, more efficacious treatment of such diseases.
"Therefore, it is only reasonable for us to reject the hampering of such research. Taking this one step further, we object to compelling high school students to study creationism, or in somewhat fancier duds "intelligent design", as if that notion were scientifically valid.
"That it is not, we have on the authority of those scientists, whom we have entrusted to purse legitimate medical research. In truth, it is upon the shoulders of these people that our hopes for medical advancement rest. So far as those scientists are concerned, evolution is absolutely indispensable for their endeavours. So far as sheer human intellect is concerned, nothing else will do.
"As such, evolution has been elevated far above and beyond mere theory. Evolution as fundamentum lights the path to advancement of medical science."
toodles
.....\
.he who is known as sefton
Appendix -
ooo-rah for Dover
Incidentially, as best as I can recall what I think I heard on P.B.S's NEWS HOUR, there was dissent by science teachers in Dover's high schools. They balked at the obtrusion of "intelligent design" ... truth be told, creationism in fancier duds.
Those laudable people may, or may not, have aware that they were in accord with another great philosopher, namely, Friedrich "Fritz" Nietzsche. Fritz claimed that the foundation of science is moral. In that, every conscientious scientist complies with the dictum,
.... I will not deceive, not even myself ....
Oh, alright (!) already, so, maybe it would be nice of me to re-iterate here the details, regarding the election that replaced an entire school board with a religious bent with one with a scientific bent. But I won't. For a couple days, our 24/7 cable news channels have been harping on just such details. The way I figure it, why (?) tell people, who are truly interested in reading this piece, with stuff they already know ... aaaay, c'mon, whoever (?) said I'm nice, anyway!
Oh, just for the heck of it, I'm going to quote from a missive I recently e.mailed to the editor of PIPE DREAM,
a student bi-weekly that's published on the campus of Binghamton University. So, here goes.
Nearly two hundred years ago, the great philosopher Immanuel "Manny" Kant opened the way for faith by showing reason its constraints. And that does have a momentous implication for people of reason. Specifically, it behooves them to respect the constraints on reason. If that's taken just a bit further, one can assert something like so:
... Just as people of reason should respect the constraints on reason, so should people of faith respect the constraints on faith. ...
Oh well, I can easily conjecture that readers expect me to elucidate that immediately preceding statement. But I won't. I'm leaving that for another time and place. Who knows? Maybe, it behooves me to leave that as a task for some other "wild-eyed iconoclast". Here in the meanwhile, I'm going to jump onto a related topic.
Just as I learned the details about the good reverend's scolding an entire town from a 24/7 cable channel, I also learned something interesting about my colleague Americans.
Some fifty-one percent (51%) of same concur, in the essential details, with the good reverend about how human beings came into existence. In short, it boils down to the answer to the very first question in the Roman Catholic Baltimore Cathecism. The question is very easy to remember, and it was "Who made you?". The answer was short and snappy, and it was "God made me.".
Only some fifteen percent (15%) hold with the view, for whose sake the voters of Dover incurred the wrath of the televangelist.
This raises an interesting question. What (?) on earth could've motivated the supporters for evolution to go through the trouble, involved in replacing an entire school board.
I do believe that yours truly has a reasonable answer to that question. Here I go, quoting myself again ... with some revision.
"It is only reasonable for us to desire the benefits that we hope can be provided by medical research. Here on this earth and in our time, we necessarily pin our hopes on modern-day medical research. Eventually, so we hope, people afflicted with diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's et cetera will be provided with successful treatment in our medical facilities. Certainly, we for our very selves or for loved ones, who are in the grip of such misfortune, would welcome, in our own time, more efficacious treatment of such diseases.
"Therefore, it is only reasonable for us to reject the hampering of such research. Taking this one step further, we object to compelling high school students to study creationism, or in somewhat fancier duds "intelligent design", as if that notion were scientifically valid.
"That it is not, we have on the authority of those scientists, whom we have entrusted to purse legitimate medical research. In truth, it is upon the shoulders of these people that our hopes for medical advancement rest. So far as those scientists are concerned, evolution is absolutely indispensable for their endeavours. So far as sheer human intellect is concerned, nothing else will do.
"As such, evolution has been elevated far above and beyond mere theory. Evolution as fundamentum lights the path to advancement of medical science."
toodles
.....\
.he who is known as sefton
Appendix -
ooo-rah for Dover
Incidentially, as best as I can recall what I think I heard on P.B.S's NEWS HOUR, there was dissent by science teachers in Dover's high schools. They balked at the obtrusion of "intelligent design" ... truth be told, creationism in fancier duds.
Those laudable people may, or may not, have aware that they were in accord with another great philosopher, namely, Friedrich "Fritz" Nietzsche. Fritz claimed that the foundation of science is moral. In that, every conscientious scientist complies with the dictum,
.... I will not deceive, not even myself ....
posted by he who is known as sefton | 1:24 PM
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