Monday, March 07, 2005

 

My head has just expolded

The AFP is full of crap.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US science community is embroiled in a caustic fight over the theory that a higher intelligence and not Darwinist evolution is largely responsible for life on Earth.

Intelligent design, which holds that only an unspecified superior intellect can account for the complexity of life forms, is increasingly appearing in science forums and journals as an alternative to evolution theory.

Evolution has been widely accepted ever since Charles Darwin's "Origin of Species" revolutionized biological sciences 145 years ago.

But the new theory's support by a handful of biologists and non-scientists has put Darwinists on the defensive, while encouraging conservative Christian groups who consider evolution hostile to Biblical teachings.

The article starts off saying the entire scientific community is debating the prospect that after 150 years of finding evidence to support evolution, were going to start beliving a magic alien created life on earth. By the 4th paragraph they admit it's actually two or three biologists and the religiously insane community versus the entire scientific community.

Essentially, intelligent design holds that certain structures found in living things, such as the flagella of bacteria or extra wings on certain fruit flies, cannot be explained by Darwinian concepts of natural selection and random variation.

So scientists can explain every aspect of the planet earth, but they havn't gotten to extra wings on a fruit fly yet, that means we have to ignore 150 years of science and believe a large rectangular block is responsible for life on earth?

In one incident, biologist Richard Sternberg filed a legal complaint against Washington's Smithsonian Museum of Natural History for branding him a religious fundamentalist and denying him access to facilities, due to his editorial role in the 2003 publication of a scientific paper by intelligent design advocate Stephen Meyer.

While he has neither endorsed nor denied the theory, intelligent design advocates have compared Sternberg to 16th century astronomer Galileo Galilei, branded a heretic for challenging Roman Catholic dogma with his scientific discoveries.

The difference is Galileo was going against the church's dogma in favor of science. That's kind of different from helping the church write anti-science propaganda.

Spearheading the intelligent design movement is the Discovery Institute, a conservative think-tank in Seattle in the US northwest.

Forrest points out, however, that a 1999 Discovery fund-raising document specifically endorses the conservative Christian agenda.

Obvious.

However, creationists in several states have cited intelligent design in trying to introduce their teachings into public schoolrooms. In November, school officials in Dover, Pennsylvania ordered teachers to include intelligent design in ninth-grade biology courses.
Obvious. Intelligent design isn't about science, it's about getting religion into schools.

Intelligent design advocates have also been encouraged by a statement made in 1999 by then-Texas governor, now President George W. Bush that he believed that "children ought to be exposed to different theories about how the world started."
Obvious.

I actually feel stupider after reading that. The title of the article was "US scientists battle over anti-Darwin "Intelligent design" theory". U.S. scientists arn't debating this crap, there is nothing to debate, you can't debate whether a magic man in space gave fruit flies their extra wings. There is no science, no evidence behind intelligent design. You either believe in it, or you believe in science.



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