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The Swedish government is to crack down on the role religion plays in independent faith schools. The new rules will include a ban on biology teachers teaching creationism or 'intelligent design' alongside evolution...It's important to note this "crackdown" is not on public schools, but on 'independent faith schools,' which according to the article lost their independence the time-honored way: accepting varying amounts of government money:
Some Christian schools teach biology students that the world and the organisms on it were created by a supreme being. This is often presented as another valid scientific theory alongside evolution - something most scientists reject.
Most independent schools in Sweden are privately owned but funded by government grants. Björklund also said the Swedish National Agency for Education would double the number of inspections of both council-run and independent schools. He also announced a ban on anonymous financial donations to schools and said he would make it easier to close schools that were breaking the rules.Naturally, all of this is being done "for the children:"
"Pupils must be protected from all forms of fundamentalism," said Education Minister Jan Björklund to Dagens Nyheter.My observations:
-- Materialism is every bit as much a "fundamental" faith as any religious account of creation. None of these views of the origin of the universe can be replicated or validated by operational science. This is not a battle of reason vs. religion, as so many would paint it, but rather a clash of opposing worldviews. Ironically, secular materialism increasingly acts as intolerant of dissent as it accuses religion of being.
-- Not all 'fundamentalism' is the same. Sober, serious adherents of Secular Humanism, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, etc, pursue very different objectives, using very different methods. "By their fruit you will know them."
-- At a time when the world increasingly rejects the validity of scripture, those who would teach it must take care not to hand levers of power to their adversaries by accepting funds or assistance. He who pays the piper still calls the tune.
6 comments:
As a scientist I accept evolution as the theory so far capable of explaining and including empirical evidence it has been challenged with, better than has any other theory has.
As a believer I would find it irreconcilable with my beliefs to accept this if it was not for the fact that I see no link between science and materialism.
Materialism is a philosophy, while science is a methodology - thus I can accept that evolution is the "winner" so far when using the methods of science to
research and build propositions as to the origins of life and everything, and still retain my meta-physical believes.
However, for someone believing that the word of the Bible must be taken literary or else he or she is somehow "less" of a true believer - I see problems in reconciling with science when science do not come to conclusions supporting - or at least not challenging - the Bible's account.
I recommend this video for a balanced and updated debate on the issue of the legal, scientific and religious aspects of "creation vs. evolution".
Here is the link to the video - my finger slipped before I was done (-;
www.video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-606904307871633461&q=creation+evolution+debate+duration%3Along&total=77&start=20&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0
The best 'evidence' cited in favor of molecules-to-Man evolution really only demonstrates variations within species/families -- NOT changes from one species into another. Thus, there are no true "transitional forms/missing links" in the fossil record.
Those who hold to the creation account in Genesis acknowledge that dogs, cats, etc today have differentiated from their forebears due to loss of genetic information over time as groups become isolated from each other. Such change is consistent with what we know both of genetics AND the scriptural account.
On the other hand, science has yet to give a single example of ANY mutation resulting in an INCREASE in genetic information -- something that would have had to occur trillions of times in order for the macroevolutionary theory to be correct. Even drug-resistant bacteria, often hailed as evolution in action, become so due to LOSS of genetic material, not gain.
Here's a video I've linked to before -- worth viewing and doing your own due diligence following up the claims.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4400107048255854745&q=creation+evolution+deception&total=36&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=1
I will view the video ASAP, sir (-;
And reply ASAP (as in As Soon As Processed)...
But over what time span do you propose live has evolved?
Love Liz
To be continued...
The word "evolve" has several common meanings, depending on context. If used in the sense of life originating randomly from inanimate matter, I do not believe this has occurred at all. Rather, I believe the world and all life were purposely created, most likely within the past 10-20 thousand years (not millions -- this view results from reading evolutionary suppositions back into the geologic record, where they find little, if any support).
On the other hand, we observe changes WITHIN species... this is often used to "prove" macroevolutionary theory, but is in fact a far cry from the "molecules to man" viewpoint popularized by Darwin and others. As creation winds down due to the effect of separation from God, the loss of genetic information over generations does produce differences within populations...but does NOT create "new" species in the sense of increasing complexity/information. That has simply NEVER happened.
We are degenerating from created perfection, not rising randomly from disorder. The difference in the two view points affects how one sees everything in life.
In as so far as life originating as a result of supernatural intervention - whether according to the Bible or some other creed - I have no problem in letting such theories challenge the evolution theory thought as part of nature science, IF these theories are capable of proving themselves superior to the evolutionary theory in encompassing and explaining current findings, generating hypothesis able to be falsified with empirical scientifically gathered and analyzed observations, and not referring to processes not able to be supported by naturalistic and empirical evidence.
It is not a responsibility of the evolution theory to "have the burden of proof", and for creation based theories to point of fallacies - it is he duty of any opponent to any currently reining paradigm of interference within any science, if it wants to challenge this paradigm, to prove itself better in these ways.
I find it difficult to see how creation based theories can better encompass and explain all hitherto gathered relevant data, present falsifiable hypotheses to test it, and be superior in guiding further research. That is, unless it refers to the intervention and action of forces, entities and processes not possible to prove the existence of through scientific means.
So far, I have mainly seen flaws and gaps being pointed out in evolution - without any theory better on the above mention counts being suggested to take its place.
A flawed theory will still be adopted by the scientific community as a collective , and be the one public schools are bound to teach, as long as it is not defeated as the best one around on these dimensions.
Theorizing or inference around findings is part of science, but it is not religion when it is done in a scientific way. Evolution is so far the theory around that is most in coherence with the scientific demands of a scientific theory.
I welcome any theory to challenge it - as long as it does so according to the stringent rules of scientific method.
But even though pointing out gaps in evolutionary theory inference of gathered data is not enough to replace it or even go on par with it or change its' status as science - it does further motivates and helps the scientists working with filling those gaps by pointing them in the direction of what they need to research and test to further strengthen that theory.
About the one-way change in information.
The mainstream scientific community holds that mechanisms such as gene duplication and polyploidy could provide new information and that duplicate genes can rapidly mutate, sometimes changing their function. Answers in Genesis denies that copying genes can provide new, usable information, arguing that such polyploid genetic information is merely an additional copy of the already present information. However, examples of such information being introduced to an organism's genome have been claimed to have been observed, such as in the nylon-eating bacteria, a strain of Flavobacterium that evolved to create new enzymes to digest nylon, a polymer that wasn't invented until 1935. Scientists forced a strain of Pseudomonas to evolve nylon-digesting enzymes by leaving them in an environment which contained no nutrients other than the man-made by-products of nylon. Different genes and different enzymes evolved which did exactly the same job
Now, instead of trying to prove wrong the flaws presented by challengers of the evolutionary theory - I would like to ask this:
What kind of evidence, findings or data possible to gather through scientific method would suffice in making clear its superiority as theory of origin of life?
Again, I am willing to take it to a fair challenge - as long as the scientific rules demanded of any theory are adhered to. But if one has to hypothesize the present, intentions o actions of that which is not in the realm of science to research than it is not going to be science.
As a scientist I am happy theories are challenged as it provides fuel and direction for further research and attempts at finding supporting empiri.
Love Liz
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