During recent decades, new scientific evidence from many scientific disciplines such as cosmology, physics, biology, "artificial intelligence" research, and others have caused scientists to begin questioning Darwinism's central tenet of natural selection and studying the evidence supporting it in greater detail.
Yet public TV programs, educational policy statements, and science textbooks have asserted that Darwin's theory of evolution fully explains the complexity of living things. The public has been assured that all known evidence supports Darwinism and that virtually every scientist in the world believes the theory to be true.
The scientists on this list dispute the first claim and stand as living testimony in contradiction to the second. Since Discovery Institute launched this list in 2001 over 500 scientists have courageously stepped forward to sign their names. The list is growing and includes scientists from the US National Academy of Sciences, Russian, Polish and Czech National Academies, as well as from universities such as Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT, UC Berkeley, UCLA, and others.
Read More @ CSC - Center for Science and Culture
Interesting, could it be darwinism is not fact but but really is, [gasp] a theory?? -Ed
Posted by Muddy at February 21, 2006 08:11 PMDarwinism has always been known as a theory.
It is a theory which tries to explain the fact of evolution.
It is so far the best theory to explain this fact.
Intelligent design is so far a lousy pseudo theory whith a very poor explanation power some stupid assumptions and very clear links with specific religious interests.
If and when it begins to present good explanations of the fact of evolution, scientific design will be taught in school.
Posted by: DF at February 22, 2006 02:28 AMI'm shocked you understand that, frankly I wish our schools did. They believe that Darwin is some kind of god and everything he said is fact.
I agree 100% with DF. Darwinism has never been presented as a "law" or something irrefutibale. It has always been presented as a "theory." It is a leading theory that certainly is the accepted standard, but no one has presented it as fact.
The "intelligent design" people try to play it up as some great theory, when in fact it really is not science and really shouldnt even be considered a "theory." There is NO WAY to test for it.
Its funny really, instead of trying to present evidence that supports the [junk science] "theory" of "intelligent design," they do everything possible to discredit darwinism. I think its great that darwinism is looked at "objectively" and picked apart, however it has stood up realtively unscatched over time.
"Intelligent design" AKA the PC term for Creationsim has no scientific merrit, because it cannot be tested in any manner and submit to the scientific method.
I won't disagree that it doesn't have scientific merit. But I'd just like to toss this out there: have we considered that somethings are a bit outside the realm of science?
In reality, we run into a dead end either way we go. With creationism, you run into, well, where did God come from?
With respect to the "big bang" you run into, well where did this compressed ball of matter come from?
In the end, no matter what you believe, you have to have some amount of faith to continue to believe it.
Posted by: skywalker at February 24, 2006 12:12 PM"In the end, no matter what you believe, you have to have some amount of faith to continue to believe it."
That's actually a very good point.
Posted by: mrs. muddy at February 24, 2006 04:55 PMscience doesn't answer why questions.
Why is there a law of gravity? no answer.
That is why science is compatible with any faith in a supreme being or multiple supreme being.
However what scieces does answer is How questions.
It tries to
A get facts right
B try to understand the laws that lead from one fact to another. Those laws are hypothetical.
For instance, it is a fact that apples fall on the ground and moon and earth move, and all those movements can be explained with newton gravity law.
Indeed Einstein theory is even more accurate.
So about evolution, it's the same.
We have facts, fossils, skeletons, datation devices ... Those show that there has been an evolution in life forms. Some life forms appeared first, some disappeared, some did not. Life forms of one type evolved into others.
The darwinian theory tries to explain these variations, it states, that natural selection explains how life forms evolve into others, stay the same or die.
Intelligent design tries to do the same, it states that some preexistent intelligent design explains how life forms evolved into others.
None of these visions is compatible with creationism, textbook reading of the bible and the belief of the majority of americans that Humans were created in their present form.
Both acknowledge that humans evolved out of apes. However the darwinian theory states that this was a natural evolution out of selection of the fittest, while the intelligent design hypothesis states more or less that God (or Aliens for that matter) created designed life so that humans would be at the end of the present chain of evolution.
May be you can remember the Lyssenko scandal. Lyssenko was a pseudo Marxist scientist. He was saying basically that genes could be changed by the modification of the environment. THis was a complete bogus theory, just as intelligent design is, and it got support for political reason, just as intelligent design does.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trofim_Lysenko
As a social scientist, I would love to hear about a theory that would state that life forms can consciously change their genotype, that they can influence mutations in oneway.
However as a scientist, I will not back Lyssenko just because it suits my tastes.
It's the same with intelligent design. However you might like it because it has such a sweet taste for your christian faith, it does not qualify it as a sound theory.
Like i said: no scientific merit. But science can't explain everything.
Somethings, you simply have to take on faith.
Posted by: Skywalker at February 25, 2006 08:58 AM