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Is the US hostile to science?
Topic Started: Oct 28 2005, 08:26 PM (2,850 Views)
Jeffrey
Senior Carp
Here: http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/10/28...reut/index.html

"Is U.S. becoming hostile to science?

Friday, October 28, 2005; Posted: 1:14 p.m. EDT (17:14 GMT)


WASHINGTON, (Reuters) -- A bitter debate about how to teach evolution in U.S. high schools is prompting a crisis of confidence among scientists, and some senior academics warn that science itself is under assault.

In the past month, the interim president of Cornell University and the dean of the Stanford University School of Medicine have both spoken on this theme, warning in dramatic terms of the long-term consequences.

"Among the most significant forces is the rising tide of anti-science sentiment that seems to have its nucleus in Washington but which extends throughout the nation," said Stanford's Philip Pizzo in a letter posted on the school Web site on October. 3.

Cornell acting President Hunter Rawlings, in his "state of the university" address last week, spoke about the challenge to science represented by "intelligent design" which holds that the theory of evolution accepted by the vast majority of scientists is fatally flawed.

Rawlings said the dispute was widening political, social, religious and philosophical rifts in U.S. society. "When ideological division replaces informed exchange, dogma is the result and education suffers," he said.

Adherents of intelligent design argue that certain forms in nature are too complex to have evolved through natural selection and must have been created by a "designer," who could but does not have to be identified as God.

At odds with Bush
In the past five years, the scientific community has often seemed at odds with the Bush administration over issues as diverse as global warming, stem cell research and environmental protection. Prominent scientists have also charged the administration with politicizing science by seeking to shape data to its own needs while ignoring other research.

Evangelical and fundamentalist Christians have built a powerful position within the Republican Party and no Republican, including Bush, can afford to ignore their views.

This was dramatically illustrated in the case of Terri Schiavo earlier this year, in which Republicans in Congress passed a law to keep a woman in a persistent vegetative state alive against her husband's wishes, and Bush himself spoke out in favor of "the culture of life."

The issue of whether intelligent design should be taught, or at least mentioned, in high school biology classes is being played out in a Pennsylvania court room and in numerous school districts across the country.

The school board of Dover, Pennsylvania, is being sued by parents backed by the American Civil Liberties Union after it ordered schools to read students a short statement in biology classes informing them that the theory of evolution is not established fact and that gaps exist in it.

The statement mentioned intelligent design as an alternative theory and recommended students to read a book that explained the theory further.

Brown University biologist Kenneth Miller believes the rhetoric of the anti-evolution movement has had the effect of driving a wedge between a large proportion of the population who follow fundamentalist Christianity and science.

"It is alienating young people from science. It basically tells them that the scientific community is not to be trusted and you would have to abandon your principles of faith to become a scientist, which is not at all true," he said.

On the other side, conservative scholar Michael Novak of the American Enterprise Institute, believes the only way to heal the rift between science and religion is to allow the teaching of intelligent design.

"To have antagonism between science and religion is crazy," he said at a forum on the issue last week.

Proponents of intelligent design deny they are anti-science and say they themselves follow the scientific method.

Americans at odds with evolution
Polls for many years have shown that a majority of Americans are at odds with key scientific theory. For example, as CBS poll this month found that 51 percent of respondents believed humans were created in their present form by God. A further 30 percent said their creation was guided by God. Only 15 percent thought humans evolved from less advanced life forms over millions of years.

Other polls show that only around a third of American adults accept the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe, even though the concept is virtually uncontested by scientists worldwide.

"When we ask people what they know about science, just under 20 percent turn out to be scientifically literate," said Jon Miller, director of the center for biomedical communication at Northwestern University.

He said science and especially mathematics were poorly taught in most U.S. schools, leading both to a shortage of good scientists and general scientific ignorance.

U.S. school students perform relatively poorly in international tests of mathematics and science. For example, in 2003 U.S. students placed 24th in an international test that measured the mathematical literacy of 15-year-olds, below many European and Asian countries.

Scientists bemoan the lack of qualified U.S. candidates for postgraduate and doctoral studies at American universities and currently fill around a third of available science and engineering slots with foreign students.

Northwestern's Miller said the insistence of a large proportion of Americans that humans were created by God as whole beings had policy implications for the future.

"The 21st century will be the century of biology and we are going to be confronted with hundreds of important public policy issues that require some understanding that all life is interconnected," he said.




If the anti-science religious types get their way, our living standards will decline.
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Rick Zimmer
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Fulla-Carp
No, the United States is not hostile to science.

A small, but very vocal group of religious fanatics are and they happen to have someone in the White House who plays on tis for political gain.

Much, but not all, of the best scientific research in the world is continuing to be done in the United States. No matter what this little group does or how much success they have in some of the smaller less sophisticated states in changing elementary and high school science curricula to incorporate theology, scientific research will continue to prosper in the United States.
[size=4]Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul -- Benedict XVI[/size]
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Steve Miller
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Bull-Carp
Rick Zimmer
Oct 28 2005, 09:42 PM
No matter what this little group does or how much success they have in some of the smaller less sophisticated states in changing elementary and high school science curricula to incorporate theology, scientific research will continue to prosper in the United States.

Either that or cruise ships will start falling off of the edge of the Earth.
Wag more
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AlbertaCrude
Bull-Carp
And falling intelligently off the edge of the earth, I might add. ;)
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Steve Miller
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Bull-Carp
AlbertaCrude
Oct 28 2005, 10:38 PM
And falling intelligently off the edge of the earth, I might add. ;)

Just so!

Love the avatar, BTW. New Riders music was the the soundtrack of my youth.
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AlbertaCrude
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It [the avatar] is only for Halloween- come Tuesday I'm back to my miserable usual self. :sombrero:
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bachophile
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HOLY CARP!!!
Quote:
 
smaller less sophisticated states...
[/b]

Creationism is prominent in a recent lawsuit that charges the University of California system with violating the constitutional rights of applicants from Christian schools whose high school coursework is deemed inadequate preparation for college. The complaint was filed in federal court in Los Angeles on August 25, 2005, on behalf of the Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI), the Calvary Chapel Christian School in Murrieta, California, and a handful of students at the school. Representing the plaintiffs are Robert H. Tyler, a lawyer with a new organization called Advocates for Faith and Freedom, and Wendell R. Bird of the Atlanta law firm Bird and Loechl.

yes i always thought that california to be small and unsophisticated...

at least when compared to say...cosmopolitan kansas.

"I don't know much about classical music. For years I thought the Goldberg Variations were something Mr. and Mrs. Goldberg did on their wedding night." Woody Allen
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Mikhailoh
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If you want trouble, find yourself a redhead
This is a tempest in a teapot. America's whole future depends on advancing science, and I do not believe there is anyone out there in power who does not understand this.

There are two hot issues in the current administration that relate to science. The first is Intelligent Design, which is essentially a non-starter in the scientific world. If our schools want to say that many religions and people around the world believe that the world/universe was created by an intelligence (read God), ok by me. It is about the same as teaching Bullfinch's Mythology. There is an equal amount of science to back each up. This issue has no affect on our economy other than enriching attorneys lucky(?) enough to be emroiled in the controversy.

The second is stem-cell research where the President reached a compromise between the two parties. This may well have an economic effect in the future, but it is too early to tell. I think it was a good compromise, the essence of politics.
Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead - Lucille Ball
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Freedom
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Senior Carp
i wouldn't say so. There are always those opposed to science in every country.

"A wise man feareth, and departeth from evil: but the fool rageth, and is confident."

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Nina
Senior Carp
America is a very anti-intellectual society. Scientists fare no worse than any other group. Look at how we deride academics, we call people with advanced degrees snobs, we think of our university system as liberal crackpots locked in ivory towers contemplating their navels, we have exceptionally limited funding for the arts, we have national jokes about geeks and nerds. We think kids who get good grades are unbalanced or not well-rounded, and parents who expect their kids to excel in school are pushy.

I'm not sure if this has much to do with evangelical beliefs. It's been true across a lot of different groups.

My 2c.
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Freedom
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what you described there nina is true for UK as well, there is nothing particularly special about america.

"A wise man feareth, and departeth from evil: but the fool rageth, and is confident."

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AlbertaCrude
Bull-Carp
I too agree Nina, there are a lot of people who somehow feel threatened by the world of ideas and intellectual discourse. Still, this "intelligent design" kerfuffle in K -12 education seems to be unique to the USA. I cannot find any other Western country that is going through similar gyrations and fits of anger over ancient mythology.
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Luke's Dad
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Emperor Pengin
[size=7]Damn the Periodic Table! Damn it to hell![/size]

It's evil, I tell you! A tool of Beelzebub!

:devil:
The problem with having an open mind is that people keep trying to put things in it.
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Amanda
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So you see, apple - your state isn't the only one. And mine has the "larcenous legislature" too. The one that voted themselves a 30% av. salary increase in a secret 2AM vote, with no prior discussion!

Personally, I don’t see what the big deal is. Why can’t one define God as the One who "designed" natural selection? Why does natural selection (actually considerably redefined since Darwin) have to mean absolute randomness?

Science itself it seems to me, is more than anything else the search for principles of order underlying apparent randomness (the same motive which some say is a driving force behind man's invention of religion).
Why should God and religion have to be antithetical? Didn't Einstein specifically object to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, with the protest "God doesn't play dice"?

Of course, this excludes any definition of God which requires specific traits, human or otherwise, to explain “what is” - and how and why it got that way. That applies even more to one which depends on "revelation" to inform the human race. I've noticed that many atheists seem to be primarily rejecting anthropomorphizing God, especially God's motives. I see no reason why a belief in God should mean we understand God, much less God's methods and motives.
[size=5]
We should tolerate eccentricity in others, almost to the point of lunacy, provided no one else is harmed.
[/size]

"Daily Telegraph", London July 27 2005
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Freedom
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Luke's Dad
Oct 29 2005, 10:50 AM
[size=7]Damn the Periodic Table! Damn it to hell![/size]

It's evil, I tell you! A tool of Beelzebub!

:devil:

:lol: :D :lol:

"A wise man feareth, and departeth from evil: but the fool rageth, and is confident."

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John D'Oh
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MAMIL
It's hard to be a fundamentalist Christian, or fundamentalist anything really, and accept a good proportion of mainstream science, it's not just evolution. If the size of the visible universe is as observed by astronomy, and we can see galaxies that are millions of light years away, it rather spoils the notion that the universe is 4000 years old.

I'm with most people, I find the whole thing completely baffling. In many ways it's the difference between religious belief and superstition. You need to be able to modify your beliefs if observed events contradict them. If you can't, you just get left behind dancing with the chicken giblets.
What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket?
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QuirtEvans
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I Owe It All To John D'Oh
Apparently, some people like dancing with giblets, John.

I agree with Amanda. The theory of evolution is not necessarily inconsistent with a belief in God. It may, however, be inconsistent with a literal reading of the Bible. And that's where the problem comes in, for those who want to believe that the Bible is the literal word of God.

The Bible is a book written by ordinary men. Even if the authors of the Bible received the word of God directly, there's nothing to say that they transcribed it accurately, in every respect, and that they did not forget anything.
It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010.
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mrenaud
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Middle Aged Carp
Amanda
Oct 29 2005, 09:49 PM
Didn't Einstein specifically object to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, with the protest "God doesn't play dice"?

A bit off-topic, but Alfred Brendel wrote a poem about that (approximate translation):

When Einstein died
He went to Heaven and found out
That God did play dice.
He turned around and asked:
Excuse me, can you show me the way to Hell?



On topic, I confess that I've never heard of ID before reading about it in the old Coffee Room, and I guess that many people on this side of the big pond have never heard about it either.
Yes, I guess it's an American thing, but don't ask me why.
Why is it that the world never remembered the name of Johann Gambolputty de von Ausfern Schplenden Schlitter Crasscrenbon Fried Digger Dingle Dangle Dongle Dungle Burstein von Knacker Thrasher Apple Banger Horowitz Ticolensic Grander Knotty Spelltinkle Grandlich Grumblemeyer Spelterwasser Kurstlich Himbleeisen Bahnwagen Gutenabend Bitte ein Nürnburger Bratwurstle Gerspurten Mitz Weimache Luber Hundsfut Gumberaber Shönedanker Kalbsfleisch Mittler Aucher von Hautkopft of Ulm?
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Jolly
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Geaux Tigers!
For many, science is its own religion.....
The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States.- George Soros
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Luke's Dad
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Emperor Pengin
John D'Oh
Oct 29 2005, 05:50 PM
It's hard to be a fundamentalist Christian, or fundamentalist anything really, and accept a good proportion of mainstream science, it's not just evolution. If the size of the visible universe is as observed by astronomy, and we can see galaxies that are millions of light years away, it rather spoils the notion that the universe is 4000 years old.

I'm with most people, I find the whole thing completely baffling. In many ways it's the difference between religious belief and superstition. You need to be able to modify your beliefs if observed events contradict them. If you can't, you just get left behind dancing with the chicken giblets.

The established facts of evolution and the history of the world do not come into conflict with a fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible. The problem comes from those that don't understand what they are reading. It's pretty basic. If you substitute a term meaning millenia for the word day in Genesis, then it lines up pretty well. And, I'm trying to remember exactly where, the Bible makes it a point that timescales to God is completely different than Man. I believe it says something to the extent of a thousand years is unto a day for God.
The problem with having an open mind is that people keep trying to put things in it.
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Rick Zimmer
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Fulla-Carp
QuirtEvans
Oct 29 2005, 03:10 PM
Even if the authors of the Bible received the word of God directly, there's nothing to say that they transcribed it accurately, in every respect, and that they did not forget anything.

Or even if they transcribed it correctly, that God intended it to be either a history or science text book.
[size=4]Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul -- Benedict XVI[/size]
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Amanda
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Senior Carp
The answer to the thread title, is that the US is UNINTERESTED in Science, more than “hostile” – with qualifications.

The US as it is now anyhow, is only in favor of things which "pay for themselves" - often analyzed with extraordinary, dangerous short-sightedness. “What are you worth?” speaks only of a person’s cash value.

That means, not only people, but pursuits. "Pure science" is on the decline almost as much as "art for art's sake". If a museum, radio station or opera house can't be self-sustaining - it isn't worth supporting, subsidizing with the public dollar, right?

"Let the market decide" is the watchword of our society. This speaks of aesthetics, intellectual worthwhileness and morality.

What is short-sighted is that the market is irrational - ultimately. Game theory, computer simulation and rational economic decision models notwithstanding, human behavior on both the individual and absolutely collective level, are unpredictable.

And selfish.

To let the "market" - a herd of irrational, greedy individuals, decide what is valuable (and the transactional price) when it comes to complex analyses of utility, is insanity - and leads to both great stupidity and great wrong-doing.

Stupidity:

Much of what has led to advances in invention and design in general technology and (sorry to say) weaponry, has begun with abstract scientific speculation. But now, more than ever, the universities funding has been cut for researching anything without demonstrable utilitarian market value. And even then, the funding is more apt to come from industry than from the government as formerly.

NASA's budget has been slashed. The age of space exploration was motivated largely by Cold War competition - the marketing of economies and ideology ("Sputnik"). Likewise with stepped up science education. Now no one cares about education except for what is "outcomes based" - what will lead to the most docile and productive workers of the future: team-oriented, flexible, productive, loyal. Forget creativity and innovation in the schools.

Wrong-doing:

As a telling example (and worst of all, from my personal perspective), medical research - drugs specifically - has been privatized (turned over to the corporations). Since Reagan, unlike before, drug research, including clinical trials, has been paid for by the manufacturers. Scientists are now paid not only to develop the drugs, but to evaluate their benefits and safety, by the corporations making them. These clinical trials are not available to either the public or even the doctors prescribing.

There’s are many protest movements afoot about this conflict of interest (seems like it should be prohibited by anti-collusion laws) . Meanwhile, the pharmaceutical manufacturers continue to manipulate the market, with massive public campaigns directed at both patients and prescribers.

And the campaigns work! We now have not only political leaders marketed by Madison Avenue expertise, but also medical care. One could argue that all public policy is a market product today – looking at the explosion of professional lobbiests.

This is one of the main reasons US health care costs have been driven up so greatly relative to the rest of the world, and with so little relative return to the general population in terms of greater health.

So, no – the US does NOT care about Science, nor does it care about Art. It only cares about Profit. And in this case, you don’t “get what you pay for.”
[size=5]
We should tolerate eccentricity in others, almost to the point of lunacy, provided no one else is harmed.
[/size]

"Daily Telegraph", London July 27 2005
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AlbertaCrude
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Jolly
Oct 29 2005, 02:46 PM
For many, science is its own religion.....

It's entirely the fault of that Rene Descartes with his cogito ergo sum line.
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John D'Oh
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MAMIL
Quote:
 
For many, science is its own religion.....


I'm not sure what you mean by this - do you mean that some people just believe what they're told by 'experts', or do you mean they are convinced that a theory is correct, despite observable data?

The first situation is natural, and is rather similar to belief in what the bible says, or what a preacher tells them. Some parts of science have the added difficulty for almost everyone that the level of mathematical technique required to really question a theory is not achievable. On the other hand, I've seen people state that obviously the big-bang theory is incorrect, since it breaks the rules of conservation of energy. Don't you think that the top scientific minds would have noticed that fairly basic mistake? In some cases, it's necessary to trust the scientific theory, since the details are damn near impossible to grasp. My more advanced undergraduate courses in quantum theory, for example, left me totally non-the-wiser. Even though I understood the basic theory, once Schrodingers equations and atomic modelling start kicking in, it gets to be a faith-like experience. Lectures were about as much fun as Church of England sermons, come to that.

The second situation of believing a theory, despite evidence to the contrary, is unscientific. One of the fundamentals tenets is that any theory should be based on observable data. Therefore if reliable and repeatable data contradicts the theory, you need to change the theory. The equivalent religous behaviour of the denial of the existence of dinosaurs because they're not mentioned in the bible is, to me at least, incomprensible, and that's the politest term I can find for it.
What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket?
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Larry
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Mmmmmmm, pie!
I'm always amused at how people make statements about "fundamentalist Christians" like they are an authority on them, and then proceed to assign all sorts of views to them that have nothing at all to do with being a fundamentalist. Even the idea of the Bible being the "literal word of God" is reduced to a simplistic notion where the "fundamentalist" is portrayed as being ignorant and misguided.

It is also amusing to watch as people make the ludicrous argument that they are broadening education by restricting it, using the notion that their motivation is based purely on a concern for scientific purity. People who dare question the accuracy of evolution are labeled "flat earthers" by people who in the same breath show a vast abundance of ignorance regarding the views they are so quick to dismiss as ridiculous. Goodness.... a real fundamentalist doesn't dare admit it anymore, lest he be labeled a moron - by a group who insists no one label *them*.

Belief in a 4,000 year old earth is not a tenet of fundamentalism. When you try to shoehorn fundamentalism into a set little box of your own making, you misunderstand it entirely. For instance, Quirt's comment about "literal word of God". He uses the right phrase, but misses the truth by a mile. Some of you apparently got your idea of what a "fundamentalist" is by watching televangelists. That is like someone learning about science by watching a Star Trek movie.

Fundamentalism makes no claim regarding how long the earth has existed. It makes no claim regarding evolution. It does not make the claim that the Bible is the "literal words of God" in the sense that it has been portrayed here, and it has nothing whatsoever against science. Fundamentalism says that the Bible is inspired by God, written by men who were led to write what they wrote. That does not mean that the fundamentalist view is that God literally "wrote" the words, or that every single word written must be taken literally. You can be a fundamentalist and still accept that the universe is billions of years old, and that evolutionary processes were involved.

The reason I support teaching ID is twofold: most importantly, I support teaching it because the best way to produce broad minded, well educated people capable of critical thinking is to present all the material and let them think for themselves. You can't prove we came from monkeys, I can't prove what process God played in it all either. Both theories have merit, both have flaws. But to limit the discussion to a single view cheats the student. Secondly, of less importance than the first but still important, it pokes a stick in the eye of secular liberalism, an ideology that is *not* motivated by any concern for science, but is motivated by an overriding goal of eliminating all reference to religion in every aspect of life.

Those who think they are "enlightened" because they see evolution as the sole answer to the question always end up at the same spot - they trace everything back to a single cell, and even come up with theories about how that cell originated in the first place. They can tell you their theory about how the universe came to be, and on and on. What they *can't* answer is where all this matter came from to start with.

Maybe, just maybe, if we allow students to have *all* the evidence for *all* the theories presented in the classroom in an unbiased manner designed to make them think instead of either side trying to one up the other, just maybe some bright young mind will discover some amazing truths that changes both science *and* religion. In other words, it is the secular liberalists who are afraid of open minded debate, not the "fundamentalists". Yes, there are crackpots amongst the group you label "fundamentalists". But they exist on both sides.

Of the Pokatwat Tribe

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