Nature published a news article about an open letter from Polish scientists to protest against an anti-evolution campaign launched by the creationists of the League of Polish Families (LPR).
The Polish scientific community is concerned that this will effect biology teaching in schools through LPR-leader and Polish minister of education Roman Giertych and his father and LPR member of the European Parlaiment Maciej Giertych, the latter holds a PhD in tree physiology.
The article states that “neither Roman nor Maciej responded to Nature’s request for comment.”
Maciej Giertych however did comment in a later issue with the usual evolution criticism. Maciej Giertych’s correspondence received lot of criticism from the scientific community. His arguments are called pseudoscientific, and other arguments are said to be untrue. Several people state that Nature should not have published Maciej Giertych’s correspondence.
It is a difficult problem I think. On one hand Giertych should be able to comment on an article that mentions him, even if his comment contains scientific errors. On the other hand : Should Nature provide Giertych an audience to tell his pseudoscientific views that have political implications as well?
I don not know…
Pseudoscience can evolve into science. Alchemy became chemistry, although I can not see where this anti-evolution must lead to.
The Giertych’s contemptuous homophobic and aniti-Semitic opinion makes me think that you should ignore those guys. Unfortunately the Giertych-clan can not be ignored because of the positions they have.
My conclusion is that I hate it when science, religion and politics are mingling. It goes well when they live together. You can prove that the earth is not the centre of the universe while being a devout Christian. It goes wrong when the church and state interfere in your discovery, then you are silenced and can only mumble :”Eppur si muove”.
I think that both evolution and creation have to be taught in school, which of the theories is supported is up to the pupil. Both theories are important because of their value. Whether is a cultural, historic, religious or scientific value is not important for curriculum inclusion. Politics should not determine what is believed to be true.
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4 comments:
First off, removing evolution from schools would not effect biology at all. The books would still have plenty of useful things left to learn.
I disagree with you about creation and evolution being taught in schools; I dont believe
that creation or evolution should be taught. They are both religous
beliefs, for creation you have to have faith that God created the entire universe and for evolution you have to have faith that nothing created itself. I believe for Science, schools should use science not religion.
visit
www.freewebs.com/creationvsevolution
Its me, actually evolution is not a religious belief. Evolution (as a process) is an observed fact. Evolution as a theory is one of the most consistent theories in all of science. With very few major modifications to main framework of the theory it has survived as a working scientific theory for over 150 years, and not evidence has currently been found that disproves it. Evolution also has nothing to do with anything creating anything. Evolution is defined as the change in allele frequency in a population from generation to generation. Evolution doesn't describe the origin or life, the origin of matter, the origin of anything...except biodiversity and species. (Hence the title of Darwin's book Origin of Species)
Darwins book was boring long and from my perspective uneducated.
He saw (14)? Varieties of finches
And said this proves that bannanas and birds are related.
We visited last Sunday the well known Attica Zoological Park
and visiting the department with Monkeys we started a discussion
about Darwin's Theory (Evolution). A good colleague from another Military University of Greece (Hellenic
Airforce Academy) had many objections about the Evolutionary Theory and sent me later a
very interesting email. It seems that the controversy still exists and there is no a common
point of Scientists yet. Many WSEAS Members are Biologists, however all of us have our personal
opinions maybe from our families and under the influence of our religions.
I have told in a previous WSEAS Conference on Evolutionary Computing
(Lisbon, 2005) that maybe God uses Evolutionary Computing like an Engineer and so
probably there is not a real contradiction between Creation and
Evolution. It seems that a common point could be an Intelligent Design.
As you can see our discussion cannot be only scientific, but it must
combines personal faith, experiences outside science (religion? miracle?
experience?). The WSEAS Community includes people from all the religions. Many of
them are religious persons. We want to have your opinions.
To this end, we created a Forum (i.e. Blog) with several videos that
we found from www.youtube.com
http://creation-and-evolution.blogspot.com/2008/01/creation-or-evolution.html
If you are interested to participate in this dialogue ("debate")
you can post your opinions, articles, etc
http://creation-and-evolution.blogspot.com/2008/01/creation-or-evolution.html
CLICK ON THE LINK:
Post a Comment
http://creation-and-evolution.blogspot.com/2008/01/creation-or-evolution.html
If your comments are good enough, you will be invited to publish them
in a more official WSEAS forum
(Book, Journal, Educational CD-ROM, etc....)
Any WSEAS Member or friend or any simple visitor of this page can tell
his opinion.
The best contributions (not anonymous please) from our Academic
Community will be invited to be Chapters in a Book or Papers in a
Journal os Magazine or Educational CD-ROM that will be published by
WSEAS. All the opinions towards to one or to the other direction are
encouraged.
Forward this link to your friends and students. We need both popular
and scientific contributions. The Best (criterion: the scientific
documentation only) will be published by WSEAS. All the contributions
must be in English.
CLICK ON THE LINK:
Post a Comment
http://creation-and-evolution.blogspot.com/2008/01/creation-or-evolution.html
NEW KEYNOTE SPEAKERS from University of Berkeley and Stanford University added in the WSEAS events.
Many Thanks
Kostas
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