America's New Monkey Trials

Salon -- The New Monkey Trial

National Geographic Magazine: Was Darwin Wrong - NO!

As President Bush's science advisor, John H. Marburger III, acknowledges, "intelligent design is not a scientific concept." Although its proponents often point to supposed empirically based "gaps" in the science of evolution, intelligent design theory also necessarily involves positing extra-natural (if not religious) phenomena.

"Outside the precincts of the religious right, though, the scientific consensus about evolution is very close to unanimous" - Salon.

The National Academy of Sciences, "the nation's most prestigious scientific organization," declares evolution "one of the strongest and most useful scientific theories we have."

"Whatever your belief, it should be respected. But the National Academy of Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science both reject intelligent design and don't want it mentioned in science classes."

BELIEF IN GOD AND EVOLUTION ARE NOT INCOMPATIBLE

Philosopher Michael Ruse - I think creationism is dangerous because I don't think you should teach young people bad ideas. But he also disagrees with Dawkins.

Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins explains why God is a delusion, religion is a virus, and America has slipped back into the Dark Ages.


BELIEF IN GOD AND EVOLUTION ARE NOT INCOMPATIBLE: As physics professor Lawrence Krauss observes, "One can choose to view chance selection as obvious evidence that there is no God, as Dr. Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist and uncompromising atheist, might argue, or to conclude instead that God chooses to work through natural means." In the latter case, he notes, "the overwhelming evidence that natural selection has determined the evolution of life on earth would simply imply that God is 'the cause of causes,'" as Pope Benedict XVI, when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, stated when he presided over the church's International Theological Commission. Indeed, "when a researcher from the University of Georgia surveyed scientists' attitudes toward religion several years ago, he found their positions virtually unchanged from an identical survey in the early years of the 20th century. About 40 percent of scientists said not just that they believed in God, but in a God who communicates with people and to whom one may pray 'in expectation of receiving an answer.'"

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