From Discovery Institute's Robert Crowther. When I was about 10 years old the minister of my Methodist church gave a sermon opposing an anti-evolution petition. Excerpts from it were broadcast on the Huntley-Brinkley Report on NBC television.
On Evolution Sunday It’s Give Me That Old Time Darwinist Religion
FOR RELEASE FEB 9, 2006
Press Contact: Robert Crowther
Discovery Institute
(206) 292-0401 x.107
rob@discovery.org
Seattle – “Evolution Sunday is the height of hypocrisy,” says Bruce Chapman, president of Discovery Institute the nation’s leading think tank researching scientific challenges to Darwinian evolution. “Why do Darwinists think it is not okay for people to criticize Darwin on religious grounds, but it is just fine to defend him on religious grounds?”
Sunday marks the 197th birthday of Charles Darwin and to celebrate 400 ministers have announced they will deliver pro-evolution sermons in conjunction with “Evolution Sunday.”
“Our view is not that pastors should speak out against evolution, but that the Darwinists are hypocrites for claiming--falsely--that opposition to Darwinism is merely faith based, and then turning around and trying to make the case that Darwinism itself is faith based,” added Chapman.
Chapman pointed out that the only time religion is brought up in the debate over how to teach evolution is when Darwinists bring it up and falsely charge that anyone criticizing Darwin’s theory is religiously motivated.
“We maintain a list of hundreds of scientists who are skeptical of Darwinian evolution because of the unresolved scientific problems with the theory, not because of any so-called religious motivation,” said Chapman. The Scientific Dissent From Darwinism is available on the Institute’s website at www.discovery.org.
“This isn’t science versus religion, it’s science versus science,” added Chapman. “It’s a standard part of science to raise evidence critical of an existing scientific theory or paradigm. That’s what good science is about—analyzing evidence and asking tough questions. Scientists have a duty to raise critical questions about existing scientific theories.”
Discovery Institute, the nation’s leading think tank dealing with scientific challenges to Darwinian evolution, seeks to increase the teaching of evolution. It believes that evolution should be fully and completely presented to students, and they should learn more about evolutionary theory, including its unresolved issues. The Institute opposes any effort to mandate or require the teaching of intelligent design by school districts or state boards of education.
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Robert L. Crowther
Director of Communications
Center for Science & Culture
(206) 292-0401 x107
Read Evolution News & Views, our blog on media coverage of the debate over evolution at www.evolutionnews.org
Intelligent Design: The Future, a daily blog about the science behind intelligent design at: www.idthefuture.com
2 comments:
About Evolution Sunday from the website itself:
On 12 February 2006 hundreds of Christian churches from all portions of the country and a host of denominations will come together to discuss the compatibility of religion and science. For far too long, strident voices, in the name of Christianity, have been claiming that people must choose between religion and modern science. More than 10,000 Christian clergy have already signed The Clergy Letter demonstrating that this is a false dichotomy. Now, on the 197th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, many of these leaders will bring this message to their congregations through sermons and/or discussion groups. Together, participating religious leaders will be making the statement that religion and science are not adversaries. And, together, they will be elevating the quality of the national debate on this topic.
http://www.uwosh.edu/colleges/cols/rel_evol_sun.htm
May I add my own list of Christian Evolutionist Resources?
http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/evolution/christian_evolutionists.html
Many mainstrean religious institutions, including the largest single denomination, Catholicism, support evolution, even Darwinism to a cautious theistic extent. "Evolution Sunday" is of course a reaction by mainstream clergy to the recent challenges to evolution and Darwinism in America.
As for the "hypocrisy" part of the piece, I agree sticking to scientific arguments is best when you are arguing scientific matters. Which also why Weikert's book, From Darwin to Hitler, doesn't count as a scientific argument against Darwinistic theories of evolution, though the Discovery Institute pushes that book and hires him to speak, so by connecting "Darwin/Hitler" enough times in people's brains they will learn to sneer before they can even think. Kind of like the way Repugs connected "Sadam with 9/11 and Al queda" so many times on so many news interviews that most Americans grew to believe there was a direct connection between those things too.
Darwin Day by the way, is simply Darwin's birthday that he shares with Abe Lincoln. Here's a professor and author who is both a Christian (and pro-Darwinian evolution) who speaks a little about Darwin and Lincoln and their shared birthday on his blogsite (a blogsite devoted to ACCEPTING Darwinism as a basis for conservatism and morality, or at least not as "at odds" with such things as the Discovery Institute assumes they are:
http://darwinianconservatism.blogspot.com/2006/02/abraham-lincoln-and-charles-darwin.html
Darwinian Conservatism by Larry Arnhart
“Our view is not that pastors should speak out against evolution, but that the Darwinists are hypocrites for claiming--falsely--that opposition to Darwinism is merely faith based, and then turning around and trying to make the case that Darwinism itself is faith based,” added Chapman.
No one is "trying to make the case that Darwinism itself is faith based" EXCEPT the Discovery Institute and creationists.
The point of Evolution Sunday is that, contrary to Phillip Johnson's explicit claims, there is not necessarily an incompatibility between evolution and Christianity.
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