QUOTE(Kato @ Tue 6th May 2008, 8:37pm)
By the way, I'm staggered by the naivety of the signers. But again, that is beside the point. There's no accounting for you lab coat wearing eggheads.
I don't know... I tend to view petitions as a starting point, nothing more. If someone asks me to sign a petition, I'll often sign it just to give the subject a chance for more debate, unless it's something I'm obviously opposed to. Of course, I don't really have to worry much about protecting my professional image, either (I doubt I ever will, for that matter). Perhaps some others think along similar lines, though.
QUOTE(Kato @ Tue 6th May 2008, 10:33pm)
If you read the WP article on "
A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism" it is biased from the start. (Again I may as well stress that I am a fully paid up member of RichardDawkins.net, have no time for any claims of "Intelligent Design", and would take a very dim view of anyone who tried to push that delusional mumbo-jumbo on my children)
Below is an example of how the agenda has been pushed onto the subject matter:
QUOTE
A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism states that:
We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.
The statement, and its title, refer to evolution as "Darwinism" or "Darwinian theory", both of which are vague, misleading and are not used by scientists to refer to current theories. In fact, the use of the term "Darwinism" in modern usage is usually a pejorative term employed only by creationists.
The bolded section is completely unnecessary and is not even attributed. The whole article has been framed to discredit the Discovery Institute. Sure, DI are deluded and manipulative, but what happened to "show don't tell"?
Ah, but they fear people making the "wrong" choices as to what to believe. Science is their religion, and they are the evangelists and defenders of the faith.
(As sometimes people have misunderstood when I have commented in similar situations in the past, let me be absolutely clear: I am not saying that science is a religion. However, it can certainly be made into one, as with many other things.)
This post has been edited by Sxeptomaniac: