2008-2009 Annual Report
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Public Education, Religious Establishment, and the Challenge of Intelligent Design Francis J
Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy Volume 17 Article 4 Issue 2 Symposium on Religion in the Public Square 1-1-2012 Public Education, Religious Establishment, and the Challenge of Intelligent Design Francis J. Beckwith Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.law.nd.edu/ndjlepp Recommended Citation Francis J. Beckwith, Public Education, Religious Establishment, and the Challenge of Intelligent Design, 17 Notre Dame J.L. Ethics & Pub. Pol'y 461 (2003). Available at: http://scholarship.law.nd.edu/ndjlepp/vol17/iss2/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy at NDLScholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy by an authorized administrator of NDLScholarship. For more information, please contact [email protected]. PUBLIC EDUCATION, RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENT, AND THE CHALLENGE OF INTELLIGENT DESIGNt FRANcis J. BECKWITH* In 1987, in Edwards v. Aguillard, the United States Supreme Court declared unconstitutional a Louisiana statute (the Bal- anced-Treatment Act) that required the state's public schools to teach Creationism if evolution was taught and to teach evolution if Creationism was taught.' That decision was the culmination of a series of court battles and cultural conflicts that can be traced back to the famous Scopes Trial of 1925 in Dayton, Tennessee.2 Although many thought, and continue to think, that Edwards ended the debate over the teaching of origins in public schools, a t This article is adapted from FRANCISJ. BECKWITH, LAW, DARWINISM, AND PUBLIC EDUCATION: THE ESTABLISHMENT CLAUSE AND THE CHALLENGE OF INTELLI- GENT DESIGN (2003). -
A Response to the Boyle Lecture by Simon Conway Morris
S & CB (2006), 18, 31–34 0954–4194 JOHN POLKINGHORNE Rich Reality: a response to the Boyle Lecture by Simon Conway Morris Simon Conway Morris’s Boyle Lecture delivers a rhetorically lively and intel- lectually provocative challenge to scientistic fundamentalism and its assertively arid discourse. He rightly criticises the tone of the arguments pre- sented by people such as Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, pointing out that in relation to religious belief they treat serious issues ‘with a bluntness and unsubtlety that in any normal discourse would be treated as juvenile’. There is indeed a deplorably ‘know-nothing’ character in some of the writings abut science and religion that originate from the sceptics, in which the authors totally fail to engage with the intellectual integrity and truth-seeking charac- ter of theological thought. Conway Morris’s response certainly does not suffer from the ‘combination of nervousness and accommodation’ that he – unfairly in my opinion – says characterises much of the religious participation in debate. The lecturer believes that his own subject of organic evolution is the topic that is ‘the most sensitive, in some ways the most vulnerable’ in this dialogue. I would want to add to that the equally important discussion of the exchanges taking place across the frontier between neuroscience and theological anthro- pology, since they too impinge significantly on the question of the nature and significance of the human person. Yet no one could deny the importance of a temperate and truthful engagement between evolutionary insight and the doc- trine of creation, so that a Boyle Lecture given by a distinguished palaeontolo- gist who tackles these issues with frankness and discernment is greatly to be welcomed. -
A Deeper Look at the Origin of Life by Bob Davis
A Deeper Look at the Origin of Life By Bob Davis Every major society from every age in history has had its own story about its origins. For instance, the Eskimos attributed their existence to a raven. The ancient Germanic peoples of Scandinavia believed their creator—Ymir—emerged from ice and fire, was nourished by a cow, and ultimately gave rise to the human race. Those are just two examples. But no matter the details, these origin stories always endeavor to answer people’s innate questions: Where did we come from? What is our destiny? What is our purpose? Two widely held theories in today’s world are abiogenesis and the Genesis story. The first states that life emerged through nature without any divine guidance; the second involves a supernatural Creator. Abiogenesis Abiogenesis is sometimes called “chemical evolution” because it seeks to explain how non-living (“abio”) substances gave rise to life (“genesis”). Abiogenesis was added to the list of origin stories over one hundred years ago when Charles Darwin first speculated that life could have begun in a “warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, lights, heat, electricity, etc. present, so that a protein compound was chemically formed ready to undergo still more complex changes.”1 Many summarize abiogenesis—coupled with its more famous twin, Darwinian macroevolution—in a somewhat disparaging but memorable way: “From the goo to you by way of the zoo!”2 Let’s use this phrase to help us understand what is meant by “abiogenesis.” The “goo” refers to the “primordial soup” or “warm little pond” where non-life is said to have given birth to life. -