Rabbis' pro-Darwinist letter on evolution education
A recent Chicago Tribune news article discusses the new Jewish Clergy Letter, which is a counterpart of the Christian Clergy Letter.
I discovered that both the Christian Clergy Letter and the Jewish Clergy Letter discuss only biblical creationism and do not mention scientific and/or pseudoscientific criticisms of evolution, including intelligent design. I made this discovery when comparing the two letters. Proposals to teach biblical creationism in the public schools are not taken seriously, so how much are these clergy letters worth? Not much. Their main purpose is to enable Darwinists to brag, "see how many clergy members are on our side (sort of)?"
Anyway, how much is there to teach about biblical creationism in a biology class? The biblical story of creation covers only about the first two pages of the bible, only part of that story is about the creation of living things, and the concepts of creation of living things are trivial -- "poof." There is nothing in the bible about irreducible complexity, the bacterial flagellum, blood-clotting cascades, co-evolution of obligate mutualism, the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, etc.. BTW, what kind of credibility do the Darwinists have -- or should they have -- when they claim that these things are religious ideas?
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IMO the Jewish community's views on evolution and evolution education can be properly viewed only in the contexts of (1) Jews' relations with Christians, particularly fundamentalist and evangelical Christians, and (2) Jews' different views on the degree of Darwinism's influence on Nazi anti-Semitism. For example, Jews who are extremely hostile to Christian fundamentalists and evangelicals, e.g., the Jews in the Anti-Defamation League, also tend to be extremely hostile to the idea of teaching criticisms of evolution in the public schools because they view such teaching as an attempt to sneak Christianity into the public schools. This ADL view on evolution education has presumably also affected the ADL's view of the Darwin-to-Hitler controversy. Also, apparently the ADL blames Christianity for Nazi anti-semitism and doesn't want any of the blame shifted to Darwinism. On the other hand, the anti-Darwinism of Jewish Ben Stein -- of the movie "Expelled" -- and agnostic Jew David Berlinski is intensified by their belief that Darwinism was a major cause of Nazi anti-Semitism. I go over these issues in the following articles on this blog --
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13]. These articles are all from the Darwin-to-Hitler post label groups (there are two such groups because I am limited to a maximum of 20 articles per post label) -- some of the articles do not concern the Darwin-to-Hitler issue per se but I filed them under the Darwin-to-Hitler post labels anyway to keep down the number of post labels. I may add another post label later. This blog has a list of post-label links in the sidebar of the home page (and also in the sidebars of the post-label groups of articles).
Here are some comments specifically about the Chicago Tribune article:
That simply isn't true -- among orthodox Jews in particular, there is widespread opposition to the Darwinian theory of evolution.
IMO most people agree that evolution should be taught -- the big issue is whether evolution should be taught dogmatically or whether both the strengths and weaknesses of evolution should be taught.
A lot of Jews feel that criticisms of evolution are their own views, not the views of others.
.
I discovered that both the Christian Clergy Letter and the Jewish Clergy Letter discuss only biblical creationism and do not mention scientific and/or pseudoscientific criticisms of evolution, including intelligent design. I made this discovery when comparing the two letters. Proposals to teach biblical creationism in the public schools are not taken seriously, so how much are these clergy letters worth? Not much. Their main purpose is to enable Darwinists to brag, "see how many clergy members are on our side (sort of)?"
Anyway, how much is there to teach about biblical creationism in a biology class? The biblical story of creation covers only about the first two pages of the bible, only part of that story is about the creation of living things, and the concepts of creation of living things are trivial -- "poof." There is nothing in the bible about irreducible complexity, the bacterial flagellum, blood-clotting cascades, co-evolution of obligate mutualism, the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, etc.. BTW, what kind of credibility do the Darwinists have -- or should they have -- when they claim that these things are religious ideas?
.
IMO the Jewish community's views on evolution and evolution education can be properly viewed only in the contexts of (1) Jews' relations with Christians, particularly fundamentalist and evangelical Christians, and (2) Jews' different views on the degree of Darwinism's influence on Nazi anti-Semitism. For example, Jews who are extremely hostile to Christian fundamentalists and evangelicals, e.g., the Jews in the Anti-Defamation League, also tend to be extremely hostile to the idea of teaching criticisms of evolution in the public schools because they view such teaching as an attempt to sneak Christianity into the public schools. This ADL view on evolution education has presumably also affected the ADL's view of the Darwin-to-Hitler controversy. Also, apparently the ADL blames Christianity for Nazi anti-semitism and doesn't want any of the blame shifted to Darwinism. On the other hand, the anti-Darwinism of Jewish Ben Stein -- of the movie "Expelled" -- and agnostic Jew David Berlinski is intensified by their belief that Darwinism was a major cause of Nazi anti-Semitism. I go over these issues in the following articles on this blog --
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13]. These articles are all from the Darwin-to-Hitler post label groups (there are two such groups because I am limited to a maximum of 20 articles per post label) -- some of the articles do not concern the Darwin-to-Hitler issue per se but I filed them under the Darwin-to-Hitler post labels anyway to keep down the number of post labels. I may add another post label later. This blog has a list of post-label links in the sidebar of the home page (and also in the sidebars of the post-label groups of articles).
Here are some comments specifically about the Chicago Tribune article:
Carl Feit, the Ades Chair of Health Science at Yeshiva University in New York City and an ordained orthodox rabbi, said that compared with American Christianity, Judaism is largely untroubled by evolution.
That simply isn't true -- among orthodox Jews in particular, there is widespread opposition to the Darwinian theory of evolution.
IMO most people agree that evolution should be taught -- the big issue is whether evolution should be taught dogmatically or whether both the strengths and weaknesses of evolution should be taught.
"I would say that as Jews, being a minority, we're particularly sensitive to not having the views of others imposed on us," Oler said.
A lot of Jews feel that criticisms of evolution are their own views, not the views of others.
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Labels: Darwin-to-HItler (new #1)
posted by Larry Fafarman | 9/21/2008 01:19:00 PM
4 Comments:
> There is nothing in the bible about irreducible complexity, the bacterial flagellum, blood-clotting cascades, co-evolution of obligate mutualism, the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, etc.. BTW, what kind of credibility do the Darwinists have -- or should they have -- when they claim that these things are religious ideas? <
I don't think that they claim that the bacterial flagellum, blood-clotting cascades, co-evolution of obligate mutualism, the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, etc. are religious ideas. As for "irreducible complexity", this is an argument pushed by the creationists.
There's also a "Witch Doctors Clergy Letter" that might be more to your liking, or you could start your own "Pseudoscience Clergy Letter".
There is nothing in the bible about irreducible complexity, the bacterial flagellum, blood-clotting cascades, co-evolution of obligate mutualism, the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, etc
No, that's true, they aren't in the Bible. For the most part, they are 'scientific' arguments conceived in order to either try to reconcile reality with the Bible, or to try to disprove evolution, or both. The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is an exception, though, in that it is a genuine bit of science taken and completely misapplied and misunderstood.
Oh, and, as for your comments about Christianity, Hitler and 'Darwinism', by which I presume you mean evolution, if you've ever read 'Mein Kampf', you will actually know that there are many references to God, and be aware that Hitler regarded himself to be a devout Christian, and there are also a few references which could be viewed as indicating that he believed he was exterminating the Jews out of a religious obligation. However, to try to make a link between the Holocaust and Christianity is just as ridiculous as trying to make a link between the Holocaust and evolution, for pretty much the same reason - in order for Hitler to have done this for this reason, he would have had to drastically misunderstand what Christianity was all about.
>>>>>> However, to try to make a link between the Holocaust and Christianity is just as ridiculous as trying to make a link between the Holocaust and evolution, for pretty much the same reason - in order for Hitler to have done this for this reason, he would have had to drastically misunderstand what Christianity was all about. <<<<<<<
"Drastically misunderstand what Christianity was all about"? You Darwinists are always claiming that there is no conflict between evolution and religion. So maybe Hitler thought that there was no conflict between his belief in Christianity and his belief in Darwinism.
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