This, from talk.origins, interested me coming from CNN.

Douglas Clark, Bath, Somerset, England ....
 http://www.dgdclynx.plus.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bob" <[log in to unmask]>
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Sent: Friday, October 28, 2005 11:51 PM
Subject: US becoming hostile to science?


> At CNN:
>
> http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/10/28/science.debate.reut/index.html
>
> WASHINGTON, (Reuters) -- A bitter debate about how to teach evolution
> in U.S. high schools is prompting a crisis of confidence among
> scientists, and some senior academics warn that science itself is
> under assault.
>
> In the past month, the interim president of Cornell University and the
> dean of the Stanford University School of Medicine have both spoken on
> this theme, warning in dramatic terms of the long-term consequences.
>
> "Among the most significant forces is the rising tide of anti-science
> sentiment that seems to have its nucleus in Washington but which
> extends throughout the nation," said Stanford's Philip Pizzo in a
> letter posted on the school Web site on October. 3.
>
> Cornell acting President Hunter Rawlings, in his "state of the
> university" address last week, spoke about the challenge to science
> represented by "intelligent design" which holds that the theory of
> evolution accepted by the vast majority of scientists is fatally
> flawed.
>
> Rawlings said the dispute was widening political, social, religious
> and philosophical rifts in U.S. society. "When ideological division
> replaces informed exchange, dogma is the result and education
> suffers," he said.
>
> Adherents of intelligent design argue that certain forms in nature are
> too complex to have evolved through natural selection and must have
> been created by a "designer," who could but does not have to be
> identified as God.
>
> At odds with Bush
> In the past five years, the scientific community has often seemed at
> odds with the Bush administration over issues as diverse as global
> warming, stem cell research and environmental protection. Prominent
> scientists have also charged the administration with politicizing
> science by seeking to shape data to its own needs while ignoring other
> research.
>
> Evangelical and fundamentalist Christians have built a powerful
> position within the Republican Party and no Republican, including
> Bush, can afford to ignore their views.
>
> This was dramatically illustrated in the case of Terri Schiavo earlier
> this year, in which Republicans in Congress passed a law to keep a
> woman in a persistent vegetative state alive against her husband's
> wishes, and Bush himself spoke out in favor of "the culture of life."
>
> The issue of whether intelligent design should be taught, or at least
> mentioned, in high school biology classes is being played out in a
> Pennsylvania court room and in numerous school districts across the
> country.
>
> The school board of Dover, Pennsylvania, is being sued by parents
> backed by the American Civil Liberties Union after it ordered schools
> to read students a short statement in biology classes informing them
> that the theory of evolution is not established fact and that gaps
> exist in it.
>
> The statement mentioned intelligent design as an alternative theory
> and recommended students to read a book that explained the theory
> further.
>
> Brown University biologist Kenneth Miller believes the rhetoric of the
> anti-evolution movement has had the effect of driving a wedge between
> a large proportion of the population who follow fundamentalist
> Christianity and science.
>
> "It is alienating young people from science. It basically tells them
> that the scientific community is not to be trusted and you would have
> to abandon your principles of faith to become a scientist, which is
> not at all true," he said.
>
> On the other side, conservative scholar Michael Novak of the American
> Enterprise Institute, believes the only way to heal the rift between
> science and religion is to allow the teaching of intelligent design.
>
> "To have antagonism between science and religion is crazy," he said at
> a forum on the issue last week.
>
> Proponents of intelligent design deny they are anti-science and say
> they themselves follow the scientific method.
>
> Americans at odds with evolution
> Polls for many years have shown that a majority of Americans are at
> odds with key scientific theory. For example, as CBS poll this month
> found that 51 percent of respondents believed humans were created in
> their present form by God. A further 30 percent said their creation
> was guided by God. Only 15 percent thought humans evolved from less
> advanced life forms over millions of years.
>
> Other polls show that only around a third of American adults accept
> the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe, even though the
> concept is virtually uncontested by scientists worldwide.
>
> "When we ask people what they know about science, just under 20
> percent turn out to be scientifically literate," said Jon Miller,
> director of the center for biomedical communication at Northwestern
> University.
>
> He said science and especially mathematics were poorly taught in most
> U.S. schools, leading both to a shortage of good scientists and
> general scientific ignorance.
>
> U.S. school students perform relatively poorly in international tests
> of mathematics and science. For example, in 2003 U.S. students placed
> 24th in an international test that measured the mathematical literacy
> of 15-year-olds, below many European and Asian countries.
>
> Scientists bemoan the lack of qualified U.S. candidates for
> postgraduate and doctoral studies at American universities and
> currently fill around a third of available science and engineering
> slots with foreign students.
>
> Northwestern's Miller said the insistence of a large proportion of
> Americans that humans were created by God as whole beings had policy
> implications for the future.
>
> "The 21st century will be the century of biology and we are going to
> be confronted with hundreds of important public policy issues that
> require some understanding that all life is interconnected," he said.
>
> Copyright 2005 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be
> published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
>
>
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