James Lunney v. Evolution

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, April 2, 2009 at 6:03 PM - 106 Comments

From the Conservative MP’s statement before QP.

Mr. Speaker, recently we saw an attempt to ridicule the presumed beliefs of a member of this House and the belief of millions of Canadians in a creator. Certain individuals in the media and the scientific community have exposed their own arrogance and intolerance of beliefs contrary to their own. Any scientist who declares that the theory of evolution is a fact has already abandoned the foundations of science. For science establishes fact through the study of things observable and reproducible. Since origins can neither be reproduced nor observed, they remain the realm of hypothesis.

In science, it is perfectly acceptable to make assumptions when we do not have all the facts, but it is never acceptable to forget our assumptions. Given the modern evidence unavailable to Darwin, advanced models of plate techtonics, polonium radiohalos, polystratic fossils, I am prepared to believe that Darwin would be willing to re-examine his assumptions.

The evolutionists may disagree, but neither can produce Darwin as a witness to prove his point. The evolutionists may genuinely see his ancestor in a monkey, but many modern scientists interpret the same evidence in favour of creation and a creator.

Well, that certainly didn't come up at last night's science awards ceremony …

By kadyomalley - Tuesday, March 17, 2009 at 9:45 AM - 120 Comments

But if the story in today’s Globe and Mail had come out just a few hours earlier, we probably would have paid considerably more attention to what the PM’s pointminister on science and technology had to say to the crowd during the NSERC research awards last night at the Chateau Laurier last night.

Oh, who am I kidding? If Goodyear’s comments – or rather, refusal to comment – on evolution had been reported before last night’s awards ceremony, I suspect that reporters who turned up to cover it would have discovered that it had suddenly become closed to the media. (Maybe that’s why those PMO staffers were in such a rush to hustle us out the door after the presentations were over.)

Continue…

Morgentaler: Changing the debate

By Andrew Potter - Wednesday, July 2, 2008 at 7:45 PM - 0 Comments

Wellll, I have to say that I’m getting  less and less out of the discussion a few posts down. Interesting as it may be to some, my intention was not to spark a debate over abortion, since that is pointless. I was more interested in the question of how — or if — a country should honour polarising figures in the face of deep diversity. Only commentor SeanP recognized that was my intention, which is probably my fault. (But props to Sharon, whose comment further entrenched the universal validity of Godwin’s Law).

Anyway, foolish as this is, I’m going to  try again. Here’s the question:

Given a) the fact of deep disagreement over conceptions of the good, and b) that reasonable people can reasonable disagree over the moral valence of something abortion, is it legitimate for a liberal society to give public honours to polarizing figures such as Dr. Morgentaler. Another way of putting it: Could we reasonably expects someone to accept something like the following: “Even though you disagree with what this person stands for, you must respect what they did enough to honour them”?

Interesting answers might reference the following: Louis Riel, Malcolm X, John Rawls, Creationism vs. Darwinism.