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August 19, 2005
Evangelical Physics [Was: "Hey, Mark Rose"]
I usually try to post on Chattanooga, Hamilton County, and Tennessee politics, elections, government, civics. I also add some personal thoughts about education, music, nature, and the occasional free advertising for favorite businesses. You won't, for example, find any of that "Camp Casey" business or stem-cell debates or political races in other states (though I did do one post that mentioned the "runaway bride" and it got my hit count up considerably just by having her name on here for search engines to find).
Today, though, I'm deviating a little because I found, via a post on John Cole's Balloon Juice, a story that deserves as much attention as it can get.
Come to think of it, this story's subject can be considered a state issue, and even a local one, because of our proximity to the infamous Rhea County, and because I'm sure we'll see plenty of "debate" in our state and local education climes, just like they already have in Kansas.
An excerpt from the story (borrowed in full from Balloon Juice):
Evangelical Scientists Refute Gravity With New ‘Intelligent Falling’ TheoryKANSAS CITY, KS—As the debate over the teaching of evolution in public schools continues, a new controversy over the science curriculum arose Monday in this embattled Midwestern state. Scientists from the Evangelical Center For Faith-Based Reasoning are now asserting that the long-held “theory of gravity” is flawed, and they have responded to it with a new theory of Intelligent Falling.
“Things fall not because they are acted upon by some gravitational force, but because a higher intelligence, ‘God’ if you will, is pushing them down,” said Gabriel Burdett, who holds degrees in education, applied Scripture, and physics from Oral Roberts University.
Burdett added: “Gravity—which is taught to our children as a law—is founded on great gaps in understanding. The laws predict the mutual force between all bodies of mass, but they cannot explain that force. Isaac Newton himself said, ‘I suspect that my theories may all depend upon a force for which philosophers have searched all of nature in vain.’ Of course, he is alluding to a higher power.”
Founded in 1987, the ECFR is the world’s leading institution of evangelical physics, a branch of physics based on literal interpretation of the Bible.
At last I have an answer for Mark Rose's Question #3, which reads: "Gravity is an invisible, non-magnetic attraction between two physical objects. It's what keeps the Earth in a nearly symmetrical orbit around the sun, and prevents us here on Earth from flying off into space. Please explain how gravity came into being without an intelligent designer."
The slide shown in the background of the image below depicts the formulas that explain Intelligent Falling:
The full article can be found here.
Education , Miscellaneous | By joe lance | 11:08 AM