Kenny: << Religion and science can coexist, they deal with quit(e) different subjects, one deals with reality and one doesn't. >>

Heh. I like it :)

Dear david f,

Thanks for telling us about this Maimonides’ beautiful and insightful wisdom.

>> He said he would not want to disturb their simple faith …his attitude is a most harmful one. <<
Well, it depends on the audience. I was about 12 when our (elderly) physics teacher spoke very disparagingly of Einstein’s theories, he apparently could not understand. When I asked my father, he did not defend Einstein - he could not, since he probably did not understand relativity himself - but convinced me that it was most inappropriate of the teacher to bring up these questions, and that I shall have to study a lot before I shall understand myself what it is all about, and eventually ask relevant questions (or something like that).

Also, the TV repairman might fiddle around with a screwdriver in the back of a TV set while it is under power, however he will strongly discourage the “good old lady” (who can just enjoy a TV program) from doing the same.

Dear George,

I am delighted to hear from you. You are one of my favourite contributors. However, I don't buy the analogy of questioning religious faith as equivalent to poking a screwdriver in back of a powered TV set.

One may lose one's faith as a consequence. However, one may also gain a deeper appreciation of one's faith. You strike me as an individual capable of questioning your faith. In fact I am sure you have. Yet you also seem to have a deep commitment to that faith. I feel that one does not have to be an academic to question and that my friend really was patronising in his attitude to his congregation.

I think a faith that is so tentative that questioning will destroy it is not a faith worth keeping.

My father knew a Catholic priest who would discuss matters with him that I don’t think he felt free to discuss in the church. The priest came from a mining town and saw his alternatives in life as becoming a miner or getting out of there by getting an education from the church. I don’t think he had much faith left, but he remained a priest. Perhaps he felt he had made a bargain and must stick to it.

Science can fly you to the moon but Religion can fly you into buildings.

One is the study of life and the universe, the other is simply the result of a fear of death itself.

"If you cannot phrase your hypothesis in a falsifiable manner, it falls outside the bounds of science"
Is there another way of phrasing a hypothesis?
The problem is that some people cannot accept that they phrase their hypothesis in a falsifiable manner.
One of the tenets of science should lead us to accept the possibility that we may not be fully aware of all the facts pertaining to particular phenomena. For example, psychology, especially as expounded by Freud, is (or was) regarded as science. It is not.
Economics is viewed by many of its practinioners as science. It is not. Both of these resemble the Mathematical theory of Chaos. To have definitive pronouncement on any of these is very unscientific.
As far as religion is concerned, the fact that so many people around the world follow a disciplined thought, (and did so throughout written and unwritten history), should at least give a pause for science. Can there are some facts about human nature that science had not taken account of? It is not very helpful just to ridicule religious thought. (That is what extremists of all kinds do.)

Please define what a GENUS is, by who and when it was defined.

Second,
Please reference (as in a peer reviewed paper) where it states that evolution involves the evolution "out of genus..into new genus"

I believe that you have a fundamental misunderstanding of the theory of evolution, thus you are incapable of forming a coherent argument against it. If you are unable to respond with peer reviewed evidence please do not waste our time.