Dear David,
Yes, we have gone through this topic before. It's good that on this forum we are free to discuss issues and openly state our case towards a point of view. It's a pity that In some educational settings debate on controversies is stifled and only one viewpoint is allowed to be discussed. In such circumstances, students are effectively being told what to think rather than taught how to think.

To say there is no controversy about evolution more than about gravity is pure wishful thinking. Of course there's controversy. That's why we're often having these discussions. If there was no controversy about evolution then there wouldn't be such court cases and litigation about which you speak.

But there is some confusion or at least equivocation in your post. This concerns the meaning of the word 'evolution' which can vary widely depending on context. When it used to mean simply 'change over time' or the process of natural selection then there is little controversy. It's easy to observe and measure such changes.

However Darwinian evolution is clearly a process discussing life's origins and how life in its various forms came to be as it is. If not so, Darwin made a strange error in naming his most famous book as he did, The Origin of Species. 

This process he described (in which creatures struggled, suffered, and died while those better adapted to their environment emerged to their present state through minor changes over long ages) becomes the modern day creation narrative. It becomes a necessary component for undergirding such modern religions as secular humanism. 

There is ample evidence for a theistic alternative, such is creation, which creationist scientists have always amply presented. When it comes to origins it's not a matter of teaching religion in schools, it just a matter of which religion is allowed to present their case.

Poirot,

all I'm saying is that in evolutionary terms humanity has emerged within a set of limited conditions and that our reason partakes of those limitations, as well as cultural preconceptions and justifications and inter-cultural pragmatising. It's unlikely our reasoning is rational or can be objective; our truths are culturally-specific rationalisations. If human reason is universal, that is capable of transcending its delimited and bounded perspective, this suggests teleology, or evolutionary purpose, whereas evolution as we know it is random and indifferent (though tending to complexity within given parameters).

<My point is even if we're "duped" by our concepts (or vanities?), isn't the fact that we're capable of forming them down to the physical evolution of our brains?>
It would seem so, certainly. My quibble is not whether we're capable of forming them (concepts), we clearly are, but whether they have non-specific validity, or are rational truths in any universal sense, rather than human rationalisations.
I don't see how evolution, as we know it, can account for homo "sapiens"--if indeed our self-designated hubris is true. I don't think it is. All our reasoning (including theologising) can be shown to be derivative and naive.

Dear Dan,

You are entitled to your views, and I am tired of playing silly buggers with you.

David F, I'm not sure what you would expect the mainstream churches to do in Australia with respect to the Bible not being a scientific document. It's not as though there is a large constituency of people here who view the Bible in that way, unlike the US where somewhere around 50% of people are creationists.

If they don't teach it as such in their schools, and if the majority of their ministers aren't sermonising that way, what more would you expect them to do?

I know that there are fundamentalist churches that teach differently, but that is their right. Unless they posed a threat to society I can't see any reason to interfere. Even in the US they don't pose much of a threat, as evidenced by the number of patents that come out of that country each year. You couldn't say they've stunted scientific development.

That's cheating, Squeers.

>>Pericles, the concept of purpose suggests teleology<<

You cannot exclude other readings of the word, simply because it is inconvenient to your argument. Teleology suggests an "end-purpose", as its Greek root implies. But purpose can have less apocalyptic connotations - we have even turned it into an adjective, purposeful, which in no way indicates that the length of my stride as I walk to the station is linked to biblical end-times.

>>Justice is a luxury, a word applied by a dominant power to its activities<<

So you clearly disagree with the author of this piece, who includes a yearning for justice in his list of Pascal's "Christian faith answers our deepest yearnings". I suppose that it is not out of the question to yearn for a luxury, but I suspect that's not what he had in mind.

Does this dismissal also apply to the remaining list of "yearnings", I wonder.

But this puzzles me most.

>>It's vanity to suppose we are logical or rational<<

Am I to conclude that you do not apply either logic or rationality to your posts here? Or that it is pure vanity on your part, to try to convince us that you are being logical or rational.

But if you don't use logic or rationality, what exactly do you use instead? It does explain how I personally find your offerings both illogical and irrational, but it does not explain the thought processes that you employ in their production. Intriguing.

>>Neither is reason vested in the individual (any more than a slug is self-determining) who is only the dupe and mouthpiece of his respective cultural logic.<<

What can we conclude from that, I wonder. Is this a confession that you are yourself the dupe and mouthpiece of your cultural logic, or that - because you refuse to employ logic - you are somehow above such pettiness?

Wow.

Dear Graham Y,

The United States is divided into two parts. One part, the northeast, Chicago area and the Pacific Coast contains the great universities, almost all the Nobel prize winners, most patents and the innovative industries. The other part is dominated by the Bible belt which is primarily in the southeast. They in general are the backers of the Tea Party, Creationism, in earlier days Prohibition and other products of Fundamentalism. States like Mississippi, Arhansas and Tennessee (Remember the Scopes trial) keep trying to push Creationism in the schools.

They are now making inroads into Australia. Megachurches such as Hillsong are financed by US Fundamentalist money. They push the Shine program for girls which sees women as mere handmaids to men. You mentioned that about 50% of the US are Creationists. That part of the US is not where the scientific and cultural strength lies. They are successfully dumbing down their part of the US. I feel that they are trying to create an Australia in their image. I could say they've stunted scientific development in the areas where they predominate, and, if not checked, can do the same thing in Australia.