Brian

International - The Council of Europe (Europe’s main human rights body) will vote next week on October 4th on a resolution that opposes the teaching of Creationism in European schools. The resolution claims that attacks on evolution are based in religious extremism and are an “assault on science and human rights”. This resolution calls intelligent design an updated version of creationism. This resolution was originally meant to be voted on in June, but was postponed because the original resolution was claimed to be too much of an affront to religion. If passed, the resolution would not be binding on its members, but it would reflect a widespread opposition to the teaching of creationism. The council is based in the Eastern French city of Strasbourg. A memorandum to the original resolution stated, "It is not a matter of opposing belief and science, but it is necessary to prevent belief from opposing science."

Opinion – This is a ridiculous resolution, and if I were voting I would vote against it. While I don’t believe Intelligent Design is anything more than a theory, neither is Evolution. While evolution has been proven on a microscopic level, there are huge holes in the updated Darwinian evolutionary theory. I personally believe in creation, and I feel that while there may be some truth in evolutionary theory (the universe has been proven to be billions of years old and to have had a beginning), evolution has not been proven and is no more science than creationism. This is why creationism should be taught as just as much a valid theory as evolution. Neither is true science. However, the reason this issue came up was due to an Islamic creationist textbook. If creationism is taught in public school, it should be taught from the neutral point of intelligent design. But if both of these views were taught in schools, it is also my opinion that they do not need to take up a large part of science lessons, but should only be briefly presented and evolutionary views should simply be distinguished as such when they are come to. One last thing is, isn’t it one of our human rights to the freedom of religion? Even if that religion opposes what is considered “science” at one point in time? Many of the pioneers of modern science were persecuted for their beliefs by the church, and now it seems the tables have been turned. It turned out those scientists, such as Galileo, were right and the “scientific” beliefs of the time, those of Aristotle, were wrong.

International – The world’s oldest man, Tomoji Tanabe turned 112 on Tuesday. The mayor of his city presented this Japanese man with a bouquet and a letter of congratulations, and Tomoji said he would like to live for “infinity”. Japan is facing troubles due to its aging population, which has been placing stress on its public pension system. Japan’s centenarian population is the largest in the world and is expected to be close to one million people by 2050.

Opinion – This is really crazy. I think it would be great to live to be this old as long as you were still active and with it. It seems like this man was. Whenever I hear about these people I always think of the Bible verse in the Old Testament, which states that men will never live past 120 years of age. The oldest man before Tomoji was 115 and the oldest woman currently is 114. However, the increase in life expectancy may be a big economic problem down the road for our country due to pensions, and it’s scary to think that will be during our lifetime.