October 2006 Meeting Abstract

"ID: Creationism's Next Generation-Faster, Smarter, and Still Wrong"

The Buffalo Association of Professional Geologists (BAPG) is pleased to announce that its monthly dinner meeting will be held at Millennium Airport Hotel located at 2040 Walden Avenue in Cheektowaga on October 18^th, 2006. The topic of the dinner presentation and discussion will be "ID: Creationism's Next Generation-Faster, Smarter, and Still Wrong" will be presented by Charles E. Mitchell, Professor and SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor, University at Buffalo.

PLEASE NOTE: The BAPG, as an organization, holds a neutral position with respect to political, scientific, and other issues affecting the geologic sciences. This meeting topic is NOT to imply endorsement or approval by this Association of any scientific policies, practices, or proposals. As this meeting topic could be construed as “controversial” by some, it is ONLY intended to open dialog on a subject that is hot topic in current events.

Intelligent Design presents newly dressed-up arguments of much the same sort that Creationists have previously used to attack the teaching of evolution. The current group, however, is vastly more sophisticated and includes quite prominent and accomplished philosophers, scientists, mathematicians, and lawyers, among others. Their concerns need to be taken seriously. So, why are we still having this debate if they are so smart but the arguments so wrong? Because the argument is not about the data; not about whether there is evidence of evolution or a good theoretical basis for understanding how it happened. Rather, the argument is about philosophy; in particular about the role of purpose and meaning in our understanding of ourselves and our relation to the world around us. Resolution of the misunderstandings requires us to acknowledge and deal with this aspect of the debate. Dr. Mitchell suggests that we can reach accommodation by accepting that scientific and spiritual accounts of human origins serve quite different roles in human understanding and need not be consistent with one another.

Charles E. Mitchell received his B.S. at Ohio State University in 1975, a M.S. at University of Western Ontario in 1978, and a Ph.D. at Harvard University in 1983. From 1976 through 1978, he worked as a consultant for Zay Smith Associates, Ltd., in Calgary Alberta. His career direction switched to academia in 1982 when he took a Lecturer position at Boston College. He is currently a Professor and SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor, University at Buffalo. He is a member in the GSA, the Paleontological Society, the SEPM-Soc. for Sedimentary Geology (councilor, vice chair, and chair NE section, 1993-1997), and a Voting member of the Ordovician Subcommission, International Commission on Stratigraphy. His research expertise and interests are in systematics, biostratigraphy, and paleobiology of graptolites, macroevolutionary dynamics, Ordovician lithostratigraphy and chronostratigraphy, and Appalachian Basin history.

Please RSVP as soon as possible as this meeting has a possibility of filling to capacity.

Michael Alfieri

BAPG President