Slashdot Mirror
Darwin's Revenge In Kansas
Moby-One GNUbie writes: "Kansas voters reject 2 of 3 anti-evolution state school board members, proving that my home state has more brains than many gave it credit for. Some good news on that front should be refreshing for everyone." Check out the initial war of words when I had posted this originally.
Where is Jon Erickson? We need a non-biased, non-judgemental view on this important situation!
Seriously though this should not even be an issue in education. IMHO, Certainly people are entitled to their own opinions/thoughts and actions however when it comes to state sponsered eductation, religious views should be expressed but NOT solely expressed. If they are solely expressed then students (of whom my Federal taxes go towards their benefit) are left with only one piece of the puzzle, and this is basically no better than state sanctioned censoring. I have no problem with teaching Creationism but it should not be taught that IT is more true than evolution.
Sig it.
The debate is between people that belive in a literal interpretation of the Biblical story of creation. According to people who have studied the Bible much more then I have, the world is between 5000 and 7000 years old and God create all the living creatures pretty much as they are today. According to physical scientists, the world is much older and all living creatures evolved, or mutated over long periods of time, into the forms of life we know today. The problem is that evolution is still a theory, meaning that it isn't proven. And it can't be unless someone developes a time machine. And since there are people that belive that their religion supercedes everything else, we get conflicts over teaching evolution in school.
The Dinosaur bones were brought in from another dimension by minions of Satan to throw us off the scent of truth.
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
Out of curiosity though how would Biblical scholars explain Carbon dating/Rock layering as proof of a much older earth? Evolution evidence is not as nearly clearcut as this, but I would say that a difference betwee a few billion years and 5-7000 year old earth is pretty remarkable.
Sig it.
So what's worse: schools rejecting science or schools rejecting the separation of church and state?
--
Wooden armaments to battle your imaginary foes!
The war of words is /. in it's entirety?
WHOA.
--
Wooden armaments to battle your imaginary foes!
I can't even see where i would begine to name examples that makes this complete nonsense... geology, plate tectonics, starlight from millions of light years away...
Do these people also believe that Noah put two of each animal in his Ark, and maybe the dinosaurs were extinct because they did not fit??? It would be interesting if someone actually managed to build a complete theory on this, and surely of similar amusement value as the "Discworld" series...
Speaking of discs, have they accepted the world is not a disc?
Out of curiosity though how would Biblical scholars explain Carbon dating/Rock layering as proof of a much older earth?
One common copout is to interpret the "six days" as "six phases" of indeterminent length.
In short, science has a habit of disproving core beliefs of most religions, islam and judeo-christianity in particular. The two common reactions are "denial" (the just unelected Kansas state school board's approach) and modification of belief ("days" now equal "phases of indeterminent length"), while still clinging to the defunct core belief.
I mean, these people still cling to the absurd notion that there is an intelligent creator of the universe. More silly still, they insist on the notion that such a creator, were he to exist, would give one flying fuck about individual human beings who would be virtually indistinguishable from bacteria from such a being's vantage point.
Such people truly will believe just about anything, which allows the Jim Jones and David Koreshes (not to mention the Reagans) of the earth to be so successful.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
I have a problem with that as well. If mankind evolved from monkeys because of some adaptation, why then do monkeys still exist?
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
While the Religion of Science continues to mask its tracks behind the rhetoric, the whole Kansas issue underscores something blatant and simple about the whole argument: That the Origins of the Universe are a philosophical, not scientific issue.
I will have to disappoint many people by pointing this out to them, but the arguments in play in this confrontation -are- philosophical and religious, not the 'science' that many have been slinging the mud about.
Does the State have the right to establish Religion? No. So in mandating a viewpoint which is widely unprovable, and pushing it off as fact, are they not doing just that? But then, if I were opting for the Public School approach, I would be suing to have the Gaia Hypothesis removed from all curriculum because I feel that the State has no right to use my religion in a classroom setting(Gaia being a Greek God and I being a Greek practitioner have issues on this--big ones).
Mind you, I am against near-sighted thinking of all sorts, but I do understand why those of religious conscience would want the 'facts' of the Big Bang played down in reference to the philosophical issues at stake. However, there is no way to deny that Evolution is and does happen, but the issue should not be placed as 'fact' to support a position that undermines religious conscience, which it is clearly presented as in the classroom setting.
Those who believe that God did it in 7 days, those who believe in an Intelligent Creator/Creatrix, and those who believe in the scientific point of view ALL have a place at the table. They all should be discussing how to approach the philosophical issues in a way that allows science to be taught as a mechanism for discovery of how our world works, not as a club to suppress the other camps.
In space, no one can hear you moo.
I was hopping they had been clubbed to death by stronger, smarter, and faster school board members, but:
"...as voters turned out two of three state education leaders who last year led an effort to downplay the theory of evolution in school science classes across the state"
Damn
Insanity is the last line of defence for the master diplomat. But you have to lay the groundwork early.
This is a clear demonstration that the teaching of science in schools is not being done properly. A proper understanding of evolution would tell you the fact that we did NOT evolve from monkeys. The monkeys AND us both evolved from a now extinct COMMON ANCESTOR. Neanderthals and Homo sapiens lived concurrently for many thousands of years, until Neanderthals went extinct about 100,000 years ago. They were a close branch from the same tree. Neanderthals and Homo sapien shared a common ancestor much closer back in time than you and I share with chimps, for instance. The chimp and pre-human common ancestor went out about 5 million years ago). You go back a few more million years to reach the common ancestors between between pre-chimp/pre-human and gorillas (about 7 million years ago). Those common ancestors are no longer with us. In any case, there is no reason to a priori assume that an ancestral species has to go extinct for decendants to make it. As long as the ancestor and the decendants do not compete for the same resources in the same location, there is no problem.
In addition, the common ancestor isn't static. The population that makes up that ancestor is always changing too, in addition to the changing/isolation that leads to a totally new speciation event.
YOU share 98% of your DNA with chimps. You share about 90% of your DNA with gorillas, and so forth down the line. The ONLY difference between your DNA and a chimps is generally one of gene regulation and/or gene duplication, not type of genes, form of genes, etc. Gene duplication is an ongoing process. Small genetic mutations occur all the time as well. Recombination occurs all the time. All these simple, REAL, visable activities are ALL that is required to make evolution not only likely, but a REQUIREMENT. You cannot argue for microevolution vs macroevolution either since the SAME activities of mutation that drive microevolution are NO different than those that drive macroevolution. In other words, there is NO difference between microevolution and macroevolution except by means of extent. One implies the other, one REQUIRES the other.
Modern medicine and biotechnology would not be possible or even exist if there wasn't evolution. We see evolution all the time in these fields without thinking about it much. People in general, who know nothing of these fields, are presented with the facts/evidence all the time in stories, articles, etc, but never see it for what it is...EVOLUTION in action before your eyes. The engines of evolution are always running and always visable to those with open eyes and a clear, thinking mind.
Out of curiosity though how would Biblical scholars explain Carbon dating/Rock layering as proof of a much older earth?
One common copout is to interpret the "six days" as "six phases" of indeterminent length.
This is a gross oversimplification of a very broad range of opinions ranging from "It's just God's will that things look that way" to "The entire creation story is a metaphor and can't be interpreted literally."
In short, science has a habit of disproving core beliefs of most religions, islam and judeo-christianity in particular. The two common reactions are "denial" (the just unelected Kansas state school board's approach) and modification of belief ("days" now equal "phases of indeterminent length"), while still clinging to the defunct core belief.
Again, things are nowhere near that simple. There is a whole range of beliefs out there, many of which do not require you to mindlessly accept dogmas.
Stories like Genesis are not a core beliefs in and of themselves. For many people, they are more important as metaphors for the way we should live our lives. (The need to weigh our desires and wishes against the consequences of our actions as in the story of Adam and Eve and the forbidden fruit is a good example.)
By the way, I don't think that science can ever prove or disprove the idea that an all-powerful infinitely old being that is not bound by physical exists. This is the core belief of most religions, not the Genesis story.
I mean, these people still cling to the absurd notion that there is an intelligent creator of the universe.
This doesn't seem absurd to many, many people. YMMV.
More silly still, they insist on the notion that such a creator, were he to exist, would give one flying fuck about individual human beings who would be virtually indistinguishable from bacteria from such a being's vantage point.
It's a matter of perspective. We humans are finite creatures and can't see anything below a certain size. We also have trouble comprehending something as large as the universe. An infintely powerful god on the other hand, should be aware of even the smallest part of his creation or he's not worthy being called a god.
Such people truly will believe just about anything, which allows the Jim Jones and David Koreshes (not to mention the Reagans) of the earth to be so successful.
I won't argue this point because it's true.
Does this
Evolution is just a theory. Natural Selection is a documented fact.
You feel that the only way to account for the genetic similarities between humans and certain other primates is evolution. What if I have a theory that God is just a brilliant bio-programmer who likes to re-use his code? I can no more prove that right than you can prove the theory of evolution to be correct.
Evolution should be taught at a theory, because at this point that's all it is. It may be the best, or most plausible theory to date, but it is still just that. Creation "Science" is just a joke. They can teach that in sunday schools if they want to, but it should NOT be in public education.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
What's that word in between "debated" and "rights"?
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Um... evolution *is* taught as a theory, and the fact that you used the phrase "Evolution is just a theory" demonstrates that you do not know what a scientific theory is. I'd explain further, but this site talk.origins (specifically here) does it *much* better. If you don't go and immediately read a good portion of that site (start from the top) then I'm sorry, but you have no place saying that evolution is "just a theory" as if that's supposed to be meaninful. Evolution is a theory the same way fluid mechanics, gravitation, and thermodynamics are all just "theories".
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
> Different, but equally valid, assumptions about what the original isotopes were leads to carbon dating results that agree with the 5,000-7,000 year universe lifespan espoused by new-earth creationists. The problem lies in the fact that there isn't a way to verify either set of assumptions.
Never heard of tree rings, ice cores, and spring flood deposits, I suppose?
It's trivially easy to rule out the "5,000-7,000 year universe lifespan espoused by new-earth creationists", unless you want to posit a creator god that fakes the evidence to make his/her creation look older than it is. (One wonders whether a god that would fake the physical evidence might not just as well fake the revelations as well!)
Rather than rehash all the jaded old arguments here, I direct the interested reader to the talk.origins FAQ archive.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
You are referring to the chemist who resigned from science in 1980 and now serves as the "adjunct professor of chemistry at the Institute for Creation Research"?
Chittick uses science to attack science, a curious position. Let's examine his credentials. Chittick got his PhD at a tier 3 school. He taught a two private colleges, the University of Puget Sound (a tier 3 school)and George Fox College (a highly rated private religious school with 1700 students).
Chittick also championed the Coso Artifact as a kind of Geode that was proof against evolution. Later the artifact was revealed to be a 1920s era Champion Spark plug. Chittick is not a brilliant scientist who is challenging the scientific norm. He is a buffoon with a little bit of knowledge and a whole lot of willingness to overlook inconvenient facts in favor of his faith.
All this, and more, can be learned by starting at the talk.origins site.
This has probably been said elsewhere in this story, but it's worth saying here. Scientific theories can never be proven. They can only either be disproven, or stand the test of time for long enough to be accepted. Yet still, scientists keep on trying to disprove old theories, even in small ways, like Einstein's extensions to Newton's laws. Another way of putting the problem is that science cannot answer any question that contains the word "is". Saying "Evolution is just another theory" is like saying "Gravity is just another theory". It isn't going to get disproven any time soon, and if it does, I won't be worried about floating away. They'll just replace it with another explanation of why I'm stuck down here.
So? IMO, he was wrong about being wrong. he was wrong in a number of ways. He believed in acquired feature inheritance, which is to say "If I spend my life picking strawberries, and my brother spends his life picking cherries, my children will be shorter than my brother's children". This is mostly discredited nowadays.
Then again, maybe he was just hedging his bets and trying to make sure he got a place in Heaven.
This is a play on words. A metaphor. Do you really think that when G-d told Abraham (Abram at the time) his descendents would be as numerous as the sands on the beach, he actually meant that literally? Most scholars (Jewish scholars, I don't know if Christians have anything to say on this) say that this represents the four cardinal directions.
Yes, I know they didn't have compasses back then. Forward, backwards, left, and right are near-universal ideas.
--
Friends don't let friends misuse the subjunctive.
So doesn't that make it a different constant? Just because it could be described as "cosmological" doesn't mean that E was right to say that there was such a thing.
> This is a play on words. A metaphor. Do you really think that when G-d told Abraham (Abram at the time) his descendents would be as numerous as the sands on the beach, he actually meant that literally?
Lots of fundamentalists accept this kind of reasoning when it helps them avoid an overt conflict within the text. Why won't they accept it to avoid an overt conflict with the known age of the earth?
Actually, lots of other christians do. For the fundamentalists, a literal interpretation of the Genesis story has inexplicably become the litmus test that matters. I suspect the explanation for this curious fact lies more in politics or sociology than in the necessities of faith.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
> According to scientists as late as 1972, the idea of contential drift seemed ludicrous. Now, this is an accepted fact.
That's the perfect illustration of the difference between science and creationism. Science changes its theories to accomodate new evidence that conflicts with prevailing ideas. Creationists ignore new evidence that conflicts with creationism, or use lame arguments to explain it away, or outright lie about the evidence. (Some of the lying may actually be innocent. Much of it occurs in the form of "quote mining", i.e. taking a famous scientist's words out of context and portraying them to mean other than what was intended. While this would be considered rank dishonesty among scientists, perhaps it passes muster among creationists, since that is the way fundamentalists do biblical exegesis as well.)
At any rate, when you have some evidence that the world is only 6K years old, I will be eager to see it and ponder what it means for cosmology and evolution. But you aren't presenting any facts. You're merely using a weak rhetorical trick to wedge in a claim that "maybe there's a loophole that will let mythology win in the end".
> I believe we need to get more facts.
Do you have any idea how much evidence we have pointing to the fact that the earth is older than creationists want to admit? Do you have any idea how many time their standard arguments have been refuted?
BTW, even if you could produce evidence that the world was only 6004 years old, it would do nothing to prove creationism. Lots of other mythologies mix facts among their myths, but for some reason that leavening does not make the whole true as well. Greek mythology refers to the historical existence of Troy, and people were astonished when Troy turned out to be real. But no one felt compelled to believe that Zeus and Hera also existed and took sides in the battle around Troy, nor that Ares and Aphrodite were actually wonded on the battlefield. Nor does anyone feel a dire need to explain away the contradictions in the story so people will still believe it.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
> doesn't teaching evolution as fact (which many/most schools do) violate the very foundation which this country was founded on?
You are making the bogus assumption that anything that your religion does not approve of is also a religion, and therefore should not be taught.
> And does ANYONE else know that just before his death, Darwin said he had been very wrong about evolution?
And I happen to be privy to Jesus's secret confessions at the time of his death. But for some reason no one believes me when I tell them what he said.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
> However, evolution of species remains a philosophy. Never have the missing links been discovered.
The world's museums are full of "missing" links. Nineteenth Century creationists wanted to see the species "intermediate between man and monkey". We've got a whole pile of them, and we keep finding more.
> There are some jumps which are highly improbable (the eye?).
Science does not work by assigning an intuitive probability to an event and then rolling a d20 to see whether that event should be accepted as fact. Either the eye evolved or it didn't; our task is to find out.
How would you respond if someone critiqued your religion on the grounds of what he thought the probability of your various claims were?
> Oh, and how is the "Gaia hypothesis" scientific *at all*? That is more of a primitive "earth mother" religion than science...
How many scientists do you know of who believe in the Gaia hypothesis? (There are a damn site fewer than the number who believe in various religions, I'm willing to bet.)
Whatever else might be said about Gaia, there's a huge problem with the fact that Gaia essentially commited suicide when she(?) generated an oxygen-based atmosphere. I suppose that might be spinnable as a "she died that we might live" mythology, but this is far beyond the realm of science.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
> What if I have a theory that God is just a brilliant bio-programmer who likes to re-use his code?
Then s/he must use Visual Basic, because most of the human genome is "junk DNA" that is not actually used by the end product. Just as people find when they disassemble VB programs.
Truly, why would anyone worship an all-powerful being that used VB?
> I can no more prove that right than you can prove the theory of evolution to be correct.
Except that we can point out to evidence for the theory of evolution, whereas you cannot point out the first bit of evidence for a divine bioprogrammer.
> Creation "Science" is just a joke. They can teach that in sunday schools if they want to, but it should NOT be in public education.
You got that right.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
> So, if Darwin believed in God, then why is it such an "intellectual" sin?
Why should I care what Darwin believed? His theory of evolution rests on empirical evidence; his religion rests on the dogma prevalent in his society.
> Science practices dogma in the manner of the church
Yes, scientists are humans, and some are rather dogmatic about the theories they learned when they were kids. Some apparently even let their economic interests interfere with clear thinking.
> if you don't believe this, then take a generally accepted theory (like GR) and then come up with some kind of new theory (must be or sound reasonable) that contradicts it, publish that theory and watch the sparks fly!
Actually, "flying sparks" is exactly how science works. If someone actually has evidence that a generally accepted theory is incorrect, sparks will fly indeed until the evidence is examined by others and the implications are worked out.
The difference between this and religion is that the side with the evidence ultimately wins. Or at least that is our hope.
> 3)
This is hard to respond to. Learn how science actually works, and then we'll talk about it.
If you can't find an "official" explantion of science, you can try my home-grown explanation, here.
> but in a Democracy, the majority rules
Not so. The prohibition against establishing a religion is an explicit limitation on the majority's right to rule. (So are a number of other things in the US Constitution and its amendments.)
Perhaps christians in democracies should worry less about what the courts say and more about what their own avatar said: "don't pray to be seen by men". Few athiests, Hindi, Moslems, pagans, etc. would complain about students praying silently at football games. Though some might tartly observe that the frequency of football prayers seems to be distracting the gods from dealing with the world's serious problems.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Except that we can point out to evidence for the theory of evolution, whereas you cannot point out the first bit of evidence for a divine bioprogrammer.
What can you point out as evidence of evolution's correctness that I can't use to point out the correctness of my God as a programmer theory?
The fact that we share common DNA with other primates? God is just reusing modular code.
Natural selection? Beta testing.
"Junk DNA"? Bloat.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Many people forget that almost every religion (except perhaps Buddhism) has a colorful story about the origin of the universe.
This brings up the question - why should only Christian theology be taught as an "alternative" to evolution? There is no particular reason why it should be the default creationism among the scores of religious theories.
Islam considers that the universe arose out of vapor, Hinduism posits an infinite recursive loop of creation and destruction, and a cherokee religion proposes that the universe was created by a water beetle.
I have no idea what the creation theories are in Zoroastrianism, shintoism, taoism, confucianism, animism, but I'm pretty sure they're wild and wonderful.
Of course, you might say that the majority of Kansas/american students are christian; but then, does the origin of the universe depend on the population % of your local area? that would be quite a theory indeed.
Since proponents of creationism say that kids should be taught both theories and allowed to decide for themselves, we could agree to teach creationism (of all religions). Let's give them the choice, dammit! So....a typical biology book would now have 30+ chapters to discuss creationism theories, and 1 to discuss evolution.(Many countries do this, but they teach them in a class on "World Religions" instead of "Science"; but nevermind, it's the same content, who cares what the class is called?).
Anyway, this brings up another question - why offer "alternatives to science" only on evolution? Since so many people believe creationism should be taught in schools in *science* class, why not teach the biblical concept of oceans and the earth as an alternative to geology (noah's boat and the parting of the red sea are guaranteed to be crowd pleasers in comparison with boring cross section charts of the earth)? Is there any reason why only evolution should be presented with an alternative? After all, nobody has gone to the center of the earth or the sun and REALLY proved what's there; they are merely theories speculated upon by scientists, and they often turn out to be wrong.
Can some proponent of creationism answer these questions? Thank you.
w/m