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Using Copyrights To Fight Intelligent Design
An anonymous reader writes "The National Academies' National Research Council and the National Science Teachers Association are using the power of copyright to ensure that students in Kansas receive a robust education. They're backed by the AAS: The American Association for the Advancement of Science." From the release: "[they] have decided they cannot grant the Kansas State School Board permission to use substantial sections of text from two standards-related documents: the research council's 'National Science Education Standards' and 'Pathways to Science Standards', published by NSTA. The organizations sent letters to Kansas school authorities on Wednesday, Oct. 26 requesting that their copyrighted material not be used ... Leshner said AAAS backs the decision on copyright permission. 'We need to protect the integrity of science education if we expect the young people of Kansas to be fully productive members of an increasingly competitive world economy that is driven by science and technology ... We cannot allow young people to be denied an appropriate science education simply on ideological grounds.'"
That word... I do not think it means what you think it means.
How about these? http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/specimen.html
...than people had feared.
... and you ignored them?" he asked.
According to this article that was posted to Fark yesterday... the school administration, aka the ones who voted to include ID in the curriculum, didn't even bother to research the concept at all.
A couple of choice quotes from one of the Einsteins on that board:
"They said it was a scientific thing," said Geesey, who added that "it wasn't my job" to learn more about intelligent design because she didn't serve on the curriculum committee."
and
"The only people in the school district with a scientific background were opposed to intelligent design
"Yes," Geesey said."
Grade-A fucking scary.
...Rob
The American Dream isn't an SUV and a house in the suburbs; it's Don't Tread On Me.
One can always tell that it is an ID-er when he/she starts to use the words theory in bold, and say that it is "just a theory".
An ID thesis has the following components :
(a) A slipshod definition of what the word "Theory" actually means to them.
(b) A promotion of ID into a Theory by assertion.
(c) With this promotion, directly compare ID to Evolution, with the hope that the reader will think that ID actually has as much evidence behind it as evolutionary Theory.
(d) Finally, a series of anecdotal evidence, usually presented in bullet form and almost always wrong/falsified, of ID.
Boy, putting those Bold tags is hard work. How do they get through life?
Mode (3) smart-aleck mode. Press * to return to main menu.
At the very least you could correctly CITE your sources.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/murphy/murphy75.html
Yeah, I found the page you're copying from.
And since you're using that person's argument as your own, it is up to YOU to defend it.
First off, start by learning that "species" does not mean "individual".
And saving a redwood does not mean that the human race will suffer.
This is a silly game - for every intermedite form produced you'll simply shoehorn it into one category of the other and say "but what is between those?". The world's supply of discoverable fossil's is very much finite, while you can keep splitting hairs indefinitely.
In practice Archeopteryx is between lizards and birds. Between lizards and Archeopteryx are therapod dinosaurs. Between early lizard like therapods and Archeopteryx are late more bird-like dromaeosaurids and between early dromaeosaurids like Troodons and Archeopteryx are various feathered dinosaurs, which includes fossils that simply had feathers, apparently for warmth, through to later fossils that actually had clearly flight adapted feathers.
Want to try something different? How about whale evolution? We can start with a land dwelling mammal that looked fairly dog like but had certain ear structures not found in other mammals that are more suitable for hearing underwater. Then there's ambulocetus which was similar, but in practice was rather akin to a mammalian crocodile, with back legs obviously adpated for swimming, the same ear structures as our first creature, and a nose structure, similar to a crocodile, that was ideal for breathing while immersed in shallow water. Next there are things like rodhocetus which is remarkably whale like, yet still posses back legs, and still has a nasal structure placng the nostrils toward the tip as in ambulocetus. There's aetiocetus which shows the transition from snout tip nostrils toward nostils at the top of the skulls as in modern whales. Then there's basilosaurus which is decidedly whale like, but lacking in a few modern whale features, and retaining distinct, but quite useless, hind limbs similar to those of rodhocetus.
You can find similar sets of forms for the development of horses, the development of snakes from lizards, and even for the ape to man path, among many others.
Oh, I'm sure you can parse those and say "but what's between that?", but I think for most people who are not being mindlessly dogmatic that represents fairly reasonable evidence of transitions from lizards to birds, or from land dwelling mammals to whales, an, if they bothered to do the extra research and reading, the development of horses, snakes and man.
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
Here is why scientists are trying to purge ID from science classes...
There is no scientific controversy about whether or not evolution took place, none, it is as thoroughly demonstrated as the theory of relativity. The only contraversy on the topic is in the United States from religious/political arenas. So to even teach in science class that there is some sort of debate going on would be to give a poorer science education, a better place to teach about the debate would be social studies, and the best place to study ID itself (disproven already) would be philosophy or religious studies.
It's not inappropriate to teach ID, but it's certainly inappropriate to teach it in science class.
Note that the lack of controversy refers to evolution, not abiogenesis, which many people seem to confuse, and there are plenty of technical details inside evolution which could be called controversial, but none at the level taught at high school.
I was interested in your link to flaws in evolution, because everybody says "evolution has holes" but I've never been able to find any of these holes which are supposedly common knowledge in America (I have been looking, I honestly do want to know the holes the in theory). The site you link to is kooky, it's not that they demonstrate complete scientific ignorance on the topics they discuss, for example entropy, it's that they must honestly think that every scientist overlooked such a glaring inconsistency - they must be pretty special. (So if anybody reading this can point me to a scientific account of holes in evolution, drop a reply)
As to why can't scientists yet perform abiogenesis with all of our scientific knowledge? I imagine the same reason we can't make a fusion reactor yet with all our scientific knowledge, or why we can't cure cancer or AIDS yet, or why we can't make carbon nanotubes in the lengths we want - we just don't know enough to do it yet.
You point about the Alien spacecraft at Area51 makes me wonder if I'm replying to a troll.