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Kansas Board of Ed. Adopts Intelligent Design
kwietman writes "The Kansas State Board of Education voted 6-4 to allow science students in public schools to hear materials critical of evolution in biology classes. The new curriculum mentions that theories of life arising from similar building-block molecules through purely random processes can be challenged by recent findings in the fossil record and by molecular biology. Not all were happy, however. 'This is a sad day. We're becoming a laughingstock of not only the nation, but of the world, and I hate that,' said board member Janet Waugh. The new standards will be used in statewide standardized testing; the students are still expected to know 'basic evolutionary principles.' As part of the decision, the Board of Education also went so far as to redefine science itself, saying that it is 'no longer limited to the search for natural explanations of phenomena.'"
Associated Press, September 11 2005
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Wish my teachers had to admit that Evolution isn't as solid as a Mac :). Seriously though, it's pretty obvious if you study the theory that it really does have a lot of areas where uncertainty reigns. And I get really annoyed when people pretend that it's water tight, often solely because they don't like Jesus.
Kansas..is that a real place anyway?
If the submitter or the editor had RTFA, you'd easily see they didn't adopt Intelligent Design at all. They adopted more criticisms of evolution and also redefined science so that it wasn't limited to natural explanations.
I don't like this decision, but this story doesn't need slashdot style sensationalism and FUD. You are just distorting the issue further and not making it easier to fight this.
Once again, slashdot fucks up.
I understand the subject of Intelligent Design, stopping short of naming/inferring an actual creator. In this sense, I fell it detaches itself from an particular religion at all, and attempts to go beyond Darwinism and explain how we arrived in the first place.
I don't see it as unscientfic, who's to say Aliens didn't create us.
that scientists are often as dogmatic and short-sighted as the religious fanatics they criticise.
Every time the ID topic comes up on Slashdot, there's a flood of moderators even that side with the anti-science crowd that wants to teach Christian creation myth in biology class, just so that their God isn't offended. It's enough to make some people say why bother fighting against the slide into ignorance that Kansas seems willing to embrace, and take the rest of America down a peg with it.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Yep, they're right. Kansas & the US *are* the laughing stock of the world. Trust me. I was just laughing about it a minute ago when I read this.
ID eh. As science? hahahahahahaha
We need students and employees who are well prepared in the sciences and are capable of thinking independently, and if the school board succeeds in misleading their students, they are of no use to us.
Interesting comment--considering that they are teaching Intelligent Design alongside Evolutionary Theory. Your comment seems to indicate that, by teaching ONLY Evolution, that's how we develop Independent Thinking? Tell one side of a story? Somehow, that seems more like indoctrination to me.
I'm just curious how you get 'independent thinking' out of teaching only one side of the origins of life.
In America today you can murder land for private profit. You can leave the corpse for all to see, and nobody calls the c
I find it most disconcerting that any one with intelligence could believe so dogmatically in ANY Theory. At the time that those who believed the THEORY that the world was flat (world renown educators and scientists at the time) a group of individuals challenge it, are called heretics, threatened. Why? Fear would be my guess. Evolution is a Theory - just because a majority of world-renown scientists accept it as truth does not make it so. Creationism is a Theory - based on belief. A theory exists - because it can not be proven as fact. Belief in a theory can come from science, religion, history, etc... Stop bashing those who believe differently from you. The very tolerance you claim to have you refuse to give to those who oppose your views.
Nothing like a bunch of ignorant bible thumping freaks redefining a field of human enquiry that has been established and developed by dedicated indepedent thinking minds of remarkable genius and clarity far in excess of their own that are so clouded by superstitious balderdash.
Flamebait? Maybe, but the fact remains: the Kansas Board of Education collectively doesn't have even a fraction of the mental horsepower exhibited by Einstein, Darwin, Popper, Newton, Dawkins, Descartes, etc. etc. etc. They have NO BUSINESS redefining science, any more than I do.
I say FUCK THESE PEOPLE. Stop Them Now. Before it's too late.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
So, should students be made to think and believe one way, or is science about theories, alternatives, establishment, proofs, etc., etc?
A few years ago a Denver student made a valiant attempt to open classroom discussion in his school system about alternatives to evolution. He was shot down by the "free minded" educators. No discussion, no alternative, "it's our way and that's it". Is this what teaching science has come to in this nation?
Perhaps a bit misguided, but I still like teaching students to think, not "follow the yellow brick road."
Besides, such great scientist as Agassi, Faraday and Einstein don't seem to have bought into mindless evolution. How many have studied any of them or read any of their writings?
You and the people who insist that ID has been falsified (Behe's "irreducibly complex" molecular machines aren't, Dembski's understanding of information theory is flawed, etc) need to get together to work out a consistent position.
The issue here is that they redefine science.
When Newton posited gravity, some people claimed that he wasn't doing science because he invoked medieval-sounding "occult powers", and hence wasn't giving properly naturalistic explanations. People who make up definitions of science and then try to rule out rival theories because they are not "scientific" are usually up to no good. Part of what is at stake in scientific controversy is what the proper definition of science is. I'm no fan of what the Kansas Board is doing, but your concern about the sanctity of the "definition of science" is misplaced.
Anything worth doing is worth doing badly -- G.K. Chesterton
I didn't insist it was falsified
Did I say that you did?
please try reading next time.
Indeed.
We better start working on a new definition for "intelligent" and "design".
God damn religous whackjobs.
People who don't believe in evolution should take last year's flu shot.
The fact is that we DO NOT KNOW how the universe, life started, how, why it was "created" or "happened".
As long as we don't know the answer for these questions for sure, without any further doubt, in fact, any explanation is as good as the other. Science itself does not guarantee freedom of thinking, freedom of doubt, scientific institutions are historically famous of maintaining certain status quos and ideas which later prooved to be completely unscientific.
As long as we don't know something for absolutely sure: any idea for explaining it is almost as good/bad as the other.
Whether God exists or not is almost irrevelant after humans invented the idea of God.
In a "diverse" world (like we all like to pretend we're in), the more theories, the better, right? Critical thinking, right? Or do we all line up as "sheeple" and get the politically correct version of everything?
Einstein said:
"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."
Albert Einstein, "Science, Philosophy and Religion: a Symposium", 1941
Or we all just hate niggers. Niggers are proof that evolution doesn't affect everyone. Fuck niggers to hell, where they belong. Might as well send the Mexicans as well.
These people are not arguing about the origin of the species, emotionally. They don't care about the truth; that's ancillary. What they care about is that they demonstrate their membership in a particular tribe. It's not a coincidence that the supporters of ID are also rural, love both types of music (country and western), fundamentalist, blue collar, NASCAR-watching, conservative, SUV-driving, uneducated, and Republican all at once. This particular tribe, even though it now controls both branches of elected government and more or less controls the third, still feels its territory constricting around it due to the inexorable march of science and technology. The tribe will get more fierce before it finally succumbs. The utter humiliation of the Bush Administration now occurring will definitely not be the tribe's last gasp.
So you're advocating that the state should be able to prevent parents from sitting down with their children and choosing as a family what they're going to believe?
That's called fascism.
People can choose to be ignorant and stupid. Parents often pass their ignorance on to their children. It's sad, but it's always been that way, always will be, and the state can't do anything about it.
Unless you're a fascist, anyway. Maoist, Stalinist, whatever...
I think the right-bashing point you're trying to make is that the ID proponents aren't interested in their own families, they're interested in YOURS and are using the state to enforce that quasi-religious view on everyone.
That's fascism too.
But the change in Kansas was through the democratic process.
So if you live in Kansas, maybe you should move!
Good heavens Miss Sakamoto - you're beautiful!
I don't know where to begin to poke holes in most of the arguments made here.
"Evolution is the foundation of our current understanding of Biology. Everything from DNA to resistant viruses is predicted by evolution"
Did you know that as viruses "mutate" or "evolve", they are loosing part of their DNA? They don't become resistive because they effect a positive change, or an addition, to thwart antibodies. They become unrecognisable because they have lost part of their idenity. At least that is a scientific theory. Or don't ID people know how to formulate scientific theory? So if evolution "predicted" resistive viruses, wouldn't it then be considered the Deconstruction of Species?
How many of you here understand molecular biology well enough to debate someone else on the subject? I know of plenty of Christian scientists who can. Some of the most intelligent people of our time have believed that science is not harmed if an intelligent designer created the reality we know currently. And we still can't prove or disprove some of Einstin's theories.
The fact is that we will never understand how the earth was formed, or how humans came to be here. Why? Because none of us were there. That doesn't mean however that science is hericy. If it were not for scientific discovery we couldn't carry on this debate over the internet.
Liberally minded people like to think themselves more capable of independant thought because they don't subscribe to this Christian mumbo jumbo. While you yourselves have taken up evolution as religon, and will blindly believe anything someone else tells you. I say blindly because as I have already stated unless you can adequately debate molecular biology, or some of the other sciences, you can't really form a completely independant opinion. And each person who does posess the capacity for such scientifc deduction must make up his/her own mind on the subject. So where does that leave the rest of us? Look at the possibilities, judge for yourself which one of them suits you best, and enjoy life. As you go through life you may find more evidence that supports of refutes your belief, at that point you have to make a decision to stick with your current belief system or "Convert" to another. Notice that I didn't use convert in a Christian only context. But in the meantime, don't ridicule or try to make light of someone elses belief, they may know something you don't. Maybe you could ask them to share it with you so that you can add it to your list of ideas.
Science thrives on "Prove It". Well, Intelligent design is throwing down the gauntlet. Most of the worlds population believes in a "god" or "creator". Every civilization has it's own brand of "religon". Intelligent Design espouses none of these, it simply tries to prove it, or make scientists prove otherwise.
All Intelligent Design is trying to say is that humans may not be the most intelligent beings in the universe, and that, The, most intelligent being created life here and has left us to figure out why. Meanwhile, all we can do is quabble about what the meaning of Science is.
If you're taught from birth that God made you out of clay, you're going to believe that the evolution part of the class is the "garbage". Now the kids simply won't question it because they're hearing it in church AND they're hearing it at home. Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth.
You were taught from birth that evolution is the truth, right?
>>I would be interested if you were capable of going into more detail on this. Bear in mind you are talking to a qualified geologist. I think the above is deliberately deceptive, or very ignorant.
Research punctuated equilibrium then.
>>You've lost me here (or are deliberately constructing a strawman). Evolution is not 'a collection of random processes'.
Imagine a random generator. It knocks out / substitutes base pairs in DNA. Then you apply a selective pressure to the resulting creature.
>>Interesting. How many 'vestigal processes' does evolution predict?
Roll some D20s, construct yourself a biochemical pathway. There's a variety of ways of accomplishing the same task, some with toxic side effects, some more baroque than others. The toxic ones would have a selective pressure applied to them, the baroque ones would not unless they perhaps were so ineffecient so as to give the creature a competitive disadvantage. There's no particular reason for a baroque pathway to collapse into an elegant one, and yet the pathways are generally elegant. If you are claiming that random processes will always generate the best solution, I want you rolling my dice the next time I go to Vegas.
>>Yet a designer could 'drop in' a complete new pathway at any time; the conspicuous failure of this to happen being a problem for ID, usually dealt with by sidestepping or ignoring.
Sure, it evolved when there was an oxygen free environment. You keep acting like intelligent design is creationism. It's not. Your argument is basically, "Why didn't the designer/God/Aliens/Whoever do something better?" Which isn't really compelling at all when you think about it. God, even in the Bible, never showed a strong tendency to explain the Why, of anything.
The interesting thing about vestigal processes is not that they exist, but that there are so few.
>>It's interesting that you would want to ask medical students, who are typically taught huge volumes of facts without much underlying theory
Rather the opposite, at least from what I've seen at UCSF.
You cretinous muppet.
On the one hand you say that the Bible is the source of all knowledge and has never been wrong about anything and on the other you say that it may have been some Aliens or some other God responsible for creation when the bible clearly states that there is only one God and he is responsible for all creation.
Back in the real world there is no need to 'debunk' ID since it is a stupid idea and will remain a stupid idea until it can find some credible evidence to support it's stupid claims.
I am a space nigger you insensitive clod!
is that it works. Let Kansas teach their kids there is no such thing as Science, that God and the toothfairy created the land 6000 years ago, and that believing in anything else will get you sent to Hell... When it comes time for my kid, and their kids, to start applying for university or professional positions, who is going to get the job, the kid who has been taught about _all_ religious beliefs, who has a solid understanding of biology & and the scientific method, who has been to other lands and participated in their cultures, or, the kid from Kansas who's answer to every question is "the Bible says..." ? I think it's great Kansas, and any other God fearing state, is trying to force their people to follow their dated religion, because it will not work, the smart people will move to other states, smart businesses wont move into their state, and we can keep as many fundy Christians as possible in one or two states, whose total electoral votes equal about that of Bakersfield or Fresno. Let them become unfit, and watch them die out.
Did the founding fathers label some particular part of the United States as the heart and other parts as some other kind of body part?
It's well known that Florida is America's wang.
I yearn for you tragically. A. T. Tappman, Chaplain, U.S. Army.
"In fact, evolution can be precisely defined as any change in the frequency of alleles within a gene pool from one generation to the next."
Then there is no disagreement between creation and evolution, especially as a creationist (Mendel) came up with the idea of alleles and the way that they vary anyway.
Engineering and the Ultimate
"cognitive dissonance"
People make a habit of "justifying" the unjustafiable all the time, whether its why they don't give up a bad habit thats gonna kill them (smoking), or why they won't stop supersizing themselves.
For example, there's more proof for the existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster than there is for God and Jesus.. Never seen Jesus, never seen God, but even I have seen spaghetti.
And most pastafarians can testify that communing by partaking of a plate of pasta, a glass of vino, and some hot garlic bread can induce a profound state of contentment, a feeling that all is well with the world
Similarly, offering to share that pasta has the immediate effect of putting a smile on the recipients' face, whereas people start looking for the exit when someone offers to "share Jesus". ... so Pastafarianism must be the natural state of mankind.
Telling a starving person "read the Bible - it will nourish you" is cruel - whereas offering them of the body and blood of the Flying Spaghetti Monster will assuage their hunger.
You can make a better case for the FSM and Pastafarias than for the Bible and Christianity.
So, what does this have to do with "cognitive dissonance?" The bible has many contradictions in it - to claim to believe it requires that you maintain several contradictory beliefs at once.
>>Which is *why* ID isn't science.
Which demonstrates a lack of understanding of the subject.
Consider. Suppose God answers a certain percentage of prayers. You set up a double blind trial... heck, don't even tell the subjects they are participating in a study. Statistical analysis would reveal whether or not the premise was true. It's falsifiable, and doesn't require a why to be answered from God. It's only non-scientific in that you have a black box doing actions without an understanding of how it operates. Yet math gives us the power to observe and quantify black boxes.
The dodge that nothing is 100% certain is solved neatly by stats. You set a confidence level, and leave it at that.
In a similar vein, analysis could reveal influence on DNA. If a herd of horses sprouted wings tomorrow, without any latent wing DNA, then you'd have to say (with a high degree of certainty) a designer was involved. Not necessarily God (ID doesn't presuppose God, as much as people like to believe that), since a hobbyist with a penchant for gene splicing could have been responsible for it. Or aliens, or whatever.
>>WHat utter nonsense. Even if any of these prayers were granted there is no way to distinguish wether it was by the action of a god or god's or simply by chance or any other factor. If you were to run this 'trial' and some of the prayers were answered then choosing to attribute that to god would be purely an act of religious faith.
You set up a bunch of people who pray for another group, perhaps to cure them of cancer. The experimental group has no knowledge they are even in a survey, nor do the doctors or anyone working with them. You come back a year later and see if there is a difference between them and a control group.
Do you even understand how statistics work, at a basic level? I'd recommend a basic text.