Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Kansas Adopts New Science Standards

Posted by Zonk on from the in-line-with-the-rest-of-us dept.

porcupine8 writes "The Kansas State Board of Education has changed the state science standards once again, this time to take out language questioning evolution. This turnaround comes fast on the heels of the ouster given this past election to the ultra-conservative Board members who originally introduced the language. 'Science' has also been re-redefined as 'a human activity of systematically seeking natural explanations' (the word 'natural' had been previously stricken from the definition). If you'd like to see the new standards, a version showing all additions and deletions is available from the KS DOE's website (PDF)."

6 of 868 comments (clear)

  1. Eternal Vigilance by RumGunner · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I suspect that this probably wouldn't have happened in the first place if people in that area had bothered to participate in their local elections before being humiliated on an international scale.

    1. Re:Eternal Vigilance by Austerity+Empowers · · Score: 3, Interesting

      That sounds so easy, but as impossible as it is to know the will of the president of our country ahead of time, you can at least look at his history and try to read the tea leaves. It's a million times more impossible to know what some local yahoo you've never heard of is going to do. All you can really do is vote them out when they do something totally braindead that makes it into the news. Such as redefining science. Or using your tax dollars to build a $500k skateboard park. etc.

  2. Don't misunderestimate the electorate by RichPowers · · Score: 4, Interesting

    My local schoolboard faced a similar reversal after the ultra-conservative members tried pushing I.D. into our classrooms. The public hearing on the matter was a hoot though. The district's science instructors, a few PhDs, and even some students all went on record as saying the whole thing was a dumb idea. Oh, and the fiscal conservatives were outraged to learn that the district spent $10,000+ on legal fees.

    The next schoolboard election saw a higher voter turnout and the pro-ID board members were ousted, replaced by moderates.

    All this in a county that votes 65% Republican. If only voters had paid attention during the first election hehe

  3. [Air clearing] A Christian view you DON'T hear by WheelDweller · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm a Christian; that doesn't mean I merely GO to church, but I've made contact with the larger intelligence, and we have a relationship. (In case the word "saved" curls your skin.)

    I have no problem with the Big Bang. The singularity that marked the beginning with "let there be light", and the fact that the galaxies are moving away and accellerating only strenthens the argument there was a beginning, not an oscillation.

    Humans are carbon-based, and animals are, too, so we'd have food. It doesn't work the other way. I have NO PROBLEM with evolution (the change-over-time) aspect, nor do I have an issue with mankind starting as an ape-like being which one day found it's soul.

    What I *do* have a problem with, is preachers that still say mankind is only 6,000 years old, never had prototypes (apes) in his development, or that science and the Bible are at odds.

    [Delay while a hush fills the room...]

    Precisely because the Bible has room for all this stuff. It mentions giants and other creatures. It's not a play-by-play of the billion years before man. It's not a total list of all creatures ever made, though it *does* list the development of plant categories, and it matches the fossil record.

    So can we deflate a bunch of the "Evolution is wrong" arguments, at the outset?

    --
    --- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
  4. Ghandi said it best... by Cervantes · · Score: 4, Interesting

    That Ghandi dude had it right.

    "I like your Christ. I do not like your christians. They are so unlike your Christ."

    I don't think Christ would like the way people are stiffling expression and imposing their will in his name, especially with the grief he went through when he was around. I mean, seriously... "Hey everyone, be nice to each other!"... "No, we're going to nail you to a tree instead. Natch!"

    If good ole JC was around right now, I'm sure we wouldn't be having silly discussions like this...

    --
    If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
  5. Re:Usefullness of science by plunge · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Um, the poster you were replying to is seriously downplaying the amount an quality of the evidence for evolution. It isn't simply a matter of fossils happening to create an apparent pattern. It's a matter of countless different independent lines of evidence all converging on the one very particular pattern that evolution requires. Simple layperson observance of fossil morphology when placed in sequence is barely even scratching the surface (despite many people for some reason thinking that this is all evolution has going for it).

    In science, we don't speak of certain Truth or Facts, but talking about evolution as true and a fact in a colloquial sense is perfectly appropriate if talking about ANYTHING as a fact is. That people get upset at evolution and only evolution when referred to that way, despite the reality that the evidence for evolution is far far stronger than virtually anything else to which they DON'T object being called a fact, I think we have a right to question their sincerity or fairness.

    " I'd like to see some standards that acknowledge there are several theories (evolution, creation, intellegent design) that currently have some level of support within the scientific community and society."

    This claim would be a falsehood. Even intelligent design, which is a PR movement devoted to trying to "create" the circumstances for this claim, has virtually no support amongst biologists. That many Americans believe in creationism has no bearing on whether it is sound science. Science is about the evidence, not about people's beliefs. The evidence says that creationism is ridiculous, and that intelligent design is not even a coherent or scientific theory. Neither is a scientific alternative.

    "Is it too much to ask that we try to take a neutral point of view with education standards?"

    Should we also take a neutral point of view on the holocaust, astrology, numerology and 2+2=4? Should we simply stop teaching science altogether? Isn't that basically what you are asking for, in the end?

    Science ISN'T neutral. Science is about what the evidence shows, not about surveying everyone's opinions and beliefs.