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Kansas Adopts New Science Standards
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)."
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.
Look at all the tornados.
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Political discussion for a new world
It's not really Church vs. State, it's State vs. Ignorance. Most people who are against the theory of evolution don't understand it all that well, and as a result find it unsatisfying. If you reason about evolution with a half-baked version of the theory it's only natural that you'll find some holes.
If we could manage a separation of State and Ignorance, that would be great...
Regarding the so-called "ultra-conservative Board members":
Conservative belief does not necessarily intersect much with religion.
These were _ultra-religious_ board members.
Let's at least get that part right.
BWilde.
I like his comment about if we come from monkeys, does that gives us the right to act like them?
Considering the way Creationists jump up and down and fling poo every time the word Evolution is used, I'd say his question has already been answered.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
I think it's telling that every time the public finds out that a school board tried to undermine science education via an attack on mainstream scientific theories, the public votes them out immediately. It happened at Dover, and now in Kansas. The ID crowd only get the chance to promote their "alternative theory" when they keep quiet about what they intend to do, but as soon as they do it, the cat is out of the bag and they get voted out of office. Somehow they still think that they have grassroots support, but the movement only survives as long as they lie about it. People love talk about being more Godly and all that, but they don't want their state to be the laughingstock of the country.
I don't understand why such a large portion of the Church is opposed to science and evolution.
Science is the endeavor to explain what can be oberved. It does this by creating models which explain current observations and predict future results. It then tests these models by setting up scenarios in which the predictions can be determined to be accurate. In short, from a Christian perspective it's an attempt to understand the universe God created and how it works. I can imagine no greater subject of study than that of the works of God.
Evolution is a scientific model. It looks at the current state of life, fossil records, and historical accounts and establishes a model of life which fits all thse observations. Each new finding tests the model, and it has several times been refined by new discoveries. The system of evolution is almost undeniably correct; it is difficult to argue that evolution can occur in the way it is described. The evolutionary history of various organisms is debateable, as there is always a chance that new findings will change the current version. That's how science works.
So many of my fellow Christians seem to think that evolution is an attack on us and our beliefs. It's not. It is simply the result of rational consideration of the facts at hand. Science is not (well, should not be) malicious and has (should have) no interest in attacking religion, as the existence of diety is currently outside the reach of science.
They also make the mistake of lumping everything they disagree with under the name "evolution". I've heard the Big Bang mentioned in discussions of evolution, even though it's part of a completely different field of science.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
Faith is great. It might well be the best of all human qualities. It has helped people survive the worst moments of life, and to go on when hope should have been lost.
But, faith itself can be twisted and misused. When faith is used as a tool to prevent people from using their god given gifts, then it's become a weapon. I have seen people use their faith to ignore what they have seen with their own eyes. I have seen faith used to prevent normal healthy inquiry. It is my opinion that this is the path to pure insanity.
If you except that God created man, and you also except that you were not consulted on God's plan and work habits, then you should be open to explanations as to the details of his creation. Was evolution part of God's plan? Most people admit that they do not know how God works, but some of those same people claim to know exactly how he does not work.
Scientist are only looking for the truth, and sometimes to be published. But I think they are truthful. I imagine that someone with a greater observance of what God has created and it's inner workings is much closer to God than someone who twists faith to blind themselves to God's wonders.
-- Prepared at the direction of, or to be sent to Legal Counsel, in anticipation of litigation. Attorney Client Pri
Maybe we should go back to calling ourselves "natural philosophers" rather than "scientists".
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
I've never gotten a satisfactory answer to the question of why God could not have created man to evolve. He clearly created bacteria and virii to evolve. That we can witness on a daily basis as illnesses adapt to the drugs we use to treat them and become resistant. There is evidence that species have come and gone from this world, and that some have morphed into others (trying to use evolve here as much as possible). Why is it so inconceivable that man would have been made to adapt to his surroundings in similar ways?
You shouldn't believe a country's name as being a true description - "German Democratic Republic" (the former East Germany), "People's Republic of China", etc. Similarly, fields that feel a need to put the word "science" in their name often aren't - "Political Science", "Computer Science".
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
If we evolved, then it was a matter of random chance.
Well, with such an incredibly incorrect first premise, I'm sure you can prove about anything.
Natural selection is not random.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
Actually I'm not happy with their definition of science. I'm sure there'll be crackpot around there to say that "God" is part of the "natural process that drives things" and therefor He's divine presence is needed to explain phenomenons.
I think it'll be more meaningful to describes sciences as a series of models that humans have inventend that are designed to describe the world around us in a way that can be measured/checked (numerically, for exemple, in the case of physics), that can be proved/disproved (what ever your own deity say you should believe about the shape of the earth, that doesn't stop the newtonian physic to be rather good at predicting phenomenons happening on it's surface : object falling and being thrown around), and that can be used to predict the behaviour of some object (all the science used in engineering can be used to invent new technology by knowing in advance how they're supposed to work once build).
These models aren't necessarily perfectly exact, they are just good enough inside their scope (newtonian physic isn't good enough for very masses and high speeds. Einstein's physic is better and more precise in those cases).
In that perspective, when encountering complex phenomenons like evolution, scientific believes like Darwin's theory are a good interesting model for interpreting the facts that you discover (lots and lots of slightly different animals in archeologic discoveries, and if you put them together in chronological order, they seem to slowly transform from one specie to another. The monkey->ape->human evolution is a nice example) and that can make interesting prediction (you can't directly make an experiment to prove/disprove it. At least not as long as crackpots repeat that micro and macro evolutions are different. BUT you can predict that as we dig up more and more fossils, we'll fill the holes and get more steps that details in a better way the evolution).
Whereas if one's intellectually lazy and prefer to say "goddidit", one just stuck with this single explanation. Nothing useful can be made of it. To the question "What happens next", the only possible answer is "depend's on god's mood today" and that isn't very useful.
I think that these notions :
- science is descriptive of phenomenon,
- science puts quantities and classes on them,
- science can be proven and disproven (and mostly be proven to be accurate enough for some scope), and
- science may be useful to predict outcome of experiment and behaviour of inventions
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I never completely understand why people argue "God says it". Even if people want to believe that god wrote the books of the bible, the christian bible was put together by humans. No one argues that the chapters put into the bible were selected by people. So god may have said lots of other things, but these people have chosen not to listen. Maybe another text which wasn't included describes evolution.
And if these people believe the bible was written by humans, then everything "god says" is hearsay and could be misquoted.
And let's not even get started on the fact that the bible Americans read has been translated. There are many phrases which can be translated multiple ways. Plus with the old testiment the English language can't properly represent the multiple meanings of Hebrew words, and so much is lost in translation.
Developers: We can use your help.
For those unenlightened individuals wondering about the "buttsexwithfishsquirrels" tag, you may want to refer to the South Park episode dealing with evolution. You can watch the clip right here.
Eat a Chicken, You know you want to.
I'm sick of people with this semantical misunderstanding of the word 'theory.'
There is less evidence in support of Newton's Theory of Gravity (or even Einstein's Theory of Relativity) than there is in support of the Theory of Evolution. The term 'law' has not been used in science for a very, very long time. The word theory should not be confused with the word 'hypothesis'. In science, a hypothesis is closer to how the common vernacular uses the term 'theory'. A hypothesis is just an idea based on observation. A theory is what grows from a hypothesis: Scientists continue additional observations and experiments over the course of time and use those results and observations to refine or refute the hypothesis. Eventually the hypothesis becomes sound enough to become a theory. A theory must be supported by multiple sources of available evidence; it must be repeatable, consistent, empirically testable, and falsifiable. It must be multiply reproducible. Yes, theories must admit that they might be wrong. But there are no absolutes in this world -- just as they must admit that they might be wrong, theories are also the soundest explanations for natural occurence that science has available.
No matter how you slice it, Intelligent Design is not science. It doesn't hold up to the rigorous scientific scrutiny that scientific theories must hold up against. Evolution does. Intelligent Design is nothing more than religious dogma; it is not now, never will be, nor can it ever be by definition, a scientific theory.
I have nothing against people having their children taught Creationism. But not in a science classroom. The time and place for studying Creationism is in a religious setting, not a science classroom.
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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
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.
While I *almost* agree with your post, you forgot a few:
Faith, helps a POW survive his situation even though his body has "given out". Faith, gives hope to a poor person, who through education, believes they can work their way out of poverty. Faith helps anyone, in a dire situation, deal with it in a way that they can handle. It may be feeble compared to your way but for some, its the only way they can make it through that situation.
Faith is a tool. And like ANY tool, it can be used for good and bad.