Slashdot Mirror
12 Florida Schools Pass Anti-Evolution Resolutions
Several sources are reporting that twelve school districts in Florida have passed resolutions against the teaching of evolution. Out of all the arguments, however, one administrator seems to have gotten it right: "Then, the final speaker, Lisa Dizengoff, director of science curriculum at Pembroke Pines Charter School's east campus, angrily reminded the crowd that after all the carping over evolution, no one had gotten around to addressing the state's lackadaisical, last-century approach to science education. 'All I heard was this argument about evolution,' she said, disgusted that so many other problems had been preempted by a single controversy. 'The kids lost out again.''"
The 21st Century... The new Dark Ages, when religion is high and education is low.
-uso.
What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
1. Brace self for usual massive troll reaction to this, 2. Go outside, and do something else.
I don't either. And I'm not posting anonymously. This is bullshit, and deserves to be treated as such. If you'll pardon the metaphor, to hell with this "theory" bullshit. It's an observable phenomenon. The only 'Theory' part of it is whether or not the currently observable laws of nature also were holding true during the time that life as we can see it came about or not. It's like saying, 'Sure that gravity pulls books down to the ground NOW, but did it still do that 10,000 years ago? Until you can answer that positively then you only have a theory!!'
Speak for yourself.
... seems to be the sum total of evidence against evolution.
http://xkcd.com/54/ is appropriate right now.
I don't have any kids and my tax dollars go to public schools. If I have to help pay for them, then parents with kids in private school have to help pay for them.
If you want to send your kids to private school, that's your right. That doesn't mean that you get to take funds away from public schools.
Technoli
> because neither popular argument (ID/evolution) is proven (although evolution makes FAR more sense, dont you think?)
Where did you get that idea from? Evolution has been proven time after time, from Darwin's finches over selective breeding, resistant strains of diseases all the way to artificial intelligence programs. Evolution is no fact, but it is a good explanations for fact we can see all around us.
Whereas intelligent design does not explain anything, very much like the Homunculus argument.
I have studied theology in some depth. I am familiar with apologetics and all the classical defenses put forth to support the integrity of specific, popular, religious beliefs.
For all the philosophical rambling, none of them, absolutely none of them, escape this simple indisputable fact:
All religious teachings are provided to us by humans.
If God Himself appeared next to me and handed me a copy of the Bible, that would be one thing. But instead, a human handed to me. And, in fact, a human wrote every word that is in it. This notion of "divine inspiration" (which is supposed to remove the element of human fallibility from the Bible) was communicated to me by...wait for it....A HUMAN.
I can agree in principle with the presumption that faith in God is well-founded, and faith in human reason (i.e. the theory of evolution) is not so well-founded. However, to put faith in the teachings (or books) of any religion is to put faith in human reason.
There is no denial, only rationalization.
When I was in school we did learn that they where other theories about how life started on earth. We learned that some people believed in spontaneous generation like that maggots came from rotting meat. We learned how these where shown to be incorrect or lacking in any evidence.
I would have no problem with them teaching intelligent design if they just followed the rules of science when teaching it.
Simply that some people think this is how life got started but there is no proof or experiments that prove it out and many of their claims have been disproven or at least had a lot of doubt about them.
Science should be open to different ideas even if they are wrong. They must all be looked at using the scientific method. I doubt many creationist would like the way it was being taught but that is just too bad. If they can get some good science to back them up then let's see it.
All that I have seen was really bad.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
You're right that it's going to end badly. It's only going to take a few pissed off parents and the ACLU will walk in and destroy all of this as completely as was done in Dover. The schools will end up owing millions, the kids will suffer, and the idiots who have fallen liars from the Discovery Institute will largely get off scot-free like they did in Dover.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
You know, to be honest, I'd really like to suggest a title change for the articles concerned - "12 Florida Schools Pass Anti-Science Resolutions."
That's really what's happening. The theory of Evolution is one of the most heavily supported things in the scientific world, and passing laws against it speaks exceptionally loudly about the given parties ability to discern fact from fiction, intelligence from hand-waving, and most importantly, critical thinking from anything else. They're not just rejecting evolution, they're rejecting the process of science as a whole.
I live in constant fear of the Coming of the Red Spiders.
This isn't about education at all. It is about power. And the worst power mongers are people are these low-level politicians on school boards and local councils who have more direct control over the people immediately around them.
They are no doubt congratulating themselves about bringing 17th century thinking to the 21st century.
Sad. I doubt most people in Florida, or even these schools agree with this result. Hopefully, like in Kansas, it will be overturned.
The "it's only a theory" comment is a pretty classic example of an etymological fallacy; invoking an older or more looser usage of a word in an attempt to undermine a more narrow or professional usage. In this case, they attempt to equate the definition of theory as a "claim" or "guess" with the very narrow and strict definition of the word as it is applied by scientists. It's simply another variant of the older sticker trick that was tried, and every time it comes up, a court sees through the bullshit and lies (it's ironic how deceitful and immoral all these good Christian folks become) and rule that the Creationists/IDers have distinctly religious motives.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I mean, this argument over evolution has religious roots, but I can't help but stare in disbelief at believers who waste their energy over this argument. What difference does it make if every school in the country teaches God created the earth when you look at most religious people and the only way you can tell they have religion is their loud harping on evolution and abortion and hatred of homosexuals, atheists, and people who don't share their faith? There's no compassion or any of the other virtues you occasionally hear touted as being part of religion coming from the people behind these movements. No love of truth. No love of others as they love themselves. Just know it all venom and a desperate need to defend dogmas no matter how silly they sound defending them or what new lows of deception they have to sink to in their defense.
I have to ask those believers, is this what Jesus would do and be about? I'm working my ass off to make sure my kids can go to the finest private non-religious schools available. They can raise their kids in 3rd world ignorance, but I can make sure my kids aren't.
Patriot - A fan of expanding government power and spending while not wanting to pay higher taxes.
First of all, your arguing against inference. Have you ever seen an electron? Did you ever see your great-great-great-great-grandparents? Did you ever meet anybody that spoke Proto-Indo-European? No, but you can infer these things from the evidence.
As to evolution, of course you can observe it. We have nylon-digesting bacteria now when nylon didn't even exist before the 1930s. I was just reading about pupfish in Death Valley who have gone through a radical process of speciation since the valley dried up after 20,000 years ago.
If you wish to dip into some sort of solipsism or epistemological nihilism, be my guest, but what you're really doing is denying that any knowledge can be gathered that is reliable. You might as well deny that yesterday ever happened, and that the universe began at midnight, and everything is just fake memories. Just remember, if you want to deny or question evolution "because I've never seen it", then you have to be fair and basically call into question *all* knowledge, because everything is susceptible to such an argument.
If you actually want to learn something about evolution, then I recommend going to http://talkorigins.org/ where there are dozens of articles dealing with all manner of evolutionary problems and explanations, with full citations so you can go to a library and check for yourself.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Of course we have seen it. Its all around us. Its in the fossil record. By your logic, nobody has actually seen galaxies evolve because they are looking into the past via the fossil record of the universe - radiation (light, xrays, etc.)
Evolution can be easily traced back to the earliest creatures capable of leaving imprints of themselves behind. The entire process of developing lungs, limbs, spines, etc. etc. is all right there. Each step of the way. It is not a mystery. Just because it doesn't happen in a timespan and a place you personally can witness doesn't make it not so. The sun didn't form before your eyes did it? Did the mountains spring up so you could witness? Is geology a supposition? An educated guess?
You can demonstrate evolution in the lab with bacteria. You can demonstrate complex hydrocarbons doing all sorts of magical stuff in the lab (how life came to be in the first place.)
Tracing the biology of animals of this planet is a well known, well documented science. It is FACT, because the facts are right there in front of the entire worlds eyes, should they choose to look. Fish moving onto land, developing lungs, etc.
We have broken down the DNA code very well at this point, and can trace our origins that way as well. We can see where we differ and what we share with trees, worms, bacteria, dogs and elephants. Natural selection (the mechanism behind evolution) is everywhere as well. Look at dog and cat breeds. Cattle. Plants. Insects. You name it, you can change the creature itself by breeding.
Evolution is science. It is what the facts tell us. This is not a philosophical debate. There are no two sides. It is not a guess. It is about stupidity and blind faith. You can't reject evolution any more than you can reject combustion, or gravity. If people DO reject it, they are simply being ignorant and stupid. Plain and simple.
Basing "science" on something written thousands of years ago by people who were so far from us in their knowledge of the world is ridiculous. It is absurd. Why not simply observe the world? Observe what is right in front of our faces, and learn from it.
Maybe now that they've had some success on this front, they can pursue suppressing the "round-earth theory" in Earth Science, and Geography classes.
I don't want my tax dollars going to fund some fundamentalists' brain-washing clinic / madrassa. Instead of splitting the nation into private enclaves, we ought to improve the public education system to the point where there isn't any need for an alternative.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
I've always found it funny how creationists and their supporters argue against the teaching of evolution on the basis that, "It's only a theory." What they seem to forget (or were never taught) is that everything in science is, at most, a theory. Nothing is certain, nothing is absolute. Nothing can be deemed "irrefutable" as such a statement implies one can tell the future. It is always possible that new data will someday come to light and contradict that which we hold to be a "universal truth."
:)
Of course, I suppose if the creationists did understand this concept they would attempt to use it against the scientific community. If nothing is absolutely certain, how then do you know anything, right?
*looks around at all of the gadgets, cars, buildings, medical technology, etc.*
Well, we seem to be applying science quite well despite the fact.
First of all, evolution has no more to say on the subject of God's existence than climatology or hydrology. It's a scientific theory. It is a-theistic (not atheistic, you'll note). You won't find any evolutionary papers that talk about the existence of God any more than you'll find any chemistry papers that do.
Second of all, the evidence shows that we and monkeys share a common ancestor. The fossil record shows this pretty well, but the molecular record is even more clear. You may not like that (I have no idea why), but that's where it sits. We and monkeys are related. We and seasquirts are related. We and bacteria are related. The distances may be greater, but we all share a common ancestor.
And this has nothing to do with God either.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Well said. You have my applause.
Really, this sort of behavior boils down to tribalism. People have a need to identify themselves as part of a group and what better way to do that then to contrast yourselves with those who are outside of your group. This is why some people glom onto fanatacisim for professional sports teams or fall victim to fashion trends. It's all about establishing your group identity. The Japanese have a notably complex system of in-groups and out-groups and expected behaviors when interacting with people in and out of your many groups.
The foaming at the mouth evangelicals love to portray themselves as under perilous attack by secular heathens despite the fact that North America has an overwhelmingly Christian culture and it isn't going away anytime soon. This is all part of the rhetoric established from the time that Christians really were a minority group who had to withstand the oppression of other dominant groups. Just once, I whish these fools could put themselves in the shoes of a Hindu or Buddhist immigrant to realize what it truly feels like to be a little fish in a bowl of sharks.
Of course this is one of the many problems with modern Christianity: it is permeated with an air of anti-intellectualism. You shouldn't try to question the "truth" as given to you by people serving as intermediaries for God (or direct from the KJV Bible for the literalists). To do so would be to admit that you don't have enough faith and without faith you're going to hell so just shut up and believe everything we tell you to believe in. We have things like idiot Protestants claiming that Roman Catholics aren't real Christians. (WTF?) People like Pat Robertson are lionized by millions and yet he openly expresses hatred for non-Christians. Somehow these people can claim to be followers of Jesus and yet they conveniently fail to realize the core meaning his teachings.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
I don't believe that we, just by chance, came into existence.
Anyone who has any understanding of evolution knows that "just by chance" is an extremely poor description of evolution. Randomness plays a very, very small role in the evolutionary descent of organisms.
I am a Christian, and like many others, it doesn't matter what you say to me
Can I quote you on that?
That simple fact indicates why your philosophy fails: it is, like all faith, completely resistant to evidence. It doesn't matter what you are shown, explained, or demonstrated: you will perist in a pre-determined pattern of belief. When you decide a belief before hearing arguments, it is philosophically equivalent to sticking your fingers in your ears and going "wah wah wah I can't hear you". Most religious people won't admit it as you just have.
I stole this sig from someone cleverer than me.
Evolution is what it is because nothing else can explain observation. It flows from the facts. It is not a hypothesis. It is a theory. Which means it is testable with experiment, and fits all observed facts. Nothing has ever been shown to prove otherwise. Ergo, it is fact.
How so? Is all fact open for debate? This subject is closed. It is not dogma. Is relativity dogma? Are plate tectonics dogma? What did I say that was stupid and dogmatic? Because I don't question every fact?
The reasons I have given ARE scientific, because the reasons were listed as the testable, provable real things that make up evolution. Observable natural selection. The fossil record. Speciation. The DNA record. etc. etc.
Just because I say that people are stupid if they disagree with fact, does that make me dogmatic? Not at all. If you disagree with me on the cellular structure of a potato, just because, well, you are being stupid. I can show you in a microscope the provable fact of that structure. Same goes for something like evolution.
Certainly, things like quantum gravity are open ended discussions, because we have no theory to fit all facets of observation in that realm. Something like evolution is simply not debatable, unless new, before now unknown facts come to light that do not fit observation and experiment. Since these things have yet to surface, I will call anybody who rejects evolution an idiot, because they are. For whatever reason, because there is NO valid reason. Plain and simple.
You are totally confusing science fact, with belief and religious dogma. I do not believe anything about evolution or science. Belief has nothing to do with it. I do not have faith in science. I do not accept it because I feel I must to support some other agenda. I accept it because it is what reality is, it is what is testable and observable. At the very least it is the quest to understand what is testable and observable.
Atheism is a religion to the same extent that not collecting stamps is a hobby.
Interesting point, and I agree. But the real reason this is a problem as it shows the growing influence of anti-intellectualism and religiosity in our country, and a diminishing understanding of what science is and what distinguishes it from religion.
This is a real, urgent problem - we are lagging behind other countries and losing our competitive edge, and we wonder why this is when our attitude towards science is: "The Bible is as good at scieence as peer-reviewed journals." As long as this attitude persists, we'll see people like George W. Bush and other anti-science evangelicals shaping our government's science policy, and that affects us all.
It also has to do with the kind of thinking this attitude promotes. Why critically analyze something when you can just think what you've been told to think by your elders? That's not good for democracy, that's not good for anyone.
How to fix? Just aggressively answer every anti-evolution statement, and help sponsor and support people fighting to keep evolution the ONLY scientific theory of the origin of life taught in schools.
"Our attitude" toward science depends on who the "our" is, and where you look.
While there are a significant number of people in the USA who honestly believe in Bible-based fundamentalism (in various ways personal to themselves), many are pandered to by corrupt portions of the ulta-moneyed class in order to maintain their power.
Put it another way, the Bush/Cheney crowd don't honestly care about evolution, stem-cell issues, anti-gay histeria, etc., but if by putting up a good face to these issues they can get votes from a base that helps elect them to allow them to cut taxes to the ultra-wealthy, deregulate just about anything where a big buck can be made, eliminate the inheritance tax, give our social-security to Wall Street to manage, get a pointless war going to do god-knows-what in the second-biggest oil producing area on the planet and provide unsupervised billions of $ in free money or no-bid contracts to buddies, squash education and heath care spending, (etc.), they will gladly pay that price. And we see that they do.