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New Science Standards Approved in Florida
anonymous_echidna writes "Florida has voted to accept the new K-12 science curriculum standards amidst a storm of controversy around the teaching of evolution, which had up until now been the scientific concept that dare not speak its name. There was a compromise made at the last minute, which was to call evolution a 'scientific theory', rather than a fact. While some lament that the change displays the woeful ignorance of science and scientific terminology, the good news is that the new curriculum emphasizes teaching the meaning of scientific terms and the scientific method in earlier grades."
For a biting critique of Florida's new standards, and a defense of craziness, see "Our Reputation for Flakiness is at Stake" by Carl Hiaasen [ http://www.miamiherald.com/news/columnists/carl_hiaasen/story/421075.html].
Man, thanks for bringing it up, I had forgotten Carl's name and I was fumbling around in the Colbert Reports archive, but there it is : Carl Hiaasen's interview on the Colbert Report, a true moment of fun.
In Soviet Russia, our new overlords are belong to all your base.
If you hand-wave away that phrase, then what else do you hand-wave away?
Easy. The Old Testament was originally written in ancient Hebrew which has no vowels. In order to read it, a Rabi would have to know the context of the words. When the Bible was translated into Latin and then into Vernacular one could say there is a bit of "finagalling" when it comes to terminology which somehow many people over look.
I forget the exact quote but I think in Psalms there is a part where they talk about the four corners of the earth and it being a sphere which many people like to point out as an example of the ancients knowing about the earth being round. But when you look the word up by its original definition in ancient Hebrew it translate as "Compass" which by all accounts and purposes was not a sphere in ancient Judea.
Others can point flaws to modern English translations such as the the Leviticus's part about homosexuality that there was no word for homosexual in ancient Greek. The literal translation meant "soft" or "feminine" which in ancient times more or less meant "weak willed".
The odd thing is that the Catholic Church and many Jewish Rabbis appear to have no problem with idea of evolution and big bang because they do not adhere to something that conflicts with the idea of genesis seeing that god could have used that as his method.
Ironically, most Christians who are literalists seems to ignore many of the dietary rules (Kosher, Parva, etc) set forth in the old testament that many modern Jews adhere (which also Muslims follow) and seem to not notice that Jews only read the bible in Hebrew due to the fact of the forementioned translation issues. My friend was raised conservative Jewish (not the orthodox) and she said even they would read the Torah in Jewish even in elementary bible study class at their synagogue as a young child.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Yeah, because without all those fossils showing us the evolution of a horse or human, there would be no way to show the evolutionary process in action. And let's not forget the different shapes of the beaks of the birds that Darwin studied. Those certainly don't show any kind of evolutionary action.
Why do people keep insisting that Evolution, the act itself, isn't a fact? If there were no fact, then there wouldn't be a theory. The only reason theories come about is because of a fact.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower