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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."
I'm moving to another country where crazy isn't an approved religion.
Still, I think it would be an improvement of orders of magnitude if science classes in general focused more on:
"how did we learn this?" (i.e., the scientific method, how observations have to be done to eliminate bias, the formulation of competing theories, how experiments are designed, how hypotheses were ruled out, etc.)
as opposed to:
"here is he official list of truth that you have to memorize and then do cute IQ-test-like problems with".
The latter gives the wrong impression of what science is and why it matters.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
There have been too many occasions where the news media has persisted in "dumbing down" the terminology that they use. I even remember watching a "Faith and Values" show on CNN last year where John Edwards (the candidate, not the psychic) was asked his thoughts on Evolution which, in the words of Soledad O'brien, was the belief that man evolved from apes.
We need the news media to take the lead in helping people understand what a theory is vs. a hypothesis. How fact and theory are not opposites. The fact that a "law" is not the opposite of a theory. Too many people are getting away with murder in these debates because the termnology isn't clearly understood and the news media doesn't care to straighten it out.
Regards, Ian
http://youtube.com/watch?v=6PMhLupcYY4
I saw this guy arguing why evolution shouldn't be taught and i was literally left speechless
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That's fair, because evolution IS a scientific theory. So is Gravity. Hopefully they'll also teach the kids what it means to be a theory, and that "theory" doesn't mean "wild-ass-guess".
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Not sure that's the word said scientists would use in this context themselves...
The more dumbasses in the world, the smarter I seem! woo hoo!
Fear me, for I have studied the dark science of natural selection!
"The fight for freedom has only just begun." - Geert Wilders
It is strange how a Christian will say,"Things aren't perfect now after the fall", but then they'll say,"Evolution isn't God's plan." Well how do they know that?
The 6 days of Creation match up with science on the ball when they aren't literal days as we know them, but days of God, which are explained to be any length of time in two different places in the Bible.
I wrote a chapter in my book about it, but I don't see the need to make a long post here. You can check my book on my website if you're so inclined. I updated it last week. Keep in mind that it is a rough draft.
God spoke to me.
Evolution is a fact. For example dinosaurs used to exist and they don't now; horses, dogs and cats have changed. This is accepted by everyone. What is in dispute is the explanation for that evolution. It could be caused by natural selection or by something else (certainly by something else in the case of the three animals mentioned). Natural selection is a scientific theory. So be careful with the terminology.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
Isn't that like an Obama supporter lamenting that Obama was called a Presidential Candidate by the press?
Let's face it, folks no other state has its own category on Fark.com; the utter lunacy and stupidity down there has been neatly quantified.
I didn't think the house band in Hell would play this badly.
Control the meaning of words, you control how they're percieved. For instance, most if not all the old Soviet republics considered themselves 'democratic' in that elections were held on a regular basis. Of course, there was only one slate of candidates to elect, so calling them 'democracies' was a bit of a misnomer. Likewise, their penchant for putting "People's' in front of just about everything, like 'People's Democratic Republic of'. Double whammy there...
Now, if the definition of 'approved' now means 'guaranteed not to piss off any J Random NeoCon Fundie', and 'theory' now means 'something that cannot be proved but must be taken on faith', we're in serious trouble here...
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
This is actually a good thing. A good theory stands up to scrutiny. There is not such thing as "ridiculous" challenge. Any challenge which does not deny rules of logic or observed facts has merit. If students are instilled with an extra degree of scepticism, I'd say, "good for them." Dogmatic teaching of scince as facts creates nothing but fudder for pop-culture -- it does not produce thinking minds.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
The highest honor SCIENCE can bestow any idea is that of the "Theory". Science cannot claim anything to be a fact because in science, nothing is beyond disproval.
If science starts stating things are fact, and beyond disproval then the idea in question becomes dogma. Dogma is the realm of religion. Science may be your religion, but you do science a great disservice by making it so, at the expense of the scientific schema and method.
I know that the creationist/ID crowd LOVES to rub it in that evolution "is only a theory", but you've got to resist the temptation of fighting back by out-dogma-ing the dogmatists.
Evolution IS only a theory, it's among the most widely studied and tested theories of science. It's the single unifying theory of biology. Everyone say it with me: Evolution IS just a theory. The 800lb Gorrilla, bad-mother-fucker, stomp your colon theory. The king of theories.
In science, that's as good as it gets. And as science-minded people, we should know that.
THL phish sticks
The Roman Catholic church has recognized evolution essentially as fact and completely compatible with the bible. So I don't really understand what the problem is with Protestants in this country.
The only reason I see for this idiotic push to marginalize evolution and push creationism as a valid theory is because Christian conservatives see their influence on American culture slipping. This is a desperate attempt to make their religion relevant. I don't understand how this is permitted.
Evolution is a science. Creationism and Intelligent Design are not science and have no place in the science class. Those concepts don't conform to the standards established by science. There is a place for creationism, and that's the theology class.
If parents want to compromise their children's education they should do so in private schools or at home instead of trying to force this stupidity on everyone.
Teaching evolution - does it really matter?
Evolution is the least popular theory ever proposed. It has been under continuous attack ever since it was proposed. During this time, the creationists have tried every trick they can think of to get it out of the schools. They have blamed just about every evil of society on it, and they have brainwashed millions into believing that it's incompatible with their religion. They've tried to make it illegal, and they have even tried (unsuccessfully) to disprove it. And evolution has survived all of these attacks because it is true. You can always argue that the physical evidence doesn't accurately represent reality, and of course the creationists have tried that, but it's no use when they're arguing with proper scientists.
Given this, I don't think we need to worry about evolution at all. Sure, creationists would like it to be thrown away entirely, but as long as we have scientists, that simply will not happen. You just can't do useful research in any physical science if you think the Bible has greater authority than a ton of physical evidence. There are worse problems in public schools than a bunch of nutcases wanting their crazy beliefs taught as if they were science.
There is no evidence that will convince a creationist that he is wrong. If Jesus Christ personally appeared in front of John Q. Creationist and said "Hi, John. My name's Jesus, the Earth is billions of years old and evolution is basically true," then John Q. would probably crucify him for blasphemy. That's what the fundamentalists did, the last time Jesus told them they were wrong. "Everyone" knows that God couldn't have created the Universe using evolution: he's omnipotent, sure, but he's not that omnipotent. In summary, there is no point in trying to argue with these people, their beliefs are nuts even in comparison to other Christians, so let's just ignore them..
>north
You're an immobile computer, remember?
George Carlin was right...
Anything that starts with some "There's some invisible guy, up in the sky, who can kill you, because he loves you" is deeply, persistently and fundamentally fucked up.
Creationism is merely an expression of how fucked up it is.
ANY country that has ANY religion is just as fucked up.
"Offer your sufferings to Christ" is NOT a health care policy. Got that?
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Now I'm going to get myself into trouble.
Because my understanding (as a scientist) has always been that all science was theory - scientific theory and not fact. Some scientific theories, like evolution, have so much evidence that they may as well be fact - but they're still technically not fact.
And like you said gravity is a theory. The fact there is that when I let go of an apple it ends up on the ground, that's the fact - the most sensible theory that explains that fact and other related facts is the theory of gravity. And the theory of evolution is the most sensible theory that explains the fact that there are a wide range of different types of animals and plants on this planet. Creationism and ID are also theories - not scientific theories because they cannot stand up to testing by the scientific method. (And yes FSM is a theory too).
So let baby have his bottle - tell them "Yeah! Evolution is a scientific theory - and a damned good one at that." That'll stump them.
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
I'll stick to countries where I don't have to worry about whether a religion is "approved" or not.
It's only a compromise in the minds of the school board members. They probably went through the same Florida schools and came out with zero understanding of what scientific terms really mean.
"Theory" to them is supposed to lower the standing of the teaching of evolution, when in fact it will raise it if those same science classes teach accurate scientific terminology.
Ultimately, it brings evolution back into focus in schools while simultaneously showing the school board to be uneducated dweebs. Win/win as far as I'm concerned.
If religious representatives insist on arguing over science standards, scientists need to barge in on all the other curricula and insist on arguing over the definitions of words in their syllabuses too. Start by telling all the comparative religion classes to teach kids that the bible being the word of god is an unsubstantiated, non-scientific hypothesis.
From the article itself:
She said the concept of evolution is essential to understanding 21st century biology and that, in her opinion, "people who have never been taught evolution in the first place don't understand that it doesn't really undermine religion." "I'm a lifelong Methodist and I find no conflict between my spiritual life and my rational, scientific self," she said. Walker isn't alone. The Clergy Letter Project, a Butler University initiative that works to dispel the notion that religion and science are at odds, has garnered 11,183 signatures from clergy members who say teaching evolution does not undermine religion.
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Don't remember where I found this one but it seems to fit in with this thread.
Christianity
The belief that some cosmic, Jewish zombie can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him that you accept him as your master so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree.
Makes perfect sense.
--- If the bible proves the existence of God, then Superman comics prove the existence of Superman.
The "Theory of Evolution" is not "Evolution."
"Evolution" is a proven fact. Organisms evolve over time. It has been documented, proved, case closed. Again: it is a fact that organisms evolve. Score one for science and zoology.
Now, the more complex question, why do certain evolutionary steps take place? That is subject to theory and speculation, research, anthropology, and study. Did human being evolve from "lesser" primates? Almost certainly, barring some unforeseen UFO landing (8 million years to earth -- Quatermas and the pit) or divine intervention, the fossil record is pretty conclusive.
What is most interesting is the path from lesser primate to our current form, we still do not know everything. For instance, it seems that perhaps the Neanderthals re-joined the genetic pool rather than simply die off.
The problem is that religious fools require absolute certainty in everything but religion. The evolution of human beings is far more proven then genesis, but they "believe" genesis as "gospel." So, evolution and the path between single cell life and 21st century human beings has to be 100% documented with no missing steps or ambiguous lineage or it is just a wild theory and therefor no more valid than what they already believe.
They are, by definition, unreasonable. Unfortunately, "unreason" is the common sense of the day because we "elite" thinkers don't represent "real" America.
...then you have to believe that God has been intelligently designing diseases to be more resistant to antibiotics. Maybe to keep the threat of plague on the table?
There may be some question as to whether man evolved from apes (although the evidence is pretty overwhelming), but we can see evolution in other organisms occur literally before our eyes.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
Theory means more than one thing, and even a lot of scientists can't elucidate the difference.
Def 1: "hunch" "guess" or "hypothesis". This is the sense that creationists mean when they say "evolution is just a theory". It's not technically correct to use theory this way in science, but people (even scientists) do all the time when speaking colloquially. ("If my theory is correct...") This is a problem - scientists should be careful not to speak this way, and when they do, they muddy the waters and make openings for the creationists.
Def 2: A model that explains all the known facts and has survived at least some testing. "The theory of evolution" and "the theory of special relativity", as phrases, mean this kind of theory. Unfortunately, theories of this definition vary quite a bit in their level of confidence and/or the amount of testing they have undergone.
Def 3: A set of principles, assumptions, and a body of work underlying a certain field. What exists when a def 2 theory has been confirmed so well and so long that it is assumed as true and used as the base principles for an entire field of scientific endeavor. Examples: "Evolutionary theory" is the understanding of DNA, mutation, genetics, heritability, natural selection and evolutionary descent that gives the inseparable background for all of biology. "Atomic theory" is the understanding of atom structure, valence electron, orbitals, quantum states, and bonds that underlies all of chemistry.
Science is a century past def. 2 "the theory of evolution" and long since completely employing def. 3 "evolutionary theory".
The key thing about a Type 3 theory is that it is so key to its field that it has become inseparable. Trying to understand contemporary research in biology while "rejecting evolution" is 100% as stupid as trying to understand chemistry while "rejecting the atom".
Atomic and Evolutionary theory are quite parallel: both arose as type 2 theories in the 19th century, replacing prior assumptions held by most knowledgeable people (special creation and infinitely divisible matter), and through decades of continuously accumulated support and evidence became essentially irrefutable type 3 theories by early in the 20th century. Both actually had inklings all the way back to the ancient Greeks but didn't become coherent (def. 2) theories until missing pieces and observations were filled in by Rutherford and Darwin.
When talking to creationists I often employ the analogy of a faith that demanded that atoms aren't real and that matter is continuously divisible because some allegorical section of their holy book could be read that way. It's easy to imagine:
"And on the second day, The Lord took the clay he had created and divided it in two, and again to make four, and again indefinitely until he had enough lumps of clay. And he fashioned their myriads into the earth, and the stars, and the waters, and the clouds, and every living thing, and every stone, and every grain of sand."
Suppose such a faith demanded that science classes miseducate their children with that obviously unsupportable position based on that one passage of text. That would only be conceivable to people who really don't understand the facts (if the atom isn't real, how in hell did we make the atomic bomb?), and it would be hazardous to our kids.
To anyone who understands biology, creationism is misguided on a nearly identical level. (if evolution isn't real, why do genetic drift/mutation accumulation, genetic structure analysis, morphological structure analysis, and the fossil record *all* produce a broadly similar tree of life? Why do we find literally billions of fossils of extinct intermediate species that fit that tree? Why do we find that every structure both macroscopic and microscopic looks like an adapted version of some preexisting structure that filled a different role?)
If God exists, He used evolution in the same way he used atoms. End of story.
I stole this sig from someone cleverer than me.
http://www.mhall119.com
I don't see what's so wrong with teaching evolution. I mean, honestly, if God does exist, then he created this place for sentient beings to explore and understand. That means: science. And if science points to evolution, then my question becomes: why couldn't God have used evolution to create humans? I cannot see the God that the Bible describes planting "fake evidence" on the earth and then laughing at us as we try to figure it out. That's just plain rubbish.
Here's the problem. The word "evolution" is being used in two very different senses. The differences of scale do, indeed, make the words very different.
One use is for the small changes within a species over time. The "bird beaks". The deterioration of vision in humans. MRSA. These are all things that genetics easily explains. These are all evolution "facts".
The other sense covers "origin of life". Sludge turned into slime which turned into fish which turned into whatever. That's the "big E" Evolution. And yes, I know, I'm oversimplifying it alot. These are all the "could be's". These are all the ones where nobody was there to actually see it happen, so it's a theory that it is how it DID happen.
Two very different senses: these things were observed vs. these things we think happened. These observed facts vs. a theory about how unobserved results were obtained.
It is almost inevitable that whenever someone who argues for the latter, Big-E Evolution meets someone who doesn't believe in the Big-E version, the believer switches to talking about the little-E version and insults the non-believer for ignoring the "facts" of little-e evolution.
Yes, MRSA "evolved". That's a fact. A genetic mutation in non-MRSA resulted in a strain that was resistant. Simple genetics, and we can duplicate it in the lab as well as observe it in nature. Little-E evolution occurs.
BUT, little-E evolution does not prove Big-E Evolution. "This can happen" is not proof that "this did happen".
That's why "the theory of evolution" refers to Big-E evolution and is quite accurate in claiming that it is, indeed, only a theory. Science will not ever be able to convert Big-E evolution into a fact, since there is no method of proving how something DID happen, only ways to show how it COULD HAVE happened.
Maybe Big-E evolution did happen. Maybe the world was created to look as if it did. You cannot differentiate between the two, and little-E evolution does nothing to prove or disprove either.
> No one has witnessed Macro-Evolution (changes from one species to another).
Perhaps you ought to have a glance at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/
Mind you if you come back in 10 minutes (or anything less than 2 weeks) we will know you haven't read it. Especially if you post a random link to "Answers in Genesis".
I can understand the confusion here, given the really inconsistent use of terminology (conjecture, hypothesis, theory, law) by scientists, but who the hell modded this informative??? Mods, if you don't know anything about a subject then you probably should refrain from doling out the "informative" judgment. There have been at least two successful theories of gravity and many other hypotheses with some support.
The first was due to Newton, and it was, indeed, a theory in the modern sense. Newton postulated that the movement of celestial bodies was due to a mutual force of attraction between them and that this force existed not only between celestial bodies but all bodies and was, therefore, responsible for gravity on Earth as well. So it was an idea of how to relate many observations (of planetary motion and gravity on Earth) together, not just a summary of empirical observations. At the time many people not only didn't believe this idea but found it absurd. However, Newton's theory agreed with the empirical observations of Kepler, and the idea that all bodies have a gravitational force between them was later verified (and quantified) in the Cavendish experiment. It may be confusing that we refer to this as "Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation", but that simply reflects how scientific terminology has changed over the centuries. In today's vocabulary, this would be considered a theory of gravity.
The second theory of gravity was Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. It was again a radical shift in our understanding of gravity. It agreed with then current observations, but it also made predictions: Two early successes were the observation by Eddington of gravitational lensing of light and the calculation of the precession of the perihelion of Mercury.
"You call it a new way of thinking; I call it regression to ignorance!" -- Operation Ivy
I am a scientist, and I know that in science, "theory" means any generalization or explanation that is well supported by experimental or observational evidence.
A "tautology," of course, is a statement that logically must be true, so any valid mathematical equatioin or logical proof is a tautology. Since a scientific theory must be logical, it necessarily contains embedded within it one or more tautologies, but it goes beyond that in that its conclusions constitute predictions about the physical world that can be tested to evaluate whether or not the premises are correct.
Science will never convert evolution (whether you use a big e or a little e) into a fact, because in science all explanations and generalizations are theories. Facts are observations, like "All known differences between the DNA of different vertebrate species are of the type created by mutation." Any interpretation, e.g. "These facts argue that all known species arose by common descent" is theory.
"I dropped a book and it fell to the ground" is a fact.
"All masses are subject to a gravitational attractive force" is a theory.