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Bill Allows Teachers to Contradict Evolution
Helical writes "In an attempt to defy the newly approved state science standards, Florida Senator Rhonda Storms has proposed a bill that would allow teachers to contradict the teaching of evolution. Her bill states that 'Every public school teacher in the state's K-12 school system shall have the affirmative right and freedom to objectively present scientific information relevant to the full range of scientific views regarding biological and chemical evolution in connection with teaching any prescribed curriculum regarding chemical or biological origins.' The bill's main focus is on protecting teachers who want to adopt alternative teaching plans from sanction, and to allow teachers the freedom to teach whatever they wish, even if it is in opposition to current standards."
I only had to look at my teachers to see that they contradicted evolution.
"Be light, stinging, insolent and melancholy"
What's the big deal? Stupid teachers still wouldn't be allowed to teach "Intelligent Design" anyway, since -- according to the summary -- the information still has to be scientific (and "ID" fails at that).
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Unfortunately, the majority of K-12 teachers might -- at best -- have an undergraduate degree in a science. This does not make them scientists, or qualified to judge/review/select scientific discourse as they see fit.
An old-timer with old-timey ideas.
While teachers should be allowed to teach what they please, they should not be allowed to impress their beliefs on others.
Teachers need to stick to a standardized curriculum, and if they disagree with evolution, they should simply SAY so when teaching it - teachers could say "This is NOT what I think happened, but there are a lot of people that DO think this way".
Teach the information, NOT beliefs - I want the state OUT of my bedroom, and separate from religion!
"to allow teachers the freedom to teach whatever they wish, even if it is in opposition to current standards."
So the people we ask to give us an education can decide what we can learn, based on what they feel is the truth? WTF?!?!?!
Of course, I had this problem with some professors in college, but come on, facts are facts. They are not up for interpretation.
'Every public school teacher in the state's K-12 school system shall have the affirmative right and freedom to objectively present scientific information relevant to the full range of scientific views regarding biological and chemical evolution in connection with teaching any prescribed curriculum regarding chemical or biological origins.'
So when is intelligent design/creationism within the full range of scientific views? She's unintentionally making pro-evolution views.
It can be viewed as a trojan horse. If the bill states that teachers should be able to present any *scientific* evidence to support views on the origin of species and life, then by presenting Intelligent design or any other offshoots can be taken to court, where it can be argued that those are faith based, and not scientific evidence. In other words, to the legislator who is trying to make it safe for teachers who want to talk about ID.... this bill won't have the effect you think it will...
Concepts like Senator Storms should make her a dinosaur, but have seemingly allowed her to evolve and keep a job in politics.
No sig for you! Come back one year!
So, it sounds as though the state legislature is trying to pass a law that says that if a teacher personally disagrees with evolution, then they can refuse to teach it.
Is the next step going to be that if I hold a strong religious and ethical belief about the speed limit, I'm not bound by it?
"...let us wear upon our sleeves the crepe of mourning for a civilization that had the promise of joy..."
Strike while the irony is hot! -- The Freethinker
If I'm not mistaken, doesn't the existance of an intermediate life form (monkeys) show that "natural" selection lost, as we now have humans (selected appearantly) and monkeys together (the life form that "lost"). Another is "missing" fossil evidence showing these half ape creatures morphing into man, along with all of the other itermediate life forms for every other evolved creature that's out there. So I would go so far as to say real evidence contradicts postulates of evolution, not just some ho hum redneck teacher...
I've read Slashdot for the last 5 years, and now I start posting... Go figure
Substitute 'Idiots' for 'Penguins' and that's pretty much it.
So they want to allow teachers to ignore standards and provide their own unique implementation of the curriculum that's incompatible with the rest of the thinking world. Who is sponsoring this bill, Microsoft?
Now if we can just get teachers to teach Math, Reading, History, and Science. While they are at it can they stop giving children grades and make them have to work for it. Perhaps they can go back to spanking the children that act up as apposed to having to not hurt the child's feelings and make sure they are "happy". Maybe then the United States will dominate the world again in the tech and science sectors.
I smoked pot once. But I DID NOT inhale. Will you hire me?
I think this is one case where Slashdot needs to copy Fark(!)..... we need a "Florida" tag. Now. :-)
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Right-wingers bitch about how our public schools do a shitty job, then insist on teaching pseudoscientific garbage like intelligent design. It'd be funny if it wasn't so sad.
God willing, math teachers will be the next to be freed from the chains of having to teach facts in school.
Cretin - a powerful and flexible CD reencoder
The claim that this would enable teachers to objectively present scientific information is not just misleading, it's downright dangerous and bogus. What it does enable is for teachers to push religious and philosophy as scientific fact, which only hurts our educational system.
If Florida cannot grasp that religion does not belong in the science lab, and science does not belong in church, I will be forced to move to a state which does understand that a solid understanding of science is critical for development of a productive member of society. My son is 5, he will start having to deal with grade school science in 2nd grade. You have 18 months to fix yourselves Florida, or you shall loose out on not only myself, but my company, and any potential workers I may hire in the future.
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
As long as there was actual dissenting science being taught, I wouldn't care. However, I realize this is probably just an attempt to teach Christianity as science. People are just so insecure and downright anti-intellectual. Science has no purpose related to teleology or ontology for that matter. It used to be outrageous, now it's just depressing and I feel sorry for the people that push this stuff.
I got a catholic block.
They aren't thinking of the students if they teach fairy tales. Any teacher outside of a Sunday school teaching mysticism should have their teaching papers revoked.
Trolling is a art,
That's right kids, there's a big purple elephant that lives in outer space and one day that elephant had a dream about a little 2-legged creature with a big brain and tiny sex organs and when the elephant woke up, through his magical powers, his dream had become a reality and Adam, Eve, Cain, and Abel appeared in the Garden of Eden on Earth, at the center of the universe. And the rest is history.
Proponents of the Flying Spaghetti Monster will now be able to teach their viewpoint and will flock to Florida. Yeah!
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
Right, just like they should allow scientists to contradict Religion in local churches...
The school is the place for knowledge and science, just let's keep the myths outside.
Finally we'll be able to teach Pastafarianism in public schools! www.venganza.org
so at what point do we stop letting english and business majors decide what science teacher should be able to teach?
Without a concrete definition of whose "science" you are using, any teacher could find some half-baked textbook that proclaims to be scientific and tell the School Administrators they're teaching true "scientific" information.
'course, a semester or two of logic and rhetoric, coupled with one on how various scientific methods actually work would be more beneficial to the kids than all this faffing about with which biological theorems should or shouldn't be relayed as curricula.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
'Every public school teacher in the state's K-12 school system shall have the affirmative right and freedom to objectively present scientific information relevant to the full range of scientific views regarding biological and chemical evolution in connection with teaching any prescribed curriculum regarding chemical or biological origins.'
This should show those creationists, teachers are kept to teaching scientific information relevant to the full range of scientific views!
It says right there "...objectively present scientific information..." and as far as I know, the whole I.D. movement (isn't that dead yet?) has lacked my favorite part of the scientific method: experiment.
If the teacher wants to do experiments to disprove evolution, then I applaud that teacher. All should be concocting reproduceable, falsifiable experiments which are intended to challenge any current theory. Don't we all want for misconceptions and blatant errors in our theories to be exposed?
I would be very interested to see rigid, biological experiments which support I.D. since I know of none yet and rare things are typically interesting, after all.
Read my Very Short "Stories"
You are mistaken so many times in your post, that's it makes me wonder if you were educated by someone who had a religious opposition to evolution.
I'm torn on whether I should actually try to correct your incorrect beliefs, or just ignore it. Do you ACTUALLY want to know the real answers? Or are you so set in your ways that you'll just ignore it? Such is the problem of the teaching of evolution on the national scale.
Creationism wrapped up in the guise of scientific knowledge and academic freedom. This is an OBVIOUS effort by members of the FL legislature to pander to religious groups. It just happens to be couched in an "academic freedom" argument. Don't buy it. It isn't value neutral and it isn't fair.
Students already face an uphill battle in getting over unscientific hunches formed in childhood. Evolution, in its fullness, is a rejection of those hunches. This bill clouds the issue by allowing teachers to present a curriculum that plays to those hunches in order to serve as religious indoctrination. Think about some of the main "tenets" of ID: the notion that complexity cannot occur from iterated evaluations of simple rules--they claim things like the eye are "too complex" to have been formed via "random" mutation. This SOUNDS reasonable, until you realize that it is just a play on our intuition. It isn't true in the slightest. The same with the claim that animals or humans were elegantly designed. While there is what some scientists would call elegance in plenty of biological forms, their implementation shows signs of prior adaptations. It takes a lot of careful study to learn exactly how and why our endocrine system or our vascular system is imperfectly adapted let alone begin to think about how pregnancy is an imperfect adaptation. This is why ID is primed for the 8-12 crowd. Those critical thinking skill are just solidifying. There isn't a large movement to teach ID in colleges because the material would be rejected at greater rates.
This is religious nonsense packages as science. Nothing more.
Slashdot's got a pretty open tagging system, use it.
"I think an etch-a-sketch with an ethernet port would beat IE7 in web standards compliance."
Why should teachers be obligated to teach to a curriculum to all the other subjects but not science? I say let them teach math that contradicts mathematics, grammar that contradicts english, history revised to their personal taste, imaginary geography, using non standardized mapping systems, let them teach kids the wrong organs. For example if I believe people have 3 hearts, why shouldn't I be allowed to teach that? If some teacher thinks that the solar system rotates around the earth, or that the earth is flat, or that heavier objects fall faster, well whose to say they aren't allowed to teach that? Isn't the real purpose of having a teaching job to have a platform to spread your personal views to other peoples children?
Why stop at the subject matter? If teachers think children learn best by playing outside all day long and having no homework, well aren't the teachers the ones who are supposed to know how beast to teach? That is their life long profession isn't it? Its not like we let the teachers dictate what the current state of scientific knowledge is... oh.. wait.. that is what this bill is about isn't it?
No one has a right to their *own* opinion. They have a right to the TRUTH.
...to allow teachers the freedom to teach whatever they wish, even if it is in opposition to current standards.Then they're not standards anymore. That's why we have standards, so you can be guaranteed a certain level of uniformity and quality. If you don't have to follow standards then they become suggestions.
I'd like to see these people eat a big pile of USDA Grade A beef - but with flexible standards that the stores are allowed to define as to what "USDA Grade A" actually means. Would you eat it? Hell no.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
This is why the government shouldn't have any say in education.
I believe education should be like food. If you have children, you have to give it to them, it should be required.
If you can't afford it, the gov. will help you out like they do with food-stamps.
That way church-going morons can pay for teachers to tell students that god created the earth with burried with dinosaur bones and they never walked the earth, that evolution doesn't exist, that it is possible to turn water into wine and to walk on water.
I'll send my kids and my money to a school taught by people with a brain.
It is complete bullshit where my money is paying for teachers to not teach evolution.
Political battles over science education make no sense. Science classes need to teach current science, and if a political tussle results in legislation one way or another, later teaching of current scientific material becomes burdened by the state. This just seems to cement the point that there is now almost no boundary between politics and religion. I read somewhere that Sidhartha had written that blind faith is political, and while I haven't found a link ro source with that quote, it seems more true than ever.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
It's Gil Gerard, man. If you're going to desecrate a favorite T.V. show from my youth (yes, I know it's cheesy), at least spell the guy's name right.
I realize most slashdotters have no children (and are statistically unlikely to), but I need to explain something.
When it comes to matters of religion and philosophy, kids are going to take a cue from their parents, and make their own conclusions, just like we did. A child can be told all about intelligent design, but it doesn't mean they'll believe it. It isn't some grand conspiracy to "ruin science".
The people on both sides of this fight are childless morons, eager to tell people how to raise their children. But both sides are fighting a futile fight.
It really doesn't matter to me what any teacher wants to tell my kids about various theories of where the world came from. To me, it's more important that they grow up with respect for other people, and that other peoples belief systems for the most part wont interfere with them. What Mrs CBag general arts degree has to say about the origins of life means shit-all to them in the long run.
I'd hate for them to be the kind of thoughtless shitbags I see posting here about how everyone but them is a "big stupid idiot" for not believing exactly what you're told to, especially when what I was told about evolution 20 years ago is different than now.
I'd hope they realize that at the end of the day, it really doesn't matter if the lady in the office next to me believes God made the universe 6000 years ago, or if some other guy thinks it just popped out of nothing 2.53 billion years ago - both "calculations" are based on a ridiculously small data sample, and both are completely worthless, and almost guaranteed to be wrong.
Personally I think the smug jackasses who wander around, so sure they know everything about the universe from a book jacket or two they read, make bigger fools of themselves than anyone else.
There are very few vocal ID supporters. There are legions of evolution jackasses wasting time preaching to the choir, and generally annoying everybody. Nobody cares what you think, and nobody is impressed with your stupid flying spaghetti monster joke thing. Dawkins really must believe he's the first person in history to question the existence of God. What a fucking douchebag, how would anyone idolize him?
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
...teachers who elect to teach their students scientific material about homosexuality or birth control.
Or does the bill only protect the "freedom" to teach material on certain selected sides of certain selected controversies?
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
I can hardly wait untill a teacher starts spreading the truth of the Giant Spaghetti Monster.
I bet that goes over real well.
-- Sig under construction...
In science class you were never taught that light is definately a wave, definately a particle, or definately both. School should teach the basic foundation, which is the combination of plausible scientific explanations.
It is difficult to consider an action responsible when it goes against the grain of the domain in which the action takes place. That is, teaching is supposed to be about spreading widsom and accumulated intelligence, so how can one consider teaching obviously incorrect stuff like intelligent design or creationism as responsible?
The anti-science, anti-evolution crowd is nothing if not persistent. In their religious fervor, they'll stop at nothing, including lying to children which, last time I checked, their buy-bull is against.
The flying spaghetti monster has always sought to be taught in Florida classrooms, and thanks to some foresight by genius politicians, he can!
Bye!
I look at schools as prisons(daycare) and conformity camps, with some opportunity to learn and expand. (I would forge a hall pass and hang out with the only ][gs in the building.)
No matter what crap they teach, hopefully a handful of kids will take the Red Pill, and go seek truth at a library or the Web.
it's survival of the fittest, not the most deserving. Religious fundamentalism may triumph over reason and science for the same reason a swarm of army ants might triumph over Stephen Hawking.
Step into a huge movement. Don't Tread In Me.
People should be allowed to contradict it. However...
The theory of evolution is soundly based on scientific observations whereas most of these 'alternative' theories are based on eh... yeah what ARE they based on actually? Hope? Beliefs? Ignorance?
The problem then is not in the theories, but in the teachers that apparently can not keep themselves from indoctrinating young people with what in their warped minds is the truth. It is what we did in the dark ages. One might hope that we had learned from that time.
There actually IS a very simple solution for this: Ban schools based on religious beliefs. Period. Radical, but effective. Perhaps too radical in the States though...
"Is the next step going to be that if I hold a ... ethical belief about the speed limit, I'm not bound by it?"
Great.. now I find myself supporting the slippery slope associated with people not understanding basic science.
Sorry it had to come to that.
Let them teach whatever they want. Parts of this country probably deserve to collapse back into the middle ages (just as I'm sure they think the rest of us heathens deserve to burn like Sodom and Gomorrah).
The irony is that evolutionary processes will probably take care of these people, at least at the cultural/civilization level. Through ignorance and superstition they'll teach themselves right into oppression and poverty. From there, socio-cultural extinction is just around the corner.
Here we are in a declining economy with tech companies complaining that they can't find the employees with the technical skills here in the States so we keep expanding our H1B visa program.
I can't understand how lawmakers believe they can be doing anything other than exacerbating the problem by trying to teach non-science as science. And frankly, as long as the public supports this kind of crap, they get what they deserve (in terms of a declining economy). Clearly the goal of the Right is to turn this into a second-rate nation.
There is no way to "objectively present scientific information" in support of creationism (ID or whatever they are calling it this week). It is not falsifiable and therefore relies on the subjective opinion rather than objective fact.
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I'm not even sure where to start with this (very much mistaken) post, but I'd suggest you read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_selection, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_primate_and_hominin_fossils to get a grasp on the concepts being discussed and get back to us. Setting aside the religious zealots who cannot be easily convinced to reason logically, I think the real reason that the Young-Earth Creationist mythos has persisted, particularly in the US, is that far too few people are informed on the issues. The current theory of evolution is the dominant scientific model precisely because it fits so very well with observations in many different areas, including fossil records, experiments with single-celled life in laboratories, and in some cases, in a manner visible in more advanced species within a single human lifetime (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth). While there may still be some undiscovered evidence that will require further adjustment of current evolutionary theory, the survival of monkeys is certainly not it. Do your part in the fight against ignorance and the pseudo-scientific dogma of ID, and educate yourself on the issues.
Doctor: Before I give you this injection, I have to ask you an important question: do you believe in evolution?
Patient: Of course, not! Why do you ask?
Doctor: You see, I have this flu shot here. If you believe in evolution, you will accept that the flu bug is constantly changing and evolving, thus your immune system will not recognize it and you'll come down with the flu. With this shot, your immune system will be up to date on the latest strain.
Patient: And if I don't believe in evolution?
Doctor: You've already had the flu once, therefore you'll never catch it again.
Patient: But that's not...that's not...true?
Doctor: As a liberal and scientist, I would never want to force another person to accept my own views and beliefs, even if they happen to be manifestly correct.
Or to put it another way:
adventurer #1: I do not believe there is a bear in that cave.
[mauling, violence, blood]
adventurer #2: So you say. But your disbelief seems not to have dissuaded the bear.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Inteligent design is definitely not part of science. That is just blunt rubish and so if someone would teach this kind of thing and thinks he is protected under the law this would be a nice case for precidence in case someone would bother.
I, for one, will not miss that imaginary numbers twaddle.
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
If that's all the bill states, and it's enforced fairly and objectively, then it's meaningless, because the evidence, objectively presented, does not contradict the theory of natural selection.
I suspect that the intent is that the word "objectively" will be read as "subjectively" by the courts.
who blathers about evolution and doesn't even bother to understand it.
1) Monkeys and man
There would be no "half ape creatures morphing into man", and you would no that if you knew what evolution is.
" itermediate life forms " once again it enforce the fact that you don't know what your talking about.
"So I would go so far as to say real evidence contradicts postulates of evolution, "
since you didn't present any real contradictions, I can not agree. I won't even go into the 'negative evidence' statement.
Apparent your just another ignorant fuck that's happy wrapping themselves up in lies and ignorance so they won't bother to learn what it is they are against, just spout off what ever the jackass at the pulpit ignorantly spouts off about.
So yes you ARE mistaken.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
And as to transitional fossils - here's my favorite, one you can even partially test on your own body. Lay your fingers on the side of your jaw. Now, trace along the edge up to the very top of the jawbone. Notice how close your fingers are to your ear canal. Inside the inner ear are three bones, the ossicles: malleus, incus, and stapes. They are carefully arranged to transfer sound energy from the eardrum to the cochlea as efficiently as possible. How could such an amazing mechanism arise? (One that's been cited, even, as 'irreducibly complex' - just Google around a bit.)
It turns out that a classification of dinosaur called the therapsids had two jaw joints. The therapsids are known (by several independent lines of evidence) to be ancestral to modern mammals... and we have a basically complete fossil record of the gradual transition of one of those jaw joints into the modern bones of the inner ear. Fossils representing over 11 separate stages have been found. Note that intermediate steps were all advantageous, though not as efficient or optimized. Some transitional forms did help amplify sound energy but didn't work while the animal was chewing. We still have problems with that under some circumstances (try to listen to someone while eating celery) but the separation is far more developed now.
Common descent explains this, and many other similar things, handily. I'm still waiting on creationist explanations. Can you point me to one?
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
36 system shall have the affirmative right and freedom to
37 objectively present scientific information relevant to the full
38 range of scientific views regarding biological and chemical
39 evolution in connection with teaching any prescribed curriculum
40 regarding chemical or biological origins.
41 (4) A public school teacher in the state's K-12 school
42 system may not be disciplined, denied tenure, terminated, or
43 otherwise discriminated against for objectively presenting
44 scientific information relevant to the full range of scientific
45 views regarding biological or chemical evolution in connection
46 with teaching any prescribed curriculum regarding chemical or
47 biological origins.
48 (5) Public school students in the state's K-12 school
49 system may be evaluated based upon their understanding of course
50 materials, but may not be penalized in any way because he or she
51 subscribes to a particular position or view regarding biological
52 or chemical evolution.
53 (6) The rights and privileges contained in this section
54 apply when the subject of biological or chemical origins is part
55 of the curriculum. The provisions of this section do not require
56 or encourage any change in the state curriculum standards for the
57 K-12 public school system.
58 (7) This section shall not be construed to promote any
59 religious doctrine, promote discrimination for or against a
60 particular set of religious beliefs, or promote discrimination
61 for or against religion or nonreligion.
The irony is that there is nothing here that goes against the normal way a scientific theory would be presented in class. Certainly at this point evolution of species should be presented as a scientific law, but it does not mean that a scientific law is not a scientific theory. If at this point the fight is only about semantics then we are doing alright.
You can't handle the truth.
The theory of evolution is a theory, although trending towards scientific fact. This only means it is what we can describe thus far. What makes sceince great is that we could be wrong about evolution. Believing in the theory of evolution now doesn't prevent new data from supporting or destroying the theory. In which case the scientific community would slowly lumber to a new way of framing the world.
I don't see a problem with teachers presenting "evidence" that might contradict an evolution based approach to biology, I just don't think much exists in that realm. Part of science has always been questioning the rules you are given. The IDers are ironically using science to disprove evolution, albeit not in the best of ways.
No not at all. You could go so far as to say this, but you would be WRONG, just like teaching ID in a science class room. You could do it, but it wouldn't be science, nor would it make it true.
.... why their anscestors looked a lot like the ancestors of other apes.
There is no contradiction simply because relatively primitive forms may still exist in nature.
Also, note that monkeys are not "intermediate life forms". They are valid scientific taxa that have a biology, just like (remarkably like in many respects) you or I and represent a different lineage of primates, albeit related to our own. While unlike us, they do show a variety of traits that were likely present in our most recent common ancestor that we no longer prossess due to evolution that has taken place among the hominid linneage of primates (ie extensive hair over their entire bodies and more strongly ridged brows, "knucle-walking", prehensile tails, at least in New World monkeys etc.), they have subsequently evolved in other ways that would differentiate them from our most recent common ancestor, just as we have done with respect to other characteristics (larger frontal cortex, more upright gait, development of language and tool use, like chimps and gorillas, etc).
Those who would advocate non-science instruction in our class rooms are advocating putting US students at a disadvantage to Russian and Chinese students, who are not taught non-scientific, dogma as a substitute for science. In a sense they are a bit like terrorists, trying to undermine what actually makes America strong, the search for the truth. It would be better if they simply took the commandment "Thou shall not bear false witness" to heart, instead of ignoring it.
If they REALLY want to seek the truth, they might also want to reflect on why they look a lot like their parents (at all levels of organization, even at the level of their DNA), and why their parents were a lot like their grandparents, and
However, if I had to guess, they won't as the "leaders" of the religious community pushing this "alternate science" nonsense really hate to see their business model tampered with. For them its monkey (ape) see monkey (ape) do (put money in the collection plate), other monkeys (ape) put money in the collection plate and with a little kick-back to the political monkeys (apes) they keep their business model alive (and tax-exempt), of course at the expense of scientific truth, if necessary. It is no wonder that commandment about "thou shall not bearing false witness" is about as popular today as the Gospel according to Judas. Their religion has simply evolved to keep the business model alive; not to provide any semblance of the truth!
Well, you see... I have some empathy for the penguins.
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So, um...how does this comply with separation of church and state?
...Slashdot was the last place I could go to avoid Storms. No one took her seriously when she was on the Hillsborough Council, and is an unabashed bigot http://www.sptimes.com/2005/06/09/Hillsborough/Library_no_place_for_.shtml. That said, I think cleaver teachers could twist this nicely. It states they can present "science." This could actually be used against teaching ID. My vote is to let it pass and then use it to fuck with Storms' brain.
evry time the ID/evo debate comes up, someone has some variant of, science is simple, it (list of simple rules, usually including falsifiability)
I don't think science is that simple (and I am strongly pro evolution) - these rules may be fine for philosophers, but i don't think most practicing scientists worry about popper or kuhn or falsibiability.
it is a matter more then anything else of being critical and strict, which is the main problem with id: if fails not because it isn't falsifiable, or doesnt meeet some other test, but because as science it is garbage - like the "science" of flat earth or the "science" of esp - it is just total nonsense.
http://www.shoutfile.com/v/pU42Mfcn/Family_Guy_Evolution_Explained
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Where does that say anything about a school board? The whole point is that in Florida, the standards now require teaching evolution (if only as a "theory") and the ID crowd is pushing to make it an "affirmative right" to teach ID instead (de facto).
Yeah, these people are contradicting evolution alright.
Hi, I Boris. Hear fix bear, yes?
The Theory of Evolution is an hypothesis that a small simple organism managed to acquire new information in its genetic code allowing it to gradually change over millions of years, its descendants eventually becoming all the creatures we see today, including humans.
This is not to be confused with evolution which is organisms changing according to a selection or corruption (mutation) of information already within its genetic code, such as Darwin's finches: genes for short beaks and long beaks in finches is present in its genetic code, the beak which predominates depends on environmental factors such as food availability.
We know evolution (not the theory) occurs because it is observed, and we have a reasonable amount of knowledge that explain how these changes occur.
The Theory of Evolution, on the other hand, is an extrapolation upon evolution saying that since we know organisms can change, sometimes dramatically such as getting poodles from wolves, it is reasonable to expect an amoeba can, over time, become a tadpole, and can eventually allow an organism to gain the information to sprout feathers and fly up into the sky.
This is an unproven assertion and is a leap (off a cliff) in logic. Granted, it is a possible explanation, an explanation perfectly acceptable if there are is no god and matter has always existed, or it poofed out of nothing into existence then somehow combined itself over time to form planets and stars and water and just happened to form life from unlife, somehow.
The only other reasonable alternative is a supreme intelligence, God, who was not created and who has always existed and who arranged all the hydrogen and atomic particles into their respective categories to form planets, stars, and yes, humans too, and that this God loves his creation just as as parent (a non-dysfunctional one, mind you) loves his child.
It is my opinion that this Theory is insignificant considering the whole of biology and is not worth the time to teach in the public schools. It should be relegated to an advanced biology class in college so that a student who then learns about the theory can more appreciate the details pertaining to it, and can make up his or her own mind whether God created life or natural processes caused life to happen.
As for me, after looking at the world around me I can only conclude God created all life, for a blind, mindless organism such as a maple tree could never design for itself an aerodynamic seedling to be dispersed in the breeze. To design such a seedling requires intelligence and a knowledge of wind currents and wing structure. Even Natural Selection must be designed, for to be able to select the better of two options based on the current circumstances you must have intelligence to make such a decision otherwise it is random selection.
Also, consider the spider: it spins its web in the dark, not using its eyes for the task, and it spins the web correctly the first time. Who taught the spider to spin? It has a brain smaller than a grain of sand, and the mother dies before the spiderling is born so it isn't taugh how to spin. I can only conclude that a high intelligence, with knowledge of structural engineering, among other things, programmed the spider with this knowledge.
You can trot out supposed transitional fossils as "proof" of the Theory, and you can mass-produce from the universities myriads of minutia claiming "it's true! see all these papers and diagrams!" to try and snowball one into believing it hook, line, and sinker, kind of how lawyers weary an opponent with massive tomes of drivel, but my good conscious and common sense says it just ain't so, no more than Kipling's "Just So" stories.
A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver --Proverbs 25:11
to the ID mob I give you
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platypus
Go explain that one with ID.
--- This meme is memory intensive
Wow. What would John Scopes think about this? When he was told by law he could not teach something, he replied:
This proposed law is precisely what Scopes WANTED. And now y'all are condemning it.
The pro-evolution forces used to be in favor of academic freedom. No longer.
"So if you have kids, and they are taught intelligent design in this school system, then sue. You'll win."
No, actually, you'd lose. Badly.
"There's a simple, unambiguous test anyone can apply to objectively determine whether a theory is scientific..."
You go on to explain how something can be checked to see if it follows scientific method. Now explain why you think scientific= scientific method exclusively.
If I teach ID, and then ask my class where it does and does not adhere to scientific method, how am I breaking the law? I'm not.
So no, don't sue. That's a stupid suggestion on its face in most cases, but in this case you'd be wasting money your kids need for school and, you'd probably lose.
nt
The article has a quote:
On the day the state board voted, Stemberger called adding the phrase "scientific theory" a "meaningless and impotent change." I disagree with that statement. That phrase could actually prove useful to those challenging unscientific ideas being taught in science classes. If the law states that they can teach scientific theories, then those challenging what is being taught can simply ask, "what scientific evidence exists to support the idea? Can we use the scientific method to test it?"Wow, reading your post was like watching a train wreck. You don't want to look but you can't tear your eyes away.
./ "thoughtless shitbags" for having vocal opinions, regardless how informed/uniformed their opinions may be. This was directly after saying that no one in this argument has a horse in this race because they're all childless, which seems contrary to the evidence especially, on the ID side.
I hope somewhere along the line, some sort of irony bat comes along and smacks you in the head after your post. I especially like the mind-bending one where you want your kids to grow up with respect for people and then turn around and call posters on
Then, the coup de grace where you say about smug, sure of themselves jackasses making fools of themselves--this on a public posting board where the only requirement is rudimentary typing skills. I mean, you can't write this kind of comedy!
Let's find Bill and kick his f*cking ass.
Not to rain on your parade, but while ID in general does fail the test of falsifiability, your assertion that you can objectively determine if a theory is scientific by determining if it is falsifiable isn't in line with the ideas of many modern philosophers of science. It's mainly Karl Popper's idea, who rejected inductive reasoning (which is a hallmark of scientific thinking).
I'm no philosopher, so I might be doing a poor job of explaining this, but it might be worth to take a look at the Wikipedia article on falsification.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
You know science changes all the time. One day we may well find out evolution doesn't explain it all. This bill simply states:
'Every public school teacher in the state's K-12 school system shall have the affirmative right and freedom to objectively present scientific information relevant to the full range of scientific views regarding biological and chemical evolution in connection with teaching any prescribed curriculum regarding chemical or biological origins.'
Sounds like someone's a little thin-skinned. It's entertaining, if not shocking, how many so-called "scientific" minded people take such a religious approach to defending their positions.
This dumbass probably *had* to do something like that so she could continue to get that fat check from a group of their Biblethumping constituents.
It won't fly.
There is a war going on for your mind.
I think it boils down to one deriving their self image from where they believe they came from. If you question the ideologies that make up ones self image, people take it as if you are directly attacking them, even though you are questioning the idea that makes up that self image. So in that regard I would say Evolution == Religion == Politics (sometimes), in that if you attack one or all of those 3 areas, people take it as an attack on themselves. Hope that makes sense...
I've read Slashdot for the last 5 years, and now I start posting... Go figure
That is: is the theory falsifiable? Does the theory make predictions that could potentially be proven wrong by evidence? Intelligent Design fails this test.
Let's not forget that Evolution, especially with respect to the origin of species, also fails this test. As hard as one might try, postulates about things which happened in the past can't ever be proven false. Sure, there's plenty of speculation, but the bulk of evolutionary theory (wrt to the origin of species) does not contain any testable hypotheses.
Now sure, you can talk about micro-evolution, and perhaps even show examples. You can talk about biology, and genetics, which is on even firmer ground - these can be scientifically verified today. But when will the scientifically minded accept the fact that you can't design an experiment to falsify a theory about something which happened in the past? If I told you Paul Bunyan's Ox stomped out the Great Lakes, how could you prove it wrong? From a theoretical perspective, there's no test that we can do today which would show definitively that an ox of mythical proportions couldn't create footprints of likewise proportions which would subsequently fill with water.
I think evolution is nice speculation about what happened in the past, but it won't ever be true in the mathematical sense. Children often have problems dealing with ambiguity, and if you start teaching something that might be false, they'll assume everything you teach is either potentially, or completely, false. If the authority of the teacher, or what is taught, becomes suspect, children often become unmanageable, or worse, assume that, "there's no such thing as truth, and everything is relative..."
This bill isn't so much about acceptance of science as it is letting teachers manage their classrooms appropriately. If we can teach science by example, by showing things which can be verified, we will have people who expect to verify the truth. From a pedagogical perspective, teaching evolution is really teaching children to have a blind faith in science, because no high-schooler, much less a middle school student, will be able to independently verify the theories. And this is more important than teaching a particular pet scientific theory.
So which would you rather have - a population which believes in evolution and accepts everything told them, through blind faith; or a society which might not believe in evolution, but expects to test and independently verify everything?
Think about the implications this has on politics for a moment before replying...
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
http://wenatcheeworld.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080216/NEWS03/970616772
to defeat the anti-abortion pharmacists and the anti-evolution teacher, you must adapt a more nuanced approach, as those who defend the reprehensible actions of these religious fundamentalists will use the same appeal to freedom of expression against an authoritarian goverment party line that is popular with many slashdotters here too
think it over, arrive at a solution that also preserves the rights of those who wish to speak out against government policy. it's not straightforward and easy this problem
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The rest of the world doesn't care that you're stupiding up your children. It just makes it easier for us to crush you scientifically. Trust me when I say that the increasingly low standards for your science education just make us feel like there are more opportunities for us. I'm sure the Chinese, Japanese and Indians feel the same. The less you know, the easier it makes it for the rest of us to make stuff and sell it to you.
Thanks,
The Rest of the World (specifically those of us teaching our children proper scientific theory)
I'm with you. A fair deal for all, I say !!
How many beans make five, anyhow ?
"A child can be told all about intelligent design, but it doesn't mean they'll believe it."
But it has been proved time and time over that kids are vulnerable to fake info, more so than adult. Why do you think it is easier to get a bunch of kid to accept faery existence, than a bunch of adult ? They are at a period of their life were not only they tend to accept info at face value, but also the school/teachers/parents tell them to swallow information, just spit it back, in other word without critical thinking (I can't tell for all country, but we were asked to start to really "think" critically only at about 15-16 years old for philosophy... Up to that point even science cursus required you to swallow a lot at face value).
The day the school cursus around here change to have critcial thinking at a low age , I will agree with you. Until then science teachers should stick to what is accepted knowledge by science, and not muddy things with their own belief.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
I can't tell you what a progressive move this is for supporters of the movement for the recognition of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster as a religion! And if this bill passes, it will open the door for its truth to be taught in schools!
Please write your representatives to THANK them for opening the door for this wonderful moment in history!
What your post is evidence of is your personal ignorance and your belief that you're own incredulity amounts to a legitimate criticism. Even if evolution is false, it doesn't give license to declare "high intelligence". Tell me, what is so intelligent about the human knee or the human spine or the vertebrate eye? For goodness sakes, our bloody spine is quadriped structure partially realigned for bipedal motion. It's a perfect example of an evolutionary process, and if it was designed by some intelligence, that intelligence was either a retard or malignant monster, judging by the number of people with back problems.
Evolution predicts we will find transitional forms in the fossil record. Fortunately, over the last four or five decades we have found a way to compliment that line of evidence; and that's the molecular record. Go look up the twin-nested hierarchy and then get back to us.
And common sense may actually be the absolute worst way to determine truth. Common sense is nothing more than a euphemism for cultural prejudices, and science centuries ago started ignoring it as a means of determining how the world works.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
It doesn't. And it doesn't have to, either. Why? Because complaints would be generated about any teacher trying to teach "ID" on the grounds that it wouldn't be protected by that "affirmative right" (since it's not scientific), and those complaints would work their way up the school administrative hierarchy to the school board (and probably beyond it, to the courts).
In other words, even if you can't challenge the teacher on the basis of whether he has a right to teach a "full range" of scientific information, you can still challenge him on the basis of whether the information he's teaching is actually within that range.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Why should there be a reason for our existence ?
Techies will rule. I'm thinking of an HG Wells Time Machine two different routes of evolution scenario. Dumbass Christians lead one way, CS/EE people another. We can eat their bodies for food!!
The only good point about teaching 'creationism' as an alternative to evolution is that it gives teachers an opportunity to show students how the scientific process works. With one side being an world-accepted principle and the other being a religious myth, teachers could show how the ideas of evolution were developed since the 1850s.
However, the religious fundamentalists don't want this at all. Having managed to pass a law requiring teaching religious myth as equal to scientific principle, the next law that they would pass would be to outlaw teaching any form of scientific methodology that easily exposes the religious side as fantasy. The fundamentalists haven't the slightest interest in presenting creationism as a alternative to scientific principle; they want to make the teaching of evolution illegal.
I sometimes wonder if Lincoln was wrong in forcing a great and brutal war to keep the USA together. If he had let the Confederates have their own country, the rest of us wouldn't have to support them or be subjected to their bizarre fantasies. Harry Turtledove has written a series of alternative-history novels about the consequences of Confederate independence. His conclusion is that it would have led to a long series of bloody and pointless wars between to the two original halves of the USA that would have continued to the present day.
But maybe the time has come at the present to let the Confederacy go. They can hang homos and pot-smokers from every lamppost and enforce religious fantasy as scientific law. In a generation they would be a huge poor backward third-world country full of religious zealots endlessly ambushing each other from burned-out shopping malls and Mcmansion shells. The rest of the former USA would as rich as Switzerland from not having to support them or their massive global war-machine world-domination through 'freedom' expensive delusions any more.
Nevertheless, the wacko American religious right may have simply shot their wad. Their power came from a politically-convenient coalition between them and the corporate elite to take control of the American government and pass laws embedding and institutionalizing corporate economic power. As that has largely happened since the first Reagan administration, the religious right are no longer needed by the corporate wealthy and are often an embarrassment to them.
In that case their power is fading now and they are becoming more of an amusement than a threat to scientists.
You have obviously missed the entire point. The point in science class is to become educated about science, not belief systems. You seem to have the incorrect notion that science is about "beliving in" in one or the other alternate hypotheses ("theories" in the colloquial but not scientific sense of the term). Nothing could be further from the truth. Science is about a way of KNOWING, not believing.
You say that "not believing exactly what you're told to, especially when what I was told about evolution 20 years ago is different than now.". Its what and how it has changed that is relevant, not the simply the fact that some things have changed. If you take the time to read about the origins of species in the various animal and plant groups, you will learn that even as far back as Darwin, many of the relationships among organisms were "known" much in the manner they are "known" now. Humans are more closely related to other apes and other primates than they are to rodents and all are more closely related than cephalochordates, the most recent common ancestors of all vertebrates. This is a scientific fact that remains unchanged, even though we now know a great deal more about exactly how this has taken place as a result of evolution.
Most kids don't have parents that are scientists. Do you really want the US competing with the rest of the world in the 21st century, when the entire basis of current civilication is nearly ENTIRELY based on the cummulative impact of product of science. If only about 2 percent of the entire populations has any idea what science is, we as a nation don't stand a chance. If you do, I suggest you consider moving your family to southern Afganistan. The people there seem eager to continue to live in the 6th century. These people feel threatend by science. Do we really want to become like them? If so, how will we win he war on terror?
Dawkins does have a point. Why must we bow to the hobgoblins of myth and superstition and inappropriate belief and religious dogma, simply because we learned them from our parents when we were young, when we can use reason instead? Science is the ultimate manifestation of reason. I say teach science, not non-science (belief) in the science class room.
As for the "legions of evolutionary jackasses" its good that they have their discussion in the daylight of public discourse, that way the other less educated jackasses can overhear their converstations and perhaps learn something.
I think this leaves things open for the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Survival of the fittest. Frankly, creationists outbreed evolutionists 10 to 1. While, on the one hand, it may be a case of dinosaurs "versing" (as my kid sez) small insectivore mammals with the lowest profile on the planet, on the other there is no catastrophic asteroid of pure logic that will inject reason into arguments with these faith-based anachronomicons. I can occasionally win the argument, at least temporarily, with educated ministers by suggesting that telling God how He MUST create is blasphemous, but for the most part my creationist acquaintances are obviously struggling with visions of kindling wood.
``Tension, apprehension & dissension have begun!'' - Duffy Wyg&, in Alfred Bester's _The Demolished Man_
To paraphrase Richard Dawkins - teaching intelligent design in schools to teaching flat-earthism, since the scientific consensus regarding these issues is identical. Dawkins has stated that teaching creationism to children is akin to child abuse. I have to agree with him.
They are moving from a centralized BS server (I.E. board of education standards) to a distributed model (the "bit torrent" of BS). The problem is that if the BOE decides to teach a non-science, then one law suit can change it. But, if individual instructors are allowed to teach whatever they want, then the problem will pop up in several counties all over the state.
Students already face an uphill battle in getting over unscientific hunches formed in childhood. Evolution, in its fullness, is a rejection of those hunches. This bill clouds the issue by allowing teachers to present a curriculum that plays to those hunches in order to serve as religious indoctrination. Think about some of the main "tenets" of ID: the notion that complexity cannot occur from iterated evaluations of simple rules--they claim things like the eye are "too complex" to have been formed via "random" mutation. This SOUNDS reasonable, until you realize that it is just a play on our intuition. It isn't true in the slightest. The same with the claim that animals or humans were elegantly designed. While there is what some scientists would call elegance in plenty of biological forms, their implementation shows signs of prior adaptations. It takes a lot of careful study to learn exactly how and why our endocrine system or our vascular system is imperfectly adapted let alone begin to think about how pregnancy is an imperfect adaptation. This is why ID is primed for the 8-12 crowd. Those critical thinking skill are just solidifying. There isn't a large movement to teach ID in colleges because the material would be rejected at greater rates.
This is religious nonsense packages as science. Nothing more. That was both informative and insightful.
Whoever modded the parent "troll" should have their mod points taken away for good.
You can't take the sky from me...
I do not like that mentality at all. The teacher should present all the relevant information he or she can during the time provided with the students. If the teacher is more knowledgeable in a given subject matter than I am, it would be blind of me to keep this new information away from my children, even if it contradicts the status quo. The issue is whether or not the students are being taught things which can be scientifically proven with empirical evidence and what not. Should a teacher be able to provide a sound argument against evolution within the rigid confines of science it should not only be acceptable it should be encouraged. Science is not just the name of another religion - given new information , or even new insight on old information, it is expected to change. Arguments against the currently accepted scientific stance on a matter are not blasphemous. I want my kids to believe the Earth is flat because thats the way I was brought up and it's obvious if you look at the sky, right? Any evidence and teachers - against that should be shunned, right?
"A witty saying proves nothing." - Voltaire
Oh, right...well a reasonable facsimile in regards to His intellect...did you see what I did there? Okay, okay, the point. Right. The point is it turns out that a surprising majority of people are stupid. I live in Florida and I have first hand knowledge that this is indeed a fact, not my opinion. I mean, this person was elected by a majority right? Nuff said.
You really need to read this. "[W]hen people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was [perfectly] spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together."
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
...doesn't mention a lick of the phrase "intelligent design" and even uses the word "scientific" a couple of times. I really think the gist of this is simply to be able to keep an open mind about ANY theory about life's origins, including evolution, in the sense that it is dangerous in a general sense to enforce something like "The only way we will allow teachers to discuss [some topic] is via [some theory]".
;)
If any of them even breathe the "design" word, you can always send them to pages like this.
"Apparently you've got your head so far up God's ass that you've missed the several legal rulings that have essentially discredited ID for everyone but those most pie-eyed individuals for whom there's no hope of grasping true logic or reason (apparently yourself included)."
I see reading isn't your strong suit.
I asked why teaching ID and then explaining where it adheres and does not adhere to scientific method is a violation of the law (knowing full wel it isn't). Your reply was akin to the type of AC rants we see in support of ID, only this time directed at me, someone who clearly does not support ID at all and never said anything that would make anyone with a shred of intelligence believe I did.
My point, which you were in too much of a rush to notice, is that even when something does not adhere to scientific method, it can be used as a teaching example. One example of how is "Please compare and contrast ID vs. evolution based on how the scientific method can be used to test them". That fact is, quite frankly, irrefutable.
That you are incapable of comprehending said fact speaks more to your ignorance than anything else, AC.
Now, at the risk of losing karma, I'd like to say, please shut the fuck up. Many of us are trying to have an intelligent conversation and people like you who don't even try to comprehend what they're responding to only make things less intelligent.
mod +5 please.
OK! Let's burn some KARMA!
/. and subscribes to ID/Creationists ideology (all 3 of you). God has asked you to trust that He exists WITHOUT PROOF that He exists so your attempts to prove He did all this is contrary to what He has asked of you. Trying to force someone who does not believe to convert will not help them or you. Live what you believe and let your life be an example to others instead of a bloopers show in heaven.
First I want to reach out to anyone who reads
Next to the Darwinians I would like to reiterate evolution is a theory based on observation not a scientific fact. There is some very clear evidence that this theory is based on but there currently is no way of doing a test with repeatable results that would definitively resolve this dispute once and for all.
To everyone else. There is nothing I can find in the Bible that makes Creation and Evolution mutually exclusive. I probably just made enemies of both sides because neither seems to want to actually discuss the facts just the facts as they know them. Do some research on your own. The Bible is full of analogies and anecdotes to help the less initiated relate to the subject matter. for those who would point to God creating Adam in one day I would point to the place where He says a day to Him is like 1000 years to us. Evolution as Darwin theorized it is also not quite what "Darwinians" espouse when they speak about it.
As far as allowing teachers to object to the subject they are teaching I think the objecting should be done before entering the classroom. If you feel that strongly about it request to opt out of teaching the subject. If your boss says no then you have to ask yourself if you feel strongly enough to make a stand and risk your job or STFU and teach.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
With luck, perhaps your great-great-grandkids will have. We can always hope...
Teach evolution, creationism, hedonism, whatever, just don't leave kids the slightest notion that we don't have it all figured out. We need them spending their dispensible income and polluting the planet as soon as possible. The damage of any undue delay would greatly outweigh any feasible benefits of the little brats exercising freewill. It is imperative that doctrine be imposed to catch anyone who doesn't fully accept materialism from TV and video games to be sure all innocent hope is quashed.
War as we knew it was obsolete
Nothing could beat complete denial
- Emily Haines
... helping stupid people feel smart since 1987.
...
:)
Let's just face it
People who don't want their beliefs laughed at shouldn't have such funny beliefs.
Sorry, I know I'm burning karma points, but what the hell, you only live ONCE, and he who dies with the most karma points has wasted more opportunities on SlashDot than anyone else
I questioned my kids on what they were taught about evolution as they were going through school
I then gave them my theory of evolution giving them the difference between science and what was not science
The Great Green Arkleseizure sneezed us into existence, and I feel this should be taught in school. And now Florida is free too, yay!
With teacher criticizing the "origin of species" theory in a scientific non-religious way (like Stephen J. Gould did). It would be wrong though if an intelligent design theory (which is not scientific) would be presented as alternative.
It is ok for teacher to say that hypothetical transformation of one species into another or in several other is a process taking long periods of time which we cannot reproduce experimentally.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
I propose we hold a vote to make 3 and 3, 2 and 4, and 1 and 5 equal 7 because 6 is an ungodly number.
This is yet another reason why public education is just wrong.
If parents were free to pick the school their child attended, then all this could be avoided. The fundies could send their kids to bible school to be taught creationist nonsense and leave the rest of us alone. Let the free market (both for schools and for the marketable skills that they produce in their output) separate the wheat from the chaff.
Now every man,woman and mutant can know the truth about DE-eVOlution!
They tell us that
We lost our tails
Evolving up
From little snails
I say its all
Just wind in sails
Are we not men?
We are devo!
Were pinheads now
We are not whole
Were pinheads all
Jocko homo
Are we not men?
D-e-v-o
Monkey men all
In business suit
Teachers and critics
All dance the poot
Are we not men?
We are devo!
Are we not men?
D-e-v-o
God made man
But he used the monkey to do it
Apes in the plan
Were all here to prove it
I can walk like an ape
Talk like an ape
I can do what a monkey can do
God made man
But a monkey supplied the glue
We must repeat
O.k. lets go!
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Have you ever seen one of those models of the solar system where everything spins around the sun using gears to stay in sync?
Now imagine yourself holding the Earth still and moving the sun around the Earth, with all the planets doing their thing as they move "around" the sun?
Sure, you'd have to come up with a whole new theory about why the sun revolves around the Earth and why the other planets revolve around the Sun and probably a whole new theory of gravity, but "God's hand controls it all" will explain it all and is at least as good an unscientific theory as the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
By the way, either one of the "God's hand controls it all" and the "FSM" theories of the universe may be factually correct, but neither one is scientific.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
FWIW, there is a somewhat related article in the 22-Feb-2008 issue of Science, pp1034 to1036. While not
directly concerned with legislative schnanigans (sp?), the article gives a nice overview of the personal
cost of getting stuck in this quagmire.
Also look up some of the information on Glenn Morton's website regarding young earth creationists.
The Sun revolves around the shared center of gravity of CmdrTaco and CowboyNeal. :)
*ducks*
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
This post was pretty well-thought out.
Just because someone says something you don't like doesn't make it flamebait.
Ben Stein is in a film about evolutionary theory of origin of species: Ben Stein Expelled, No Intelligence Allowed
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
I just find it interesting that apparently there's no room for a middle ground. I consider myself a Christian, I believe that God created the universe and everything in it, AND I believe in MICRO-evolution, in which species do evolve and adapt. However, MACRO-evolution, in which one species evolves into a completely new species, has never been proven.
for a non-adherent to refer to the supreme pasta as a monster? I was thinking of drawing a cartoon, but the prospect of a fettucini fatwa on my head was too horrible to contemplate.
May the sauce be with you.
That explains a lot.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Robert Anson Heinlein: If this goes on
Bart
Let me counter with the number of technical background teachers who could COMMUNICATE and teach.
You see thats an awful generalization so lets not spurn EDUCATED folks of any type.
I think this is a good law. It makes it so that situations like the Monkey Trial won't happen again.
In that case, a teacher saw a new theory that lined up with the evidence and wished to teach it in school. With a law like this in place, there would have been a summary judgment in favor of the teacher and it wouldn't have even made it to trial.
Resistance is futile. Your technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. You will become one with the morgue
It's all well-and-good to "question a belief" in science. However, for it to be a proper scientific response, it must propose a scientifically-valid alternative.
Most scientists are open to alternative hypothesis. However, those alternatives will have to 1) explain the evidence as well as evolution, and 2) make testable predictions about things which are not known, and that evolution can't predict.
That is, you'll have to present a better alternative.
The reason scientists (and those interested in science) get so het up over "intelligent design" is that ID is not a better hypothesis. It's not even an hypothesis, as it makes no predictions.
Your definition of "religion" is a bit suspect, and your characterization of scientists' reactions as dogmatic is absurd. Just because they don't like your pet non-scientific explanation hardly makes them dogmatic. It just means the idea is not scientific, and so doesn't even belong in the same conversation as evolution.
Now, to which new data do you refer? I'm not aware of any new data that either invalidates the theory of evolution through natural selection, nor makes intelligent design a scientific hypothesis.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
While not at all a proponent of creationism or its ilk, I must say that I'm not sure whose zealotry I should fear more - the Christian or secular extremist. In these threads, it seems to me that evolution is defended as if it were every bit the sacred doctrine that the fundamentalists champion. Rational theories should be defended in rational ways, not with derision towards peoples of faith.
My incredulity is indeed legitimate criticism, no different than my incredulity at someone claiming he swam to Mars in scuba gear riding the solar winds on a space surfboard. And I am not completely ignorant of evolution (I do admit I am not a biologist though). I have studied the Theory of Evolution enough to know it is not true, that the evidence is no evidence at all only assumption and the shaving of square pegs to fit into round holes.
What is so intelligent about the human knee? It is a fantastic work of design that allows a human to perform a large range of motions such as jumping and squatting; indeed, without knees we would have to lie down to defecate or do so standing up. As any machine, over time they can wear out if too much a burden is placed upon them such as repeated damage from playing sports or from obesity.
The eye is also a fantastic design, and I will add: a blind organism could not, under any circustance, create for itself the means to see. For that to happen you would have to have foreknowledge of light, something a blind organism would not have. This idea going around "the eye is a flawed design" is poppycock. Just because we do not understand all the why and wherefores of the design do not make it a bad design.
People have back problems mainly because of obesity, injury, old age, lack of exercise, and disease, among others.
Concerning Twin-nested Hierarchy:
As I mentioned, I am not a scientist, but I took your suggestion and read up on this issue at Talk Origins and EvoWiki. (which is why my response to you took some time).
"Nested hierarchy" refers to the way taxonomic groups fit neatly and completely inside other taxonomic groups. For instance, all bats (order Chiroptera) are mammals. All mammals are vertebrates. Likewise, all whales (order Cetacea) are also mammals, and thus also vertebrates
"Twin-Nested hierarchy" refers to the way taxonomic groups are not only similar at the morphological level, they are also similar at the genetic level, such as sharing the same sequences of RNA.
I have to conclude this does not prove anything other than that similar creatures such as mammals share similar genetic traits, such as the ability to produce milk to nurse its young. When I see tits on a fish, yeah, maybe I'll take nested-hierarchies as proof of evolution more seriously.
There is great hooting and puffing over the claims that evolution predicts things, but there are many failed predictions of evolutionary theory. One of these failed predictions relates to the sizes of metazoan genomes:
'At one time it seemed possible that the amount of DNA would be a good measure of complexity (Sneath, 1964), but as genome sizes became known, little correlation was found with perceived morphological complexity.' Valentine, J.W., Two genomic paths to the evolution of complexity in bodyplans, Paleobiology Ref. 7, p. 513
I still remain unconvinced. Evolution seems to me a bad case of circular reasoning: evolution is true. evolution predicts nested-hieararchies. organisms are arranged in nested-hieararchies. evolution is true.
Common sense is not a euphamism for cultural prejudices, it is a form of wisdom, which is sound judgment upon a matter based upon honest observation and experience.
Anyway, this kind of stuff has been debated ad infinitum with few if any people changing their minds on the matter. This stuff has been debated for over a hundred years and I, putting my Prediction Device next to the Evolution Prediction Device, predict the debate will continue even if the government makes it illegal to teach either Creationism or the Theory of Evolution but instead, it is the great Buddha who did it all with one big fart.
A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver --Proverbs 25:11
I propose we fence off Florida and treat it as one big expierment in cultural evolution. Won't be long before they're sacrificing farm animals and reading entrails.
And... how do employers and collage admission boards deal with Floridians? Would you want to hire an employee or accept a student who's been taught that science is mumbojumbo and that mumbojumbo is science?
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
I think a lot of the discussion and debate is moot, because neither side has any incentive at all to budge from their views. I am probably more cynical than most, but I think something emotional and basic is going on here, and so long as this undercurrent is there there is no hope for change.
As far as I can tell Creationists/IDers may change their arguments or story, but the one thing that is constant is their FEAR, either of being convinced that there is no God (and hence no salvation) or being shown to have wasted their lives believing in something that is untrue. So long as they are afraid, there is really no hope for the science crowd to convince them otherwise. Who cares about logic and definition of scientific if deep down you are afraid of what happens when you die? No amount of semantic analysis will take away that fear.
I know scientists and their supporters are by no means "better" human beings (I have seen plenty of petty and superficial professors in grad school), but I would posit that the emotion they operate under is CURIOSITY, of the world around them and how things work. I am not sure Creationists/IDers want to convince scientists that they are wrong, they just want to be left alone with their beliefs that assuage their fears. They see the prevalence of science (something I don't see in the US, actually) as a threat to their beliefs, which is why they are very persistent in advancing their cause---keeping their fear contained, NOT promoting their world creation beliefs.
Just a rant, with no solutions. As a cynic, I see this debate---which isn't a debate anywhere else in the world---as one of the signs we are regressing back to fear-riddled agrarian society.
The ignorance of creationists never ceases to amaze me.
The average Creationist believes that there is a wealth of information to refute evolution. They base this belief on a rather simple idea. They believe Evolution must be false, and if it is false their must be a lot of data out their to confirm this view.
This is known as "begging the question"
In a perfect world, I would be completely in favor of allowing science teachers to teach whatever they want, as long as it is science. However, creationists have become rather sneaky. You know it and I know it. They will try to exploit the system and teach a religious ideology as scientific fact.
I have a novel idea....
Let this bill pass, and let all bills like it pass(as long as they only stipulate that a teacher COULD teach an alternative).
Instead of focusing on this bill, we should focus on a bill that requires all science teachers to have a degree in SCIENCE.
Almost 100% of biologists know that the theory of evolution is accurate...
Any idiot teacher who is trying to teach "Intelligent Design" rather than Evolutionary Theory probably has a degree in Education rather than a degree in biology.
Better yet, pass a bill that requires all secondary level science classes to TEST any theory being presented in class.
This should be fairly simple(you could make it an exception that exceedingly complex theories can be TESTED via analyzing another famous test). It would give the kids hands-on experience with science, and it would make it impossible to teach Intelligent Design or creationism in class....
Heck, if a teacher was insistent that Evolution didn't occur...I would love to see the look on her face when it happened in her classroom.
I would like to contradict the view that any novel by Eric Blair (George Orwell) is worth reading. To that list I wish to add
Jane Eyre and anything written by Charles Dickens (well okay - a Christmas Carol is not too bad...).
Any French novel about letters or about anyone poisoning anyone else, especially their husband.
Brave New World or any other novel where scientists go mad and create a future dystopia.
Any book about a crazy spanish dude and his mate.
Any book about whales and hunting them.
Anything by the Bronte sisters apart from Emily's Goff classic.
Anything that won the Booker prize (or any other prize with the exception of the Hugo & Nebula) unless Thomas Keneally wrote it.
Anything by Salmon Rustie, William Faulkner, James Joyce, Nabakov, V. S. Naipaul, D.H. Lawrence, Franz Kafka, Milan blooming Kundera, Anthony Burgess, (especially A Clockwork Orange) and Günter Grass (especially the Tin Drum)
Any play by Samuel Beckett.
I also contradict the right of teachers to discuss the conflicting virtues of Jane Austen and Thomas Hardy.
I would also like to contradict the right of Heads of Departments to exist.
One of the added benefits of this will mean that all those fifth form twats who think they are going to be Rock Stars, will have to go back to calling themselves the Brian Hughes Swingsters instead of some naff phrase they pinched from Kafka.
**Some readers might need to pay attention to the next line.
Posts, MyBio or Sig, may contain satire, sarcasm, bolded nouns be sardonic or even witty & be Church of SD
Anyone accepting Evolution without question is just making a leap of faith. Scientists accept Evolution as the most probable theory.
You wrote:
> allow teachers to contradict the teaching of evolution
but what the bill says is:
> objectively present scientific information relevant to the full range of scientific
> views regarding chemical and biological evolution.
It does not grant the right to "contradict" evolution. Don't we want our future young scientists to be objective and to weigh the full range of scientific facts? Not just the ones that are in vogue or acceptable by consensus.
I'm being somewhat facetious, but only somewhat. I know what you're worried about, but the contrary position is equally worrisome.
While there are many, many scientists who have a balanced, and objective view of evolutionary science, there are more than a few outspoken scientists thumping the Origin Of The Species just as vigorously and just as dogmatically as any Creationist thumps his Bible. And just as with religion, it is typically these vocal few scientists that have the most influence over policy and standards. Sometimes the desire to break Christianity's foothold makes scientists become dogmatic and this is not good for science, in general. Science has it's share of religious zealots.
We would do better to focus on the general principles of science and encourage skepticism and objectivism in the minds of our children. Teach them the scientific method and how to recognize good science from bad science or non-science. If we arm them with the right tools, then it won't matter what kooky theories they get exposed to in school or anywhere else in life.
I'm going to put a bulls-eye the size of Montana on my forehead and proclaim that I'm leaning towards ID. Why? One, because I'm feeling the need to be well roasted with some juicy flameposts. Two, because to me ID embraces evolution. Does evolution really care how we got started? It shouldn't, because it's an on-going process.
I don't believe in Creationism because it's patently ridiculous. I do believe that the earth is billions of years old, and I do believe in evolution as a valid scientific theory. I also accept that ID is NOT scientific and I do not accept it as a 'scientific theory'.
But where I begin to give ID credit is in examining the basic cause of life, because we still haven't figured out how life actually started. There's Abiogenesis (hopefully I spelled that right), there's asteroid seeding, and there's other ideas. We don't know, quite frankly, and the idea that life may have been tinkered with isn't that far-fetched, when considering the complexities of the universe. I reserve the right to be completely, totally, and absolutely wrong on this.
I also give ID some credit because, essentially, NOTHING is absolute in this universe. We've proven that you can resurrect someone after they've well and truly died (given a narrow set of parameters, granted), so death is no longer quite certain. There are people living completely off the grid around the world who don't get to pay taxes, so that's not certain. And there's a scientific hypothesis floating around out there that there may be a central core of mass to the universe, which could cast into doubt the origins of the Big Bang (which I also believe in by the way). Then (just to REALLY annoy y'all) I look at stories of ghost sightings and UFOs. Most of the time, they're complete bunk. But there is that narrow percentage where you examine the witness, examine the story, and realize that something happened that cannot be explained with current methods. It's these random incidents and phenomena that doesn't quite jive with current scientific consensus, that makes me believe that there is something more to us, and something more to this universe than random blind chance.
Whether it's aliens, flying spaghetti monsters, a higher power (For the record, I DON'T believe in the traditional Judeo-Christian God, or any sort of mainstream religion's "GOD"), or SOMETHING, I don't know. But I do know that nothing is absolute in this reality, and because of that, I'm open to the thought that perhaps we have been 'guided' in our evolution. And we shouldn't be so hasty to lump ID in with Creationism, because at their heart, the two ideas are separate and distinct.
I reserve the right to be completely, totally, and utterly WRONG (been so many times, plan on being so in the future again), and to be as open-minded as I can. Let the flaming begin... (I've gone ahead and prepared a nice BBQ sauce to dunk my ass in prior to roasting)
Here's to hot beer, cold women, and Glaswegian kisses for all.
You start out almost showing an understanding of things, but then invoke a most moronic strawman of evolution, which leads me to believe you simply copied and pasted part of your argument.
If you are interested, you might find that a good deal of the molecular data comes from non-coding regions. Of particular interest in hominoid evolution (that's the great apes, including us) is ERVs (Endo Retroviral Insertions), where viruses actually insert their genome into the hosts. These are conserved through various lines, and are very useful for determining lineages.
Maybe some day, rather than cribbing references and invoking idiotic fallacies, you'll actually bother to read for understanding.
Until then, enjoy your fear and ignorance.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Hey, it is Florida. It's a state that allows people to escape paying their debts, was built on real estate scams and speculators, a favorite home for fly-by-night companies, and is the center for the "embargo evil Cuba to keep a few votes yet China is ok" lobby. What else should you expect?
"Religion" has been regarded for centuries as unquestionable and authoritative. At what point did science merely replace that? When were we told that we cannot question assumptions made as part of scientific theory, and doesn't that reduce science to just another religion?
no comment
No god == no intelligent design
End of the story
I get how this could be about Academics (as in the Academic Dishonesty Act), and I get how this could be about Freedom (as in the the Indoctrination Freedom Act), but somehow I can't get my head around using both those words together to describe this legislation. I think it's time to give up, move all the smart people North, and let the South go. They're fighting SO hard to become the laughing stock of the modern world, it might just be easier to disown them and move on.
The main reason that science has essentially replaced philosophy as a means of discovering new truths is exactly BECAUSE science is falsifiable, whereas philosophy depends entirely on consensus and popularity.
I'm very glad to hear that. Please don't ever let yourself become vacuous and egotistical enough to be considered a "philosopher".
In light of todays major primary elections in the US where the major themes are the war, the economy, healthcare and illegal migration, all this in a time where the US Dollar is so low that my own salary, here in Europe, has gone up 20% in Dollar terms in one year, and where the US is heading for a major recession partly caused by the enormous costs of the war in Iraq and bad practices in high risk loans, all this hugely exacerbated by a major imbalance in foreign trade, one would seriously think that whether God made the dinos from old bits and pieces or whether they evolved is only tangentially of importance in the current US?
The obsession with trying to turn the educational clocks back to the middle ages is, however, symptomatic of a country that has seriously lost its way.
And don't contradict me. I'll see you in court because you're breaking the law.
And don't you try using those tampered Hubble images, because they're fake too!
Privacy is terrorism.
If there was ever a time to use the flyingspaghettimonster tag, it is now... I can hardly wait for teachers to explain the correlation between pirates and global warming :)
Add 'creating new' after 'in' and you are completely correct, within that sentence. As soon as you have a single population that diverges into two distinct non-interbreeding populations you have two species.
For Science's sake, we've created animals that are farther apart than lions and tigers, which can rarely have offspring with each other that are still able to breed.
I would come up with an analogy pertaining to how stupid it is to believe in micro- but not macro-evolution *(which is just micro evolution over a greater scale), but my mind can not seem to think of anything quite that idiotic.
I shutter to think of what this will do to my psyche, but I'm going to suggest you follow the methods of the Scientologists and look up the definitions of each individual word you write before you post about evolution, to clear up any possible misunderstandings on your part.
Just -1, Troll talking to another.
See, you're confused. If science had replaced religion, we wouldn't have people arguing about intelligent design right now, because the reigning neo-Darwinist authorities would have burned them alive as heretics. Instead, IDers are free to conduct whatever research they want to try to support their claims--the fact that they've got no evidence whatsoever is not because some Darwinian Inquistion has suppressed it, but because their ideas are substantially without merit. NOTHING makes your name in science like overthrowing the prevailing wisdom (assuming you've got the data to back it up). Tell me, what part of the Bible, or Talmud, or Koran says, "all this is subject to revision on the basis of new findings." None, because they all purport to be the One Source of Universal Truth. This kind of arrogance is staggering--I don't think even the most unhinged scientist would claim a perfect understanding of anything in nature. Science may at times become dogmatic, but that's not a failure of the concept, it's a failure of the human beings employing it.
abundance of fake evolutionary evidence they planted on this world. :-)
Because of the very fact that science is integral to modern life, and has so risen in prominence over the last few centuries, it is a major object of study for history, philosophy, and sociology. The question of if scientific knowledge is different than other forms of knowledge, and if so, how and why, is an important one, and is a theoretical and meta-scientific question. In fact, some philosophy of science was done with the intent of showing the value of science to outsiders, in order to convince them that they could rely upon scientific knowledge. That's why people care.
Also, a lot of the writing done in the philosophy and sociology of science is done by scientists.
The main reason that science has essentially replaced philosophy as a means of discovering new truths is exactly BECAUSE science is falsifiable, whereas philosophy depends entirely on consensus and popularity.First, science hasn't "replaced" philosophy. Secondly, science does depend on consensus. If there is no consensus (or not enough consensus) surrounding a claim, it is not considered a scientific truth. That consensus can be generated in a number of ways, e.g., by experimental demonstration or mathematical proof, etc., but consensus is critical.
To give an example of science that isn't falsifiable, consider a lot of the work that is done in sociobiology. Someone picks a certain trait or preference that is exhibited in a population, then speculates an evolutionary reason for why that trait might exist. Is that speculation falsifiable? Not really - we can't go back and see if something else is responsible for the trait. Is this science? If you think that everything called "science" has to be falsifiable, then no. But it does get published in scientific journals.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
Re:
"affirmative right and freedom to objectively present scientific information relevant to the full range of scientific views regarding biological and chemical evolution"
Gawd, what an awful attempt to run around reality! First one has "objectively present" -- anyone trying to work around evolution is unlikely to be "objective". Second "full range", don't get me started. This lets not only the creationists but the Raelians into the classroom (and the Raelians have a far more credible hypothesis than the creationists!). Third, "views regarding biological and chemical evolution". Chemistry does not "evolve". Chemistry is dictated by the laws of physics. So, this law would allow one to teach that the laws of physics do not exist??
While I will allow that the U.S. Constitution prohibits the "abridging the freedom of the speech" we have to allow the promotion of stupidity is probably a really bad idea.
You'd think that all those religious zealots in Florida would have been able to read the signs, all those hurricanes that God sends to them to punish them for their incorrect beliefs that evolution is not God's Golden plan. It seems so obvious.
but that still does not allow Creationism or ID to be taught since those are not science.
Same debate.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVRsWAjvQSg
Privacy is terrorism.
There are plenty of repeatable Creation experiments that include predictability. To assume there are none is pure ignorance of what Creation Science has to offer, the kind of ignorance that will be perpetuated by keeping it out of the classroom.
Prior to the Voyager launches, scientists attempted to predict the magnetic fields of each planet. Put simply, the Non-Creationists' theory is that the magnetic field is generated by metallic mass spinning at a certain velocity. The Creationists' theory is that everything was created from aligned water molecules ~6000 years ago and then decayed in a straight line from there.
Link to Original 1984 article Link to Less Technical Follow-Up
Mercury ... the very existence of the field is puzzling. If Mercury can maintain a steady dipole field, the earth, which rotates 59 times as fast and has a core twice as large, should be able to sustain more complicated fields.
Non-Creationist: 0
Creationist: 7.5 x 1022 J/T
Actual: (4.8 ± 0.3) x 1019 J/T
Non-Creationist quote:
Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn were known prior to the predictions.
Uranus
Non-Creationist: smaller field, or none at all
Creationist: 2.05 x 1025 J/T
Actual: 3.0 x 1024 J/T
Neptune
Both did equally well, but there was a surprise problem for the Non-Creationists. The Magnetic axis is at a 60 degree offset to the rotation axis, meaning that their predicted value would need to be reduced by 2/3.
Non-Creationist quote: Two odd magnetic fields is one too many.
The Creationist was within an order of magnitude on every planet in the Solar System. The Non-Creationists and their dynamo theory were wrong on more than 50% of the planets. .
Non-Creationist quote: you would have thought we would have given up guessing about planetary magnetic fields after being wrong at nearly every planet in the solar system. . .
Has the dynamo theory been falsified, even though it has an accuracy of less than 50%? No. It has been updated with wild additions involving multiple asteroid collisions and other even more fantastic theorized objects.
Has the Creationist theory replaced it, even though it predicted everything with 100% accuracy (within an order of magnitude)? No. It is rejected outright because it came from a Creationist, the same as what we are talking about in this article.
Although I only provided a single example (and there are thousands), I hope that this shows several points:
Before making ignorant statements about what Creation Science offers (or doesn't offer), why not spend an hour or two familiarizing yourself with it: Answers in Genesis Q&A. Since this information has always been censored from you, you rightly assume that all evidence points unquestionably toward evolution, billions of years, etc., because there is "no evidence" to the contrary. Of course there is "no evidence", because your science books won't publish it. Why not read through it and make up your mind based on facts instead
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
You are James Rudolph, a teacher at Middlefield.
... Its all very important, isnt it.
You know theres a law that says that you can contradict Evolution, and you can present other ideas about the creation of life.
Lets talk about that. All those children, God
And you, you are very important and what you do is important.
The only text I cut & pasted was what I provided referring to a failed evolutionary prediction, and part of the text from EvoWiki concerning nested hierarchies. I could not find a direct definition of twin-nested hierarchies so I had to read a lot of long-winded text and put it in a short definition form.
I assure you that what I have written here are all of my own words except what I mentioned above. I do not crib or plagiarize things or parrot other people's thoughts though my thoughts may resemble other people's thoughts. I put things in my own words and stand by what I say.
And fear? I do not live in fear, not of spooks or boogey men and certainly not scientific theories. I live life with a love and appreciation of what God hath created, and I live life with a love for other people. On the whole I am content, I am at peace. Whether the Theory of Evolution is true or not is frankly irrelevant.
And as for ignorance, I do not pretend to claim that I know all things about the Theory of Evolution, and I have not analyzed every little detail which I have not the time nor inclination to do; yet, I have examined it enough to my satisfaction, which I have explained in the previous 2 posts that I am not convinced the Theory of Evolution is the correct conclusion concerning the complexity of life I see around me.
I guess this should be the end of the discussion. You are convinced I am stupid, fearful, and ignorant because I do not accept the Theory of Evolution as fact, and I consider you...well...living with a dark materialistic veil before your eyes, as someone wearing a pair of sunglasses with a big face of Darwin painted on the lenses obscuring your view.
In 100 years from now, what you or I believed concerning evolution will not matter a tot really.
A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver --Proverbs 25:11
You refer to the church, and I assume you mean roman catholics.
Likewise, you say that there is not conflict between science and religion. That is positively false. It is the fact that so many idiots in evangelicals are trying to not just ignore science, but are trying to shut it down. They are CHOOSING to stop progress by preventing America from studying the basis of our world, and will just accept words from ppl like huckabee or W. That truly is scary, and bodes badly for us.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
at least when I went to school in Florida, they actually taught science and not personal beliefs. I guess this is what the rest of the world can look forward to now that a Bush is leaving office, if his idiot brother can screw up a state that badly, imagine how badly he'll screw up the world. wait, he's already done that.
With apologies to Frank Zappa:
Philosophizing about science is like dancing about architecture.
(I got yer Bayesian statistics right here, buddy boy)
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
These teachers shouldn't be interjecting their own religious views into the curriculum at all. They should be teaching the facts about the subject, making sure the student understands the fact, and then letting the student make their own decision on whether or not they believe the Theory of Evolution has merit. Seems these days the only place to get a decent pre-college education is sending your kids to a Catholic or other private school. At least there they'll teach you science the way it's meant to be taught, unless that's some how changed too from the time I went to one.
But, when are we finally going to reach a point where government and schools are not the same? A book publisher can say anything they want, because they are not part of the government. But teachers and schools are?
The government is always inferior to private-held companies in accomplishing tasks. It's been shown time and time again. Education is no different. Parents are up in arms because school districts are poorly run. They don't have the option of going to a different school district, or opening their own school to compete with the government schools. Until this changes, there will be a never-ending stream of stories like the one in the article.
I don't care if you are for evolution only, creation only, bits-and-pieces of all, or flying-spaghetti-monster theory. If you really want parents to be in control, you have to be in favor of school vouchers. Anything else takes that decision away from parents, and gives it to the government.
Free unix account: freeshell.org
In the discipline of the philosophy of science, Karl Popper is recognized as the main promoter of the idea of falsification. From Wikipedia:
Sir Karl is known for repudiating the classical observationalist / inductivist account of scientific method by advancing empirical falsification insteadI didn't say he was the first to come up with the idea. Clearly, it's an ancient idea. But it was popularized in this discipline in the 20th century by Karl Popper, and if you ask anyone in the philosophy of science, they'll agree.
If anyone thinks inductive reasoning is inadmissible, they are trivially refuted by the tangible results it brings. I'm not even talking about the marvels of human technical civilization; I'm talking about the actual predictive power it provides.... There is no guarantee that either prediction will ever be right, no matter the situation. That is the nature of induction, and the weak point of all science. But, there is some particular level of certainty for any prediction. The true power of science is not in interpolation, but extrapolation to new situations.That's just the issue, though. In induction, there is no certainty. We do extrapolate to other situations, but are we justified in doing so? There's no proof that induction works. From Popper's Logic of Scientific Discovery (33):
It should be noticed that a positive decision can only temporarily support the theory, for subsequent negative decisions may always overthrow it. So long as a theory withstands detailed and severe tests and is not superseded by another theory in the course of scientific progress, we may say that it has 'proved its mettle' or that it is 'corroborated'.I think the problem is that many of us have ideas that science is always about proposing falsifiable hypotheses, and then doing experiments that attempt to refute those hypotheses. But in practice, a lot of what we consider "science" (i.e., stuff that gets published in journals, etc.) isn't falsifiable. See my other comment about sociobiology.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
I think you're stupid and fearful because you clearly don't know very much about the theory at all. I'll wager you don't even look up endo-retroviral insertions and find out how they've helped biologists trace lineages. I'll wager you aren't even interested, and will hide behind prayers to ignorance like this:
Just because you choose to damn something that you obviously know very little about it doesn't alter the theory or the evidence for it. I can conclude that you are afraid, because i have a hard time imagining a human being that simply hates knowledge.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
And here I thought you still had faith in science. I guess I was wrong.
Evolution is defended ad nauseam. In the OSS world, there's a saying "RTFM". It usually annoys newcomers, but anyone whose ever taken the time to write good documentation has a deep appreciation for this. And anyone whose learned to read the documentation appreciates the quickness and brevity with which the solution is often provided. It basically boils down to: "I have spent hours and days and weeks of my life laying out every miniscule detail on this subject. Please take the few hours it would require to utilize that resource."
Science has spent decades proving evolution to such a high degree of certainty that it has attained the status of Scientific Theory.
I think the frustration your seeing is when folks who have actually taken the time to RTFM have to listen to the same old, tired, ignorant retorts from people who refuse to even try. Anyone who doesn't recognize evolution as not only the best model for divergence of species, but as close to certain as we are capable of getting and that there is no significantly opposing proposition that counters it. They are either ignorant or stupid. Most are just ignorant and there is one simple act that can help them move past that ignorance: RTFM
Philosophy is the art of ideas and perspectives. Science happens to be one of those perspectives. To assume that there aren't other equally valid perspectives in addition to science is intellectual sloth. The main reason that science has essentially replaced philosophy as a means of discovering new truths is exactly BECAUSE science is falsifiable, whereas philosophy depends entirely on consensus and popularity. Science never replaced philosophy, in part because science IS a subset of philosophy. Science is falsifiable in that it is self-evaluating. It's like using an instrument made for calibration to calibrate itself. I suggest you look into the philosophies of science and epistemology.
Truckin like the Doo-Dah man...
Who the hell does Bill think he is?
As a tool for acquiring knowledge, you bet it has. Philosophizing about the best way to get 500 people airborne isn't going to get you far, but following the scientific method gave us the 747. Philosophy still plays a small role in generating ideas, but nobody takes it seriously as a tool for determining truth. Nobody except philosophers, that is, and they're a little biased.
Yes, but consensus in science is generated through experimentation and can be easily broken if a new experiment generates a contradictory result, whereas in philosophy consensus is based on the popularity of the philosopher, and on some undefined "rightness" of his thoughts. In other words, science is objective, while philosophy is subjective. That's a HUGE difference - in practice it means that consensus in science can be challenged and shattered overnight by a clever college student with a simple experiment, while consensus in philosophy tends to change only due to shifts in popular opinion. As such, philosophy is more akin to art - Beethoven might be considered a musical genius in one generation while being considered a no-talent clown by the next, since the judgement is entirely subjective.
No, but we can study members of the same lineage living in other societies, and see whether they exhibit the same traits. For instance, if we were to notice that most rappers in America tend to be black, we could speculate that blacks are genetically predisposed to create rap music. However, if we were to study black people in, say, Africa, Australia, and China, we might find a completely different type of behaviour, which would falsify our initial theory.
You're right in the sense that some branches of science are highly speculative, with little chance for falsifiability at present. However, these tend to be sciences which are still in their infancy - ones where we do not know enough to be able to prove or disprove most theories with a high degree of certainty. Even so we hold them to the same standards as any other field of scientific research and, as we learn more about them, we develop better methods for testing our hypotheses.
The game's up on that one. The stickers were religiously motivated. Please spread your immorality elsewhere.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Has ID made any repeatable prediction lately that Evolution failed to produce?
If not, get out of the science classroom!
The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the 'social sciences' is: some do, some don't
You know what another barrier is to learning?
Partisanship.
Whenever you distill a complex subject into a us vs. them shouting match, it becomes a discussion based on faith. That is to say, it is more about what you feel to be true rather than what you can prove to be true. My side are the good guys, and their side are the bad guys.
As soon as you move a discussion into that arena, doors to learning become shut. When you think you're sure you absolutely know something, the only thing that actually is certain is that you'll never know anything more about it.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I'm well aware of what the scientific method is :-) Also, by meta-scientific, I meant that the question of the character of scientific knowledge is not a scientific question. It can't be, because any answer you would provide would be relying on what it is purporting to justify. It is a question about knowledge, and questions about knowledge lie in the domain of epistemology, which is hardly a scientific enterprise.
In other words, science is objective, while philosophy is subjective.I'm not going to dispute that philosophy is subjective, but to simply state that "science is objective" is a gross over-generalization. Facts do not speak for themselves. In order to be imbued with meaning, they must be interpreted. This is a really difficult discussion to have on /., and there's a lot more I'd like to reply to in your post, but I don't have the time or energy right now. I suggest you take a look at Donna Haraway's work, specifically Primate Visions, on the purported "objectivity" of science. And for what it's worth, Haraway holds a Ph.D. in biology from Yale, so she's not just some crazy philosopher.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
Ban all religious "teaching" to minors. If they lack the means to make informed decisions in the eyes of law, we shouldn't be perverting a child's ability to identify truth from fallacy by presenting mythology as fact... especially at the earliest points in life where they're still struggling to know the difference between their own parents and family versus completely strangers that simply "look" interesting to them.
Of course, if the religion is that important for "traditional" reasons, parents could actually get off their asses (and their high horses) and present the beliefs of their favorite brand of religion by presenting the mythology in a non-threatening manner... such as a bedtime story. Children can *think* about these things without having it forced down their throats as life-or-death truth.
8==8 Bones 8==8
How about the teachers call all the parents during parent teacher conferences and they actually all decide what the teacher should teach? They are the ones paying for the teacher anyhow. Shouldn't a teacher be beholden to their employer? Isn't that how it works?
Money is the root of all evil?
If anything replaces religion, I would say it's mathematics. We are handed axioms that we must believe in without proof. In other words, we must take them on faith. Mathematics: it's the new religion. Perhaps we should stop being so dogmatic about mathematics and instead teach all the various potential axiomatic systems to our schoolchildren, and let them decide for themselves which they would choose to believe. That couldn't possibly be confusing, could it?
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
Sorry to tell you, but the truth doesn't really care if it offends your religious sensibilities.
BTW, not apes either. Try to keep up with what I'm saying.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
In that landmark case, it was decided that ID was NOT science and Evolution IS. Good luck to any teacher attempting to defy Evolution with this bill and /not/ get sued.
http://xkcd.org/154/
You can't take the sky from me...
Well, that's the way God made them.
"We live in a global world" - Harvey Pitt, former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman
So why are they trying to hard to put it in science classrooms? It sounds like we're in agreement: Creationism and its derivatives are not science.
It has been observed thousands of times. Bacteria, fruit flies, and other rapidly reproducing species are regularly evolved in laboratory settings to study, for example, antibiotic resistance. Evolution (as a fact, i.e., observed data) has been well-documented, along with other facts (observed data) including the fossil record. Any theory competing with the theory of evolution must necessarily explain all of these things at least as well as evolution does.
(Please note that I am using "evolution" in two contexts: as an observed fact, and as a theory. If this confuses you, please read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_as_theory_and_fact.)
Except this isn't evolution. The word "species" is a human invention. We define it arbitrarily to mean a population that does not breed with another population. There are many reasons this could happen, and given enough time, it's a statistical certainty that each population will develop changes to its genes to make it incompatible with the other. There is no "instant" where this happens. No big clap of thunder and a proclamation from above that some new baby animal is now a new species. The fact that you're even suggesting this is necessary suggests you have a woefully incomplete understanding of genetics.
It is not religion, but catholics that did the nightmare and have now changed. OTH, Religion is overall, still backwards. Religions such as Evangelicals, are trying hard to pull a dark ages catholicism approach. It was not a strawman, but a rejection of the word "religion". As an Episcopalian (the party religion), I still have issues with Catholicism, but I also attended a catholic high school (many decades ago). So, I do understand what you mean. But I still object to the use of religion.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Show me the math that ... disproves Creation.
Sorry dude, but if you are making the positive assertion that Creation in fact happened, it is you who have "to show the math."
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
'Every public school teacher in the state's K-12 school system shall have the affirmative right and freedom to objectively present scientific (emphasis mine) information relevant to the full range of scientific views regarding biological and chemical evolution (emphasis mine) in connection with teaching any prescribed curriculum regarding chemical or biological origins.' Um. OK - so she allegedly wants creationism? Wasn't that ruled, in a court of law, to not be science? And the second part kinda mucks about with the 'creator' using anything other than biological and/or chemical evolution... Almost looks to me like they've managed to lock themselves out of a position to teach!
But the study of historical events can be scientific. Historical sciences include geology, archaeology and astronomy for example. Many things in science cannot be directly observed, but their effects can be: they are still science. I think you may have inadvertently bought into a fallacy from the creationists, who claim that past events cannot be studied scientifically, and consequently the Bible is as reliable as any other evidence about the past. This position is not particularly helpful. It is a bit like solipsism. It has a degree of "what is reality anyway, man?" about it. In explaining the past, we can do better than that.
>north
You're an immobile computer, remember?
There was a time when the scientific method was the de-facto test
of any theory or proposition.
now we have politicians who ignore that basic principal simply
because they have their own ideas (that may not have any basis in reality)?
is it me, or are we headed toward yet another dark age?
Understanding is much like a 3-edged-sword. in this: there are always 2 sides and the truth.
Speciation has been observed in some plants (specifically, mutation doubling the number of chromosomes for some plants has created seperate species that cannot interbreed with the parents, but interbreed with each other). Insects, plants, and even other animals have been observed to go through natural selection processes - not necessarily complete new species, but significant changes as expected in evolutionary theory. Your definition of evolution is meaningless anyway. The key is, the processes have (mostly) been observed.
Stating that the Genesis story is history is ridiculous - why is that particular story historical, and every other religions creation story not? They are not the same. I assume Native Americans or Hindus just didn't know what they were talking about? Even if it is historical, if all the *observable* evidence contradicts the story, then the burden of proof falls on the storytellers/ "historians".
The burden of proof for science is to prove (well, gather evidence for, they never prove anything) thing to other people who understand science and the theories. Unfortunately you don't really seem to fit in that camp. Of course you can't think of a single case where it has been reported, you haven't even looked. Instead you make up things like "it would have to happen very frequently" which you have no basis for.
Fnord.
It's a religious fight. Whenever the "evolution" topic pops up there is an instant avalanche of mambo-jumbo from all kinds of self-proclaimed experts and "scientists."
The anti-theists cling to the "fact" of evolution as a rare opportunity to fight religious beliefs and the concept of God Creator. Good luck with that boys and gals! And good luck with preaching your nonsense if you think you can eliminate the Creator with it!
Also, it is utter foolishness to claim that the Universe, with its laws, humans and all the things that crawl and grow on Earth don't reflect an Optimal Setup that has nothing to do with chaos (I'm not even saying "intelligent" because it hints of personal intellect, or "design" because it points to a Designer). The forces of "evolution" are too obviously far from stupid or chaotic having been able to produce "scientists."
All you "evolutionists" out there, have the integrity to admit that you are fighting against God (for whatever personal reasons) and don't try to cover yourselves with "scientific" theory of flat Earth self-formed out of a purely chaotic chance.
The problem with the scientific argument is in the semantics. We call theories as such because they are difficult factually prove. There could be a huge stack of supporting evidence but we still call it a theory because it allows us to challenge the theory with new concepts and build evidence in support of another theory. That's the beauty of science.
Many theologians the other hand use the word "fact" loosely when describing stories in books written centuries ago. It's a "fact" to them not through evidence or testing but because someone wrote it in a book centuries ago and was convincing enough for people to believe it. I'd call that a theory with no evidence, not a fact. These same theologians use the fact that we call theories "theories" to insinuate that these theories are weaker than their facts.
You want fun, go home and buy a monkey!
Obviously from the title, I believe in creation. However, I do not believe that the teaching of my beliefs is the place of a school. This holds true for science's "beliefs" as well. Evolution is still a theory, and has not been proven to be fact YET. As such, it should not be taught in schools. I think the better path to take on this is that the study of human origin has no place at all in schools YET. Let us first find the 100% factual truth, if it can be found.
Where genius and insanity become confused true wisdom is found
At the risk of stirring the pot, I think it might be worthwhile to teach both theories side-by-side in the context of "The History of Science." Teaching about how and why the two factions differ might actually diffuse the finger pointing and educate everyone.
The religious implications aside, it is a good thing to be educated about the Jedeo-Christian culture and beliefs--something that's shaped much of Western culture's history, customs, and laws. I think it wouild also be a good thing for conservative religious types to be exposed to the culture of secular science as well. I mean, even Jesus said, "Be in the world, but not of it" so there is a precedent encouraging cultural awareness even in the Bible. Education isn't about being right, it's about being informed.
It's a shame that everything must be taught as absolute.
Faith is the deep conviction that you're right. Fear is suspicion that others might be.
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
Among other things, the interesting analysis is done on non-coding regions of DNA rather than the regions that code for specific features. You might find that reading about the molecular clock hypothesis clears up that misunderstanding, assuming that you haven't already resolved it to your satisfaction.
Anybody who thinks that way is unlikely to survive a modern physics education. Sometimes the universe doesn't work the way our intuition tells us it does. The only way to really figure it out is to sit down and look at the data.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
You zealots need to get a life!
You probably don't want to do away with public schools, at least not in the current tax regime, it'd be disastrous.
But you should get rid of public management of schools. For-profit school management companies should compete for contracts, and if they don't fulfill the terms of the contract they get replaced.
With the current situation, there's not much you can do about a dysfunctional school management regime. Double negative if a central planning committee, such as a state DoE controls significant aspects of the schools.
"Ya Can't Fire the Governement"
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
They want to teach Intelligent Design? Let them teach it in the classes where it belongs - maybe philosophy?
How many people argue that you should teach German grammar in English literature class? Or rather, how many people are taken serious, when they argue that?
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
Baby steps for the new Inquisition. spirituality over materialism.
Isaac Asimov very nicely points out that rather than think of right and wrong theories, it is better to think of a succession of closer and closer approximations. ...
Also from the article:
"The curvature of such a sphere is about 0.000126 per mile, a quantity very close to 0 per mile, as you can see, and one not easily measured by the techniques at the disposal of the ancients. The tiny difference between 0 and 0.000126 accounts for the fact that it took so long to pass from the flat earth to the spherical earth.
So, although the flat-earth theory is only slightly wrong and is a credit to its inventors, all things considered, it is wrong enough to be discarded in favor of the spherical-earth theory."
In most times, most places, by most people, liars are considered contemptible. - Ursula Le Guin
Well, every theory ISN'T equally valid. First of all, there is ZERO -- ZERO -- evidence against evolution. ZERO
There is plenty of evidence. (http://emporium.turnpike.net/C/cs/top.htm/).
However, I agree there is ZERO evidence that you or others will accept. This is because if you accept evidence against evolution you have to open yourselves to the possibility that there is a God. (Which by the way, there is and he is wonderful).
This world is so complex and so amazing. The more I learn about physics, chemistry, even Math, the more I am amazed with how there are so many things that work together on this planet. Science each year discovers more and more and disproves some of which used to be considered truth. I think it is interesting that some people's replies have compared creationism to "flat-earth" theories. However a better comparison would be evolution to flat-earth theories. At one point most people on earth believed that the earth was flat and that it explained many things. Now we know better. What if a few years from now we know better, that the theory of evolution was incorrect?
Please don't be a flat earth thinker. Consider all options and realize that just because there are several scientists that say evolution is correct, that doesn't mean it is. (Each year they change there mind on whether coffee is good for you.) Like I said, most people have their mind closed to options that include God before they even look at the subject. So, take a moment and consider the possibility.
"I don't give a crap if you couch it in an explanation of adherence (or, more honestly, it's complete lack thereof) to scientific method. You would have broken the law when you taught it, period."
Except for being completely wrong about that, I see your point.
That is, you have no idea what the fuck you're talking about. That was your point wasn't it?
And how does it feel to know I've actually had the professionals who make it their job to know the law look that lesson over and give it their heartfelt approval? These are the lawyers mind you, so no, it wasn't the religious right that got elected who ok'd it, it was the notoriously cowardly attorneys who got hired to make sure it was legal.
You're wrong. In theory, and in fact, and should learn about the law before you make another incorrect post displaying your vast ignorance.
And this, my friends, is why we NEED a Federal Department of Education. More specifically we need a national curriculum, to ensure all the backwoods parts of our great nation aren't left in the backwoods for the rest of their existence. Blame economic disparity on mean Republicans if you must, but the real reason behind it is the disparity present in our various local curriculums (yes, that is an accepted plural).
As a resident of Florida, I am constantly subjected to this type of stupid thinking. Upon moving here 6 years ago, I was actually told by the local residents to keep my personal thoughts of religion hidden. They threatened to put a burning cross in my yard! Well, coming from an activist state, Oregon, that just made me louder! There are so many churches that one can find numerous signs pointing down each road as they drive down the highway. Since I have had the privilege to meet up with a handful of the local teachers here, my experience has been that they are too religiously manipulated to be allowed to be public school teachers. They would be better off, teaching at a private religious school. Otherwise, they will infect the mass population. Basically, what we are experiencing today! Rational thought when it comes to our creation isn't a thought pattern that comes easy from these type of people! They truly hear a voice from the sky. Some even talk in a language only known to them and the other followers. Some believe of an evil horned dude who runs around collecting souls. Honestly, we need some sort of medical institute to deal with this epidemic! Since it is effecting the direction of our absolute knowledge base! Right down to our lack of retaining a job! Unless, we plan on letting these people take us back to the stone age, we need to stop this madness!
The first post was a joke post, the post you're responding to is another joke post, and you got your panties knotted up. Who's the real child here?
Go cry elsewhere, little girl. Look, that man in the van is offering you candy, go get some.
As a non-scientist, this is my understanding of the subject:
How good is your understanding of, say, quantum mechanics?
That perhaps there is a lot more to the field than you are aware of, and a vast body of experiments and evidence of all sorts backing up and cross-validating quantum mechanics in every way possible?
Actually starting with "As a non-scientist, this is my understanding of the subject" was extraordinarily good. Most objections to evolution know less about evolution than you described, and they go right ahead and ASSERT that nothing backing up evolution exists. Apparently making that an assertion on the raw basis that they don't know anything and they want evolution to be false and if evolution is false then no valid science could exist to back it up.
organism managed to acquire new information in its genetic code allowing it to gradually change over millions of years
This is not to be confused with evolution which is organisms changing according to a selection or corruption (mutation) of information already within its genetic code
Actually the second part there has already mathematically and experimentally proven the first part. Mutation and selection creates new information. Mathematical proven and experimentally proven. In fact it this aspect of evolution is a field of Applied Science. More than half of all Fortune 500 companies apply digitally-implemented evolution to create new valuable useful information solving a variety of problems that are almost unsolvable in nearly any other way. In computer science this field is known as Evolutionary Algorithms. If you take a string of random "digital DNA" and apply replication and mutation and selection, the digital-DNA information will evolve in exactly the same way bio-DNA information evolves, and it can and does evolve to create new information according to whatever selection criteria is applied. It is quite common and well documented for applied science evolution to create designs better than any human designer has even been able to create. One team applied evolution for a jet engine design, and the result was an engine more efficient than any engine the best human designers had ever been able to create. A 1% increase in efficiency can mean millions of dollars in saved fuel cost per year in the airline industry.
The Theory of Evolution, on the other hand, is an extrapolation upon evolution saying that since we know organisms can change, sometimes dramatically such as getting poodles from wolves, it is reasonable to expect an amoeba can, over time, become a tadpole, and can eventually allow an organism to gain the information to sprout feathers and fly up into the sky.
This is an unproven assertion and is a leap (off a cliff) in logic
No, it's not. Just because you are unaware of the specific science backing up quantum mechanics doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
The "information creation" power of evolution has been mathematically and experimentally proven.
The historical truth of common descent evolution has also been proven by a vast body of other evidence. To avoid copy/pasting, read my older post particularly the parts on the continuous Foraminifera fossil record of common descent and on DNA proof of evolution's tree of common descent.
The only other reasonable alternative is a supreme intelligence, God
I'm not sure if you are making this error or not, but the majority of actively anti-evolutionists come up with an invalid conflict of "God vs evolution" and the idea of accepting one somehow invalidates the other.
It's an old error and we all know about it happening before. Galileo said the earth orbits the sun, and some people grabbed their Bibles and pointed to numerous passages to show the earth was unmoving at the center of the universe. They asserted that the solar system and God were in conflict, and that Galileo's solar system denied God, an
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
I do not think I am confused. I am asking why the teacher cannot actively engage in scientific thought. I did not even say I supported ID. It would appear that people are not allowed to question the theory of origins currently popular, or even present any opposing view. That opposing view does not have to be religiously based to be effetively forbidden by this action. That sounds like a religion to me: "do not question it, just trust us, we are right" How did that happen?
no comment
You might want to look up the difference between "evidence" and "some guy making a bunch of dubious claims on the internet."
Your list of "evidence" is nothing more than a link to a set of shoddy arguments. For example:
The author's "argument" consists of repeatedly claiming that certain things are not possible, with utterly no data to back up those claims.
This may surprise you, but not everything you read on the internet is true. Even if it says what you want to hear.
Hmmmmmmmm......
Let's take a look at some of those prophecies from the Book of Isaiah.Not fulfilled. In fact, it looks like people are still trying on this one....nnnope. Not fulfilled by a long shot.Nope. Oh wait, let me guess; death, hunger and illness in a metaphorical sense, right?To be honest, I have prepared for this event. However, we're looking at another no-show.Well, it's an Ezekiel one, but this has got to be the single biggest no-show of the whole lot.
You know, I think I'm starting to see why most Jewish people didn't, and don't, buy into Jesus as the Messiah.
May the Maths Be with you!
You're still confused. No scientist (or rational supporter of this bill) is arguing that everyone MUST accept the current neo-Darwinian synthesis--but science is not story hour. If a teacher wants to present an alternative theory, then it had better be thoroughly supported by readily available scientific evidence. Not innuendo, not half-truths, but real data to support the position, whether it's creationism, ID, or Pastafarianism. This hasn't happened yet; until it does, why would you tolerate the teaching of 'alternative biology' any more than you'd tolerate the teaching of 'alternative algebra?'
Honestly, if you buy into the Ben Stein viewpoint that Evil Monolithic Big Science is just out to crush the purehearted, openminded seekers of truth, then you really don't understand the issue. Read some Ken Miller if you want an evenhanded explanation.
Better let up on his guy or you'll explode his world view. He's a modern day Martin Luther, who made it clear that "reason must be banished". He's obviously more intererested in bearing false witness than actually attempting to understand current scientific facts and explanation. If he were, he would have already read the very conclusive work on shape of beak shape in Darwin's finch. The number of examples are far to numerous to spend much time pointing them out to the willfully ignorant. One must be content to point them out to others who recognize the value of rationality.
Dawkins may well be correct that much of this controversy stems from the "faithful" needing to control the process of indoctrination of children at an age when their critical thinking skills have yet to form, lest their entire business model crumble.
RTFM - an excellent point, I think, especially since I myself am a programmer. I think that you are quite right in that a little knowledge would go a long way, and certainly understand the frustration regarding the ignorance associated with certain world views. There are also certainly those who will never accept this theory regardless of the evidence presented. I was directing my comments more towards the overzealous posters who rush right past evolution towards derision of faith in higher powers, comparing them to those who rush right past faith towards utter rejection of science. The defense of one does not lead to rebuttal of the other. I thought I'd bring that up since some of the posts here are more attacks against religion, considering the lack of creationists posting ignorant statements here on /.
I think your "cussing" gene has gone from recessive to dominant.