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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."
What the sam hell are you blathering about? We didn't evolve from modern monkeys.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
Incorrect.
Apes, monkeys, and humans all evolved from a common primate ancestor. Due to differing environments and differing pressures and selection criteria for said differing environments, the populations of primate ancestor-species evolved in separate directions.
The 'missing' fossil evidence question is a red herring: every time a transitional fossil is found, the creationists say "OK, what came between that one and the next one?"--moving the goalposts, in other words. Archaeology is not geneology: you will not get a continual record of every generation back to when time began.
In addition, fossils are not the only evidence. There are patterns of genetic structures, there are cases of comparative anatomy, there are multiple other lines of evidence to choose from.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree
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.
There's a simple, unambiguous test anyone can apply to objectively determine whether a theory is scientific. That is: is the theory falsifiable? Does the theory make predictions that could potentially be proven wrong by evidence? Intelligent Design fails this test.
So if you have kids, and they are taught intelligent design in this school system, then sue. You'll win. Every time a judge has heard the issue, he's ruled that intelligent design is not science. Because it's not, and it's easy for anyone impartial to see that.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Well, you are mistaken.
Here's a hint: if evolution really predicted that every time a speciation event occurred there would be a "loser" species that would go extinct, then it would predict that there would be exactly one species of organism on the entire planet. Obviously then, either evolution is absolutely ridiculous (since there is obviously more than one species in existence) or you don't understand it. Which is more likely?
Hint number two: both branches of a speciation event can "win" because they can fill different ecological niches. Monkeys lost out on the "high intelligence and tool-making" niche; humans lost out on the "living in tall trees" niche.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
The courts have clearly stated that ID is not scientific.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree
Woah woah woah, don't throw those nutjobs into Utah, The Discovery institute (major proponent of ID) is out of Seattle, Washington. Most scientists here in Utah are just for the dino fossils, cancer research, or cold fusion :D
Whether or not there is some sort of god, I'm not supposed to say/god is a word and the argument ends there-Smog
If you want to teach your kids that "God did it" is an acceptable answer to anything you don't personally understand, then fine, do that in your home or church or wherever... BUT don't pollute my children into believing that crap also. I'd like my kids to have a fair chance in the world economy, where in most 1st and 2nd world nations, they can manage to keep science to true scientific endeavors.
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!
What I can't understand is how this is even a debate for public schools. I went to a Catholic school through junior high and there wasn't even a discussion about this. We were taught about evolution in science class, *and* in religion class we were taught that the creation stories were not meant to be taken literally.
>OK, now, prove to some fundamentalist teacher or other that it's not scientific, when they 'know' that it is.
That's already been taken care of. The US Supreme Court settled that hash in Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U.S. 578 (1987) in a 7-2 decision. This is just the latest round in election year grandstanding by fundie politicians. This will go nowhere, even in Florida.Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
Let's not forget that Evolution, especially with respect to the origin of species, also fails this test.
Nope. We've seen speciation occur.
Evolution does not explain where life came from, but where species came from ("The origin of species").
The origin of the first life (or the first self-duplicating organism) is a separate matter not covered by evolution.
Evolution is anything but religion.
The word Evolution really refers to an "algorithm":
Duplicate the organism accurately, but not completely accurately.
Apply some sort of non-random selection on the result of the duplication.
Optionally mix features from multiple organisms to share evolutionary results and speed up evolution greatly.
This algorithm works, which means that whenever you have something that duplicates almost accurately, and selection applies, you will inevitably get incremental changes towards the selected traits.
Since life on Earth obviously has these features, evolution is inevitable.
As for the question of whether evolution (The "Theory of Evolution") explains the past and the origins of species we can see now, my take is that given that it is obvious that evolution is inevitable, and that it can explain the formation of species and the features we see around us, its quite obviously the response fitting of occam's razor.
On top of that, we have huge amounts of evidence piled up. In my opinion, the obviousness of the inevitablity of evolution (given the duplication and selection that exist) is already enough to make evolution a default answer.
It doesn't -- ID isn't disprovable, precisely because it isn't scientific. ID says "God did it". That's not of much use in a science class, because there's nothing scientific you can learn from that statement.
No, evolution says nothing about dinosaurs and humans being unable to live at the same time. We're from two completely different evolutionary trees -- reptiles and mammals. Geologists and paleontologists would be pretty shocked if such a thing were to be found, but evolution wouldn't be affected in any significant way.
There are, indeed, numerous things that COULD be found or occur that would disprove evolution, yet none of those things ever has. The fact that such things are able to be spelled out ahead of time, and then tested, is precisely what makes evolution science, and ID not science.
Evolution has nothing to say about the reasons we are here or how things began. It is not a religion, and requires no faith. You can be a staunch creationist opposed to evolution and you will get the exact same experimental results with DNA manipulation, genome sequencing, carbon dating, and fruit fly reproduction, as a fervent believer in evolution. Predictable, repeatable results independent of the experimenter are the hallmark of real science -- evolution has many, and ID has none.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Unfortunately, those religious zealots are also the ones that squawk the loudest. I attend a medium sized Christian University (just under 4,000 undergraduate students), and most of the professors, especially (yes, especially) the Bible and Theology professors, have no issues with Evolution and Creation. Believing that God created humanity does not automatically mean that we believe evolution is not an instrument, or is happening.
Sadly, the voices of religious people (reaching out into many faiths, beyond even Christianity) that agree with the scientific community that evolution happens, and has become an established theory, are lost in the din of assenters, including atheists, agnostics, etc. Then when the only people of religious persuasion that are heard are those who dissent, the rest of us get lumped in with them because we share a single common denominator. It's just as bad as calling Germans Nazis, Muslims terrorists, Americans fat, and the French sissy.
In their defense, according to the theory of relativity, you can just as easily say that the Earth is just sitting here while the rest of the universe spins around it.
No, you cannot.
Velocity is relative, but acceleration is NOT relative. An orbiting body is in constant acceleration, so A orbiting B is not the same as B orbiting A.
(nitpickers will point out that they actually orbit their shared center-of-mass, but you know what I mean.)
Actually, I posted a short snarky comment because I had to go teach a science class. What you wrote is spot on, and touches on what I really wanted to say if given the time. Now that I'm taking the time...
While granted I'm in the NE US and not in the bible-belt, I still teach science at a public high school. With the passing of NCLB, there is an increased focus on standards, and teaching to those standards. States are required, due to this law, to assess whether or not their schools are effectively teaching the state-mandated standards. Teachers, therefore, are judged based on whether or not their students are successful on the state-designed tests.
On more than one front, this proposed law is completely pointless. The real test of what Florida wants teachers to teach is in what it assesses at the state-wide level. Without being able to see those assessments (being changed to align with the new state standards by 2012) there is no real way for me to tell what they are really looking for teachers to teach. Terminating teachers is usually pretty hard to do. By far the easiest way is if a teacher's students consistently fail state-wide exams.
And despite the flamebait headline, this also means that you can't get fired FOR TEACHING EVOLUTION. In Florida, that's not a given. The state standards that just passed had to be revised to tone down the endorsement of evolution just to get through. In that light, given that this text reads in part, "freedom to objectively present scientific information relevant to the full range of scientific views regarding biological and chemical evolution", I'm somewhat tempted to say that this is PRO-Evolution, rather than anti-evolution. Although to be fair, it works both ways.
The upshot is that A) You're 100% right, and this is already covered in part by free speech. B) Teachers are judged and can be terminated based on how students do on state assessments, so this is pointless. C) While you now can't get fired for this, there are plenty of things buried in most contracts to get a teacher terminated for, if you really look hard enough. All in all, not a useful law in any meaningful way.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
But it is traveling at a straight line. In reality both Earth and Sun are simply following a straight path at constant speed through curved spacetime. Since they are following a straight path at constant speed, their velocity is not changing, and thus they are not experiencing acceleration. It just seems like they are being accelerated for us due to our limited perceptive ability.
Gravity in general relativity isn't a force; it is a change in the definition of "straight".
And if the elevator is orbiting the Earth or the Sun, you will experience no force (0G), and will thus conclude that you aren't experiencing acceleration.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
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.