Anti-Evolution "Academic Freedom" Bill Passed In Louisiana

Ars Technica is running a story about recently enacted legislation in Louisiana which will allow school board officials to "approve supplemental classroom materials specifically for the critique of scientific theories" such as evolution and global warming. The full text of the Act (PDF) is also available. Quoting: "The text of the [Louisiana Science Education Act] suggests that it's intended to foster critical thinking, calling on the state Board of Education to 'assist teachers, principals, and other school administrators to create and foster an environment within public elementary and secondary schools that promotes critical thinking skills, logical analysis, and open and objective discussion of scientific theories.' Unfortunately, it's remarkably selective in its suggestion of topics that need critical thinking, as it cites scientific subjects 'including, but not limited to, evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning.'"

Comments

Weren't schools were supposed to do that already ?

[AftanGustur]

At least where I went to school, we were tought a thing, then that it didn't apply to all cases, we were encouraged to find other ways to solve things.

I even learned that common sense is often wrong.

The key point is that schools should teach people how to filter out bullshit, and scientific critical thinking is the only way to go. And there is absolutely nothing scientific about the "intelligent design" theory.

To the AGW deniers

[statemachine]

STOP!

For the Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) deniers, start here:
Climate change: A guide for the perplexed
It links to many articles and many peer-reviewed research sources.

If you simply just say something like "no, it doesn't have evidence" or say something that the above link disproves, (and apologies to Jeff Foxworthy) you just MIGHT be a troll.

If you read the articles and are damned sure, cite your sources. And they better link to peer-reviewed research that supports the premise. Or we will taunt you a second time...

Carry on.

Re:To the AGW deniers

[Vornzog]

I have not read your articles. While I have a PhD in chemistry, it isn't in climatology. And I am here to tell you, in no uncertain terms, that everything you think you know about AGW is wrong. For *exactly* the same reasons that teaching ID as science is wrong.

Between 2003 and 2007, I worked in a room with a bunch of atmospheric chemists from the lab next door. They had read all of those articles, and hundreds more. They were all true believers - global warming is very real, and is caused by humans, period-end-of-discussion.

Except, in all of the seminars that I attended, they never said that outright. They would put up this graph showing a bunch of different sources of global warming and global cooling with error bars bigger than the data points. Which is a scientist's way of saying "this system is so complex that we can only guess at what is really going on - check back in a few decades if you want to know how this all turns out". They could not, in a room full of scientists, make a rational statement about AGW.

One day, toward the end of my PhD, our division seminar was about starting a university-wide effort on global warming. Many non-scientists attended. And at that *one* seminar, the true believers showed their colors. "AGW is real and it will kill us all!" they shouted.

The point I am making here is a very simple one. Blind faith is not science. Blind faith comes in many, many forms, and sometimes from the most unexpected of places.

The true believers in my story include some of the best atmospheric chemists America has - the CU Boulder/NIST/NOAA triangle forms the highest density of atmospheric researchers anywhere in the world, and includes many national academy professor types.

These people are caught in a strange, three-way hard place.

* On one hand, they are trained scientists - if you have not tried to disprove something like AGW every which way and failed every time, you can't claim it as truth. This is science, and it is a harsh mistress.

* There is the fact that it is almost impossible for these people to get funding unless they claim that their research will somehow lead to a better understanding of AGW. This is about money and the longevity of your career - will you sacrifice everything you have to be contrarian? Some of the greatest historical scientists did, becoming martyrs in the process.

* And then, their is the fact that they truly believe. This is the political, emotional, groupthink angle. In our current society, you are an outcast unless you believe the right things (like AGW). This is an irrational, emotional angle, and it runs deep in every one of us, hidden beneath a thin vernier of logic and rational thought.

And so, as a scientist in this position, you never say AGW in seminars with other scientists - but you do to non-scientists, the media, the funding agencies. You search for evidence to support AGW, because you believe, even as you search for evidence to disprove it, because you are trying to be a good scientist.

Most importantly, you judge papers you review only on their science - never their speculation. This means the materials/methods/experimental section - never the conclusions, where you are allowed to speculation about what this research *might* mean. As long as everyone does it that way, you can maintain the illusion that you are somehow separating what you *know* from what you *believe*, and thereby claim to remain objective.

Just because you read it in a peer-reviewed paper doesn't make it true. If the paper in question is regarding a politically/emotionally-charged topic, you can safely assume that the only facts in the paper are the hard numbers, with reported errors, that have been independently verified, and have stood up to repeated scrutiny over the period of several years. And you should probably take even those with a grain of salt.

Why am I ranting about AGW in a creationism vs evolution article? Because the problem that both fields have is the same one. True

Re:To the AGW deniers

[QMO]

The net effect is not, as you suggest, a shining edifice of peer-reviewed literature showing the unvarnished truth, but rather a steaming pile of speculation by NewScientist with a few peer-reviewed studies attached to give an illusion of science. In all the articles I read, averages were often given, and extreme cases were often pointed out. But, although NewScientist subtly, reluctantly and guardedly admitted (and cited peer review that supported) that AGW might not really be, ALL their speculations of extremes were in favor of AGW. This is understandable because NewScientist's purpose isn't to do science, but to sell advertising.

The linked articles constantly refer to "the models" as if it's a magic word. Well, I work as an actuary and I can tell you that there's no magic. They might as well use "scientists say"* as was done in children's science books from the '50s (oops, sorry, the articles do that, too), since those particular models aren't presented for our scrutiny when used as support for NewScientist's speculations.

-The pinball machine as an analogy to the chaos of climate is stupid, and misused. The discussion of predicting chaotic systems is acceptable, as a discussion of chaotic systems, but says nothing about the reality of AGW.
-Under "Climate myths: We can't trust computer models" the linked study actually confirms that we can't trust computer models. The (linked, presumably peer-reviewed) study shows that models will only be able to achieve so much accuracy, and no more. And there are no links there that justify the statement, "...there is no doubt that there will be warming."
-NewScientist claims that the idea that global cooling was hyped in the '70s was just a myth in the title of one of the articles. However, in the body of the article, NewScientist confirms that "myth". Then the article (not in a peer reviewed study) says, in essence, "This time we didn't make that mistake." Any scientist should know better than to say such a thing. For that matter, any movie-goer should know better.
-At at least one link went to another NewScientist article which contained a link to an IPCC report that says that AGW is likely. Although I'm familiar with some of IPCC's track record for making wild claims for political purposes, I'm disposed to accept that there's a lot of truth in the 21-page summary that I read.
-There's the link to the NewScientist (like most of the links, non-peer-reviewed) piece, "Ice cores show CO2 increases lag behind temperature rises, disproving the link to global warming." In discussing the very common lag between increased temperatures and the following increase in CO2, and the obvious conclusion that increased CO2 wasn't the "trigger" to end those ice ages, NewScientist states that no scientist has claimed otherwise. This is disingenuous at best, as that's not the claim that I've usually heard in connection with that data, and the "myth" in the title isn't the same as either. Further, nothing they say, or link to, in the paragraphs following that supports that CO2 is as "powerful" as they claim. Just more speculation.
-Time and time again, NewScientist uses the fallacy of Correlation = Causation, and even goes so far as to practically state it in the piece titled "Climate myths: Ice cores show CO2 rising as temperatures fell"
-In "Climate myths: The cooling after 1940 shows CO2 does not cause warming," NewScientist "debunks" the "myth" by spouting a bunch of speculation as if it were fact, then uses an "UPDATE" with new speculation in the last paragraph to debunk their own speculation (without acknowledging that they just did), and then they immediately claim that their new speculation is fact.
-NewScientist claims that the Mann study being proven wrong was a myth, then shows that the study really was proven wrong. Then, NewScientist pretends that the Mann study and report wasn't intentionally misleading, when it obviously was. If I tried to rate insurance that way (modeling that interpreted random data to mean somethin

Re:Anti-Evolution in other countries?

[albalbo]

In general, they don't.

There are some schools in the UK, for example, who teach cretinism, but they're privately funded "faith" schools and still have to adhere to a national curriculum which includes evolutionary theories.

Re:Weren't schools were supposed to do that alread

[Anonymous Coward]

Creation Science doesn't try to test God's involvement, only the actual physical events described in the Bible (for example, that there was a global Flood around 2,000 BC or so that wiped out all humans and animals that couldn't fit in a really big boat). It doesn't look at whether the events described in Genesis were really caused by God, only whether or not they occurred as described (and the mechanics behind how they occurred).

And this is precisely why it isn't science. Creationism says "God did it" without any way to test it. The conclusion is pre-determined. I know you realize that it isn't science, but I still shudder when I hear people call it "Creation Science? ID is creation science. They're not just similar, they're the same thing. Intelligent Design is just a different name.

If you recall the book that stirred controversy and went to the supreme court Of Pandas and People was originally a creation "science" book, but when the 1987 ruling that banned the teaching of creation science, Pandas was edited, replacing all instances of "Creation" with "Intelligent Design." The concepts are exactly the same, the arguments are exactly the same. Even though Intelligent Design does replace the Judeo-Christian God with a "fill in the blanks with whatever you want to believe" entity, the people pushing it are the same people that pushed creationism.

Re:Anti-Evolution in other countries?

[flnca]

Here in Germany, everyone is allowed to think what they want, because we've had trouble with that one in the past (cf. Nazism ). Kids are taught both religion and science in school (cf. German school system ). Teachers present their view of the world, and audiences are free to interpret it in any way they like.

In the public media, there's no competition between religion and science. If a German watches Discovery Channel, for instance, s/he might notice a strong bias for uncriticial conveyance of perceived "scientific facts" and sensationalism. Native German TV programmes about science (*) often have a very differentiated view on things. Media bias is important in judging the information being broadcast.

So, there's neither an "evolution movement" nor an "evolution-denial movement" in Germany.

Science is considered as something to be learnt for future employment, and whether it has any resemblance to reality is a matter of personal opinion.

(* = except when purchased from US-American sources, or privately owned channels trying to keep viewers watching by using sensationalism)

Argument Against Democracy

[just_forget_it]

"The best argument against Democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter." - Winston Churchill

Doesn't exactly apply here, but it's damn close enough.

Re:Anti-Evolution in other countries?

[AlXtreme]

Don't forget that during the last government a Christian (CDA, van der Hoeven) secretary tried to force the ID-discussion upon the education system in the Netherlands. Thankfully there was outcry all over. Evolution isn't going anywhere fast on this side of the Atlantic, and the ID-discussion in the States is met with unbelief here.

We do have a whole different problem in Europe though, that of Muslim students not wanting/having to learn about evolution in religious schools.

I'm all for a strict division between religion and education as that would solve both problems, but as long as you have entrenched religions beliefs within the education system it will be quite a hard task to ^W them.

Re:religion and evolution

[Epeeist]

Very very small mountains. More like molehills, compared to what we should have been able to find by now. What we have been unable to find is far more telling than what we have found. And given past indiscretions, it's difficult to see any current evidence as particularly trustworthy.

Piltdown man was suspicious from the start (see Miller's letter from 1915) and was debunked in 1953. A 50 year old fake hardly helps your case.

And as for evidence - have a glance at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/ I think you might find a fair amount there. And a nice simple example can be found here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUxLR9hdorI

Radio-carbon dating is less accurate than using a random-number generator. It relies on far too many assumptions. There are other dating methods that are more likely to be close to the truth, although none of them have a particularly good track record.

How about dendrochronology, varves, ice cores, coral banding, thermoluminescence etc. Care to tell us why all these are wrong? And why they are all wrong by the same amount?

I can show you gravity in action, to your face, on video, and to crowds. Evolutionary theory is based on guesses and unproven scientific methods (such as radio dating), and fossil "evidence", which is circumstantial at best.

I can show you evolution in action too, look at Google Scholar for the origin of Spartina Anglica. I can point even more close to home - why do you think I need a new flu shot every year?

Oh, nice conflation of "evolution" and "theory of evolution" by the way.

Re:No one is allowed to Question theory?

[WoollyMittens]

Because blind faith from a holy book does NOT lead to rational thinking. Faith is not science. You cannot "argue" faith. You can only "have" faith. Any conclusion from faith will be "God did it, because our book says so.". This is extremely dangerous reasoning.

Re:And here we go again

[Anonymous Coward]

The biggest problem with all these idiots is that they don't know what the world theory means.

All theses right wing religious people try to play off that the word 'theory' means the same thing as a 'guess'. Thats simply not the case

(n) theory; a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world; an organized system of accepted knowledge that applies in a variety of circumstances to explain a specific set of phenomena.

Gravity is a theory for fucks sakes, nobody questions why we stick to the surface of the planet! Evolution is under attack because it directly contradicts the Christian's creation myth, where as god was remarkably silent on topics like why we don't float off the planet.

I'm continually stunned on how bullshit laws like this keep popping up in a society that spells out a specific separation of church and state. Don't get me wrong, teach your creation myth all you want, but do it in a religious studies class, not a science class.

And for the record yes I'd stop calling it a myth if any evidence to the contrary was brought forward.

Re:Weren't schools were supposed to do that alread

[EXMSFT]

Mmm... Spaghetti!

Re:And here we go again

[Jafafa Hots]

The biggest problem with all these idiots is that they don't know what the world theory means.

All theses right wing religious people try to play off that the word 'theory' means the same thing as a 'guess'. Thats simply not the case

(n) theory; a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world; an organized system of accepted knowledge that applies in a variety of circumstances to explain a specific set of phenomena.

Gravity is a theory for fucks sakes, nobody questions why we stick to the surface of the planet! Evolution is under attack because it directly contradicts the Christian's creation myth, where as god was remarkably silent on topics like why we don't float off the planet.

I'm continually stunned on how bullshit laws like this keep popping up in a society that spells out a specific separation of church and state. Don't get me wrong, teach your creation myth all you want, but do it in a religious studies class, not a science class.

And for the record yes I'd stop calling it a myth if any evidence to the contrary was brought forward.

Exactly... and to take it further, evolution is a theory, but creationism is not even a theory. At BEST it's a hypothesis.

Re:And here we go again

[DrgnDancer]

I'm from Louisiana too. Doesn't make him wrong.

(Yes, I'm aware that this was a poor attempt at a joke)

Re:Bahahaha....

[Anonymous Coward]

2 very bad examples. The Dalai Lama stands for a political system not unlike a feudal one, you know, with stuff like slavery and all that. Tibet is arguably better off now than they would be with him, as terrible as that may sound. Mother Theresa was quite the horrible individual as well, in some ways. See here.

Re:Weren't schools were supposed to do that alread

[MostAwesomeDude]

We can test this scientifically. What happens when the Juggernaut (can't be stopped) charges into the Blob (can't be moved)?

I always assumed that the Blob would catch the Juggernaut, and slide backwards, slowly slowing the Juggernaut to a stop. The Juggernaut moves the Blob, and the Blob stops the Juggernaut.

Re:And here we go again

[notabaggins]

Many people seem to get it wrong; "well regulated" does NOT mean "under government control" at all. It means: well-trained, in good order, prepared to strike as soon as the need comes.

No, it doesn't. Look up the word "regulate".

Words do change over time you know? Such as, to say someone's work was "awful" a couple of centuries ago was a compliment, meaning "inspiring awe". Try saying it about someones art now.

"Regulated" at the time could also mean "functioning properly" or "orderly". In 1789, the law chartering the University of North Carolina began with:

"Whereas in all well regulated Governments, it is the indispensable duty
of every Legislature to consult the Happiness of a rising Generation,
and endeavour to fit them for an honorable Discharge of the Social
Duties of Life, by paying the strictest attention to their Education."

Are we to suppose that they meant governments regulated by government?

The Oxford dictionary lists as now obsolete the meaning:

(b) "Of troops: Properly disciplined"

Of "disciplined":

(3b) applying to the military, "Training in the practice of arms and military evolutions; drill. Formerly, more widely: Training or skill in military affairs generally; military skill and experience; the art of war."

Historically, the idea of having weapons for self-defense and hunting was simply a given. The point of the amendment was to establish a right to arms for the "militia" which was constituted of the people as a whole to defend your state. Remember, we didn't have a national army, we had state militias. A national, standing army is a recent thing (and something the Founders opposed mind you).

In short, you're supposed to be armed. Yes, you. We're all part of the militia that can be called up in case of emergency. Such a thing still persists in current law:

(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.

(b)(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/10/311.html

The "militia" still exists.

And if you're male and between 17 and 45, you're in it. Right now.

So you have your gun ready right? You're not going to show up with a, oh, feather duster or something are you?

(By the way, I ain't no "conservative". I think Obama is a right winger.)