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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.'"
No steps forward and two steps back.
I suspect the paragraph about not being religious at all in the law will prove its downfall at SCOTUS.
Trying to become famous by taking photos. Visit my homepage please.
I wonder if they'll allow teachers of history and government classes to use laws like this as exercises in critical thought? (Or lack thereof...)
doesn't make it so...
To all you anti-evolutionists and everybody else that would like to ignore the facts: Life is like game of cards, and if you want your children to play with only half a deck the rest of the world will eventually eat you for lunch, no matter what you've got in military power.
Progress is based on facts, not on faith. If you don't believe that, then next time you go to hospital think where you'd be going *without* science but just your faith: the graveyard.
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"intelligent design" is not scientific,and definitely NOT a theory. Its a philosophical construct at best, and belongs in a philosophy class.
Maybe the middle school atmosphere has changed significantly in the fifteen years since I set foot in a high school classroom, but I don't recall high school ever being a place for developing critical thinking skills. We did that in college, or just plainly after high school. High school is where interests are sparked, but creativity in its chaotic adolescent form is stifled and controlled - tightly regulated if you will. In high school, we memorize and regurgitate what the teachers and the school board expects us too. Taking fundamental scientific knowledge and muddying it with manufactured politically motivated controversies is very dangerous. Critical thinking does not exist without a firm grasp of fundamental knowledge.
The trick of course is teach one to mimic the noise of criticism without attaching the meaning of it to those noises.
It's effective because the parroting will fool people unable to differentiate the qualitative differences.
I don't think it is correct to call ID a philosophical construct or to teach it in a philosophy class. I think it would be more correct to call it a political machination and teach it in a class on modern US politics.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
Suggesting critical thinking and discussion isn't a bad thing. However, it's clear that the motivation is political. The original article analyzed some of the subject areas and the alternative theories; and found that there is a misrepresentation of scientific facts as well as of the theory of evolution. It's all very tainted.
I don't think it is correct to call ID a philosophical construct or to teach it in a philosophy class. I think it would be more correct to call it a political machination and teach it in a class on modern US politics.
It's also interesting sociologically and psychologically, in that it represents of what happens when an irresistible force of scientific evidence meets the immovable object of faith.
Why not include legislation specifically allowing "critical thinking" about the holocaust, or "critical thinking" about democracy in history and social studies classes? Some good neo-Nazi and communist materials should be appropriate. And in health classes we can take time to teach about crystal healing.
I'm surprised they didn't suggest other topics in science that need some "critical thinking", such as the spheroidal Earth theory, the theory of gravity, and atomic theory.
This section of the proposed act is funny:
"D. This Section shall not be construed to promote any religious doctrine, promote discrimination for or against a particular set of religious beliefs, or promote discrimination for or against religion or nonreligion."
We don't have a religious motivation behind this, really!!
I'm sorry, but the thought that certain subjects in science (with a set of enumerated examples) need special attention from legislators in order to receive what they deem to be an appropriate level of "critical thinking" is very obviously motivated by politics and religion. I mean, why else would they be doing this? I'd be willing to bet that the current science curriculum already emphasizes the importance of building critical thinking into the understanding of science.
What this legislation is really about is providing a convenient legal pathway for pseudoscientific materials of any type to find their way into the classroom. And won't it be a nice surprise if, say, the Flat Earth Society is ready and willing to provide a glossy brochure, or textbooks for each and every student that they can take home if they like, in order to help out?
This is the same nonsense as Dover, Pennsylvania all over again, with legislation behind it and a more thorough attempt to launder the effort of its actual intentions.
Here's a critical thought: maybe it isn't the best thing to allow a bunch of politicians to decide which subjects supposedly need a dose of "critical thinking" above and beyond what will already be in there as a matter of course.
I seriously cannot stand this attitude. Science will not naturally prevail if the scientific community doesn't fight for it. We can't just sit back and let science defend itself. Science couldn't defend itself when the early Christian church burned the Library of Alexandria to the ground and killed the last living people who could read Egyptian heiroglyphics. Science couldn't defend itself when Al-Ghazzali started a fundamentalist movement in arabia that attacked the basic premise of cause and effect. The Christians were allowed to run amok and brought down the advanced Greco-Roman culture into the Dark Ages. The fanatical muslims were allowed to run amok in 1100 and brought the Islamic world into a dark age that is still persisting today.
No, it's philosophy. It's been taught in the philosophy classroom since the 18th century, since William Paley presented his "watchmaker" analogy.
It's not very good philosophy, though. In fact, it's really bad philosophy, but you need to know the mistakes of the past to avoid the same mistakes in the future. Which is why it is taught in the classroom. (I say this as someone who spent four years studying philosophy--mostly philosophy of religion--and earned his bachelor's in the subject.)
Creation Science is built around the idea that if you start with the Bible as the source of your hypotheses, you should be able to find scientific evidence that is consistent with those hypotheses.
Typical case of religion interfering with rational thought. Scientist: "here's the facts, what conclusion can we draw from them?". Christian: "here's the conclusions, what facts can we find to support them?"
If the evidence instead contradicts your hypothesis, then either your evidence is flawed, your interpretation of the evidence is flawed, or your interpretation of the Bible is flawed.
You missed one - or the Bible is flawed. It's amazing that if you tell someone that the world's biggest desert is Antarctica, they might be sceptical and look it up, but if you tell someone some guy was born of a virgin, resurrected someone who was dead long enough to stink, fed 5000 people with a bit of bread and a fish, and made 300 pigs jump off a cliff, backed up by dubious morality like Lot leaving his daughter out to be raped and murdered and having drunken incest just to protect the angel Gabriel (who you would've thought could look after himself), killing gay people (that thing that occurs naturally as a result of pre-natal hormone irregularity), and handing the same fate to people who eat shellfish (mmm, mussels in garlic sauce. yum) they take it in a snap. Of course it happened! I know this, because I was indoctrinated with this bullshit when I was young and I haven't become mature enough to be openminded and consider if it's wrong!
"Creation Science" is a contradiction in terms, but if you are going to consider it, look up "creation myths" in wikipedia, because there's a few hundred other hypotheses which deserve equal attention before you go for the one that YOU were taught as a child. Hawaiians believe that the first animal on the planet was an octopus which is part of an alien race, and all life came from that. You need to put that on the same level as your Jesus hypothesis.
How do you think that Noah managed to get 2 of every one of the 250000 species of beetles into his boat? Let alone the 40000 species of frog. Those two would take the lifetimes of thousands of people, and we haven't even worked out a way to stop the lions eating the gazelles.
To put it bluntly, the "goddidit" meme is pure laziness. Rather than try to work out what happened, you leave it to scientists, then twist their words to try to fit their hard-found evidence into your convenient cop-out for performing actual rational thought.
This is where humans came from: http://www.bio-pro.de/imperia/md/images/grafiken/wanderung_homo_sapiens.png
The time you talk of the great flood happening is roughly when humans first domesticated the dog and the sumarians learned to brew beer.
If the whole Bible was translated into wikipedia, someone would break the "citation needed" machine.
I wrote my first program at the age of six, and I still can't work out how this website works.
If you can't imagine how selective use of facts can bias a conclusion, then you're just not very creative. Facts may stand on their own, but if you start with a conclusion and then try to support it with facts, you will find facts to support it. It is far better to form a hypothesis and try to falsify it, as in the scientific method. If all you look for are the supporting facts, then you're never going to find the contradictory ones.
Of course, you make the same mistake in your post. You say we should assume the bible is false and then look for facts that derive from it. That's not what the parent said, and it's rather dishonest of you to spin it that way. The parent said that we assume the bible is true and then look for contradictory evidence. As it turns out, there's plenty to be had.
If, as you say, we assume the bible is false and it proves nothing, then there's nothing it's disproven, either, which means that there's no supporting evidence. So, by your own argument, the bible is a failed hypothesis.
Finally, I'd like to point out that your phrasing, "science was true" is meaningless. Science is not something that can be true or false. It is a methodology, a way of thinking, if you will. Either it works or it does not. You can label individual ideas that came from the scientific method as true or false, but the methodology is neither.
Mind you, I'm being liberal with my use of language. I find it scary when people use big words like charlatan and modus ponens without knowing what they mean. Here's a hint: a charlatan would be someone who pretends to be familiar with logic by using jargon like "modus ponens" because he pretends to have a skill he does not have. Someone who defends science is not a charlatan simply because he has used bad logic.
You can show me gravity, but can you show me how it works? Is gravity a wave, particle or just a spacetime curvature. Show me your evidence of how gravity works and you'll have won me over! Where is your evidence for the scientifically explainable gravity? Can you scoop up some 'gravitons' for me? All you can do is predict how gravity functions most of the time.
The truth is, gravity is a function of the Jesus. Plain and simple, by declaring it a function of a higher power, we simply reduce the equations to "X==Y becuase the Jesus says so." The reason you can predict most of gravity is because the Jesus is pretty good at math and predictable of his application of Intelligent Falling. He sometimes screws up on larger scales though, explaining a few anomalies. Problem solved.
I plan to be book to Louisiana by the truck load.
The real problem here is that what you call critical thinking is not what most religious nuts call critical thinking.
Critical thinking means that you don't believe something without evidence.
To these people, however, it means that you can criticize things that don't agree with what you want to say.
Teaching critical thinking has nothing to do with this bill. It's critical, alright, but it's missing the thinking bit.
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.
What have we been unable to find then?
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.
What's wrong with isochron dating? It only assumes that the isotope ratios in a rock don't change unless the rock melts. FWIW carbon dating is for archaeologists, not paleontologists.
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.
Gravity is both a fact and a theory. The fact is clear to everyone, and the theory is fundamentally unresolved. You may think you understand the theory of gravity, but you do not.
And all historical sciences are based on circumstantial evidence, since we have no witnesses.
Evolution is more than science for many people - including scientists. It's becomes a religious belief, and those who hold it defend it emotionally - they are as closed-minded as those on the other side of the fence. Critical discussion about and examination of all things should be encouraged.
No. Both sides do not always have valid points- sometimes you're wrong. Stupid is stupid. It isn't "religious" just to call out stupidity when you see it.
Can I teach anything as fact based on any religion? Not just 'Christianity'.
Because you can - or because you should?
I am neither wealthy nor influential, nor do I think that is the American Dream. Being able to own a home and provide for one's family through hard work and self reliance without interference from an oppresive Government is the American Dream. Unfortunately many are confused and think it is what you seem to think it is. Equally unfortunate is that the dream IS being threatened by an increasingly insular and incestuous Government. Like I said...it's the Government that's broken, not the dream.
You are correct that both are beliefs. On the other hand, evolution makes predictions that can be tested. That gives us validation that it is valuable to believe it. ID does not make any predictions that can be tested, giving us no reason to believe it. That is the difference between science and religion.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
From your very own link:
1 The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground. 2 "My lords," he said, "please turn aside to your servant's house. You can wash your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning."
"No," they answered, "we will spend the night in the square."
3 But he insisted so strongly that they did go with him and entered his house. He prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast, and they ate. 4 Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom--both young and old--surrounded the house. 5 They called to Lot, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them."
6 Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him 7 and said, "No, my friends. Don't do this wicked thing. 8 Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don't do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof."
That sure looks to me like the men of Sodom (all of them, too!) came to rape the angels at Lot's house, and Lot offered up both his virgin daughter for the mob to "do what [they] like with". Thats seems pretty much consistant with the GP's interpretation, I must say, despite a few minor errors (angel's name, one daughter not too, etc).
Moreover it's your assertion that the GP point that it's absurd to think 2 of every species fit on a boat because the bible says it was >=2 of every kind of animal/bird fit on a boat? Despite the fact that 2 or 7 of every kind of animal on a boat is still outrageous, you are basing that point on a modern definition of the words "kind" and "species", and ignoring the fact that the bible has been translated/edited so many times it's impossible to know exactly what the meaning was. The gp's point was that the bible has some very irrational things in it, and all you did was nitpick minor errors that had nothing to do with that point.
How dare the State think that school boards should have any input on their schools curriculum? Its not the communities decision what their children should be learning.
If it ain't right by slashdot, then by god it shouldn't be taught!
No - I think that teaching science should be left to those who have expertise in science. TFA claims that such people oppose this bill. The whole reason we are getting into this mess is because schools are being forced to pander to what "the community" thinks should be taught.
Of course if the school board does their job right, this bill won't have any effect, but it paves the way for that possibility.
Seriously now, what's with all the hate at even the idea of a creator?
Okay, I'll bite: what hate?
But it also seems clear to me that believing that we are the result of neo-darwinism takes a leap of faith as great as believing in any "made up" Religion.
No, it doesn't. On the one hand we have something supported by vast amounts of evidence. On the other hand, stories that people can make up. Just because we can't prove anything with 100% certainty doesn't mean that all claims are equally plausible!
what's wrong with teaching children to discuss and god forbid, question popular *and* unpopular ideas. Isn't the real goal that children learn to think for themselves and make up their own minds?
Nothing as long as it's based on evidence, and god discussion is done in the appropriate class (i.e., philosophy or religious education, not science). There is no reason to pick out evolution specifically as needing "questioning", anymore than say General Relativity.
Kinda like claiming that Noah was instructed to put "two" of every "species" in an ark (got a source for either? didn't think so) (and following genesis quote)
Yes, I knew it was seven, but it wasn't really the time and place to bring up little-known facts about the bible. Fine. 7 just makes it even less plausible.
Lot "leaving his daughter out to be raped" as "morality" (got a source for either? didn't think so) or trying to save the "angel Gabriel" (got a source for that? didn't think so).
Genesis 19:8: "19:8 Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof." etc..etc.. http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/gen/19.html You would've thought that a prophet charged with punishing the nasty gay people for their sins would set a better example than trading his daughters as collateral for his imaginary sky friend.
Only your laziness in attacking a book you haven't bothered to actually read.
Except that bit where I was forced to read it by a load of fundie teachers and do a GCSE exam on the subject, before joining a bible reading group.
if you came to one of my science classes and made so many basic errors in the first paragraph of your first test essay question, do you really think you'd pass?
Splitting hairs over the specific number of animals that boarded the ark is hardly a reasonable argument. If you're going to defend the story, supposed to be making the whole thing sound plausible, not say "haha, you didn't quote it verbatim".
I wrote my first program at the age of six, and I still can't work out how this website works.
I have no hate at the *idea* of a creator; I hate the idea of people forcing *their* idea of a creator onto others. I think what appears to be people hating the idea of a creator is actually people reacting to hundreds of years of another group of people forcing their idea of a creator onto others, often at the point of a sword or at the thread of being burned at the stake.
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/PeanosAxioms.html
Uh... you are comparing "Zero is a number" etc to "God exists"... axioms in Math and Science are "small". How does God exist? What are the scope of his powers? What is the density, length and colour of his beard? Does he have noodly appendages? Probably the most "controversial" axioms in Math (in the sense that they may not be self evident) are:
1. The parallel postulate (f a line segment intersects two straight lines forming two interior angles on the same side that sum to less than two right angles, then the two lines, if extended indefinitely, meet on that side on which the angles sum to less than two right angles.)
2. The axiom of choice (Let C be a collection of nonempty sets. Then we can choose a member from each set in that collection. In other words, there exists a function f defined on C with the property that, for each set S in the collection, f(S) is a member of S.)
In both cases, both axioms have been assumed both true and false to create their own sets of theorems (E.g. Euclidean geometry, which everyone knows (well..) vs. Non-euclidean geometry which is used in relativity etc... these differ on wether or not the parallel postulate is accepted)
Calling God an axiom is a losing argument.
Isn't the real goal that children learn to think for themselves and make up their own minds?
Yeah, we should teach children to discuss and question popular ideas like the world orbits the sun. After all, surveys show a significant minority believes the sun orbits the earth! We shouldn't deny alternatives to the heliocentric model. We should study and debate them! Common sense observations contradict the tyrannical model imposed by "scientists". Let's open an honest debate on the matter. After all, it takes a great leap of faith to believe in the heliocentric model. Yet we have allowed this atheistic, naturalistic model to be accepted as "correct" and any other answer is "incorrect".
Further, by what right do the schools say "2 + 2 = 5" is "wrong"? Children should be able to explore alternatives to the popular theories of "math". It's religious discrimination as some believe that 1 + 1 + 1 = 1.
TEACH THE CONTROVERSY!
Perhaps a class "How to deal with the willfully ignorant" that analyzes the various religions of the world and teaches the students to not bother with logic or rationality when dealing with an adult who believes in imaginary friends and life after death in the absence of any evidence.
Religion 'confronts' nothing. It's the produce of semi-savage cultures. Hell, the ancient Hebrews were a bunch of genocidal wackos who destroyed whole city states...men and boy children, saving the women for themselves...by order of their 'god'. That's the basis of most of Western Religion. Coarse, ignorant, cowardly and hateful. We must be teaching our children how to deal with the kinds of semi-evolved who willfully believe such schlock.
Oh, and great troll :D
Blar.
Nothing wrong with that. But since *critical* thinking is to be encouraged, then the thoughts that must be encouraged are those that question the usually established "truths" in the child's community.
In the case of Louisiana, and other southern USA states, this means questioning religion, not science. In the case of the USA as a whole, this would also include questioning the idea that global warming might not exist or might not be caused by humans burning fossil fuels.
Critical thinking questioning science should only be encouraged in the scientific community itself, because that seems to be the only community where the scientific method is implicitly assumed to be correct. If the child has no idea of what the words "scientific theory" mean, to present arguments questioning any scientific theory will NOT cause any development of the child's critical thinking.
"No - I think that teaching science should be left to those who have expertise in science.
True, but are you saying that non-experts can't object? You laugh and make flat-earth jokes, but it used to be accepted science in the early 19th century that some races were superior to others. In the early 20th century, eugenics became standard fare in science circles, backed by all learned men, not just scientists. Scientists said eugenics was solid scientific truth, and so people from Woodrow Wilson to Margaret Sanger endorsed the theories in practice. Eugenics did't fall out of favor until people objected to it on moral grounds.
Humans are not machines... we do not (and truly, can not) judge all things on pure logic. There are other things we value. That's not an excuse to ignore scientific proof, but realize that, from past experience, even scientists have re-evaluated their ideas and found them wanting, even if they had good data behind them. Eugenics is an excellent example of this. Maybe we could build a super-pure, almost perfect race through breeding programs and forced sterilization of the "unfit". But we'd abandon our humanity in the process. Not all scientific issues should be settled on purely logical grounds. Not if you want to keep any semblance of free will.
Scientists and their allies don't want to hear this, but when it comes to the spread of knowledge, they have the same responsiblity as religious clergy do: they have to win hearts and minds. Simply declaring from the mountaintop "The data says this, and you will adjust your policies accordingly" is kind of a stupid thing to do with human beings, especially humans in free societies. Simply being told that they have to do something often provokes rebellion for rebellion's sake, even if, upon further reflection, they might have agreed with the scientist in the first place. If you're going to have a career in science, and you're committed to spreading that knowledge to everyone, then you're going to have to take on that missionary role. If you tell people "science says so, this is the policy, this is what will be taught"... well, your opponents are only going to dig in harder.
Part of the problem that modern scientists have is that they're so far apart from the rest of the population (in the US, anyway) on their world views. Most Americans are religious, and a huge chunk of them are deeply so. Mocking those people isn't going to help your case. When you try to convince them of a position, first tell them the truth... that you only deal in what can be proven and tested. That means that you tell the existence of God can't be proven via scientific evidence, not "there is no God, you peons". Frankly, you can't prove that either. Second, respect their beliefs, even if you don't agree. You're the minority here, by far, and so taking an authoritarian tone is only going to make things worse.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Yes, we all evolved from semi-savige cultures. However, we learned to leave much of the savage ways behind. Except for religion, as it comforts the simple and intellectually lazy.
Blar.