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Texas Board of Education Supports Evolution
somanyrobots writes with this excerpt from the Dallas News:
"In a major defeat for social conservatives, a sharply divided State Board of Education voted Thursday to abandon a longtime state requirement that high school science teachers cover what some critics consider to be 'weaknesses' in the theory of evolution. Under the science curriculum standards recommended by a panel of science educators and tentatively adopted by the board, biology teachers and biology textbooks would no longer have to cover the 'strengths and weaknesses' of Charles Darwin's theory that man evolved from lower forms of life. Texas is particularly influential to textbook publishers because of the size of its market, so this could have a ripple effect on textbooks used in other states as well."
Things are turning around for the better :)
Finally Intelligent Design is getting the boot it deserves.
This is the sig that says NI (again)
I'm all for teaching evolution but would someone please explain to me what the issue was with teaching the strengths and weaknesses? If science teaches us anything it is that we should always continue to question and refine our studies, not idly stand by and accept them as fact. No one is saying we have to introduce creationism or try to make evolution appear only as a theory (which some might argue it still is), but there is no reason we need to teach our students to blindly accept it as fact, without doubt or admission of weakness. This is not the spirit of science and frankly not in the best interest for those who probably already don't care that much about it. Whats gives?
When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up... reading.-Henny Youngman
Children are impressionable. They are (usually) unable to weigh the pros and cons of arguments and instead defer to authority figures. There are some theories which are not legitimately challenged in today's scientific world.
Should we teach alternative theories to the reason why things fall down? (Intelligent falling perhaps) After all, the Theory of Gravity is only a theory, not a fact.
Or perhaps that "the weight of a body on the surface of a heavenly body is the reaction force caused by the acceleration of the surface of the heavenly body away from its centre."
http://www.copples.clara.net/gravity.htm
This is an alternative theory of Gravity. It may even be true, however, no one seems to be trying to teach kids the controversy... because there isn't one. The science taught in high schools is well supported and, as mentioned above, not challenged by academia in any real way.
We have an obligation to our children to shield them from ideas which masquerade as science because they lack the skills needed for proper scientific inquiry. I can go to an average high school class and, assuming they don't have any smart asses, teach them about the horrible problems associated with dihydrogen monoxide. Chances are I can convince every one of them to firmly assert that they would be willing to ban water.
http://www.snopes.com/science/dhmo.asp
86% of freshman supported a ban on water,
12% were undecided
2% correctly identified it as water.
It's not that difficult to dupe the public as a whole, let alone children in an authoritative setting. You teach the best science available and continue to teach it until a better theory presents itself. It may take years for this "better theory" to get from not accepted to partially accepted to almost universally accepted, however, IMHO we shouldn't be teaching it until it gains the support of the majority of the scientific community.
Leave the debate on alternative theories of gravity to the Ph.D's who (probably) know what they are talking about. Teach it in the schools when you've convinced a gross majority of them. Convincing a gross majority of the general public does not make it a scientific theory.
"Dictator Flakes. They WILL be delicious."
I see you have never had a science lab class. It's a pity, you don't know what you've missed.
I remember even the meanest bullies in the class loved the part where we measured the speed of a BB, or the frog dissection.
If by "The rest of the civilized world," you mean to exclude predominantly Muslim countries such as Turkey, then yes, it's just an American problem. (I wouldn't say "North American" problem; evolution isn't much of a problem in Mexico or Canada.) Muslim versions of Creationism are gaining ground.
This may become a problem in the UK and other parts of Europe, as Muslims will probably react to secularism much in the same way American Evangelicals have. We're starting to see it happen.
We didn't develop from fish and apes, we developed from something which also developed into fish and apes, who are at the same point in evolution as us. It's this sort of thinking which doesn't help.
That's not presenting an opposing idea and letting people come to their own conclusion, but rather intentionally presenting well-known facts in extremely misleading and overcomplicated ways in an attempt to trick them
Congratulations, you've just summarized creation science, intelligent design, or whatever they're calling it at the moment.
"Creationism" is as simple an idea as "water". To fool people into thinking it's science, its proponents rely on the unfair DMHO trick you object to.
Texas as far as I can see takes no position on what specifically currently is accepted by scientific community as science, leaving that once again as it had always been before, up to publishers of science books. That seems a wise choice.
And Texas likewise makes no limitations on what may be presented in courses on history, literature, comparative religion, anthropology, and so on. That also seems wise. The only problem was teaching religion in a science course. That problem is now solved.
As a biologist, I'm not aware of any "weaknesses," in terms of inconsistency with the evidence. I've read those promoted by ID/creationists, and all are false or downright fraudulent.
But there are certainly areas of evolutionary theory where unresolved questions remain. These are appropriate for discussion in classes at the appropriate educational level--graduate courses, or high-level undergraduate college courses--where students have the educational background to understand the issues.
No, the equations of Newtonian physics are always wrong. Sometimes they are wrong by such a small amount that the error is not practically important, but being only a little bit wrong is not the same as being right.