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Texas Vote May Challenge Teaching of Evolution
tboulay writes "The Texas Board of Education will vote this week on a new science curriculum designed to challenge the guiding principle of evolution, a step that could influence what is taught in biology classes across the nation. The proposed curriculum change would prompt teachers to raise doubts that all life on Earth is descended from common ancestry. Texas is such a large textbook market that many publishers write to the state's standards, then market those books nationwide. 'This is the most specific assault I've seen against evolution and modern science,' said Steven Newton, a project director at the National Center for Science Education, which promotes teaching of evolution." Both sides are saying the issue it too close to call. Three Republicans on the school board who favor the teaching of evolution have come under enormous pressure to reform their ways.
The Catholic church is in agreement with the theory of evolution, so it's time for it to make it clear to its followers they need to support the teaching of evolution over creationism.
I didn't realize they had these problems in Connecticut.
Proud member of the American Non Sequitur Society. We might not make much sense, but boy do we love pizza!
While Dover wasn't a precedent-setting case per se, Judge Jones final decision, in particular the elements of it demonstrating how evolution had been picked out of all the sciences for "special treatment" will be applicable if this reaches Federal court. Simply put, as much as the Fundies dishonest and fundamentally immoral argument that they're just trying to teach the flaws, they are in fact simply trying to get Creationism through the backdoor.
Let's be clear here. Creationism is dead Edwards v. Aguillard), Intelligent Design is dead (Kitzmiller v. Dover), and now all these incredibly dishonest scam artists and their ignorant followers (most of which probably aren't even aware they're being scammed) have got left is Teach the Controversy.
Here's the news, THERE IS NO SCIENTIFIC CONTROVERSY OVER BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION. The number of real scientists (and no, engineers and mathematicians are not scientists) who disagree with evolutionary is so exceedingly small to be utterly irrelevant. Even one of ID's biggest formulators, Michael Behe, doesn't disagree with evolution or Common Descent.
What I'm wondering, when this is handed back to them by the courts, where will they go next? What's left after "Teach the Controversy"?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Anyone who says, "Evolution's just a theory" should read up on what the word "theory" means within the scientific community:
Natural selection meets these criteria, as does evolution as a whole. Saying "evolution is a theory" is like saying gravity is just a theory. If you want to test gravity (and natural selection, for that matter), jump off a tall building and see if you can fly.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
I am a Christian who believes the Bible. I therefore believe that "God created the heavens and the earth."
I believe this is called begging the question. It's a type of logical fallacy and is not admissible in any intellectually honest debate. Please take a moment to review "begging the question." Google is your friend.
Well, there are a lot of religious folk who don't have a problem with evolution: e.g., Catholics, pretty much any mainstream Protestant church, lots of Jews...
And in fact, many of them have taken just that tack of "evolution as process, God as architect." It's nothing new, either - Darwin's book prompted controversy in religious circles when it was first published, but plenty of religious figures accepted it then, and plenty do now.
If you're interested in reading historical religious perspectives on it, check out The Post-Darwinian Controversies, which looks at a bunch of different religious reactions to Darwin.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
it's not about being right or wrong, it's about the churches losing more and more people who are realizing that this religion stuff is nothing more than control.
so the churches fight back by trying to introduce this stuff into schools.
read about the "wedge document" and see what i mean. it is not now, nor was it ever about scientific anything -- it is religious psyops designed to confuse and mislead the public about science in order to win sheep back to the fold.
http://www.antievolution.org/features/wedge.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge_strategy
"If for any reason you're not satisfied with our service, I hate you."
Yes, but is it good enough for early schooling? I learned the Bohr Rutherford model of the atom first (which is not wrong, but also is not completely right) and then moved on to the Quantum Mechanical Model in college. Should I have jumped straight into the Quantum Mechanical Model? Cause I'll tell you, with out the foundation set by the first model, there's no way I would've understood it. Not to mention that the Quantum mechanical Model isn't completely right either.
Darwin was not a psychologist! He was a med-student who eventually earned a degree in theology(!) after he neglected his medical studies.
But he didn't blindly accept a literal interpretation of the bible for a vague explanation of how life works. He got off his ass, collected empirical data, and formed hypotheses. And he was a lifelong naturalist.
See this. Scientific American also have a series of great articles for Darwin's 200th birthday, you may want to check 'em out.
The lack of explanation for the beginning of life is not a limitation of the theory of evolution, but rather, is not part of the theory at all. It is a common mistake, but these are completely separate concepts. Evolution does not even try to explain how life began, just how it changes since it has been here.
No he has a nuanced understanding of the term fact and theory. Stephen Jay Gould wrote an amazing piece on this in Discover in the early 90s. To quickly summarize: Creationist idiots use the vernacular meaning of theory (untested hypothesis or imperfect fact). However science has a different definition of theory which means a hypothesis that has been tested to a sufficient extent and proven to be an excellent model such that it should be called a Theory (big T) on par with Relativity for example.
So SJG suggested we use the term scientific fact to keep the creotards from using a semantics argument to suggest that even scientists don't believe that evolution by natural selection occurs or explains life on our world. He proposed a definition of a scientific fact as: "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent."
And in that regard Evolution is a fact (and a Theory with a big T.)
What is unbelievable is that Americans criticize fundamentalism in Muslim countries but they do not see the bigotry in their own culture.
So much for pretending to have the moral high ground.
Please don't use the term "Americans". It refers to many of us that do realize the complete hypocrisy and idiocy of major portions of the population. And, yes, we hate it as much as you do.
So in the future, when referring to these people, please use "Rednecks" or "Hillbilly Yokels" or "Inbred Fucktards".