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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.
Take oil companies. Finding oil is a very important and high-stakes issue for them. Literally hundreds of billions of dollars are riding on it. When the chips are down and they need to find the most likely spots to drill - what kind of geology do they use? Flood geology, or mainstream? Which one actually delivers the goods?
Let's assume the Earth is only a few thousand years old. Where did the oil come from? Was it created in the ground with the rest of the Earth? If so, is there a way to predict where it might be found? Or perhaps it really did form from plants and dinosaurs, but about 10,000 times faster than any chemist believes it could? Any way you look at it, a young Earth and a Flood would imply some very interesting scientific questions to ask, some interesting (and potentially extremely valuable) research programs to start. How come nobody's actually pursuing such research programs?
Why don't fundamentalists put together an investment fund, where people pay in and the stake is used as venture capital for things like oil and mineral rights? If "Flood geology" is really a better theory, then it should make better predictions about where raw materials are than standard geology does. The profits from such a venture could pay for a lot of evangelism. Why don't they do this?
(It turns out some people actually are doing this - or, at least, claiming too. But it appears that deeply-held beliefs are easier to exploit than deeply-held oil reserves.)
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
To a certain extent. But Newton's theory is not wrong, not by a long shot. It's just not right on the atomic scale. Newton built his theory on evidence, just as evolutionary theory is built on evidence. Academia held to Newton's theory because it's STILL RIGHT. They still teach Newtonian Mechanics in colleges for a reason. I suppose that's a great comparison, actually... there's so much evidence that evolution is right that the details are all that's left to sort out.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
"It was on those streets, in those neighborhoods, that I first heard God's spirit beckon me. It was there that I felt called to a higher purpose -- his purpose." -- Barack Obama
One must first understand the story of Noah is based heavily in Sumarian lore. When civilization was first spawning it's first resou...er cities they choose to stick them in places rather convenient for growing large amounts of food and such.
One of these was near Ur and Lagash and such which just happened to be where the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers come together. Oh! By the way did you know that land there, well that land there, is a low land and in the past was prone to massive flooding.
So yes, to early civilization as the stories and tales spread out from the epicenter of humanity, the entire world DID indeed flood.
--- I do not moderate.
there are precious few christians who have even heard of the documentary hypothesis or the two source hypothesis. most christians remind me instead of children who know how quickly every car on the market does 0-60 but don't know how an internal combustion engine works.