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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 word Protestant is like Gentile(non-Jew), it means not Catholic. There are Protestants who do believe in evolution.
A good scientist would also doubt that all life on Earth descended from one common ancestor. Who is to say for, for example, that early life didn't arise spontaneously in more than one place at (approximately) the same geologic time?
The difference between science and religion is that science can change when new evidence becomes available. When I was in grade school, Pluto was a planet and dinosaurs were cold-blooded. Pointing out areas in evolutionary biology where evidence is lacking, or conclusions are uncertain, would be fully compatible with a rigorous scientific education.
But if the pro-evolution camp were to admit that it's OK to question scientific conclusions, that would open up the possibility of the religious right getting something they want. Atheists would generally rather misrepresent science than do that.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
and what exactly did Darwin know about biology... he was a bloomin' psychologist I can accept that prevalent theory are taught but religion is not something that changes your view of one thing it changes your view of how then entire universe works... and schools should allow for students to learn they way they choose not force one or the other down thier throats creationist don't disagreed with non-creationists about the laws of nature they disagree about what upholds them
Respect the Constitution
6. "Although this proposal, and the people behind it, are certifiable, the idea that a theory of evolution holds some special uncriticizable position because of the 'preponderance of evidence' is just as stifling to scientific progress as the dogmatic fervor with which academia held to Newton's theory of gravitation. A theory should always be accepted as necessarily conjectural, and all efforts should be made to falsify the accepted 'best' theory and replace it with a better theory." -Me
So let me get this straight, you think we should entertain the idea of replacing the theory of evolution with the theory that the earth is only 10,000 years old and life came about in it's current form by way of a "magic man"?
I highlighted the answer to your question (it's in my original post). If English is not your native tongue: the word "certifiable", is often used as shorthand for "certifiably insane".
Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure everything I just said is completely wrong.
I have yet to see proof that Evolution explains how life began. Sure, it explains how life can change/advance, but not how it started. I think it is disingenuous to suggest people are closed minded for pointing out this fundamental limitation of the theory.
If you want to see really ignorant closed minded people, look at socialist or communist ideologues, their ideology has been repeatedly and convincingly disproven with facts and yet they still cling to it.
Respect the Constitution
Understanding domain is a very important science lesson you seem to have missed.
Meh. 'Domain' is just a way of letting many epistemological methodologies all be called 'science'. I'll take my critical-rationalism and damn the rest!
Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure everything I just said is completely wrong.
So you're going to join a prehistoric agrarial society then ?
You forget that utilitarian approaches in both case are a necessity. We cannot calculate the most trivial of things with quantum mechanics, or even Bohr's model is not solvable (currently) for anything more complex than a SINGLE helium atom. Even Einstein's view of the world is too difficult to calculate for everything. Actually even Newton's gravity law is too complex to calculate (google "three body problem", the solar system alone has over 50.000 distinct bodies ... we can't solve Newton's equations for 3 bodies, do you seriously think we use either quantum mechanics or even einstein ?)
Likewise evolution posits a model that is too complex to evaluate even in trivially simple cases, since determining what exactly "properties" are is too complex, and hence Mendel's laws are of limited use in the real world. Some things magically behave like Mendel predicted, most things ... don't. In fact the large majority doesn't.
Unfortunately we know that Mendel's laws are ... ridiculously simple compared to "the truth". They do not take into account transcription factors and genes (e.g. they provide no way to model the quantity of ribosome output genes produce, they do not take into account the timing, they do not take into account ...)
Even if we were to include these transcription factors (which are instructions for the cell nucleus to change the "details" of the transcription process for this specific gene : timing, triggering, quantity, ...) there's a ... bit of an issue ... interaction between the chemical products themselves. Interaction between proteins is so hugely complex, even though all components are known, we know basically nothing about it. We certainly can't predict 2 proteins will interact.
The most powerful supercomputers are just becoming (barely) able to model the interaction of (simple) proteins with themselves (as long as it's purely a mechanical interaction, no chemistry involved : ie. it may change shape, it may not form any new bonds). Seeing what molecule a gene would produce if transcribed is just barely joining the realm of what is possible, for simple cases.
So both evolution theory, and even Newton's laws are too complex to be used outside of "positive" experiments.
The correct solution would be ... well I don't know ... perhaps to wait a hundred years for computers to catch up with basic theories ?
Add to that the fact that science is being increasingly politicized. Even though we know little about specific genes, it is beyond trivial to arrive at the inevitable conclusion : races are different.
And they are different in a very racist way : no way an (average) white person can keep up with the (average) black person in a race. In fact "whites" are the slowest people on the planet. On the other hand they are by far the tallest. But, on average, the white person will have a full 20 points of IQ advantage on the black guy (and yellow skins will have another 5-6 points on the white guy, if you remove Chinese from the yellow skins the remainder will have a full 10 points on the average white guy). Arabs are a little bit smarter than the average black guy (about 5 points), but still seriously dumber than the average yellowskin.
Try and defend that to a democrat.
That's what is meant by macro evolution and it's the part that is not falsifiable. It is legitimate to point this little fact out to evolutionists but they will not listen to reason. Claiming that part of the fossil record shows a progression is not proof. We see progression over time when we breed our pets and farm animals. Big deal! A chihuahua is still a dog. Its genes did not evolve; they were selected (or deselected) for expression from a pool that had existed for millions of years. The sort of pseudoscience that asserts that hippos evolve into whales (no falsifiability whatsoever) or fish into lizards will flourish whenever science is used to support a pre-existing mindset or ideology. Atheism and refusal to accept the possibility of creation/intelligent design is the ideology that underlies macro-evolution. A priori conclusions do not lead to good science. It is chicken shit science. Live with it.