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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.
So are you a proud idiot, or are you just slightly embarassed?
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
The word Protestant is like Gentile(non-Jew), it means not Catholic. There are Protestants who do believe in evolution.
Academia held to Newton's theory because it's STILL RIGHT*.
* only applicable for sufficiently small values truth
On a more serious note, you do appear to have a rather utilitarian view of "right". I, on the other hand, choose to reject utilitarian-instrumentalism due to it's inability to encourage daring and adventurous progress in the sciences. For me, "good enough" is not good enough for the empirical sciences, even if it is good enough for basic engineering, mechanics, etc.
Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure everything I just said is completely wrong.
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.
So I guess evolution is above challenge and being questioned? Last I knew it was still a theory, not a law. Tell me I can't question anything I want, be it right or wrong, and you'll get a punch in the nose :)
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
These backwards magical-thinking buffoons have no evidence, no tests, nothing to point to a different theory; they have a book. A book they believe trumps the evidence of our own eyes and our most advanced scientific methods.
Evolutionary theory has no tests either. You have a book too: Origin of Species. You have no evidence of your own eyes because your life span is less than 100 years and the lifespan of human existence is easily less than 10,000 years. Your only "evidence" says that because Animal A has feathers and Animal B has feathers and Animal A lived a long time ago then Animal A must be related to B. How do you explain that leap of logic? That's what I call magical thinking. That is no evidence at all.
If you think is was trying to say otherwise in my post I apologize for not being clear with my satire. I did mention however that I believed this proposal and those behind it to be "certifiable". My main point was to caution against dogmatic adherence, instead of critical acceptance, of the scientific theory.
Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure everything I just said is completely wrong.
Methinks the lady does protest too much. Your post is just the usual propaganda with a hidden atheist agenda. It is no better than creationist (YEC) propaganda. Any scientific theory that exempts itself from challenges and falsification is just that, propaganda. Macro evolution has no evidence other than a seriously flawed fossil record and the evidence, when it does exist, proves nothing. Macro evolution is no more falsifiable than creationism. The shrill cries that science is under attack is just BS masquerading as legitimacy. Isaac Newton believed that the universe and lifeforms were created but that did not stop him from revolutionizing physics. Texas should be applauded for its courage in the face of persecution. If your science is superior, it will survive. If not, it will fail. I am seeing signs of failure and the latest news doe not bode well for macro evolution and atheism.
Good science takes courage, courage to stand up in the face of mainstream boneheadedness. I got the guts to write the above on Slashdot, a bastion of atheism and Darwinism because that is what it takes. Now do your duty, moderators. Mod me down and see if I give a shit.
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.
'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.
"This is the most horrible sentence I think I have ever read in my entire life," said D Ninja, an irate reader who can't stand horrible sentences, which make people cringe in fear.
Be careful with the context of your pronouns, people!
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.
So just because Animal A has feathers and Animal B has feathers and Animal A lived before Animal B means that B originated from A? How do you make that logical leap of faith with no intermediate evidence except that which you have in your head to fit your bias? Evolutionary theory is built on incomplete, contrived evidence with no predictions for further observations unlike Newton's theory which proved correct existing observations and made predictions matching future observations (excluding extreme circumstances requiring relativity). By the way, based on what I just said, you are wrong. Newton's theory is not only incorrect at the atomic (requiring quantum theory) level but also at scales which contain extreme gravity (requiring general relativity).
No response here is necessary except for laughter. Are you SERIOUS???
Obviously you are, and you're too stupid to ever dig your hole out. Feel free to have your own ignorant ideas, but keep your hands off our children.
You're as much a menace to a child as someone who wants to ejaculate on children. Just STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM THEM.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
....all efforts should be made to falsify the accepted 'best' theory ....
The problem is, how do you falsify a belief? Both evolution and intelligent design are philosophical belief systems. Evolution has grasped the mantle of science and desperately wants to monopolize it. The witnesses of the past have to be believed or not in the same way that the witnesses of a criminal act have to be believed by the jury or not. In the study of origins or solving a crime that occurred in the past, we cannot go back in time and re-create the event.
Evolutionists preach their fundamental belief that all species stem from a common ancestor and intelligent design advocates preach common reusable design elements used in the building blocks of life. Creationists go a little bit further and want to identify the designer.
In all cases, the evidence we actually have is the same, but the prosecution (evolution) and the defense (intelligent design) are trying to convince the jury (popular opinion - our culture) to render a verdict in their favor.
When this country was founded, the founding fathers believed that human beings are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. Rights can only be given by persons to other persons. A tree, and river, or even mother Earth cannot bestow a right or a friendship to anyone. What individual rights can a mindless principle, such as natural selection, bestow on any human person? If there is no Creator God, then you have no inalienable personal rights. You are merely a slave to the might makes right principle, survival will of the fittest, or as Chinese dictator Mao expressed it: "Power belongs to the one with the best gun". Those who believe in the religion of evolution, should and not give themselves airs about personal liberty and freedom.
All theory is gray
A few facts from Anonymous, (the right to privacy is not just about killing babies)
Darwin will go down in history as the man who killed millions by proxy; His book "The Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection or, The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life" became the blueprint for Eugenics. The word "eugenics" was coined by Darwin's cousin Francis Galton in 1883. Galton sought to perfect the human race by ridding us of "undesirables" and multiplying "desirables". This idea caught on with planned parenthood's founder Margaret Sanger to justify killing black babies (but not her three babies) and by Hitler to kill Jews.
20 million babies a year are killed in the US by Eugenics believers to this day.
When this rocket scientist can be shown one, even one (1) example of cross species evolution I will believe the Darwinian fairy tale has come true.
(a)Darwin said that if there are not millions of fossil remains that incrementally change over time then his theory is wrong. Well there are no incremental fossil remains.
(b)The Cambrian explosion happened 250 million years ago, maybe (since no one was there) but most scientists agree that, that is not enough time to develop humans. The former head of the Smithsonian was so afraid of the truth of the Cambrian explosion he hid the fossils in the Smithsonian and they were not found again for 60 years. A lowly graduate student made the discovery. The text books don't mention the implications of this because it destroys the very notion of billion of years to evolve a human.
(c)It is generally agreed as of two years ago that chimpanzees cannot be the predecessor of humans genetically speaking.
(d)People have carbon dated notebook paper to be "one million years old", when the maximum age of the tree it came from was 60 years.
(e)Calling Darwinian evolution science is like calling the psychotic belief in the schizophrenic sex maniac Freud, science. It's just the product of people who refuse to believe in God and want to find any system, even an irrational belief system, to justify their existence.
It's a great fairy tale, lightening hit some pond water and poof magically there appeared some life. then the life got together and decided it would grow into bigger life. And radiation damage turned those cells into better critters and more better critters, and more better critters.
Reality check. Thousands of experiments with lightening and water have never produced even one protein molecule (amino acid) and there are 23 that need to be created in order to create life. And last time I checked radiation kills, every time. But yet you believe.
The irrational belief there is no GOD is illogical. I say prove your belief, there is no God. I can prove your god is false, as I just did in a couple of paragraphs.
I would put the whole thing on Wikipedia but they would just delete it. Intolerance is not a good character trait.
This is why people who do not believe in God are not allowed to testify in a court of law. They will say anything even, if they know it is false. Liberal teachers cannot be allowed to indoctrinate innocent children with unprovable lies. They still teach the Heckle drawings of fake evolution stages of babies in the womb; when actual pictures of human development prove the Heckle drawings are total fiction. (Read "Icons of evolution")
You have a right to believe anything you want. But you don't have a right to force others to believe it, that goes for the Bible as well.
And by the way, please show me where any part of the Bible has been PROVEN to be wrong. I do not know of such a proof. The Scientist is finished, thanks for listening, seek the truth and Love your neighbor by denouncing lies.
PS. Thanks to Slashdot for allowing those who value privacy to post anonymously. And please stop using "Google Analytics" and "Doubleclick" web bugs because they are used to track users.
Gould appears so rational, and yet he couldn't or wouldn't see, even when the evidence was in front of his eyes, that niggers are stupid.
I mean, this is the same state that gave us the amazingly anti-science George W. "I believe God wants me to run for president" Bush
And now we have Barrack "I believe I am God" Obama, as the answer.
This is my sig.