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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.
This is not an attempt to falsify the teaching of evolution. 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. These people aren't asking for ID to be taught because they don't think evolution explains the evidence; they are asking for ID to be taught because they don't think.
Duh, her name was Hera Agathon.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
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.
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!
I've never understood why religious folk have such a hard time with evolution. I mean, can't they just say "okay, fine, evolution is the process, and God is the architect". Far as I can see, that kind of solves it.
I do not recall any teacher or textbook saying that evolution proves that God doesn't exist. (For me, bigotted religious zealots did quite a good job of that all on their own).
I know there are those born again types who fervently believe that the Earth is only 6000 years old so they'll never be satisfied until the schools are beginning and ending each lesson with a prayer and throw out all textbooks in favor of bibles, but cummon, there have got to be SOME sane people in Texas.
The Digital Sorceress
perhaps it would be better to release the members of the board into a remote ecosystem with limited resources, and allow them to compete, whereby the most well-adapted board member is selectively chosen not to starve, and he or she at that point decides the issue of whether or not to teach evolution
if on the other hand, angels are heard singing, a bright light shines from the sky, and a booming voice chooses one particular board member while the rest perish in a scream and a flash, destined for eternity to hell, maybe that will decide the issue instead
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
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.
as a good biology grad, I'm always interested in hearing about holes
I think I speak for all males when I say, you're not the only one!
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What I wish these extremist nuts would understand is that the theory of evolution does not, ipso facto, rule out the possibility of a supernatural creator. Evolution is simply an ever-refining description of how life unfolded on Earth. No one is staking any claim in the theory concerning who or what (if anyone or anything) might have initiated or guided or overseen the process. There are tens of millions of Christian clergy, theologians, and laity who accept evolution as the process that God used to achieve his purposes. Even among evangelicals, most no longer subscribe to the literality of Genesis -- they understand the "six days" of creation as metaphor. They also understand that the Bible is not meant to be a complete, literal history that can be quantified (a la Bishop Usher) to produce a firm figure for the age of the universe.
So, who are these Christians who are on the anti-evolution bandwagon? Not Christians in general. Not even evangelicals. It's a tiny subset that still insists that evolution "denies God," that the universe was literally created in six days, that species were set and defined at the moment of creation, etc. In other words, a minority of a minority of a minority, if you will. And yet, these vastly outnumbered idjits carry incredible weight and influence, especially in the heartland, and people cower in fear of upsetting them.
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
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.
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.
The theory of evolution is just as well established as any other scientific theory that is taught in public schools, and should be treated the same way as the others.
When high school science classes start encouraging kids to question the existence of gravity, or to look for alternative explanations for electricity, then we can talk about casting doubt on evolution as well. But to single evolution out for special treatment because certain idiots feel that it threatens their personal superstitions is to condone ignorance -- which is not what science classes are meant to do.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
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
Well, sure, and it also gave us Molly Ivins.
Still, I wonder.
Think about the places that have lots of oil. Nigeria. Saudi Arabia. Venezuela.
Now, think about how enlightened those places are in comparisons to place that built their economy mostly on the industry and ingenuity of their people. Would you rather live in Switzerland or Nigeria? Denmark or Venezuela?
The thing is, if you want to make a lot of money by digging it out of the ground, once you have enough engineers and accountants and such to fill your needs, an intelligent, educated populace doesn't contribute much to the corporate bottom line. They're a pain in the ass, to be frank. They'll complain about environmental costs you foist on them. They'll ask inconvenient questions about the financial aspects of the government's relationship to the extracting companies, like the details of leases for public lands, waivers, permits and the like.
If you're one of the major benefactors of an extraction based economy, you want your average neighbor to be as idiotic as possible. Since making this happen costs money like anything else in this world, you also want them to stay that way. What's the cheapest way of doing this?
You make them proud. You fill their heads with glorious myths and very few hard facts, until they'll fight like hell to stay ignorant.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Science has nothing to do with "using our own minds". I can't determine the existance or non-existance of the Higgins Bossom and my opinion about it is completely worthless, as well as any conclusions I might reach on my own using my studies, judgement, rational thought, whatever... ... because I'm not a physicist, nor do I work, investigate or experiment in the field.
That's the crux of the problem when creationists say "we want both theories to be taught, so the kid can choose for himself". The kid doesn't have the tools to prove or disprove any theory on scientific grounds, and nor should he... ... ultimately, to the common joe, science requires faith. So what's the difference between science and religion then? Science constantly delivers tangible results (as shown by the existence of cloned sheep and the Nintendo Wii) transparently, and is willing to unfold it's full body of knowledge and possibilities to anyone willing to dedicate to it.
As a Slashdot discussion grows longer, the probability of an analogy involving cars approaches one.
"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
OK, so we'll to agree that evolution is only approximately right, but the approximation error w.r.t. 100% right is immeasurably small unless the species in question are traveling at a significant fraction of the speed of light relative to the paleontologist.
"If I have seen farther than others, it is only because I stood on the shoulders of giants"
Yes, it's utilitarian. But it's based very strongly on evidence, which is what science is all about. And we're talking about science EDUCATION, not cutting edge theoretical physics. You have to start somewhere.
BTW, Newton's work is very much true in the appropriate domain. Just as with any science. There is no place for including weak nuclear interaction in calculating the motion of planets, just as there is no place for Newton's equations in calculating the probability of an electron's position in the electron cloud.
Understanding domain is a very important science lesson you seem to have missed.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
No silly. Everyone knows that "The Baby Jesus" is sqrt(-1)!
You can not take every word in the Bible literally. It was not meant to be a literal factual scientific document. It was written to teach people the Word of God.
If you take every word literally, you will run into a great many problems. Not the least of which is Mark 4:31 which states "It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest seed you plant in the ground." Again, this was written to be understood by the common man.
I am not inconsistent in my beliefs. It is the one who does not understand the purpose of the Bible and takes every word literally who will find himself faced with inconsistencies.
The reason the Bible does not go into detail about the creation of the Earth is obvious once you consider the purpose of the Bible: How the Earth was created simply is not important. All that is important is that the Earth is God's creation. This the Bible says clearly, explicitly, and repetitively.
* only applicable for sufficiently small values [of] truth(**)
(**) where "sufficiently small" means "90+% of all human activities that benefit from knowledge of physics".
Yeah sure, you can complain that GPS satellites wouldn't work without accounting for relativistic effects. But when I throw my Garmin at your head, it will travel in a parabolic path (minus air resistance) with sub-millimeter accuracy. Then I will write "annoying pedant" on your face in magic marker while you're knocked out.
This is not an attempt to falsify the teaching of evolution.
Get a pen and a paper, draw 10 of gene A organisms, and 1 of gene B. Assume gene B organisms reproduce twice as fast, and ideal conditions. Start drawing the generations. Do that until gene B becomes dominant.
Now, falsify the principle you just proved. Mathematics. Reproduction rate sets an exponential curve, the initial conditions are just the polinomial part of the equation. It's not something you can or can not believe in.
If you increase the chance of reproducing of those with a specific gene, that gene will become dominant.
You cannot falsify evolution any more than you can falsify "1 2", because that's what it really is. If you accept the fact that genes exist (even christians know about dogs I believe), and that living organisms tend to reproduce as much as they can, you're already there. (Oh, one more assumption: random genes can appear. We have evidence of that too, just talk to your doctor about the latest flu variant.)
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.
You do realize that people like you are the ones singling out evolution and making it "special", right? I've never taken a science class that refers to evolution as anything more than the current scientific theory of how man came to be. In a science class, we deal with the observable. Faith and belief have no place in science. We leave those at the door and pick them up later on the way out. God and his/her actions are not directly observable by men, by design. They are therefore NOT science.
The religious camp could as easily have decided to attack the law of gravity and surface tension because Jesus walked on the water. Or the Theory of Relativity because God is everywhere at once. Both cases would make about as much sense as the freaking out over evolution does.
How about this for a compromise: You teach what you want to in church, or a class on religion/philosophy, and scientists will teach what they want to in science class.
Asimov wrote an essay called "The Relativity of Wrong" that addresses this. The thrust of it is that scientists make errors and that perfect, absolute truth may be unattainable, but by and large each generation will come up with ideas and theories that are closer and closer to the truth.
A geocentric model of the solar system that involves orbiting bodies is a tad closer to the truth than "it's all painted on a big dome in the sky", and a heliocentric model is closer still. Explain its mechanics like Newton did and you're getting closer. Find out about Relativity and you're really getting somewhere.
Each one is "wrong", but each is less wrong than the one before it.
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.
I have yet to see proof that Evolution explains how life began.
It's not supposed to.
That would be abiogenesis, down the hall to your right.
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".
no amount of breeding of dogs has produced a non-dog
But breeding of wolves has produced a non-wolf. It's called a dog.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
This reminds me of an old saying - you can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.
Be smart, help people!