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Texas Textbooks Battle Is Actually an American War
ideonexus writes "I've been lackadaisical when it comes to following stories about Texas schoolboard attempts to slip creationism into biology textbooks, dismissing the stories as just 'dumbass Texans,' but what I didn't realize is that Texas schoolbooks set the standard for the rest of the country. And it's not just Creationism that this Christian coalition is attempting to bring into schoolbooks, but a full frontal assault on history, politics, and the humanities that exploits the fact that final decisions are being made by a school board completely academically unqualified to make informed evaluations of the changes these lobbyists propose. This evangelical lobby has successfully had references to the American Constitution as a 'living document,' as textbooks have defined it since the 1950s, removed in favor of an 'enduring Constitution' not subject to change, as well as attempting to over-emphasize the role Christianity played in the founding of America. The leaders of these efforts outright admit they are attempting to redefine the way our children understand the political landscape so that, when they grow up, they will have preconceived notions of the American political system that favor their evangelical Christian goals."
All it will take is a suit that the school board violates civil liberties.
I wish it could go further. I wish that provably willful violations of civil liberties were treated as treason.
In Liberty, Rene
George W. Bush spent most of his academic career in private schools in New England.
If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place -Eric Schmidt
CrazyJim said:
> Creationism does not in anyway detract from evolution.
What? If sit here all day and come up with an explanation of how Hansel & Gretel can coexist with evolution, it still doesn't make it true.
Oh, and in your "long day theory" you have a fundamental misunderstanding of "24 hours". The 24 is mere convention.
> As for interpreting the constitution, I agree that it should stay in its current form unless it gets ammended.
Sure, as long as things aren't changed, they stay the same.
And the people wanting separation of church and state are not "Christian enemies." It is this siege mentality that keeps the fundamentalists afraid to venture outside the flock, and engenders such divisive language.
And the point being covered up is that the US Constitution has well-defined mechanisms to change it. Some people consider that to be its genius.
So let's remove gravity, most of physics, and genetics from the science classroom as well. Those are all theories. You don't prove a theory. You find evidence either for or against it. As soon as you find some evidence against Evolution, we can reconsider it. But being as ALL of the evidence gathered since Darwin was pontificating points to Evolution being the mechanism by which life changes, science (and the science classroom) should stick with that.
It doesn't matter what an individual scientist believes. That's immaterial, an argument from authority which is of no worth. I can point to priests who believe in evolution. Shit, the CATHOLIC CHURCH is ok with evolution. That is NOT a reason to accept it. The reason to accept it is that the facts we have about genetics and fossils and such all point to Evolution.
The only reason you would have even posted this is because you're ignorant of science, which makes your opinion of it uninformed and therefore worthless.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
We don't live in an 18th century agrarian society anymore. If you don't want it to be "living", and you want to interpret every word with strict literalism, then it will have to be revised and expanded to properly define a government's actual real world role modern life and technology. It would probably take at least couple of thousand pages to do the job properly.
(Note that it has never been taken literally since day one anyway. For example, for many decades slavery was allowed in spite of the fact that it was in direct violation of the Bill of Rights.)
"I wish that provably willful violations of civil liberties were treated as treason."
Christians regard any government practice that is not Christian as a violation of their civil rights to impose de facto theocracy by dominionism.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
My academic exposure to "special creation" versus "darwinism" goes back to the early sixties. The most significant aspect of my experience was that I never saw anyone persuaded one way or the other by discussion of either in a classroom -- and back in those days, it was perfectly acceptable to discuss God in a science class. People who believed in special creation stuck with it and people who believed otherwise stuck with it regardless of the evidence or arguments presented by the other side. Why would anyone on either side have the least fear of having the other side presented? If you truly believe (as I do) that the observable universe came into existence some 13 to 15 billion years ago and, as a consequence, the earth came into existence roughly 4.5 BYA followed by the natural evolution of life you should also be confident enough to listen to the contrary without fear that it will, in any way, corrupt or overtake the "truth." By the way: I also happen to believe that God initiated the whole thing and got it exactly right the first time, thereby needing no subsequent tweeking or fiddling to move things along. And if I hadn't told you that, you would have no way of distinguishing me from an orthodox, secular, believer in science.
But you're the one who made the claim, and I quote:
All you said is you know some college profs who believed in God.
So, I'm asking you to back up your claim. If you can't, then why on Earth would you claim it?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
And in my opinion, this is second most important part: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." For example: The right to not have your cellphones monitored by Monkeyhead Dubya Bush or Barak Corpseman Obama via the Unpatriotic Act.
Interstate Commerce.
'But', you say, 'It is a...'
Interstate Commerce.
'OK, but surely...'
Interstate Commerce.
It's the Wildcard of the Constitution, and it's current interpretation by the SCOTUS makes all the protections in the Bill of Rights and the enumeration of powers meaningless.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
Asimov wrote a perfect tract on this here. A relevant quote:
The problem is that you are the exception to the rule, most people believe what ever they are told and that is how narrow-minded zealots propagate. I am arguing that people would be less likely to blindly accept things if our educational practices were to present neutral pros and cons on many view points and have people decide for themselves.
Oh BS. The Prime Mover argument is, first and foremost, a philosophical and metaphysical argument, not a scientific one. Science can only go on the evidence points. At the moment, the "cause" of the Universe is not known, nor is it certain that the Universe even required one. The question "What caused the Universe" may not even actually make any sense (as Hawking said, "It's like asking 'what's north of the North Pole?'")
But if one is going to try to assert a logical necessity of a Prime Mover, then one has to deal with the logical conundrums that that claim makes.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
No. The long day theory doesn't dismiss the account of creation, so "original sin" can stay. Furthermore, "original sin" isn't really necessary to Christianity.
I need to hear about this sect of Christianity that doesn't subscribe to Original Sin. Jesus was a big deal because he was a blood sacrifice to cleanse humanity of Sin. Without that, what else is there?
There's a perfect xkcd for my sig but I'm too lazy to look it up. sudo someone go find it.
from Benjamin Crowell. I liked it so much I payed for a printed copy from lulu. It seems to me that these are the textbooks of the future, not created by school boards, but chosen by individual teachers from a wealth of free or low-cost online material. If you don't like textbooks, write one, publish it online and at lulu and give teachers the right to choose their own materials for teaching.
Nullius in verba
Creationism does belong in schoolbook...
In a comparative religion textbook or perhaps creative writing. Right next to elephants standing on turtles, dream-time stories of mountain ranges being giant alligators, Zeus getting freaky with goats or Beowulf ripping the arms off of giants and HAL 9000 dumping astronouts out of airlocks.
Where it does not belong is in a science book. I grew up in a fanatically conservative christian family. I grew up being instructed to put both creationist and "science" answers on tests stating "I know creationism is the truth, but the answer you are looking for is:". I eventually could not reconcile what I was being trained to believe with what I saw for myself. I managed to shrug off that brain washing and learn how to think. It was hard, and I pretty much lost my closeness with my family because of it.
The point is, evolution in schools has become much more a political thing than a scientific thing, and by the time kids get to high school, it doesn't matter what the schools teach, because the kids have mostly made up their mind already, and have heard both sides of the issue, and will most likely end up thinking, "that's it?"
Agreed, particularly because the evolution proponents (more accurately, the ones fighting for it in textbooks) have ended up pushing too far the other way and we get equally ill-informed neo-Darwinist crap.
One example was the description of the Peppered Moth experiment. The common criticisms aside (micro-evolution, falsified data, etc), my textbook gave a patently false description. It stated that the proportion of dark colored moths went from 0% to 100% (as in, the dark coloration allele 'spontaneously' evolved), rather than from 2% to 95% (indisputable and reasonable shift in allele frequency). Rather than sticking with the facts, the book felt it had to distort the truth to prove a different point.
But all science has become politicised, I don't see that changing any time soon.
Write your representatives! Repeal the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics!
If you knew what the words "duties", "imposts", "excise", "naturalization", "abridging", "redress", "infringed", "effects", "affirmation" meant in second grade, I congratulate you on the extraordinary good fortune you experienced in your early education.
As it is, someone who actually does understand what those words mean in the context where they are applied cannot fail to find some ambiguity in these passages. The broad concepts are generally quite clear, but real-world application introduces subtleties that require interpretation. Just as a fairly non-controversial example, there are various valid opinions about what constitutes a "peaceable" assembly.
http://www.gorgorat.com/#49
After the war, physicists were often asked to go to Washington and give
advice to various sections of the government, especially the military. What
happened, I suppose, is that since the scientists had made these bombs that
were so important, the military felt we were useful for something.
Once I was asked to serve on a committee which was to evaluate various
weapons for the army, and I wrote a letter back which explained that I was
only a theoretical physicist, and I didn't know anything about weapons for
the army.
The army responded that they had found in their experience that
theoretical physicists were very useful to them in making decisions, so
would I please reconsider?
I wrote back again and said I didn't really know anything, and doubted
I could help them.
Finally I got a letter from the Secretary of the Army, which proposed a
compromise: I would come to the first meeting, where I could listen and see
whether I could make a contribution or not. Then I could decide whether I
should continue.
I said I would, of course. What else could I do?
I went down to Washington and the first thing that I went to was a
cocktail party to meet everybody. There were generals and other important
characters from the army, and everybody talked. It was pleasant enough.
One guy in a uniform came to me and told me that the army was glad that
physicists were advising the military because it had a lot of problems. One
of the problems was that tanks use up their fuel very quickly and thus can't
go very far. So the question was how to refuel them as they're going along.
Now this guy had the idea that, since the physicists can get energy out of
uranium, could I work out a way in which we could use silicon dioxide --
sand, dirt -- as a fuel? If that were possible, then all this tank would
have to do would be to have a little scoop underneath, and as it goes along,
it would pick up the dirt and use it for fuel! He thought that was a great
idea, and that all I had to do was to work out the details. That was the
kind of problem I thought we would be talking about in the meeting the next
day.
I went to the meeting and noticed that some guy who had introduced me
to all the people at the cocktail party was sitting next to me. He was
apparently some flunky assigned to be at my side at all times. On my other
side was some super general I had heard of before.
At the first session of the meeting they talked about some technical
matters, and I made a few comments. But later on, near the end of the
meeting, they began to discuss some problem of logistics, about which I knew
nothing. It had to do with figuring out how much stuff you should have at
different places at different times. And although I tried to keep my trap
shut, when you get into a situation like that, where you're sitting around a
table with all these "important people" discussing these "important
problems," you can't keep your mouth shut, even if you know nothing
whatsoever! So I made some comments in that discussion, too.
During the next coffee break the guy who had been assigned to shepherd
me around said, "I was very impressed by the things you said during the
discussion. They certainly were an important contribution."
I stopped and thought about my "contribution" to the logistics proble
I'm hostile because people want to throw out Evolution and put forth an "alternative theory". Go ahead and believe in a God. I don't care. The point is that Evolution is a valid, well-supported scientific theory, AND THERE IS NO CREDIBLE CHALLENGE TO THE EVIDENCE. None. Whatsoever. Period, end of story.
Go ahead and pontificate about a prime mover, a God, whatever. That has NOTHING to do with teaching of the mechanism of Evolution in a science classroom. Evolution has nothing to say about the origins of life, or the universe. Don't say "teach the controversy" because there is no valid controversy. There are only idiots wanting to force the government to support their religion, and scientists.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
the debate was had... by the framers of the Constitution. See the Federalist Papers and it pretty clearly lays out that "general welfare" means the overall health of the government and its ability to ensure our rights.
The modern welfare state has absolutely nothing to do with what they meant by welfare there. Of course, modern welfare proponents would like to pretend it does, so in the early 1900s, they, then called progressives, started a campaign to rewrite history and that's where the whole notion of the Constitution being a "living document" came into fruition. They wanted to get around the Constitution but it was too hard to amend it, so they figured they would make it relatively meaningless by allowing for a constant reinterpretation until they could completely turn the terms on their head (see also the commerce clause, making commerce regular meant making it so it could easily happen, not creating bureaucratic regulations governing every aspect of even intra-state commerce).
I mean, all of that was covered in your history books, right? Or did they already rewrite them, ensuring you, and most other Americans, whom don't probe any deeper than the surface, wouldn't realize such things?
Stop Koolaid Politics
Bush made a case for attacking Iraq? Bush tried to get others to go along with him, and when all alliances failed he attacked anyway. What Bush did was to not build a consensus and then do something anyway. War is a horrible example because it's something the commander in chief can do anytime for any reason, and then congress feels like they need to fund it because people's lives are on the line. It would be more appropriate to correlate this with Bush's prescription drug bill. Which if proposed by a Democrat would have been socialism.
The problem is that we have a Republic. Obama can do what the majority wants and still be defeated in the Senate because a bunch of small states get equal representation. Slate just did an interesting article on filibusters. It turns out that 60% of the time when Democrats have filibustered they've represented the majority of Americans. When Republicans have filibustered they represented the majority only 3% of the time. Repbulicans are better at playing politics because they rarely represent a majority.
Let's look at Gingrich's stupid ideas:
Make insurance affordable - In bill
Make health insurance portable - Already exists. Called HSA. I have one. Only saves you money if you stay well. People don't like them.
Meet the needs of the chronically ill - He seems to be in the weeds. Smells like socialism though.
Allow doctors and patients to control costs - Really? We lower prices by letting doctors charge medicare whatever they want? He obviously thinks we're morons. So doctors can charge whatever they want as long as cost to the government doesn't rise. Ok, government costs are rising currently, how does this help?
Don't cut Medicare - Really going out on a limb by saying not to cut Medicare. Also advocating Socialism. But hey, it's ok when Republicans do it.
Protect early retirees - HSA again! Hey, look we can save health insurance with an unpopular program that already exists! Because the free market is always right, unless you're talking about why no one's buying our HSAs. The best part about HSAs? You can lose it all in the stock market and then have the government either bail out millions of retirees or add them to Social Security during what would assume would be an economic downturn! How can people resist?!? I mean think about what would have happened if you had an HSA and contracted cancer during 2008! Good times!
Inform consumers - Sure. Sounds good. Might save money in the long term, but not in the short term.
Eliminate junk lawsuits - In the current health care bill. Also implemented in Texas and not doing jack, shit. But hey, just because Republican policies have failed repeatedly doesn't mean shouldn't keep trying to ram them through. Because when you're wrong you're right. Am I right? Oh, I'm a Democrat. I'm wrong. Sorry, I forgot. Which is why even though Obama put this in the bill as a concession to Republicans they're all still pretending it's not in the bill. If the bill passes they'll then say that the fact that it doesn't work is because Obama passed it. Way ahead of you guys.
Stop health-care fraud - Fraud and Waste. Waste and Fraud. Yeah. That's the problem. I'm all for this. But so is everybody. Also we should get people to stop doing drugs and to not cheat on their taxes...
Make medical breakthroughs accessible to patients - No. We're not getting rid of the FDA. They're pathetically toothless as it is. This is a horrible idea. Great idea for selling untested snake oil to the public and artificially inflating stock prices. When coupled with Bullet 8 you can bring untested treatments to market, sell them for top dollar, and cash out without any risk of monetary damages. I've got to hand it to you Republicans. You're fantastic at creating bubbles that harm the public.
Republicans have jack that is not available on the market today. And you know what the market has said? Republicans your ideas suck. Why do your ideas suck? Because they don't work.
If there's consensus about what the Founders meant when they said something, there should not be difficulty in amending the constitution if its language is thought to be ambiguous. If there's no consensus, then it must be assumed that the Constitution means what it says. So yes, nuclear weapons are "arms." If you want to amend the constitution to forbid citizens from owning nukes, it should not be difficult to do so, since it's likely there's popular consensus on that matter.
So you are saying if the majority of people in your area converted to islam (or a large group of muslims moved in), and they elected hardcore muslims into the school board. Then they changed the curriculum so that it said muslims founded the US and taught all about allah and based the "science" upon muslim teachings, you wouldn't have a problem with it?
How about if the majority became pagans and started teaching nature worship and the country was founded by wiccans?
How about if they became actual devil worshipers (not people who christians say are "devil worshippers" [which is just about any non-christian], but actual ones) and started teaching devil worship and to lie, cheat, steal, beat up puppies, and once a week they sacrificed a child to "the almighty one." Would that be okay?
After all, according to you, majority rules, so I guess you are required to follow whatever religion the majority does, correct? And if someone moves into your area and they weren't born believing the majority religion or at least won't join and become your slave, it's okay to harass, screw with, and murder them. Because, well...they're evil infidels and must DIE!
Sounds more like you don't belong in this country. Personally, I hope all of you religious nutjobs kill each other and your rotting corpses get put in jail so you leave normal people alone.
Some really good videos by a guy who's been opposing this crap in Texas for a while now. IIRC, he's a paleontologist. This video talks about what they've been trying to do in Texas. He also has a whole series of videos addressing the "foundational falsehoods" of creationism. Interesting stuff.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
That means there is some hope for you yet.
Since there's never been anything beyond hearsay supporting the super-naturalist delusions out there, I highly doubt it. I've skipped over many things you said not because you were accurate, but because the truth was embarrassingly obvious to point out.
I won't coddle you like your church elders - you can find many instances of traced evolution, predicted missing links, and much more on talkorigins.org, and you're more than capable of reading about them yourself. I have already read the bible and many of it's famous apologists, and I remain convinced of the evidence, or lack thereof.
Let me offer a few points. Again, I've skipped over your embarrassing assertions.
You said earlier: The conclusion was that we would classify breeds of the same species as a separate species altogether and in some cases classify the same breeds as different species altogether based around the difference in appearances. then We do however have transitional fossils on record but nothing outside of theory connects them as separate species.
It is true that the definition of a species is complicated, but usually it means that members of the same species do breed or are capable of breeding. Canines are a ring species, meaning that adjacent populations can breed and others cannot. However, you have painted yourself into a corner here: if Great Danes cannot successfully breed - even with artificial means of insemination - with a Chihuahua, then we have evidence of observed speciation, which is evidence of evolution. If they can interbreed in such a way, then your argument has been invalidated.
If the majority of the population thought chickens were evil, you could probably see bans on chickens in government run organizations... DO not confuse something that is so easily refuted with how you want things to be
You're saying that as long a majority of the population believes something that isn't true, then it should be taught in school. I do not think this is a wise idea.
. Making exaggerations while at the same time demonizing other exaggerations or embellishments of word is not a strong indicator of intelligence. Perhaps this is a problem in why you seem to be so upset with so many religious groups, your position isn't as strong as you had thought when it come time to defend it.
No, I am irritated at your lack of standards. We don't have to have a debate about whether human sacrifice causes the sun to rise, or whether a child can be stoned to death for cursing their parents, or whether a person can be put to death for blasphemy. Yet you continue to assert your beliefs as if they had some scientific reasoning behind them.
And no, the stories are not about men living in whales, or all staffs turning into snakes, or whatever, they are about specific instances and make non claim to their abilities to happen to anyone else.
Very well then. There are no two ways to slice this: either the miracles claimed in the bible all happened, or the bible is not wholly true and cannot be taken literally. If you're reading a Protestant bible, then you've already taken some parts of the Bible out of the original, so I would consider that evidence that God is fallible, if he can't even get his holy book released properly in the first place.
The main point is that the Bible has no merit over the Bhagavad Ghita, or the Qu'ran, or Dianetics, or the Yasna, or the Tao Te Ching, or the oral traditions of countless tribes, or my belief that these texts are all interesting, but false. Across the world -- across cultures and religions and nationalities and languages and class -- the scientific method has produced more useful knowledge than all religions combined. The scientific method has also produced the theory of evolution, which is as solidly grounded as the theory of gravity and the theory of relativity.
If you wish to continue living in the dark ages, please localize them to your home. Stop childishly pretending that Intelligent Design is anything but what it is: gold spray paint on the turd of Creationism.