Slashdot Mirror
Louisiana, Intelligent Design, and Science Classes
rollcall writes "The Livingston, Louisiana public school district is considering introducing intelligent design into its science curriculum. During the board's meeting Thursday, several board members expressed an interest in the teaching of creationism. 'Benton said that under provisions of the Science Education Act enacted last year by the Louisiana Legislature, schools can present what she termed "critical thinking and creationism" in science classes. Board Member David Tate quickly responded: "We let them teach evolution to our children, but I think all of us sitting up here on this School Board believe in creationism. Why can't we get someone with religious beliefs to teach creationism?" Fellow board member Clint Mitchell responded, "I agree...you don't have to be afraid to point out some of the fallacies with the theory of evolution. Teachers should have the freedom to look at creationism and find a way to get it into the classroom."'"
Creationism should not be taught in a SCIENCE class because it is not science. There is no way to falsify any of its claims.
One of these things is not like the other ones, one of these things is not the same.
... at Sunday School.
If you want to teach Creationism in school, then place the curriculum in a philosophy class, or Religion class if so desired. Keep it far, far away from Biology class.
THE SOFTWARE, IT NO WORKY!!!
"you don't have to be afraid to point out some of the fallacies with the theory of evolution."
Please do. I'd like to hear them. We're waiting... all ears... go ahead... hello?
What your tax dollars (if your from Louisianna) will be spent on is the inevitable court case brought on by the ACLU, the inevitable defeat, and the inevitable payout of taxpayer's money to settle.
As Mark Twain famously said "God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board."
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
...then it's God's Plan to kill everything in the Gulf, not BP.
It's also nonscience because it leads nowhere. It merely says at some point "there's no point looking for why here" and that ends science.
Science is the eternal curious ape asking "why's that, then?". As soon as you put in "irreducible complexity" you've closed off science.
Because this is actually an attempt to end science for all. Religion has been cut back further and further, from being the reason why lions eat people, lightning strikes and illness happens. Now we know that lions are independent creatures that eat meat, lightning strikes are caused by electrical buildup in the clouds and that illnesses are caused by little organisms.
Every time science answers a question "why's that, then?" god gets a little slimmer.
And this is an attempt to kill science once and for all.
I went to a catholic school many years ago. They taught evolution with "enhancements". One was the de'Chardin theory that evolution was teleological, that is, goal-directed toward perfection. Is was their attempt to reconcile evolution and religion. This is not the precise very of evolution, which is non-teleogical, i.e. goal-less. Otherwise they pretty accepted most of regular tenants like long-time and natural selection.
As long as they also include every other creation story. There should be text from scientology, islam, hinduism, buddhism, and thousands of other creation myths from all over the world, in a separate book called "Creationism". Leave evolution in the science textbook with the theories on gravity, germ theory, and all of the other accepted, testable hypotheses.
Similarly I'm okay with religion classes, as long as the world's eight major religions are all given equal time. For some reason I think equal access to alternative theories isn't what they are really after...
A science class is well... a science class. It's ultimately about science. What is science? How does it work? How is it applied? How has it been applied?
These fundies are like people who see a comparative religions course and object that people are being taught what Muslims believe.
It's not a bible study class. That's not what their studying. Your personal views aren't relevant.
Do Jungians disrupt classes taught about Freud?
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Brought to you from the same state with two-digit addition on their GED test.
the preceding post was not spell checked... suck it.
I demand that alchemy be taught side by side with chemistry, so the students can make up their own mind.
Oh and astrology too.
Once again we open up the good old Slashdot argument thread. Where we will get thousands of people posting and arguing and saying how smart they are and yet Do Nothing to fix the problem.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
This guy is clearly trying to set up a Supreme Court case. Of course, he just handed whoever litigates this on Establishment Clause grounds the key piece of evidence:
"Teachers should have the freedom to look at creationism and find a way to get it into the classroom."
That means that the express purpose of the measure is to allow teachers to force a particular religious viewpoint on their students. Not a nice little side-effect, or the unexpressed intent. He actually came out and said "this is so we can force kids to learn creationism". So what he's banking on, it sounds like, is that either many of the justices who hear the case will be willing to scrap the Establishment Clause in order to get Christianity in schools, or (more likely) that fighting the losing fight will improve his future political prospects.
And the test is very easy to make too: Would Mr Mitchell be so interested in ensuring that every child in his district knew about Odin and his brothers slicing up a giant to create Midgard, and treated it as fact?
I am officially gone from
As we seemingly can't stop the spread of idiocity, can we at least get transparency? Please mark clearly on the record sheet whether this student learned evolution or creationism, uh, sorry, they rebranded it to "intelligent design".
Please mark it, so I know, so I can hire only the people who learnt actual science.
If you teach both, please give seperate marks. So I know to hire specifically the people who scored A or B in evolution and F-- in creationism because they ridiculed it all year. That's the kind of people I want to have working for me. If you scored any acceptable score in creationism at all, then find a burger-flipping job somewhere. It means you at least pretended to take it seriously, or you did take it seriously, in which case you're either a liar or an idiot.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
fighting the losing fight will improve his future political prospects."
Ding ding ding, we have a winner. 9 out of 10 times, this is what is behind politicians trying to pass illegal laws. These are not stupid people, they know that it will get struck down, but they get free publicity and get a huge boost to their political visibility via public funds. It is a great way around having to spend private money on political aspirations.
Creation answers "tell me a made-up story, daddy."
There is no answer for "Why?" in the context of all reality, nor is there any practical need for such an answer.
The misconception that there needs to be such an answer is the foundation of a great deal of stupidity.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
The trouble is that I can't rule out the first case either. I think it's reasonable to think that the guy really does want Christianity established in the US, so if he got to SCOTUS and Justice Kennedy decided to go along with Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito to allow it, he wouldn't be disappointed.
And yes, I'm reasonably certain that those 4 Supreme Court Justices would vote to allow creationism in public schools. Scalia and Thomas have voted that way consistently, and Roberts and Alito recently both voted that crosses on public land aren't a problem.
I am officially gone from
Don't call it a theory. "Irreducible complexity" is a demonstrably false hypothesis, not a theory. At any rate, his argument is basically "I can't see how this could evolve in steps, and as I am omniscient and omnipotent, that is proof of its impossibility, QED." At any rate, his implicit assumption that he's all knowing and all seeing is also easily refuted. He claims that there is a spider that shows irreducible complexity. However, it's easy to show steps how this spider could have evolved from a similar spider without ever being at a disadvantage, even though according to Behe, every single component is useless alone, and the spider is useless without all of them. Just utterly false. Irreducible complexity can also be shot down via Reducto Ad Absurdum. An arch is made of arch stones, and a keystone. Without the keystone, the entire arch collapses. Without the rest of the arch in place, the keystone cannot be placed. Therefore, one cannot build an arch, as it requires both parts to exist, and neither part can be placed without the other already in place.
He also likes the mousetrap example. (Even though the mousetrap is designed). He says the current spring loaded wire mousetrap is irreducibly complex because without any of its components, it doesn't function. This is trivial to show as wrong: Start with a basic cartoon mousetrap. A box with a piece of cheese in it, and a stick on the cheese holding the box up. Flaws? The mouse can shift the box and perhaps escape. Solution: Hinge one edge so it is harder to shift the box. Next Flaw: It takes a lot of eating for the stick to fall, closing the trap. Solution: connect the stick to a latch, and place the bait on a pressure plate that will release the latch at a very light touch. Next Flaw: You can't move the trap because its bolted to the floor. Solution: Create a baseboard and hinge the lid to the base, not the floor. Next Flaw: It's still somewhat possible for the mouse to lift the box and escape underneath. Solution: Spring load the hinge so it closes with more force, and remains closed. Next Flaw: The mouse, being a rodent, can chew its way through the wooden box. Solution: Make the box out of metal. Next Flaw: When releasing mice into your field, they tend to head right back into your house for all the free grain. Solution: Remove the edges of the metal box except the hinged edge. This will strike the mouse with the force of the spring. Next Flaw: The sheet of metal distributes the force evenly over the mouse. A fair number survive, maimed and possibly trapped. You need to put them down yourself, and sometimes they escape and die in the wall. Solution: Replace the metal sheet with a metal wire so the force is focused on one point of their neck. And there you have it. You went from a primitive trap to a modern trap. Each step improved the efficiency of the design. Saying "A mousetrap needs the plate, the latch, the spring, the base, and the wire, and without any it is not functional" is true, but beside the point.
With no exceptions, "irreducibly complex" bullshit that Behe has come up with can be shown to be reducible. And besides which, by asserting that all changes need to be beneficial, he's showing he knows nothing at all about evolution. Changes need only be not-highly-disadvantageous. They not only don't even need to be helpful, they can even be slightly harmful if it doesn't impact the creature TOO much.
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
Agree, freedom of religion is also freedom from religion.
Creationism has no place in a science class.
If it is to be taught anywhere, it should be in a comparative religion class where they also teach the Greek myths, Norse Legends, Hindu epics, Aboriginal dream-time, and Quetzalcoatl.
I think they should be allowed to teach "Intelligent Design" after they explain where their hypothesized Intelligent Designer was intelligently designed --their entire point, after all, is the claim that the complexity of life and intelligence is beyond the abilities of evolution to accomplish. Therefore, since their proposed Intelligent Designer is by-definition intelligent and complex....
What you fail to see and what evolutionists seem to want to ignore is that science actually proves creationism.
Actually, it does not. Indeed, science actually "proves" very little. It certainly should not pretend to answer questions that are of a clearly spiritual nature, like "Who made the heavens and the earth?", at least until we come up with a means for detecting/measuring the things that would be required in such a "proof". On the other hand, science is pretty damned handy for explaining things like, "How did the earth come to be the way it is?"
That said, much of what science does show me leads me to believe that there is indeed intelligence in much of the "design" of our universe. The difference is that I am not so arrogant to suggest that science comes anywhere close to "proving" my pet belief system.
If God does exist, and he created the universe, science would be the method us humans use to test, document, and explain the universe.
It's akward because when [Abrahamic Holy Book] was written, science as we know it didn't exist and the writers attributed everything to God.
Things go from "akward" to "my head hurts" when fundies insist that [Abrahamic Holy Book] is perfect and cannot be wrong.
Hence the ongoing troubles with Bible Literalists sitting on schoolboards and pushing Creationism.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
What I'm saying is that by making a special term for biologists who accept evolution the ID people are implying that there is a legitimate scientific debate over the issue which there is not.
The term creationists should use is "biologist". That is what I am saying. There are not two branches of biologists with equal ground and argument over the issue. There are creationists and there are biologists. One side's argument requires the rejection of the findings of modern biology the other is the study of it.
"Evolutionist" implies a special subset of biology that does not exist. They should call them "biologist" and drop the pretense that they have a valid scientific claim.
And the answer would be simple: DON'T question the creator.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
I have a legitimate problem with them creating a term to indicate a divide which does not meaningfully exist. The people who study evolution are called "biologists". I am fine with them using "evolutionary biologists" if they are discussing the specific subset of biology specifically devoted to the study of biology but to use "evolutionist" implies that modern biological science and evolution are not intrinsically intertwined which is fallacious. What you don't seem to be getting about my point is that I am saying that they SHOULD NOT be using a using a special term to define those who disagree with them.
It is disingenuous and akin to the XKCD comic where there's the cereal on the shelf that says "arsenic free". The point being that while it's technically true, the implication of stating it by it's very nature brings up unsaid assumptions about the topic which are inherently UNtrue. (that the other cereal contains arsenic or that the study of evolution has equal ground to the study of creationism)
I wholeheartedly agree with you. If you want to teach religious view in schools don't stop at just your religion.
Look out, you'll shoot Dorkus.