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Tennessee Passes Bill That Allows "Teaching the Controversy" of Evolution
Layzej writes "The Tennessee Senate has passed a bill that allows teachers to 'teach the controversy' on evolution, global warming and other scientific subjects. Critics have called it a 'monkey bill' that promotes creationism in classrooms. In a statement sent to legislators, eight members of the National Academy of Science said that, in practice, the bill will likely lead to 'scientifically unwarranted criticisms of evolution.' and that 'By undermining the teaching of evolution in Tennessee's public schools, HB368 and SB893 would miseducate students, harm the state's national reputation, and weaken its efforts to compete in a science-driven global economy.'"
Don't you mean "sun is the center of our solar system"?
Evolution is still a theory. And a fact. The terms aren't exclusive.
On the contrary, science has always touted the fact that everything it discovers as theory.
Discoveries are not theories. Theories are models which attempt to explain discoveries. Evolution is one such model which attempts to explain the discovered speciation.
As a mathematics/science teacher in this fine state, I don't have a huge problem with this. I just made my students write a paper on Russell's Teapot, so I feel like I balanced it out.
But seriously, anybody that thinks these two pieces of paper mean anything...they don't. They say they allow for these things, doesn't mean we have to. And we won't.
Grandparent is misusing the word "theory" in exactly the same way the creationists do. Hint: is isn't synonymous with "notion" or "hypothesis".
Wikipedia puts it well. A physical law is a summary observation of strictly empirical matters, whereas a theory is a model that accounts for the observation, explains it, relates it to other observations, and makes testable predictions based upon it. Simply stated, while a law notes that something happens, a theory explains why and how something happens.
Also keep in mind Newton's "Law" of Gravitation is only a good approximation of low-mass behavior. When you say "Law of Nature" people assume graven in stone, unchanging and absolute. But that isn't what it means.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
>>>Evolution is no longer a theory.
Last time I looked it up, textbooks still said "Theory of Evolution" not "Law of Evolution". In fact I've had many professors over the years argue even Newton's Law of Gravity should be renamed a Theory, since the misnamed "law" has been debunked by later discoveries over the centuries.
In science ALL things are theories, because we will never have a complete understanding and the theories are eventually proven wrong (or at least flawed). Maybe if we evolve into the Q we'll finally understand it all, but that's definitely not the case now.
We have theories of how the world works.
Not absolutes. Not laws.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
The US has never been "a Christian nation". Which men "of faith" wrote in our freedoms?
Jefferson who rewrote the bible taking out the "superstitious nonsense". Perhaps Quincy Adams who we have letters that he wrote mocking Christianity and talking of it disdainfully. Perhaps George Washington who refused any religious solace on his deathbed and expressed that he didn't want a Christian burial service.
Perhaps Benjamin Franklin- who we also have written evidence that he did not believe in a God still currently active in watching humanity.
Perhaps we're talking about the senate under the second president who unanimously signed the Treaty of Tripoli after it was read out (that included the words probably not verbatim "The United States Of America is and never has been a Christian nation").
The vast majority of those that "wrote-those freedoms" would be offended if you called them Christian.
The fact is- everyone should be allowed to worship however they darn please. But don't try fooling people or rewriting history to make it seem like it is a "recent-innovation" that this is a non-Christian country. Even Abraham Lincoln, the president responsible for preserving the union many years after the founding fathers wrote an essay exposing the evil of religion, specifically Christianity.
We are a secular nation. We should be a secular nation. Let people worship whatever god they want- but keep it out of politics and government. Remember the religious have the most to lose. If government and religion are not seperate- that means Obama is executive head of religion. You must recognise him as the authority in religion.
Is that what you want? It works both ways- even when a leftie non religious man is in power- he is still the head of religion in you dystopian view of the United States where religion and government are one.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch