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Tennessee "Teaching the Controversy" Bill Becomes Law
MrKevvy writes "The Tennessee 'Teaching the Controversy' bill was passed into law today. 'A law to allow public school teachers to challenge the scientific consensus on issues like climate change and evolution will soon take effect in Tennessee. State governor Bill Haslam allowed the bill — passed by the state House and Senate — to become law without signing it, saying he did not believe the legislation "changes the scientific standards that are taught in our schools."'"
The governor adds: "However, I also don’t believe that it accomplishes anything that isn’t already acceptable in our schools."
I can't wait for the first lawsuit involving a teacher fired for teaching kids about gay sex in his sex-ed class, or the first atheist teacher who catches even a sideways glance for teaching about evolution openly in any way he/she wants to.
When I went to school in Georgia many years ago, biology teachers would have killed for a law like this. Not so they could preach about Jesus riding a dinosaur, mind you, but so they could teach *evolution* openly with absolutely no fear of retaliation for it.
Try firing Scopes now, you bible-thumping fucktards.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
Politicians killing science in the American south. I wonder what they'll try to make controversial next. Gravity, perhaps?
I weep for the kids in Tennessee.
Aliens built the Pyramids
Teach The Controversy
http://controversy.wearscience.com/
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
When will people realize that "conservatives" are fiscally extreme, both in tax policy and wasteful spending? Yay! We blew millions by passing yet another unconstitutional law that will clearly be overturned by the courts after wasting millions in taxpayer funded legal fees. How anyone who approves of this nonsense can call themselves" financially conservative" or "against wasteful spending" is beyond me... sheer stupidity.
I mean they're just competing narratives, aren't they? I can hardly wait for the Gay Nazis for Christ to teach their 'controversy'. It will be awesome.
So when can science teachers start to tell these cults what sort of nonsense to spew in their brainwashing sessions every Sunday?
Trolling is a art,
Not because the bill means anything - I agree that it probably has no effect relative to what is currently allowed - but because we, as a nation, need to get over this urge to make meaningless laws.
If the law has zero net effect, than DON'T MAKE IT LAW!
And if the legislature makes meaningless laws, veto it as a statement of principle. If they want to override, that's their privilege.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Now even more of the constantly-slashed school budget will be wasted on teaching kids useless crap. When they're not busy teaching them how to pass state-mandated tests, that is.
Where the hell do they get the idea that a single schoolteacher can simply challenge subjects backed by scientific consensus? Or are the various anti-science groups in the US going to provide said teachers with ammo now to be able to counter scientific consensus? Either way, this is not a day Tennessee should be proud of by any means.
I think this is a very bad law.
Does this formulier maken work?
Throughout history, ideas have warred it out through the process of open discussion and debate. Right now, this issue is totally Balkanized and neither side is talking to the other. Opening it up to discussion might allow us to get farther than trying to pick on side or the other.
Don't forget to teach about immaculate conception in biology class too...
Double Faceplam
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
"Okay, students. Today we're going to 'challenge evolution'. Open your tests and follow the instructions. Be sure to use the scientific method to prove or disprove all of evolution's theories and predictions listed.
Pencils down. What was the answer -- Billy? Yes, that's right, Billy, we have challenged evolution and proven that it is true using the scientific method. Isn't that an interesting result? Well done, everyone!"
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
I don't see a problem with teachers challenging scientific consensus, provided they're qualified to do so. I had a couple profs who disputed the textbooks, but they were probably correct, or at least they could make good sound arguments for doing so. For a teacher to simply say something they really know nothing about is wrong just because they don't like it is a bit scary.
Which they seem intent to cause again.
How can allowing teachers the ability to teach such utter bullshit help the U.S. stay competitive?
IMHO this sort of thing will only hinder the U.S. in the coming decades.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
Science needs challenges and criticism. You are not allowed to challenge or criticize dogmas.
The governor adds: "However, I also don’t believe that it accomplishes anything that isn’t already acceptable in our schools."
So why don't you veto it to prevent cluttering up the lawbook with unnecessary laws?
Are they going to teach, that there is absolute no controversy at all in regard to evolution being real anywhere but in the fundamentalist religious circles? Or are they going to teach the fundamentalist lie that there is controversy? Also, all American presidents so far were reptilians. Teach the controversy!
A very appropriate name. Kids raised in TN are destined for failure. I'm sure there are some smart people there, but they moved in from out of state and/or are the exceptions.
I moved there in 2004, couldn't believe the ignorance, and ran out last year. That place is scary.
To be honest this is the kind of lawmaking I would expect from people there, a waste of time and further dragging the country down with more uneducated bible thumpers.
slashdot troll = you make a compelling argument I do not like the implications of.
...right after a unit on what is a Testable Hypothesis and why they are valuable to science.
Shine the light on ID and let the young minds decide for themselves that it's total bunk, at worst, or untestable non-science, at best.
"A law to allow public school teachers to challenge the scientific consensus on issues like climate change and evolution will soon take effect in Tennessee."
Of course, the fallacy is that there exists scientific consensus on issues like this. I applaud this law.
I can only hope that this allows teachers to truly teach the controversy, and why science is science, and that faith is faith. And be able to lay down all the facts without worrying about getting fired. You can imagine that a teacher trying to teach science would get spooked by a student asking about creationism: are the parents going to bitch to the school? is the teacher going to get hung out to dry to appease the conservative christian parents? I feel bad for teachers and today's ultra-reactionist society who want to blame everyone else for bad kids or for not agreeing with them.
As an aside, I'm Christian and don't believe in creationism. In fact the Bible/Genesis has _two_ versions of creationism, so it doesn't even agree with itself.
I will shred my adversaries. Pull their eyes out just enough to turn them towards their mewing, mutilated faces. Illyria
This law turns the clock back nearly 100 years here in the seemingly unprogressive South and is simply embarrassing. There is no argument against the Theory of Evolution other than that of religious doctrine. The Monkey Law only opens the door for fanatic Christianity to creep its way back into our classrooms. You can see my visual response as a Tennessean to this absurd law on my artist’s blog at http://dregstudiosart.blogspot.com/2012/04/pulpit-in-classroom-biblical-agenda-in.html with some evolutionary art and a little bit of simple logic.
As Bill Bryson quipped, this is just "proving conclusively that the danger for Tennesseans isn't so much that they may be descended from apes as overtaken by them."
I would love to be able to come back a million years from now and hear our N-great grandchildren arguing about whether they are descended from us.
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
fucking wuss.
And Bill O'Reilly once said, "and that's good enough for me."
Fundamentalist views on religion and "tradition" are just people who are too stubborn to admit they are wrong regardless of irrefutable facts... All it takes is faith!
So let's challenge the Holocaust by claiming it was fake.
Let us challenge the time in which life begins... at conception, hence abortion is murder, but once that baby pops out we could care less about it. and who cares if it's a black baby.
Let us challenge evolution: "I didn't come from no monkey's butthole." Grandma Squid (from squidbillies)
Learning math and science is what breaks you from being gullible and prone to exploitation by those who make a fortune exploiting the stupid (i.e. corporations, political parties, pastors, governments, etc.).
There's only one thing left to do when this happens, teach our kids how to play Crossballs. (Anybody remember that show?)
Ergo, until that is done repeatedly under laboratory conditions, atheists, your theory of the origin of life remains exactly that. A THEORY.
"Hey we have pretty conclusive proof for evolution. Look, see, this bacteria right now is even evolving as we introduce barriers to it. It is also demonstrating natural selection, whereby some bacteria die in favor of those who got past the barriers"
"Yeah well my deity done that."
"Yeah well you are but a figment of my imagination, which I control 100% and do everything. You are all me, I am all you. We are one."
"None of this even exists. None of you even exist. Neither do I." (okay I am stretching with this one)
WHAT DISCUSSION?
This Bill is quite literally being passed so teachers can stop pretending to be dumb and actually BE dumb without consequence.
I am fine for discussing science as science and beliefs as beliefs, but neither of them can ever be on friendly terms. They are mutually exclusive systems.
One requires direct proof, the other is completely based on belief.
Teach creationism in a religious class, be it RE, RMPS or whatever other forms they come in.
Teach science in a science class.
They both have merits, to certain extents.
They are both knowledge in the end, which is more valuable than gold-pressed latinum. (I had to)
Blacks were not slaves, but guests of the nice white people who even paid their journey to the USA. Teach the controversy!
...socialized schools are their own reward!
Creationism (as in Biblical creationism) is spreading in China through missionary work:
http://www.skepticblog.org/2009/01/18/chinese-creationist/
But it's worse than that. US creationist organizations are actively translating their materials and working to disseminate them on a global scale:
http://nwcreation.net/international.html
See, something like this sort of happened before and when the University of CA systesm was sued, the judge dimissed it.
When TN students start getting rejection letters from accredited universities or at the very least colleges that understand that this is the 21st Century, maybe they'll change their tune.
This also happened with Kansas when one of their school boards banned teaching of evolution and California told their students to not even apply to their schools.
In the meantime, the rest of the World - even die hard theocratic countries - are pushing science educatoin. China is already on our heels when it comes scientifc progress.
Religious fundamentalism is destroying science education in this country - and giving everyone else of faith a bad name.
Can they teach the controversy that George Bush stole in 2000 election?
...during the lunchbreak in the shoe factory.
You have no idea what the word theory means.
In 2012 there is not excuse for that, try using google. If you cannot do that, just keep your ignorance to yourself.
Obligatory "The Onion" link:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/evangelical-scientists-refute-gravity-with-new-int,1778/
Let's teach the controversy!
I challenge ANY teacher to fail any kid or write "Wrong answer" on a test. Now you can sue the school if Johnny doesn't want to learn to read or write or do math, because God says he's right.
After all, God says Rick Santorum should be president, and we see how right God is so far on that front.
So now "God says" is a suitable answer for any test. Just ask Bill O'Reilly, who claims that the Tides going in and out are proof of God -- teach that one in science class. Moon's gravity pulling on the oceans? Bah! Superstition! 'God Says' is the right answer now!
WIsh I could'a used that for my SAT tests, I would have gotten a perfect score and attended Harvard!
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
I think I have the definitions of fact and theory well in hand:
From Merriam Webster:
theory noun \th--r, thir-\
plural theories
Definition of THEORY
1: the analysis of a set of facts in their relation to one another
2: abstract thought : speculation
3: the general or abstract principles of a body of fact, a science, or an art
4a : a belief, policy, or procedure proposed or followed as the basis of action
b : an ideal or hypothetical set of facts, principles, or circumstances —often used in the phrase in theory
5: a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena
6a : a hypothesis assumed for the sake of argument or investigation
b : an unproved assumption : conjecture
c : a body of theorems presenting a concise systematic view of a subject
See theory defined for English-language learners
See theory defined for kids
Examples of THEORY
a widely accepted scientific theory
Her method is based on the theory that all children want to learn.
There are a number of different theories about the cause of the disease.
She proposed a theory of her own.
Investigators rejected the theory that the death was accidental.
There is no evidence to support such a theory.
He is a specialist in film theory and criticism.
The immune surveillance theory of cancer holds that in a way we all do have cancer, that a healthy immune system fights off rogue cells as they appear. —Sallie Tisdale, Harper's, June 2007
[+]more
fact noun \fakt\
Definition of FACT
1: a thing done: as
a obsolete : feat
b : crime
c archaic : action
2 archaic : performance, doing
3: the quality of being actual : actuality
4a : something that has actual existence
b : an actual occurrence
5
: a piece of information presented as having objective reality
— in fact
: in truth
See fact defined for English-language learners
See fact defined for kids
Examples of FACT
Rapid electronic communication is now a fact.
The book is filled with interesting facts and figures.
He did it, and that's a fact.
KK4SFV
Frank Zappa: 'The only difference between a cult and a religion is the amount of real estate they own'
Why can't they create a law that upholds *both* religious liberty and reasoned, scientific enquiry?
As much as some conservative Christians don't want to hear it, evolution has a LOT of scientific evidence that backs it, and only the stupid, ignorant or uninformed people deny this.
However - if evolution is true - does this disprove God? No it doesn't. I don't think science can prove OR disprove God. I would guess that a lot of the evolutionary science taught in classrooms comes with this assertion that it does, even if it is only implied. Allowing scientific claims to be made about the existence (or not) of God, as well as the lack of purpose to the human existence - I feel this goes beyond what science is capable of, and in doing so, I think people who make these claims are just as bad as those who want creationism taught as a science.
Beliefs of a religous nature are on a totally different plane to science - I don't see them interacting the way that many in this Creation/Evolution debate do.
I really think science/religion can be a both/and question, not an either/or.
(And yes - I am a Christian, and I do believe in evolution - creationism is not science, and should not be taught that way).
Welcome to Tennessee, where your gut instinct, personal opinions, "faith", and blind dogma are accorded the same level of authority as valid scientific theory.
Up Next: Tennessee repeals the law of gravity, fulfilling a life-long dream of the Canadian Rhinocerous Party.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Besides as an incitement of the usual "religious people are dumb and ignorant" comments on Slashdot, Reddit, ad infinitum, I'm curious why the law in this article is taken as an imposition of Christian doctrine on teachers. Every organized religion, be it Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, believes that there is a higher power that created the universe, as opposed to the atheist position that the universe just...is...because...it is. Why is a teacher forced by this law to proclaim that the world was created in six days, and on the seventh, God rested, as opposed to either a) making it generic enough to avoid biases towards one religion or another or b) briefly exploring the Cliff's notes version of every major religious faith?
On the one hand, ID and Creationism are...beliefs, I guess...that compete against the theory of evolution. While the evidence lines up in favor of evolution, I'm willing to concede that, from a purely skeptical point of view, there isn't compelling direct evidence that you could present to a skeptic which would prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that life on Earth evolved as a result of natural selection. I happen to be convinced, mainly because the competing...erm...ideas are predicated on either aliens or some supernatural agency fiddling around. But, fine, if you talk about evolution and natural selection, part of the conversation probably should include a mention of the other explanations for speciation, including their rationales.
And, whatever else, I believe that it's important, especially in a science class, to teach students to be skeptical. You shouldn't just accept what someone in authority tells you as true beyond question. You should be in the habit of questioning and investigating everything that you learn, especially in science.
On the other hand, Creationism and ID all involve the supernatural, which, by definition, has no place in a science curriculum. And they're not being discussed as an example of religious objections to scientific evidence, they're being posited as equally possible explanations of natural phenomena. That's the equivalent of saying that rain either occurs as a result of meteorological phenomena, or because magical fairies sprinkle water from the clouds, and either explanation is equally true. I don't think that this law was passed to benefit students, I think it was passed to pacify Bible-thumping evangelicals, and I have a huge problem with that.
This unbiased moderation brought to you by the Porcine Aviation Group!
Practive what you preach. If you only want facts and hard evidence taught then creationism and evolution both can't be taught because both are just theories, not law. So if evolution is such fact why is it still a THEORY instead of law...to bad science can't help you there. Micro-evolution yes, but I hate break it to you we didn't evolve from monkeys. And if you want to go around claiming to be nothing more than a smart monkey have fun eating your bananas. And, if as you say, evolution is completely true then there is aboslutley no reason for people to be nice to each other or protect life, it is after all survival of the fittest. So, if I just happen to want what you have, kill you and take it, by your theroy there is no reason that is bad, you just happened to be the weaker being and I am in fact strengthening our speices as a whole by removing you. As well, evolution would also prove that gays are a mistake and freak of nature. There is no benefit to the speices for to males or two females to have sex. Infact if evolution was true the "gay gene" should have been weeded out and removed from the population as they can't reproduce. Evolution prompts the fact that there is no purpose to life, so you might as well do what you want when you want how you want. At the end of the day you can't prove evolution, it still remains a theory just like creationism.
Some of the reactions assume that the bill allows teaching Intelligent Design. From the summary pointed to, it allows teaching the supposed weaknesses of Evolution, but not teaching a religious alternative. If teachers actually follow the law, challenges won't look like previous cases. They will have to attack statements by teachers indicating either problems with evolution or reasons why some people disagree with it. I would have no problem with a high school teacher saying "I'm about to teach evolution, but you are no doubt aware that about half of Americans don't accept it", and explaining why (though wording an explanation so it doesn't look like endorsement of religion would require care). I would have a problem with a teacher citing supposed problems in the evidence for evolution that are false (and all the lists of problems I've seen include false statements). However asking a Federal court to rule on teachers making mistakes, even if we have reason to suspect that the mistakes are for religious reasons. goes beyond the cases I'm aware of.
If "teaching the controversy" means showing how uninformed believers are about very well understood and almost 100% accepted theories, then I'm 100% behind it.
If it means forcing the 1000s of completely random theories into our schools without any scientific backing, then I'm against it.
I live in Georgia, a state just south of Tn, and the county where I live is known for holding religious-biases. The science teachers appear before the school commissioners every time one of these backwards propositions gets pushed every year. Now I fear I'll have to waste another evening in a crowded government building to state my case against all religious beliefs in public schools ... again.
Intelligent design doesn't need a god, but I ask.
* why do worms and humans both have hearts?
* why do most animals have 2 eyes?
* why are almost all living things on Earth made up of exactly the same base chemicals?
Religion is fine - provided my kids aren't forced to learn your wacky religious ideas and the cannot be tested about it. OTOH, every time that I see 80% of the world is delusional and believes in at least 1 God, I cry a little.
Imaginary friends are for 4-5 yr olds, not adults.
If there was/is any god(s), then I'd hope she would have greater imagination.
It's dishonest to present a theory as anything other than very well supported by evidence. If you want to challenge a theory, challenge the evidence it's built upon. If you don't have any evidence, STFU. This goes for everything from evolution to heliocentrism.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Theory and fact are two very different things.
Nonsense. To a Bayesian theory and fact are merely convenient labels for propositions of differing complexity and degree of inference.
No one with a mature understanding of the logic of science uses "theory" and "fact" as anything other than convenience markers. All propositional knowledge is subject to the same rules (Bayesian logic) regardless of how near (fact) or far (theory) it is from sense experience.
To argue otherwise is to declare oneself ignorant of almost everything regarding our knowledge of the world, which is never certain. The difference between someone who has faith the Bible is inerrant and someone who knows that evolution is responsible for the diversity of life is that the latter can revise their knowledge in the face of new evidence whereas the former will not change their belief regardless of the evidence. Faith, like all forms of certainty, is an epistemic error.
And no, I am not "100% certain" of that, in the sense that I am open to counter-arguments, although the Jayne/Cox derivation of Bayesian logic as the only consistent rules for updating our beliefs is compelling enough that I don't lose any sleep over the possibility it will be proven wrong, any more than I lose sleep over any other uncertain proposition, like the answers to "What is my name?" and "Where are my socks?" We get along with knowledge--which is inherently uncertain--just fine in all walks of life, and only an idiot insists on certainty as some kind of virtue when it is actually just a mistake.
Likewise, to use the uncertainty of all knowledge as an excuse to believe just anything is also a failure to grasp Bayesian logic, which says that we should accept the most plausible propositions, not just any old things we happen to want to believe.
People with an archaic, pre-modern notion of knowledge find all this mind-boggling, and I guess people in the southern US are going to be a lot slower than the rest of the world to learn any of it.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
Write a paper, get it per reviewed, receive your Noble prize.
"This section only protects the teaching of scientific information, and shall not be construed to promote any religious or non-religious doctrine, promote discrimination for or against a particular set of religious beliefs or non-beliefs, or promote discrimination for or against religion or non-religion."
Seriously people, how many here have even read the bill?
I personally think more people should question evolution, put it to the test.
That way they know for sure, otherwise people are blindly accepting it or rejecting it.
Evolution is purposefully set up to disprove that there needs to be a creator. Everywhere there is evidence for a creation event, you can supplant it with a bunch of environmentally-selected random attempts that just appears to be design to the uninitiated. Evolution posits a population of pre-human homonids that mutated and selected on favorable traits to become human. The final result is the best. The Bible posits a perfect world marred by the first humans in disobedience to God. The final result is *not* the best. These two views are fundamentally opposed.
Furthermore, evolution provides justification for greed, selfishness, and any kind of sexual behavior, while the religious view forbids these things, while pushing for charity and community. The guilt weight alone is enough for most people to go away from religion in favor of the amoral justifications of evolution.
Isn't this basically the way universities work? The professor presents their personal discovery/thoughts/opinions and the students decide whether their desire to get a passing-grade in the class is enough to accept the professor's word at face-value?
If grade-school teachers are allowed to present whatever they wish as truth without doing any research or presenting proper evidence, then Patty better not be flunked/kicked/suspended/expelled from his/her compulsory education when he/she calls-the-teacher-out on the lack of evidence or totally baseless theorems present to him (or her).
And just for the record, I *am* a Non-atheist. I think that the 'war' on everyone else perpetrated by Atheists is only a step short of the smuggery of professors with PhDs.
I will accept this bill as fair on the day that Tennessee legislates that science must also be preached in churches.
It is dishonest to present these theories as fact
No, it's dishonest to deliberately equivocate on the terms "theory" and "fact".
So the only facts are those that are historical in nature ("a thing done"). So math is not a fact--just because 1 + 1 has equalled two in the past doesn't mean that it will continue to do so in the future. Anything predictive, no matter how many time it has been shown as accurate, is not "fact". That sound you just heard while making those pedantic observations about those definitions, as opposed to the concept of "scientific theory," was the sound of thousands of years of scientific progress sailing out the window.
In the meantime, the rest of the World - even die hard theocratic countries - are pushing science educatoin
True, but apparently many Muslims (in both the Middle East and Europe) are just as militantly against the theory of evolution as evangelical Christians in the US. Moreover, it's not like many of these developing countries don't have their own pathologies; China still officially endorses Marxism, which as far as I'm concerned is as nutty as any religion. And everything I read about the Chinese government and their education system makes it sound like it's designed to crush independent thought and initiative. Our own godawful education system often does this more or less by accident, of course, but nearly every country - especially in the developing world - has struggles between modernizers and reactionaries, and the role of religion is complicated. (In China, for instance, the liberals endorse religious freedom, while the conservatives are militantly atheist.)
What's really depressing to me is that in a country which still has the world's largest economy - the country that started the biotech industry and the Internet - the state whose mean income is 44th in the nation thinks this is a worthy cause. But Tennessee isn't exactly Silicon Valley.
I got a TN drivers license when I was a kid. One day a cop in a different state pulled me over. He asked me why I had a gun license. I said I didn't. Turns out TN gave out gun permits automatically with their drivers licenses. Ok. So every TN kid can shoot a man at 16. But they can't learn about evolution? I don't know you guys. I really don't know.
If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
In my experience, the best and most enlightening learning has come through study of both the arguments for and against a specific topic, theory, solution, etc. I feel more confident in my opinions when I have heard all arguments and seen all evidence. If any of the evidence or arguments are hokey, let me be the judge of that. If I judge that argument A is a joke and B is correct, my conviction regarding B will be stronger than if a counter argument to B were never presented to me.
-=-=-=-=- osjedi uses Debian GNU/Linux. -=-=-=-=-
Why can't they create a law that upholds *both* religious liberty and reasoned, scientific enquiry?
Because no law was needed for that--that's the state of public education WITHOUT these new laws. The problem with this question is you're already buying into half of the argument, that there was some sort of lack of balance that required new laws to keep things balanced correctly.
Hell, I remember being assigned parts of the Bible (Genesis, Job) when I attended public high school years ago. No controversy whatsoever. Why? Because it was assigned in English class, not Physics class. It could also reasonably be assigned in a World Religions class or even a History or Mythology class. Religious liberty was never threatened. Kids prayed in school, in the lunchroom, in homeroom, all the time, with no interference or controversy, because it was voluntary individual prayer and not some sort of coerced school-sponsored activity. The way you'd hear conservatives tell it, none of that happens in our communist/atheist public schools. But they are wrong, or lying.
I think I have the definitions of fact and theory well in hand:
From Merriam Webster:
theory noun \th--r, thir-\ plural theories Definition of THEORY 1: the analysis of a set of facts in their relation to one another 2: abstract thought : speculation 3: the general or abstract principles of a body of fact, a science, or an art 4a : a belief, policy, or procedure proposed or followed as the basis of action b : an ideal or hypothetical set of facts, principles, or circumstances —often used in the phrase in theory 5: a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena 6a : a hypothesis assumed for the sake of argument or investigation b : an unproved assumption : conjecture c : a body of theorems presenting a concise systematic view of a subject See theory defined for English-language learners See theory defined for kids Examples of THEORY
a widely accepted scientific theory Her method is based on the theory that all children want to learn. There are a number of different theories about the cause of the disease. She proposed a theory of her own. Investigators rejected the theory that the death was accidental. There is no evidence to support such a theory. He is a specialist in film theory and criticism. The immune surveillance theory of cancer holds that in a way we all do have cancer, that a healthy immune system fights off rogue cells as they appear. —Sallie Tisdale, Harper's, June 2007 [+]more
fact noun \fakt\ Definition of FACT
1: a thing done: as a obsolete : feat b : crime c archaic : action 2 archaic : performance, doing 3: the quality of being actual : actuality 4a : something that has actual existence b : an actual occurrence 5 : a piece of information presented as having objective reality — in fact : in truth See fact defined for English-language learners See fact defined for kids Examples of FACT
Rapid electronic communication is now a fact. The book is filled with interesting facts and figures. He did it, and that's a fact.
Dictionary probably wasn't your best source in this case.
"A scientific theory is a set of principles that explain and predict phenomena. Scientists create scientific theories with the scientific method, when they are originally proposed as hypotheses and tested for accuracy through observations and experiments. Once a hypothesis is verified, it becomes a theory."
I think what you were trying to say is 'hypothesis'. A 'scientific theory' is what a lay person would call a fact, or closer to it than the term would imply. So yes, the things you don't agree with (evolution, climate change) are theories. If you don't agree, that's ok, but it does mean you're a flat earth, sun revolving around the earth type. Does that make more sense to you?
Are you suggesting that I am equivocating? I am asserting the evolution for example is simply a theory and NOT a fact. It is based on facts, in some cases dubiously interpreted, however evolution is simply not a "proven fact".
Equivocating on theory and fact occurs when one decides to describe a favorite theory as fact in order to try to give it more weight in a discussion.
KK4SFV
I think one of the big problems with the debate is that the Creationism/ID/Faith/whatever side of the discussion deliberately muddies the issue by misusing the word "theory". Science has a rather clear definition of this word, but most of the things that the Faith side of the argument present as "theories" are hypotheses (at best).
Routine common misuse of the word "theory" promotes a false sense of equivalency between a true scientific theory and a non-scientific (non-)"theory".
For example, compare the measurements and predictions of accuracy of a theory like QED (within ten parts in a billion - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precision_tests_of_QED ) against the predictive power of a "theory" like Intelligent Design. *That* is why professional scientists have faith in theories like the former, and most have little more than justified scorn for the latter.
Don't be so deliberately dense. M'kay? The law is what it is, which is an excuse (or license, if you will) for teachers to lie to their students about what is science and what is not. The sole reason for this is to advance creationism, in other words "Christian doctrine". To argue otherwise is to ignore a patently obvious truth. Does it demand teachers do this? No - not by my reading, but it is folly to suggest that it won't happen. The disgraceful result will be ignorant children and an inevitable string of legal actions that will drain money away from an already underfunded public education system.
This bill and the political whore's who caused (or simply "allowed") it to become law deserve every bit of the ridicule and outrage they're going to get.
Draino is a cool and refreshing beverage.
> "I'm curious why the law in this article is taken as an imposition of Christian doctrine on teachers."
It's not taken as "an imposition of Christian doctrine on teachers". What people are complaining about is the fact that there are a lot of teachers who really want to teach creationism to kids and dis evolution in their classrooms. This gives them license to do so.
> "Every organized religion, be it Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, believes that there is a higher power that created the universe, as opposed to the atheist position that the universe just...is...because...it is."
Ok, but evolution is not the "atheist position" and creationism is not the "theist position". Rather, it's a question of science. Similarly, if a religion taught that all diseases are caused by demons (as St.Augustine taught), but those darn atheists taught it was germs -- it's not a question of teaching the "atheist" position of germ-theory vs the "theist" position of demon-caused-diseases. It's a question of teaching the established science.
> "Why is a teacher forced by this law to proclaim that the world was created in six days, and on the seventh, God rested"
They're not forced to teach that, but it's fairly easy for a teacher to stand up in class and talk about evolution as some fairy tale make-up by atheists and how life was obviously designed by a creator and, without getting too much into it, he can effectively paint the situation as "evolution = lies, creationism = truth, I'm not going to tell you which God did it, but we're all from the Bible-belt so we all know who we're talking about here." Wink. Wink.
> a) making it generic enough to avoid biases towards one religion or another or b) briefly exploring the Cliff's notes version of every major religious faith?
Yeah, like that will happen in a heavily Christianized state. I'm sure teachers will give a nice, balanced presentation for all the religions they don't believe in.
Tenneesee legislators today decreed that the earth is flat, that it is the center of the universe, that global warming doesn't exist and if it does, it's not caused in large part by human activity, that humans are the only sentient species in the universe, that one's fate is determined by the visible alignment of stars/planets/solar flares/etc. at the moment of one's birth, that the shape of bumps on one's head determines character and intelligence, that witches/demons/robot overlords/etc. are real and must be hunted, that vaccines cause cancer/herpes/autism/bad breath, that the entire history of the world is the consequences of the actions of rich white Christian people (who, out of all the "chosen" people are actually the only really "chosen" ones), and that their one god...I mean tripartite god...no, I mean one god with three...okay, I'll get back to you on that one.
is the Monkey-Trial descendants believing junior and high school students give a damn about anything remotely connected to evolution. Now sex education, on the other hand....
I remember learning about quite a few people who challenged the scientific consensus. One name the comes to mind is Eratosthenes and Magellan regarding the shape of the earth. Isn't the foundation of science really challenging scientific consensus?
Newton
Einstein
Plato
Socrates
Copernicus
Da Vinci
Franklin
Watt
Edison
Fulton
Dirac
Pauli
The list is nigh endless of those great thinkers and discoverers. who believed in magic, as well.
It doesn't change or add anything, except...
Making the rest of the world look at all the people from His Great and Wonderful state as backwards, inbred Hill-billies.
Ok, poetic license on the indred. I will... Grudgingly... Retract.
According to Wikipedia, Tennessee is 41st in median household income in the US. How long are they going to hold on to even that position when all of the educated people in the state (doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc.) start moving elsewhere so that their children will get a proper education? I think we can write off Tennessee for the near future.
Maybe the AMA and various other professional bodies should start reviewing the status of education in Tennessee to see if a child educated in such a system will ever qualify for med school. I'm pretty sure that I don't want a doctor who doesn't understand basic biology
Why doesn't Slashdot ever get slashdotted?
Freedom means the right to be stupid.
I'll go a step further: religious people aren't "people", per se. They've failed the qualifying intelligence test for classification as "homo sapiens". Accordingly, they should be treated in the same way as other inferior primates: humanely, of course, but there's no way they should be granted citizenship, suffrage or human rights.
This is, as you might guess, not a popular viewpoint (even among my fellow atheists). But before you reject it outright, or label it as flame-bait (which is NOT how it's intended), consider that religion in 2012 consist of a limited set of Bronze-age superstitions that have managed to survive -- out of a larger set, most of which didn't. As Bertrand Russell so astutely observed: "Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence. It will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines." We are slowly (very slowly, unfortunately) seeing that happen -- which is an entirely good thing, as any species which does not discard religion is doomed. But it's not happening without a prolonged struggle, because of course those in positions of religious power are as reluctant to surrender their positions as those in political or economic power. We have a long way to go before eveyone on this planet who actually thinks they're a human manages to meet the criteria for truly being so.
You have just proven that you can cut and paste, but you can't think.
Theories explain a fact.
Gravity is a fact. The theory for gravity explains that fact with the available data.
Same with Germs, and Evolution.
"Rapid electronic communication is now a fact."
Yes, and the fact is explained through theory.
Evolution is a fact. It's observed in nature, and it even makes predictions.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I didn't realize public school teachers were qualified to challenge scientific consensus.
Well my doctor says I need surgery but I got a second opinion from the gardener and he said don't worry about it, it's probably just gas.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, re Voltaire
Fact is a repeatable observational natural event.
Like.. every time I drop an apple it falls to the ground.
Gravity is a fact.
The details is worked out through improving the theory through testing.
Gravity is a fact. Developing theories and testing them lead us to things falling at the same rate.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Because if there's no middle ground, and no room to find compromise or discussion, then we're going to have to start killing all those who disagree with us.
Here's to hot beer, cold women, and Glaswegian kisses for all.
How many times has evolution been shown to be accurate? The last time I checked the conditions under which life supposedly evolved have not been recreated a single time. No "live" organisms have been synthesized from primordial ooze even once.
I think you're missing the distinction between "theory of evolution" and "hypothesis of abiogenesis". The latter does indeed lack firm scientific evidence; the best we have right now without recourse to the supernatural are guesses. The theory of evolution, i.e. common descent from a universal ancestor, is about as well-proven as anything in modern biology.
I am simply asserting that these things are indeed theories, not facts and can not be presented as facts.
Whether I agree with the theory isn't the issue. I believe that when a society chooses to teach theory as fact it begins the descent into a valley of ignorance that will take a long time to climb out of. I think it is important to be impartial when we teach the next generation, things are what they are - be objective. No matter how much you like an idea, classify it fairly and be open minded enough to allow it to be labelled properly so that the young minds can see a consistent treatment of the reality they are coming to grips with.
I would go so far as to suggest that even theory is a bit strong since we can not verify the hypothesis via repeatable experiment. If we could even know what the conditions were at the time the evolutionary process began that would at least be a start, however we don't even have the most basic facts to work with in this case.
Does it make sense to suggest that I am a flat earth, sun revolving around the earth type simply because I take issue with people characterizing theory with fact? That seems like a non-sequiter to me.
KK4SFV
We could go back to teaching/presenting the old theories that were held by the theologians and that infallibility of the Pope, with the Flat Earth and after that was shown to be hokum, the Earth the center of the universe. That is the problem with theologians making pronouncements about the real world, they haven't a clue. That is the realm of the sciences, and they are jealous that there is a whole area of existence that they are not the authorities on, which is how they control their flock and the pocket books of their flock.
But we are seeing a new trend of marketing going on. In one case with the religious "wrong" controlling their flocks to vote in ridiculous laws that impose their wrong headed and provably incorrect idea's onto the public and worse yet into the impressionable minds of our children. The other arm of that effort is to convince the electorate to vote for people who will vote in laws that will put them out of jobs, reduce their wages and allow them to have their money siphoned off but the upper 1%. Marketing has gotten much too effective in the world of low information voters, and blind faith believers.
Its a good time to re-read 1984. We are getting the infrastructure in place with the intelligence community and the lack of controls and oversight with our law enforcement arms and military. Now all we need is a "wrong" wing nut job elected and the Jack boot will descend with a vengeance.
Vote carefully, but vote.
Because this crap is pushed on by Christians, and it is well know this is a veiled attempt to push there religion specifically.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
What has been observed in nature is the principle of natural selection and function of genetic mutations - these are components of the theory of evolution rather than a comprehensive treatment of the theory. What has not been observed is the process of evolution as the "origin of the species", the beginning of life on this planet.
Theories explain and interpret facts, but theories are not facts.
KK4SFV
Religious fundamentalism is destroying everything
I got here through a series of tubes
Moreover, it's not like many of these developing countries don't have their own pathologies; China still officially endorses Marxism, which as far as I'm concerned is as nutty as any religion.
It would be more correct to say that China pays a lip service to Marxism - it has, effectively, devolved into a ritualistic religion there. They've stripped all substance from it decades ago, and they certainly don't use it to make decisions.
I've been hearing about crap like this since I was a kid. Jesus freaks here in the United States are anti-intellectual and anti-scientific. Fine, go teach your children whatever you want. The ignorant will becomes society's slaves and fools. For me... I'll make sure those who I love learn logic, math and modern science. I know how to protect myself and the people I love. Run society into the ground if you want. Have fun!
You are correct, we as a society tend to be a little sloppy/ambiguous about how things are named and referred to.
I suspect that most of the folks engaged in this discussion are thinking of the theory of evolution as the set of ideas that provide a description of how life began on Earth and how the various more complex species evolved from a single celled organism.
The creationist view also suggests common descent from a universal ancestor, most creationists (though not all) would argue that common ancestor was in the same species.
KK4SFV
the goal of this law is to allow teachers to present creationism as a legitimate scientific alternative to natural selection.
That rationale is full of it.
Things don't need laws to be allowed. There's no "allowed to breath the air" law.
This is a bald-faced attempt to use the force of law to mandate the teaching of ignorance in order to try to turn back the hands of progress.
Why don't they just take the easy route and pass a law making it "allowed" for teachers to teach horse-shit as legitimate?
Then they could also teach impressionable minds that thunder is the gods bowling and that the sun revolves around the flat earth.
The "people" pushing and approving this are insane and enemies of mankind and of progress.
The whole world thinks the US has lost its collective mind. This so-called "law" is a good supporting argument for their position.
Wait until the Muslim schools use this as a defence for teaching that Christians are evil and deserve to be killed.
My comment "what can't stand a challenge is a dogma" did not make it through moderation.
Now I know more about slashdot. Thanks.
While this was an interesting post to read, I think you need to look at how they discovered the earth is round again, hint: It didn't have anything to do with falling off the map or the dragons on the map.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Actually what if you have a high powered fan blowing up, and drop the apple, whoosh! the apple goes up. Your example fails to account for things like wind resistance, buoyancy, initial speed vectors, etc.
I suspect that most of the folks engaged in this discussion are thinking of the theory of evolution as the set of ideas that provide a description of how life began on Earth and how the various more complex species evolved from a single celled organism.
I don't think this is the case at all; I think a few people are trying to blur the issue by combining something we don't understand at all (origin of cellular life) with something we understand very well (evolution of modern life). The latter is indeed what is under discussion here, and I repeat, there is nothing controversial about it except among the lay public.
The creationist view also suggests common descent from a universal ancestor, most creationists (though not all) would argue that common ancestor was in the same species.
Sigh... that's not what "common descent" means in biology. There's an essential phrase that I left out because it is implicitly assumed in this context: "all modern lifeforms".
No. Words have different definitions based on contexts. Just like here on /. the word "Java" means a programming language and not a type of coffee, "theory" means something different in the context of science, as opposed to its colloquial meaning.
Dilbert RSS feed
Evolution is purposefully set up to disprove that there needs to be a creator.
This is my point exactly. This is not something evolution can do.
Now, I believe evolution can disprove literal 6-day, 6000y/o earth creationism, for sure. But there's more than one way to understand the Genesis creation narrative. Even before evolution was known, many theologians questioned the literal interpretation of Genesis (e.g., Augustine). When Darwin published Origin of Species, many Christians actually got on board with it. Today, the Catholic Church's unofficial position on evolution is one of acceptance. (They have actually put a lot of thought into it, and what it means for their theology, unlike most conservative evangelicals).
Understanding Genesis in a different light (i.e., that it tells us about who God is and his relationship to us, rather than a literal narrative of historical events) frees people to accept what science has to say about the world around us. Science should be left to what it does best - how the world around us operates, and how it came to be. Leave religion to answer the questions of purpose. That's not something science can answer, and if you think it can, you're not doing science.
Tax payer money should not be used to fund religious teachings
And why not? Clearly the majority has spoken, and they find value in teaching creationism. They pay their taxes too, don't they?
Seperation of church and state is a relic from the past, same as individual sovereignty, decentralization of political power, and constitutional government in general.
Seems to me that you liked the game as long as you were winning. Now that you're losing, you say the game is rigged or corrupt. Perhaps you should have considered that before you played the game.
I agree with your point of view, but from a spiritual point of view all religious communities agree that we lack the inner resources to guide ourselves for the better. Think of it as you're the one claiming global warming needs irrefutable proof when some concerns are proposed for study. You see them as trying to do something fishy, or waste time, while they see you as being ignorant and malicious. You should push your objections with an argument they understand.
uhm...
the atheist position that the universe just...is...because...it is.
Apparently, you have no idea what "atheist" means. It just means a person who doesn't have a belief in god(s) - and not necessarily a belief that gods don't exist (that's just gnostic atheists). There's no other position, and it doesn't even preclude a belief in the supernatural.
Particularly, many atheists including myself, do not have any position on the issue. I do have a position on what should be teached in science class, and unscientific bullshit isn't it.
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The USA was conceived as having a separation between church and state exactly because the early settlers arrived here in an effort to avoid religious persecution.
Correct, just be aware that in many cases it was to avoid persecution because their religion was seen as 'extreme', and thus they promptly formed communities that were religiously homogonous and relatively intolerant otherwise, at least within the community. The early federal government needed the protection from all the curches and such.
I don't read AC A human right
Christianity and Islam are boughs of the same tree, but I don't think Buddhism does the whole creation thing. As I recall they have a kind of trillion year long cycle of rebirth which goes on eternally.
To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today.
- Isaac Asimov
The problem with letting this kind of stuff in, is that science is OK with being wrong, that is part of science. If people decide there is no reason to consider something anymore, because their god made it happen, then anyone that does question could be burned at the stake. (Oh sorry, wrong millennium.....)
Scott Carr
"All modern life forms" is one of things that has not been proven, in fact has not been repeated a single time - this is a theory. So far we have been unable to evolve a complex life form from a simple one even a single time. Whether you agree with the theory, the bottom line is that it is no more than a theory (at best) and has certainly not been proven through observation of repeatable scientific experiments.
In other disciplines we would never accept an assertion as fact that could not be proven demonstrably - software engineering is a simple case. If you tell me that a program can perform some task, you prove it by writing a piece of software to perform that task. Does biology get a pass on this requirement?
KK4SFV
Philosophers of science, and methodologically sound scientists, don't talk about fact, they talk about falsifiability. You're bringing a knife to a gunfight here, buddy.
While there may be subtle (or not so subtle) shifts in meaning based on context, I think it is fair to say that no one would assert that we can use the words theory and fact interchangeably in science or any other discipline.
No reasonable scientist would accept a theory as having the same weight as a fact. In the event that an observed fact conflicts with a theory, good science calls for us to reformulate the theory based on the facts. We do not discard facts when they conflict with a theory.
KK4SFV
The basis of science is to challenge currently accepted beliefs, even those that are considered physical laws. It was once a scientifically accepted belief that if you sailed too far from home, you'd fall off the edge of the world. Scientists knew that gravity pulled down, and that the Earth was round. Someone eventually challenged that belief and found that you wouldn't fall off the edge of the world. As I understand it, time was proven to be constant until someone came along and discovered relativity. While the intent and practical effect of this law may have a negative impact on scientific learning, in principle it supports the teaching of science.
Fine-point debates in cutting-edge scientific thought doesn't traditionally take place in a first grade classroom. This law applies to K-12, not at the University level.
"All these years believing you're the signified monkey, only to find out you're just a big hunk of nobody cares."
Are you suggesting that there is no meaningful distinction between what we (or the sound scientist) might call a fact versus a theory?
KK4SFV
You're basically holding biology to an impossible standard. By your logic, we also can't make any claims about geological processes or stellar evolution, because they happen on time scales we can't deal with. (At this point I'm guessing that you don't believe the mainstream scientific theories in these fields either.) But we'd like to think we know an awful lot about these phenomena, because we repeatedly observe many intermediate forms. In many other fields the evidence is equally indirect - much of particle physics is based on analyzing what happens when particles decay, because we can't observe or measure their properties directly. The best we can do is make informed theories based on the available scientific evidence - theories which explain our observations without introducing additional external factors, like omnipotent deities.
So, if you want to be pedantic about "theory" versus "fact", go ahead. It doesn't change anything as far as science is concerned: the theory of evolution is supported by all available scientific evidence, and no one has come up with a plausible, non-supernatural alternative explanation for the data biologists and paleontologists have collected over the last 150 years. What exactly should we teach in schools, then?
Are you Tennessee parents going to stand by quietly while I and my fellow science and philosophy teachers pick apart Christian teachings in your kids' classes?
Didn't think so.
Have gnu, will travel.
No, I am not holding anybody to an impossible standard. We can make whatever claims we need to about geological processes, stellar evolution etc. I am only asking that we distinguish between things we can know as fact and things that we must suppose as theory.
It is important to understand the distinction between fact and theory so that further improvements can be made in any discipline. If a researcher finds facts that collide with a theory, he must be comfortable declaring a theory to be in error.
What we should teach in schools is that a fact is distinguished from a theory in certain ways, that facts and theories both provide meaningful aids in understanding our world but that they are not equivalent. Further, when we teach a theory in school, we should teach it as a theory not as a fact. Student should know what we know for certain and what we have had to derive from the facts available to us.
KK4SFV
It's Tennessee.
They got to keep the rubes under control and the best way to do that is to keep 'em stupid and down on their knees.
First off, let's get our terminology straight. Evolution is not the same thing as natural selection. Evolution is an observable natural phenomenon, like wind or rain. Natural selection is the name of the current theory that explains how evolution works. Even though much of the evolution people talk about happens on very long timeframes, we have actually been able to see it happen in a lab. We have observed bacteria of one species slowly becoming bacteria of a new species over many, many generations. So evolution could safely be called a fact. Natural selection, on the other hand, is merely the latest in a long line of theories that attempt to explain how this natural phenomenon works. It's a remarkable theory for two reasons: first, it was a giant leap ahead of previous theories of evolution (e.g. Lamarck), and secondly, it has survived, largely unchanged, in the face of withering criticism and strongly motivated efforts to discredit it for a long, long, time. Scientists will throw out an old theory for a new one without much fanfare, but nothing new has come along to replace natural selection. A few tweaks and refinements here and there as new evidence comes in, and it's still more or less the same. While no scientist would say that makes our current understanding of natural selection the final word on evolution, it does lend the theory strong credibility. Natural selection is more credible than Newton's theory of Gravity, for example. Einstein proved Newton wrong, but gravity still exists. Some prominent proponents of natural selection have argued, as you state, that natural selection means there is no need for a creator. Others have argued that evolution, like any other natural process, is God's will, and that natural selection merely describes God's ingenuity (I suspect the OP falls into this camp, certainly the Pope does).
Secondly, let's talk evidence. Thinking about evidence supporting a theory is going about things backwards. Try to find evidence that DISPROVES a theory. With natural selection, that is really very simple. Find a Precambrian rabbit fossil and you have instantly disproved all of natural selection. Just like that. Not just that but thousands of other things could easily undermine the foundations of natural selection. It's just that none of these things has been found yet, and not for lack of trying. Which again, is why the theory is considered to be so credible. For creationist mythology, no evidence or test imagined could possibly disprove it. If God came down out of the sky and said "Listen folks, I had nothing to do with this. Darwin was right.", creationists would be split between whether it was just the Devil pretending to be God or if it was God testing our faith. Natural selection can be disproven a thousand different ways, which makes it science. Creationism cannot, which makes it faith. Because creationism isn't science, it doesn't belong in the science classroom. That's not the same thing as saying it doesn't belong in our lives.
Thirdly, there is no "final product" in evolution. Humans are still evolving. Natural selection asserts that every step along the evolutionary path is adequately optimized for its environment--there is no such thing as a "transitional species".
Other than that, I think you illustrate nicely why the concept of morality is really separate from natural selection. People have tried to take natural selection, which is essentially "descriptive" and turn it into a "prescriptive" policy tool such as "social darwinism". The result is no more science than creationism. The test of natural selection is whether it accurately describes the evidence or it doesn't. Not if it has bad moral implications.
What we should teach in schools is that a fact is distinguished from a theory in certain ways, that facts and theories both provide meaningful aids in understanding our world but that they are not equivalent. Further, when we teach a theory in school, we should teach it as a theory not as a fact. Student should know what we know for certain and what we have had to derive from the facts available to us.
Taken at face value, I don't think any scientist, in biology or otherwise, would disagree with you. But like so many others in this thread, you're being disingenuous. We both know the reason for this emphasis on "theory" versus "fact" is to raise doubts about evolution, etc., and to imply that scientists could easily be mistaken. The purpose of the bill isn't to encourage critical thinking about modern science, it's to discourage critical thinking about a specific worldview (one which has nothing to do with science). Stop hiding behind pedantry.
The motivation behind the bill is horrid, but after reading the text of the bill itself it generally seems acceptable (though perhaps not necessary) and has interesting potential. In the long run it's only the text of the bill that matters and lawyers are a crafty bunch who have turned laws inside out and used them against their intended purpose plenty of times.
In general the bill is a move in the direction of more teacher autonomy overall, and I can support that. I typically consider the local school boards to generally be the biggest problem in education and this bill may give teachers some cover from over-zealous boards of all stripes. The bill does kinda show that state boards can be evil as well though.
Simply put, it's a double-edged sword and although it's clear which edge the legislature favors it's not at all clear that it will be the most commonly used edge. Even TN has some liberal regions and they may find some good use for this law.
> If I had my child in a Tennessee school...
>
> Stupidity at it's finest.
In your state they don't teach how to use the apostrophe correctly? Nor the difference between stupidity and ignorance?
As an old cynic put it, "The trouble with modern education is that now the illiterate can read and write."
I don't think it is fair to accuse me of being disingenuous - while it is true that I don't agree with evolution I would like to see an honest and open dialog in which people can present facts as facts, theories as theories and be free to disagree with theories until they are established as fact.
It may be true that this bill is intended to discourage critical thinking about science, but what many folks (not necessarily you) seem to be pushing for is to censor the discussion rather than engage in open debate about theories that we simply don't know to be fact.
KK4SFV
many folks (not necessarily you) seem to be pushing for is to censor the discussion rather than engage in open debate about theories that we simply don't know to be fact.
I don't see anyone pushing for censorship of frank and open scientific discussion. What we don't want is to see blatantly unscientific explanations, such as creationism, presented as science. Which is exactly what the law is designed to promote, behind all of the noble language about open discourse and scientific inquiry.
Go make out with an MRSA-infected patient. You'll get a firsthand example of how evolution is happening right now.
Yeah, because besides airplanes, television, radio, internal combustion engines, lightbulbs, processors, circuitboards, transistors, microwaves, cars, most life-saving surgeries, and the discovery of genetics, nothing useful has ever been invented by a Christian or a Jew! Are you delusional, willfully ignorant, dishonest, or simply spiteful?
Who goes around thinking Christians are non-contributors to society? Are you honestly all THAT brainwashed?
I am simply asserting that these things are indeed theories, not facts and can not be presented as facts.
Whether I agree with the theory isn't the issue. I believe that when a society chooses to teach theory as fact it begins the descent into a valley of ignorance that will take a long time to climb out of. I think it is important to be impartial when we teach the next generation, things are what they are - be objective. No matter how much you like an idea, classify it fairly and be open minded enough to allow it to be labelled properly so that the young minds can see a consistent treatment of the reality they are coming to grips with.
I would go so far as to suggest that even theory is a bit strong since we can not verify the hypothesis via repeatable experiment. If we could even know what the conditions were at the time the evolutionary process began that would at least be a start, however we don't even have the most basic facts to work with in this case.
Does it make sense to suggest that I am a flat earth, sun revolving around the earth type simply because I take issue with people characterizing theory with fact? That seems like a non-sequiter to me.
The problem with your whole assertion and the thing totally nullifying your argument here, is that what you suggest we should teach has zero evidence that's even hypothesis worthy. So you make such a thing of hypothesis and theory and argue on that, but the other side that you think should be taught (in a secular school, no less) has none of those things. Look, we have to go with what we know, what we can see and what we have evidence for. As far as being a "valley of ignorance"...uh that "valley of ignorance" is all we have. We've been learning your version for the last two thousand years and where has it gotten us? The point is, if you want your kids to learn that crap, church is free. Take them to church. But don't pretend creationism is even on the same level as evolution. It's just not. There isn't anybody on earth who doesn't know of a creation myth, but you want it taught in school? Like it's in competition with things that are actually so? Sorry, I have a huge problem with it. There are enough religious zealot wing-nuts running around as it is. It doesn't need state support, too. Take your fucking kids to churcn if you want to make them stupid.
but from a spiritual point of view all religious communities agree that we lack the inner resources to guide ourselves for the better.
This is not remotely true. But even if it were, how can you fashion "an argument they understand," when they have fundamentally rejected logic? In such cases, it cannot be said that you are advancing an argument, merely regurgitating something that religious adherents have already assumed to be true, that is also consistent with global warming. That's not an argument, but mere rhetoric.
This is where I get my recommended daily allowance of "Foot in Mouth."
The matter of what is and isn't science isn't so cut and dry as people think. There are scientists and philosophers who do nothing by try to answer the question of what is and is not science. According to some who study this question, creation theory is a scientific theory, it's just a debunked scientific theory like luminiferous aether. According to them, creation theory is science because it is falsifiable and in fact has already been falsified.
Tennessee will become very familiar with the theory of evolution when high-tech, and science intensive companies evolve out of locating in Tennessee.
You know, there is a point of view about how science has become a dogmatic religion of it's own (http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge219.html#dysonf). People take science as truth, on faith. What is the one true system of mechanics? The system that has not been dis-proven in any case (which would rule out the entire system according to the scientific method)? Newtonian? Relativistic? Quantum?
Evolution is a great example of this. No one argues about the principles of heredity, as laid out by a very religious man, a friar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregor_Mendel). But the larger, completely extrapolated principle of evolution is a topic of debate.
The argument goes like this:
Scientific Person: Rodents evolved to Monkeys evolved to Apes evolved to Man
Judeo-Christian Person: Man did not come from monkeys!
Scientific Person: Where did man come from, then?
Judeo-Christian Person: G*d created him in his image!
Scientific Person: Well there's no proof of that.
Judeo-Christian Person: Well there's no proof that!
Scientific Person: Didn't you just hear me say that Rodents evolved to Monkeys evolved to Apes evolved to Man? What more proof do you need? It's SCIENCE!
Judeo-Christian Person: And didn't you just hear me say that G*d created man?!?
And so forth. But there has never been a single documented case of a genus changing due to evolution, that I'm aware of. Not one. It can't be shown experimentally. Dogs have dog babies. Cats have cat babies. Etc. Etc. Etc.
Scientifically, evolution is a supported theory. But it is just a theory. According to the scientific method, everything is either a LAW (a set of assumptions to establish a framework) or a THEORY (a set of assumptions derived from the law that haven't been dis-proven yet).
And yet, here on Slashdot, the rank and file members of the cult of science cheered when schools in Georgia were forced to take that basic scientific principle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method) off the front covers of their text books.
"This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered. " (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selman_v._Cobb_County_School_District)
It's a valid, 100% scientifically correct statement. It was forced off of textbooks because of dogma.
The courts did right in Tennessee. A person might believe in science. A person might believe in Flying Spaghetti Monsters. A person might believe the world is flat. But a balanced viewpoint, and by extension a balanced education, requires more than an ostrich-like ability to stick your head in the sand when facing a viewpoint you disagree with while bleating a dogmatic mantra. And the courts should not silence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech) a debate because it hurts the sensibilities of ANY group. At least not in the US, where the Constitution (http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution.html) grants the right to say anything.
You know, the whole voting thing? The founding fathers debated among themselves as to whether the Supreme Court should be allowed to decide on the constitutionality on laws. Three of them flip-flopped on the issue. What they agreed upon was that the primary means of dealing with this kind of crap was informed citizens using the power of the vote. So yeah, there is a mechanism for punishing lawmakers who pass unconstitutional laws, but the flaw in this is that it doesn't work very well when a multibillion dollar propaganda machine (Fair and BalancedTM!) is actively working to misinform the public.
"and California told their students to not even apply to their schools."
Where is the evidence of that and who the f mod'd this up. Here is what your link says,
"I urge you to maintain the high standards required for admission into any of the Universities of California and adopt a policy of not considering applications from public high school students from Kansas. Additional information on this subject is available from the Kansas Citizens for Science at http://www.kcfs.org. I would appreciate a response including your thoughts and how you intend to address this issue."
You took the opinion of some self-important asshole and FALSELY stated it as the state of California. Where is the evidence?
You think - for one second - that the state of California is going to discount all public HS students from the state of Kansas??? You would need political ignorance on par with creationist ignorance to believe that they would get away with that. Heads would roll if such a policy were instituted in any non-tongue-in-cheek manner.
Why is this insightful? Did anyone even read the links that this AC goober posted?
The first sentence just says that a group of students who used a particular textbook wouldn't get credit because the University of Cali system didn't think the books were scientifically sound (they included christian viewpoints in ADDITION to all of the required material). When they got sued a court said "well, you didn't prove the the University of Cali was basing their decision on animus or being irrational so it is constitutional for them to reject your course." It's basically up to them as long as their not just being a putz about it.
The "Cali told Kansas students not to even apply link" was simply a letter written by someone to the regents encouraging them to not accept applications from Kansas students. I don't see anything that says that the "Universities of California" actually paid any attention. The other link to "holysmoke" was a blog post of someone's opinion and a bunch of links related to the Kansas deal... not something of substance... and certainly not anything that adds value to the discussion. Give me a break.
My present is the activity I am currently engaged in with the purpose of turning the future into a better past.
Usually I reach a point where my perspective has been shared with my interlocutor, as I understand what you are referring. Before I declare myself beaten, as you had a better argument, I will mention only that I don't find religion entirely illogical, nor it's adherents deaf to reason. I believe the point they defend is worth defending not until the scientific community agrees upon the most likely theory, but until they can understand that the scientific theory has more merit than tradition or dogma.
So I wasn't talking about religious fundamentalists, I was defending creationist position from a philosophic standpoint, I respect it and I expect it to be treated not as point of divergence, but as a basis to be confirmed or refuted by a solid solution, just like evolutionism.
uhm...
I'm well aware of how the earth was discovered to be round. What I stated was that the scientists of the time thought you would fall off if you went too far. like pouring water over a ball. The water runs down the side until it reaches a point where it runs off. At one point, it was believed that you would fall off the globe if you went too far from the "top," and the top was considered to be close to wherever those scientists happened to live.
And your example fails to account for things like magnets hidden in the apple, elevation, latitude or big Monty Python feet that come down from the sky to squash it. What of it?
Sure, but that doesn't change the fact that evolution is a well supported scientific theory while creationism is a non-scientific hypothesis, at best.
Essentially, evolution is for the time being as good as fact. There's no other scientific theory that fits the facts, so there's nothing else to teach.
Dilbert RSS feed
Where exactly does evolution try to explain the origin of life? You're just attacking a strawman.
Dilbert RSS feed
...and even a high-tech economy needs ditch diggers.
Do I feel sorry for kids in Tennessee? Sure, I suppose. They didn't really have anything to do with this. But at the same time, it's not like this happened by accident.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
There is no reason to bring up religion during a science discussion. If you happen to believe that the Earth is 6000 years old, you are free to do so -- but science is about evidence, which can be reproduced by others, and developing models and theories based on that evidence. If you have evidence of a young Earth that can be duplicated by other researchers, cool -- publish it, and we'll start debating how to reconcile your results with the mountain of evidence for an old Earth.
There is no creation/evolution debate; it was manufactured by people who are terrified that the old religious institutions will lose their power if people do not take the Christian Bible (i.e. a poor translation of ancient near east mythology) as absolute truth. Scientists should not be concerned with religion; religious leaders are the ones who need to figure out how to stay relevant in this day and age (it really is not that hard). Scientists are not trying to "disprove God;" deities are simply not part of the picture when it comes to science, because there is no evidence upon which theories and models can be built when it comes to deities.
Believe what you want to believe, but keep it out of science classrooms unless you have evidence on your side.
Palm trees and 8
But there's more than one way to understand the Genesis creation narrative
Cool, talk about it during bible study. This is irrelevant to science, because the Christian Bible is not a science textbook. Science is not about developing models in front of a religious background, and squeezing your religion into gaps in scientific understanding is a dangerous thing to do: the gaps get smaller over time.
Palm trees and 8
"Squeal-like-a-pig-Tennesee"
That controversial enough for ya?
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
But the spirit of discovery, and questioning beliefs, are traits developed long before the University lab.
I still get a (tragic) laugh at this because the religious zealots opposing evolution don't even know which theory they're objecting to.
Darwin's theory was the evolution of species by natural selection.
We call it 'evolution' for short, but the actual theory part was the connecting of evolution, which was the concrete observation, with natural selection, which is a mathematical principle.
Considering that 'God' isn't actually a paranormal being with human insecurities and a variety of mental health issues, but simply a metaphor for the forces of nature/the human community, you'd think they'd just decide call God a metaphor for mathematics as well and then we could all move on.
(AC because I don't have an account, sorry.)
Although I essentially agree with the point you start out with...
although the Jayne/Cox derivation of Bayesian logic as the only consistent rules for updating our beliefs is compelling enough that I don't lose any sleep over the possibility it will be proven wrong
If you really mean this, I hope you find the time to do some wider reading of the literature and also consider that many 'only consistent something' claims come about after severe bouts of 'framing the question'.
Guess inbreeding causes faulty logic.
I hope a constituent with a child in the local schools sues, and soon! Perhaps DEVO was right?
After reading about this latest attempt to "Teach the Controversy" I donated to the National Center for Science Education.
The Discovery Institute was 100% behind this law.
They [Discovery Institute] "wants to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialistic worldview, and to replace it with a science consistent with Christian and theistic convictions"
Next will come the Jesus cult version of the burka and public stoning for not adhering to the accepted dogma.
Whatever happed to curb you dog(ma)?
Well, since evolution is "Just a theory", we naturally can disregard creationism as "Just mythology". I would personally pay for the lawyer of a teacher who teaches this to his/her students.
What is your opinion of the impact of this law? I suspect it has always been the case that the majority of people believe in creationism. I wonder if a tendency to hold religious beliefs is an advantageous adaption. We argue about the incorrectness of a belief in creationism when ironically, it may be society's tendency to hold religious beliefs that have helped our species survive. We may not need those tendencies anymore but I'm not sure they can safely disappear overnight. I don't see a need to change someone's belief creationism even though I don't share it. Science can do amazing things that will change their minds. Science is so powerful that it seems silly to worry about the misconceptions of the deeply religious. Democracy means the majority gets to create laws which are a mistake but the system allows us to fix them later when we're culturally evolved to accept it. Maybe the best way to reduce the belief in creationism is to teach it along side evolution.
Yeah, I don't think at all that your labeling of those with religious faith as undeserving of human rights is flamebait at all. I think of it as out-and-out disingenuity. Leave evolution aside for a second (which I happen to "believe" in, just FYI): The idea that there was a force behind the creation of existence as we know it is just as plausible as there not being one. If we don't know, we believe. Rational or irrational, the foundations of human society as we know it were created by people of faith. Are you planning on labeling every one of them ignorant as cattle? Grow up. Religion needs to be taught as one of the building blocks of human history, from a scholarly perspective. Whether that is taught in science class or history class, I could give a shit less.
What people are complaining about is the fact that there are a lot of teachers who really want to teach creationism to kids and dis evolution in their classrooms. This gives them license to do so.
Then call them on it if they do. No teacher has the right to undermine what you're trying to teach your kids, no matter your religion or lack thereof. More than likely if this is a valid concern, they're doing it anyway.
They're not forced to teach that, but it's fairly easy for a teacher to stand up in class and talk about evolution as some fairy tale make-up by atheists and how life was obviously designed by a creator and, without getting too much into it, he can effectively paint the situation as "evolution = lies, creationism = truth, I'm not going to tell you which God did it, but we're all from the Bible-belt so we all know who we're talking about here." Wink. Wink.
See previous statement.
Yeah, like that will happen in a heavily Christianized state. I'm sure teachers will give a nice, balanced presentation for all the religions they don't believe in.
Just like they give a nice balanced presentation of school levies, current affairs, and elections, being they're government union employees and have a self-interest in leftist positions. More than you think are likely on your side already...
A lot of people are posting things like, nothing in biology makes sense without evolution. I'll stipulate that, but does it matter ? Take cutting edge drug discovery, where you sequence a person's DNA, xray crystal structure the protein, etc You can do all that and be a King James is inerrant fundamentalist To put it another way, how often in real life does knowing evolution matter ? Or, how many people understand registers, or nor gates, yet manage to use a computer. I also wonder how many silly things the many people on slashdot , who seem to be overwhelmingly critical of TN, believe. We are all human; lighten up; let he who is without sin (no silly beliefs) cast the first blog-stone
If you prevent them from doing it they'll scream persecution. It's time to stop trying to drag these people in to the 21 century. Give them the freedom to be as stupid as they want. Teach that dinosaurs never existed..that all the bones were planted by atheists, that the world is 2000 years old. Prune the bad parts of American history. Whatever they want. Let them completely go off the cliff. The smart people leave. The state becomes a laughing stock and no one takes it seriously. Natural selection on a grand scale.
Hopefully, their teachers include the PI controversy in their curriculum so students are aware that while most mathematicians think the number for PI is 3.14159265..., some Christian mathematicians think we should just stick to using 3, like the Bible says.
Gay's flesh.
The 'Governor' of Knoxville told Associated Press: "Gay ... Hell Yea. Weze lov gay meats. Gay's meat has a sweet taste and and bit of gin aftertaste ... with a schoz full of Jim Bean. Why, I'd saze we allzu luz gayz sausage."
Right from the Pig's mouth.
LoL
I propose a law which forces churches to preach alternative religious believes during their ceremonies.
Evolution has been observed directly. I say it's fact.
US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
Well, there's no Pope and a flat earth theory, just as there is no Jesus riding Dinosaurs.
Because the (first) Pope and the flat earth theory are separated by at least 500 years. After Pythagoras (6th century BC), nobody believed in a flat earth any more.
The myth that anyone believed in a flat earth in the middle ages is a lie being propagated in the 19th century. And still is propagated by Hollywood.
"The more prohibitions there are, The poorer the people will be" -- Lao Tse
There's a rule that the more developed a country is, the less religious people in that country are. The only exception to that rule is the US. This bill just tries to make that right: make the US a less developed country by teaching its kids nonsense. Same as Muhammad did 1400 years ago: he ended Arab astronomy and math excellence by introducing a religion. Nothing new here.
no, I don't have a sig
We could go back to teaching/presenting the old theories that were held by the theologians and that infallibility of the Pope, with the Flat Earth and after that was shown to be hokum, the Earth the center of the universe. That is the problem with theologians making pronouncements about the real world, they haven't a clue. That is the realm of the sciences, and they are jealous that there is a whole area of existence that they are not the authorities on, which is how they control their flock and the pocket books of their flock.
But we are seeing a new trend of marketing going on. In one case with the religious "wrong" controlling their flocks to vote in ridiculous laws that impose their wrong headed and provably incorrect idea's onto the public and worse yet into the impressionable minds of our children. The other arm of that effort is to convince the electorate to vote for people who will vote in laws that will put them out of jobs, reduce their wages and allow them to have their money siphoned off but the upper 1%. Marketing has gotten much too effective in the world of low information voters, and blind faith believers.
Its a good time to re-read 1984. We are getting the infrastructure in place with the intelligence community and the lack of controls and oversight with our law enforcement arms and military. Now all we need is a "wrong" wing nut job elected and the Jack boot will descend with a vengeance.
Vote carefully, but vote.
As a liberal Christian (yes we exist) I would like to point out that science explains the "how" aspect of earth, biology, geology, evolution - as much as we can surmise from the indisputable facts. And religion should relegate itself to the "why" aspect of what we as humans do with our lives to better the world around us.
As for education: science, religion, and philosophy are separate branches within a rich tree of life.
Tennessee has schools?
What a bunch of backwards hillbillies.
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
Just what the world needs. More dumb people from Tennessee. Of course they don't believe in science - they can't read the books.
Poe's Law strikes again.
Eventually man will learn that religion and science will ultimately agree in all things.
Until then both sides will continue to stumble blindly through the dark.
The Glory of God is Intelligence, or in other words, Light and Truth.
Science is our intepretation of the world based on our small box we call knowledge. We declare it valid following proofs that are observable within our limited senses and enjoy delightful confirmations to all existing knowledge as we define it. There is absolute pleasure and hand-clapping glee in conformance to the scientific body of knowledge. And wrinkle-conceiving frowns, frothing, nose elevations, palpitations and great laughter to any notions to the contrary....especially absurdities like non-evolutionary beginnings.
How do you challenge something outside science using scientific argument. Best we define a "something" above both or "all" then we can challenge/compare using that "something".
Maybe we wouldve progressed faster if we had organs that detected electromagnetic waves. Maybe if we were shark-like or serpent-like...if sharks could talkfrom those many million years ago, we'd have banished them to deserts for the mere mention that there are detectable waves under water.
If its not observable, it dosent exist!
We shall continue to spend billions in our pursuit to prove that we cannot be the only accident in the universe. Surely there has to be another chance happening that brought about life in another planet...
out there....
Ah well.... imagine if I declared that science is in fact a form of religion....the venom it would extract would make made adders look cuddly!
I don't know the law text but I think this type of law can backfire. One could make churchs obliged "teach the controversy" of evolution and climate chnages. That would be interesting to see.
Why isn't it called "teaching ignorance"?
It could be true that religious communities believe it.
Probably not, and worse: it's irrelevant.
Isn't it strange how the religious believe they would immediately start engaging in immoral activities were they to lose faith?
I consider myself to be a very highly moral person. But I don't imagine someone looking over me ready to cast me into hell, or burn my soul in eternity.
In fact, the mere idea of eternity is terrifying, even without hell and damnation.
Like much legislation, this is a feel-good political career move to appease morons.
However, I think people are protesting just a BIT too much
Schools SHOULD be "teaching controversy", one reason public education sucks donkey dicks is that so much time is spent preparing kids to pass tests, and so little is spent preparing them to think critically. And face it, this type of controversy is a golden fricken opportunity to do what teachers SHOULD be doing in the first place, TEACH kids logic, reason, critical thinking, how to evaluate evidence, what constitutes evidence, and the differences between different disciplines of knowledge.
If a teacher can't work with this, indeed, if a teacher isn't ALREADY doing this, they probably shouldn't even BE teaching.
So much of what we learned in public school was pure watered-down horseshit anyway, everybody needs to just grow the fuck up and remember that life doesn't really even start until you got into college and took a couple philosophy classes.
Father George Coyne, PhD: It's not that the church has the idea that they're gonna train us up in order to go out and baptize those extraterrestrials, before the Mormons get at 'em. The reason is simply historical facts. John Paul II, for instance, said that evolution, in the Neo-Darwinian sense, is no longer a mere hypothesis. I mean, he said that, it's in writing.
Father George Coyne, PhD: The Scriptures are not teaching science. It's very hard for me to accept, not just a literal interpretation of Scripture, but a fundamentalist approach to religious belief. It's kind of a plague. It presents itself as science and it's not.
--Religulous
You're not teaching science if you don't teach how to consider alternatives and objections, and deal with them. Whether the creationists are going to be happy to have it now mandated that their junk can be discussed and debunked, I doubt.
If we stop trying to block one or both sides, and get all the ideas out there in the open, they can be discussed on their merits.
If we start cheerleading and block one or both sides from presenting their arguments, we give legitimacy to their perception that they aren't being heard.
That is unless it's connected to gop politics that is. More power to the fundies who perpetuate this. One more reason to marginalize them. Too bad Harry Truman wasn't prez during the Civil War.
Creationism is a theory that evolution happened, all in one week, about six thousand years ago, in contrast to the standard theories that said it happened at random over a period of billions of years. Is it a plausible hypothesis? How would you tell? Is there evidence that might support or contradict either theory? What other alternatives could explain the evidence? What kinds of things would you look for to help you decide? Fossils? Erosion? Rates of piracy? Historical records and calendar systems from other cultures?
And if you do teach "the controversy" as a scientific controversy, what conclusions are your students likely to draw? How will their parents react? Is that what the legislators thought they were getting into when they wanted teachers to teach "the controversy"?
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
hmmm....good and bad all at once, good on the fact that they would teach all the points pertaining to both ID and Evolution and letting the kids decide for themselves which is the one they believe more. Bad because I'm sure some idiot is going to abuse this law(50/50 split it will either be a hardcore atheist or a hardcore Christian) Funny thats how it used to be....when did history and science become editorials?