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Texas School Board Searching For Alternatives To Evolutionary Theory
An anonymous reader writes "[Ars Technica] recently reviewed the documentary The Revisionaries, which chronicles the actions of the Texas state school board as it attempted to rewrite the science and history standards that had been prepared by experts in education and the relevant subjects. For biology, the board's revisions meant that textbook publishers were instructed to help teachers and students 'analyze all sides of scientific information' about evolution. Given that ideas only reach the status of theory if they have overwhelming evidence supporting them, it isn't at all clear what 'all sides' would involve."
May we each be touched by his noodley appendage!
Ever notice that Cobra Commander sounds an awful lot like Star scream?
Sigh. There's just no cure for stupid. Full disclosure. I live in Texas and yes, this embarrasses me.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
...or maybe a theorem. Or a rumor.
Maybe a wacky folk story.
"Darwin's Wise Tale of Evolution"
Examining all sides of a scientific theory that are contrary to an established scientific theory means examining decidedly unscientific theories as if they were scientific... or, you could just say, "Teaching our students Not-Science"
Let's just call it Punctuated Equilibrium. They'll never catch on to it - too many fancy words and complex diagrams. Should keep the school board busy for a while.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
No there is a cure, this measure just actively fights it.
The Texas School Board will be happy to accept their prize for turning biology on its head.
When I visited Texas I noticed that half the people were really cool guys and the other half were assholes. Of course most other places were like that but Texas took it to extremes.
Gravity is a theory too, maybe they find that it doesn't exist and they all fly away from earth
OK, as long as history and science classes have to give arguments on both sides about the existence of God.
Textbook publishers take note, you'll sell Texas a ton of books if you pander to our religious beliefs in your science books.
they practice de-evolution.
UnIntelligent Design?
It is incorrect that ideas only reach the status of "theory" when there's overwhelming evidence. A theory is a theory because it makes a testable, falsifiable, hypothesis. We have theories that aren't well tested. We don't go teaching them in science class, but that doesn't mean they aren't theories. This idea that "theory" means "proven beyond any reasonable doubt" is silly. It doesn't.
For that matter, some things get called theories that aren't. Like String Theory. Not only is there no proof, there's no testable predictions. As such right now it is a hypothesis. It is a neat bit of math, internally consistent, but so far there are no testable predictions, no way to falsify, so it isn't really a theory. We don't want to go teaching it in high school science class yet, but we do want to keep looking at it.
The reason why all the god backed proposals aren't theories is they aren't testable, aren't falsifiable. They rely on an entity that by definition is outside of the observable universe. As such they can't be tested and thus are not scientific theories. They could be right, but they still aren't science. Science is concerned with the testable. A testable, falsifiable, hypothesis is a theory. Heck even after it is falsified it is still a theory, it is just wrong :).
The only thing NOT an opinion in science, IF you actually follow the scientific method, is the certainty that all evidence is biased by the ignorance of the individual putting it forth.
NEVER confuse the model with reality.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Gravity is a very active area of theoretical study. We don't understand what it is very well, and there are strong indications that General Relativity is not complete, that we need a better theory to fully explain interactions, particularly on the quantum level.
You may be confusing the theory with the fact. The fact of gravity is that objects attract, or on a more human scale, that things fall down. That is something you can just observe, sometimes without meaning to. The theory of gravity is to explain how and why the interaction works. That one we don't have nailed.
Not trying to support Texas here in their unscientific bullshit, but gravity is not an open and shut case. What its method of action is, how it works on very small and large levels, and how it unifies with the other forces are still not well understood.
Evolution has no moral lessons, you idiot.
So in light of this, if you think the USA is bad, Texas is all your USA stereotypes times 10. If the US is bad, texas is wholly unbearable.
I got here through a series of tubes
As I see it, the "two sides" are this:
1. The assertion "evolution occurs", which is testable and extensively tested, which science overwhelmingly supports and very few theists have any issue with. It allows inclusion of all of the specifics of evolutionary theory regarding plausible mechanisms for biological change, specifically and appropriately to the degree valid science calls for.
2. The assertion "only evolution occurs", which is untestable and unscientific, and seems to have as its only apparent benefit that it's seen as a necessary premise for atheism. Need causal exclusivity to be true, therefore it is, need it to be scientific, therefore it is, though it factually fails on both counts.
The only real questions are what one specifically means by "evolution" in a given presentation, and whether that usage bears scientific scrutiny--and managing to stick with that usage in the face of an opportunity to make a non-sequitur argument for atheism.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
Lots of homosexuals procreate, lots of people who have abortions have kids. Abortion and infanticide may actually preserve a generational line in times scarcity, in that resources can be concentrated on existing children. Homosexual people procreate in heterosexual relationships all the time, and use IVF or surrogacy to procreate in homosexual relationships. The world is a little more complicated than you think.
As I understand it, the only reason the body of america cares that the Texas school board makes wacky decisions (apart from their concern for Texan children) is that it affects the books that are available for schools across the country, due to the quantities of books involved.
This basically means it boils down to money. Good accurate books will be more expensive. In an age of digital media, surely the cost of having accurate science texts can be accepted by those schools who actually want to teach children rather than brain-wash them?
I think a sticker saying "This text has been rejected by the Texas school board" should be a mark excellence that is worth paying extra for.
The grander problem is, and has always been of more concern, that the school board is only really reflecting the views of the wider Texan community. If Americans really want to change the facts to fit their own world view how do you get around that?
Austin is a nice town.
I read the internet for the articles.
There is a scientific alternative to Darwinism. It's called Lamarckism. And it's something that *should* be taught alongside Darwinism in biology classrooms.
Texas would like to think of it as a hypothesis or maybe a theorem. Or a rumor. Maybe a wacky folk story. "Darwin's Wise Tale of Evolution"
Perhaps we should repay the favour and think of Texas as a work of wacky fiction too (not a very good one though because it the story seems too unbelievable). In this case though I'd suggest "The Land that Time Forgot".
If it was a good theory then it would be *testable*. One could use it to make reliable predictions about generational change in short lived animals based on whatever the factors are that induce change.
Can't we though? Let's employ some of that science-y method-y stuff.
Question: Does selection pressure as described by the theory of evolution result in observable changes in the makeups of colonies of microorganisms?
Hypothesis: It do.
Method: We will use antibiotics on bacterial colonies, introducing a selection pressure against those strains most susceptible to the antibiotics. If that "natural selection via random mutation" thing works, individual bacterium that are resistant to antibiotics may exist. These individuals will be more likely to pass on their genetic information as the non-resistant bacteria will have been "selected against." We will look for emerging strains of antibiotic-reistant bacteria.
Result: Yup, that happens.
Conclusion: That whole "natural selection" thing exists.
Ipso facto, QED, science, BA-DAMN where's my Nobel?
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Textbook publishers take note, you'll sell Texas a ton of books if you pander to our religious beliefs in your science books.
Perhaps but you are not going to be able to charge much if your text book on electromagnetism just contains the single sentence "Let there be light.".
One moral to evolution is that if you, through social pressure, effectively compel people who wouldn't normally be inclined to have children, due to genetic reasons, to do so, you make those genes more common.
Kind of ironic, eh?
If you've driven through Dallas then you've experienced the effects of UnIntelligent design in practice on the highway design.
I got here through a series of tubes
so why not have both, cant we all just get along?
Because while some people are out there trying to answer the questions of what makes anything we experience, happen, there are people out that that actively get in the way of such research because they are afraid that the answer will not be:
You cant have the universe without G-d
Evolution is an excellent theory and it absolutely can and does make testable, reliable predictions about change in a population of short lived organisms... it's been done so many times that there are elementary schools that do experiments with fruit flies showing exactly what you suggest is impossible. And that's to say nothing about things like long term e.coli. experiments which produced the exact mutations that the researchers expected (which surprised exactly no one involved) before the e.coli. evolved a couple previously unseen mutations that were much, much more interesting to study.
The "Manny-worlds" theory only applies to universes in which everyone is named "Manuel," or in which only men provide child care services.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
There was a comment a couple days ago quoting someone who said "all that's left in physics is the fifth decimal place" or something similar, the same is true for evolutionary science. What's cool is that you can teach it that way.
First decimal: Evolution is how diversity on earth came to be, it's organisms changing from one generation to the next until they are different species. (A lot of people knew that much before Darwin even came along).
Second decimal: Evolution is powered by natural selection; organisms that are successful are more likely to have offspring. (Basically what Darwin came up with, along with a few other naturalists of his day)
Third decimal: Sexual selection, gender wars, kin selection (a bunch of stuff Darwin came up with to some extent but wasn't to sure about)
Fourth decimal: Genetics (if Darwin knew about genetics he would rage at the heavens questioning how people could still not accept his theory)
Fifth decimal: Horizontal gene transfer, latent retrovirus DNA, gene regulation (stuff we are just beginning to understand the importance of)
The problem occurs when all you learn about is the first decimal, then say to yourself "but God did it" and ignore the rest or "but what about his aspect!?" and assume that your objection isn't resolved at a deeper level than you currently understand.
I don't know if you ever heard this, but everything is bigger in Texas. I'm surprised that you are surprised.
Hey, quick question. Do you know how to tell if someone is from Texas? You don't have to, just let him talk long enough and he will tell you.
Evolution can't tell me what conditions to subject rats to so that I end up with something that isn't a rat.
Of course it can. You just have to understand that long term evolution is a macroscopic process resulting from changes in DNA. Increase the mutations, breed many generations, and expose those generations to selective pressure. It's really not that hard to understand. And "isn't a rat" is a fairly silly, non-scientific, though also easy to determine. The definition of a species is somewhat subjective, but generally is that members can interbreed and have fertile offspring. Change the rat's DNA so much that it can breed with other organisms with that change but not original rats and there you go.
And it can't tell me how many generations it'll take
That's an even sillier argument. Theories of statistics can't tell you how many tries it will take to get heads when flipping a quarter, but that doesn't mean statistics is not testable. If I told you I'd give you 1:10 odds (ie. you get $1 for a $10 bet) that the next coin flip is heads, would you take it? How about if I gave you those odds that over 1M coin clips the results are between 0.49 and 0.51? (Hint: you should take the bet. And that's a prediction).
And anyway it basically can tell you how many generations it will take - it will take as many as necessary to cause exactly the mutations needed to achieve the change you are looking for. You might be able to speed that up via mutagens and increased selective pressure, or once (it's only a matter of time) humans can trivially map the entire gene sequence and function for an organism and have the technology to modify them, it could be one generation (as it is these thing are already being done, just not as efficiently as they could). But it's all the same to the DNA.
Evolution can't tell me where to dig to find a creature whose bones are part way between a form believed to be a descendent of another.
Yes, it can. That's how so many of the existing bones have been found in a relatively small region of the world. Archaeologists didn't just dig billions of random holes around the planet and cross their fingers.
And it can't reliably tell me what those bones will look like when I do find them.
Seriously, just give it up. You don't even need to be a biologist to prove this statement wrong, 5 minutes on Google would do it. Sigh. Will there be the occasional surprise? Absolutely, because due to its underlying mechanisms some aspects of evolution are RANDOM. But if you think that disproves anything or discredits the theory, back to that coin flipping experiment for you...
Homosexual existence is mostly considered evolutionary good because the people without children will be more charitable towards others and will help a whole village to raise all of their children better. This of course does not work in the West any longer, but this way of life is still quite strong in India I believe (and where most of the studies are conducted). The homosexual gene is passed on in the villages and societies who do better on a whole. As long as the homosexual gene never creates a whole generation of pure homosexuals then its continues to be passed on from the carriers who do procreate (the non-homosexuals).
You could also consider the case of a herd of herbivorous. If a homosexual bull was allowed to hang around the herd he would be a huge help in keeping off predators.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Interestingly, this is a point that the creationists make all the time. According to them, origins science has very little actual observational science going on, and has much to do with the biases of the observer (both ways, they don't claim to be free of the bias of starting with the Bible).
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
In all fairness, within the standards of the /. community, "god-tard" is a term of art, rather than a sign of bigotry and narrow-mindedness. The frustration level when dealing with people who do not seem to be arguing in good faith on teaching evolution is high, and gets higher the longer it continues and morphs.
I believe the core issue the Texas Board and their fellow travelers struggle with isn't with scientific evidence of a particular theory, but rather the conclusions that some choose to draw from that evidence. A child's perception of God and Nature is necessarily challenged as he matures. Some resolve that struggle by denying God, some by denying what is discovered during study of God's creation.
The majority of the Texas board seem to be the latter.
Luke, help me take this mask off
do something about it
it's only like this because not enough texans like you are agitating about this
i would bet a majority of texans agree with you. the problem is a highly motivated, highly vocal minorty highjack the process and the majority is quiet and complacent about the whole nightmare
you need to get involved. you get the texas you deserve. so put some effort into it, kick these militantly ignorant morons off your school board, and restore texas to the modern world
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Er did someone evolve an intelligent life-form in a lab from a lesser organism while I wasn't looking? I am all red in the face. I must have missed that monumental announcement.
That's very cute. And, you're not addressing what the parent said. In fact, you can go into a biology lab and watch evolution happen over the course of tens of thousands of generations of bacteria. Evolution at the level of virii and bacteria occurs quickly. The more complex the life form, the longer it takes for visually obvious symptoms of evolution. But, thanks to the fine focus provided by current genomic lab techniques, you can see signs of human evolution within historical times. No third arms or eleventh toes, sorry, but real change nevertheless.
Again, what we're dealing with isn't God-centric creation or not, but dogma and magic wand waving v. what is observed to be occurring. It may be that a Christian God caused the HIV to arise and target gays, or it may have been outhouse (bad) luck, but the observed mechanism was still evolution.
Luke, help me take this mask off
As TFA is about schools, let me offer this explanation:
It's not about critical thinking to test a false theory.
Within the school environment you have a certain amount of time to teach a subject. If you teach two 'versions' of it (one true, one false) to gain critical thinking, you halve the amount of time to teach the Quite Obviously True (TM) version.
If the answer comes around to God Did It, it should be taught in Church, not school
The grand majority of atheist traditions have a tendency to start with the assumption that people in the past were all idiots and had nothing worthwhile to say at all.
This is an unfortunate assumption you're making. It's BECAUSE of great pioneers of the scientific method (invented back when people still believed lightning was something akin to the gods partying) that I know that your "2000 years of observable evidence" isn't... observable.
I like this idea because I can change the cover and resell their textbook as a comedy book.
Table-ized A.I.
(*double take*) You think evolution is a philosophy?
That's pretty smurfed up.
Overall inflation has been shockingly, distressingly, low for the past decade.
Sure, but for the first 10^-19 seconds of the expansion of the universe inflation was merciless.
I can explain. It is kind of like sickle cell anemia. While it is bad for the person who has it, the presence of the gene is a net benefit for populations in the tropics. Because if you only have one copy, you become highly resistant to malaria!
In fact, here is something you can take to the bank about “genetic diseases”. All of them have some benefit, even if the benefit is only to people who got a single copy of the gene. If you think about this it make perfect sense, why would a gene with only a down side ever spread in the first place? So pretty much ever genetic disease we have a name for has some benefit to humans, however bad it is for the person who has it.
The more serious the disease, probably the larger the benefit.
No. It doesn't. It works on a story of a creator. There's no evidence for one; there's no way to test to see if there is one; there's no way to test to see if there isn't one (it's not falsifiable); there are no predictions re effects upon reality that arise from the idea; etc. Theism is in no way qualified as a theory. Theism is speculation, no more than that, in terms of its value in quantifying reality.
A reasonable atheist will simply inform you of the complete lack of evidence to back up the speculation, and, if you fail to do so, as all other theists from day one have failed, will assign no value whatsoever to your speculation.
Of course, not all atheists are reasonable. All atheism is, is a lack of belief in a god or gods. Just as theists vary from really nice people who you'd like to play cards with, to people who fly into buildings and set their wives on fire.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
What we observe is nothing but a model as well.
Dilbert RSS feed
Agreed. It's because the voters are victims, or frauds.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
You think Texas is bad, try California or Illinois. At least Texas can more or less balance a budget and follow the Constitution.
I've lived in both Texas and California (but was born in neither).
Guess where I choose to live? I'll give you a hint: it doesn't start with T.
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
That is a fabulous and well thought out answer, and I mean no offence by anything I say beyond this.
You proved evolution in your own answer (beaks changing etc.). Now we're just discussing the degree of change evolution offers, which is not quite the point.
If things can evolve a little, then it follows that with time (and assuming the changes don't lead to a dead-end, or that changes in its environment do not change faster than the creature/plant can evolve to adapt), it MUST follow, that with enough time object X will eventually become very different from starting object Y.
I hope I clarified my position
Edison was an inventor. To my knowledge he didn't discover any scientific theories, but rather applied existing scientific theories to make new inventions.
Darwin was a much more notable scientist (i.e. someone who figures out how the world works), than Edison. Edison was a much more notable "applied scientist" (i.e. someone who figures out how to build things using science).
I can't think of a single scientific discovery made by Edison. Please let me know if you can think of one.
What I find interesting is that most atheists are just like religious extremists. Their belief is right and no amount of facts will change their mind.
What facts do you have that should change their minds?
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
There, I think I've exhausted the major variants.
No. The universe existing is evidence that the universe exists. It could have been here forever, perhaps expanding and contracting in repeated cycles; it could have arisen as a purely deterministic event; it could have been a probabilistic event. None of these ideas require a god or gods. Inasmuch as there is no evidence whatsoever for a god or gods, William of Occam's razor tells us where to look: and it's not for god. You come up with evidence for god (or gods), then it's time to look. Until then, plenty of physical evidence exists for us to look at.
Oh? You (a) have personal knowledge of what is springing up outside your neighborhood, what it would look like, act like, be perceived as? No, I didn't think so. (b) You have made a scientific survey of our universe? No, I didn't think so. (c) You enter as an assumption that universes spring up within other universes, and while that may be an interesting assertion, you have evidence for it? No, I didn't think so.
We don't know what a new universe would look like; we don't know what size it would seem to be to us; we don't know if it would be in the same set of dimensions as we seem to be; we don't know if there'd be an energy signature, or a materials signature, or if, given either of those, it would be within a distance, or time, given the limitations of relativity, where we'd notice it. In short, you're making really, really broad assumptions about a subject we are woefully uninformed about. You present them as fact, then build your argument from them. This is very sloppy thinking, at best.
You have the wrong guy. I view the big bang theory as the equivalent of observing a softball in mid-flight, computing the visible arc, and, knowing the arc, projecting backwards to a portion of the field we can't see, and then assuming the ball spontaneously flew into the air from, as far as we can tell, astroturf. Breaking the rules of physics. Because that's exactly parallel to what big bang theory expounds.
Still, the projection of the curve works for quite a while according to other evidence; so, at least until the known behaviors of physics break (which they do in big bang theory, and that's where I withhold acceptance at this time), and while big bang theory describes the results we see today better than anything else, I'll take it on a provisional basis.
I suspect that either we don't completely understand physics well enough (most likely), or that something occurred for which we have no referents at this time and so no one has put the idea on the table to test (also possible.) None of this brings to mind, for me, the idea that "some dude did it." Two reasons. One, no evidence at all. Two, still leaves the same question unanswered: Where did the dude come from? Dude, of course, being a handwaving shortform version of "intelligent creator of the universe"
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Agreed. I've screwed up behind the wheel. I've scared myself shitless a couple of times. I've never blamed it on other people though. I know that I screwed up, I knew it immediately. Self examination and honesty helped me to LEARN FROM MY MISTAKES, and I became a better driver.
Chumps who blame other fools for their own inadequacies never learn, and they can't improve their performance.
Such people will probably become a statistic some day. The only bad side is, they may well cause someone else to become another statistic, at the same time.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Never ask a man if he's from Texas. If he is, he'll tell you soon enough. If he's not, there's no need to embarrass him.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
I'm not even sure I understand what you're saying here.
But if I have two oranges and you have two oranges and I give you mine, it's not open to interpretation as to how many you now have.
One persons bias is worked around by never relying on one person. People try to disprove as much as prove any theory. When we run out of other explanations we tend to think we've arrived at the answer.
Need Mercedes parts ?
Dead right. Show me signs of god and I'll believe. Sign. Just one.
But I see nothing that would let a reasonable person believe in Zeus, Odin or the Abrahamic god.
This may be especially difficult as there are plenty of signs man made this up. We call it "documented history" and examples abound. You won't hear about this from a religious school, but that doesn't mean it exists.
If you want to play in science you have to use the same things to make it rigorous, that is you need to try to falsify, or disprove your own theory. This is easily done by looking at the origin of the Abrahamic religions.
Ball in your court, believers.
Need Mercedes parts ?
Jesus these jumped up apes are chattery!
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
By that logic, inflation was negative between 1979 when IIRC gold peaked at about $1000 and 2002 or whenever gold bottomed out at $250. Same with oil, price goes up and down but both have one thing in common, without increases in production they're having to be split between more people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism