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Missouri Legislation Redefines Science, Pushes Intelligent Design
An anonymous reader writes "Ars reports on new legislation in the Missouri House of Representatives which is seeking equal time in the classroom for Intelligent Design, and to redefine science itself. You can read the text of the bill online. It uses over 600 words to describe Intelligent Design. Scientific theory, the bill says, is 'an inferred explanation of incompletely understood phenomena about the physical universe based on limited knowledge, whose components are data, logic, and faith-based philosophy.' It would require that 'If scientific theory concerning biological origin is taught in a course of study, biological evolution and biological intelligent design shall be taught.' The legislation's references to 'scientific theory' and 'scientific law' make it clear the writers don't have the slightest idea how science actually works. It also has this odd line near the end: 'If biological intelligent design is taught, any proposed identity of the intelligence responsible for earth's biology shall be verifiable by present-day observation or experimentation and teachers shall not question, survey, or otherwise influence student belief in a nonverifiable identity within a science course.'"
...to the bottom.
Less *is* more.
This sort of behavior from elected officials should be considered treason.
It is severely hurting the future of our country and making the next generation more ignorant.
They should be removed from office and any position of power of influence over others.
Actually, it really wasn't all that long of a run, in the grand scheme of things. I mean, Athens had a century or so as the center of learning, Alexandria lasted several centuries, Rome had a couple of really good centuries, Baghdad spent 3 centuries on top, Britain had a pretty impressive run from about the mid 1600's to the end of the Industrial Revolution, etc. And what all of those societies had in common was that they placed the highest value on knowledge and learning and not so much value on foolish religiousity. And the ruling class supported those scientific efforts for their own sake, not just because they were profitable.
I am officially gone from
... we'll see that schools that teach hogwash will be less successful than schools that teach science.
What do you mean by "less successful"? There is, right now, a network of parents and private schools and churches and non-accredited "universities" and museums that have the specific goal of teaching what the reality-based community sees as hogwash. They make huge sums of money, have growing numbers of students, and show no signs of going away any time soon. Their goal is to prevent students from learning about evolution, the Big Bang, psychology, or anything else that would convince a student to reconsider the religious truth that their parents and Bible-thumping preachers have told them.
I am officially gone from
And yet, he was able to realize that observable evidence was more important then simply chanting "God did it" over and over again.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
These bigoted idiots get away with what they do and say because we,
who do know better,
don't treat them and their ideas with the mockery that they deserve.
Respecting their right to believe (and we must) is not the same as respecting the idiotic beliefs that they hold.
I have a much better idea. A fundamentalist Christian has no business seeing a physician or being in a hospital ever.
Any Christian that pushes intelligent design over evolution should have the courage of their convictions and forsake modern medicine. Glory in your disease, for it is a gift from God.
Pretty soon now you will be just another religious state, just like the ones you are fighting right now, but with a different religion.
There is another, more optimistic way of looking at this: we are seeing the last frantic struggles of a reactionary movement which can't adapt to social change. If you were to go back in time to, say, 1950, do you really believe that Americans as a group were any less superstitious or closed-minded? In that era, not only were racism and sexism often overt (or even violent), gays were subject to criminal prosecution in most states, often with involuntary psychiatric commitment, and I suspect evolution wasn't even an issue because it wasn't even being taught in most schools. Maybe the reason why there wasn't a big controversy back then is because there wasn't much disagreement - the country was far more conservative as a whole.
Look at it from the perspective of the religious fundamentalists: in the past century (and some of these trends are far more recent), women have career opportunities that were unheard of (and are a majority of new college graduates); gays are "out, loud, and proud", with gay marriage now legal in four states (and civil unions in several more); no-fault divorce is available in nearly every state (I think NY is the lone holdout), and the divorce rate is something like 50% as a result; young women write exhibitionist columns in college newspapers glorifying their promiscuity; single motherhood is more common than ever; cohabitation before marriage is practically the norm (at least if you're a coastal elite like myself); the biological sciences are changing so fast that in another few decades (a century at the most) we'll probably have redefined reproduction (and humanity); the government has replaced the churches as the primary distributor of charity; and last but not least, we know more about the history of our universe and our species than ever before, and it's simply not compatible with Biblical literalism no matter how hard you try. The religious conservatives perceive their entire belief system to be under assault by the government, pop culture, and the dreaded liberal elites, and they are frantically trying to hold back the flood of perversity and Godlessness by every legal means at their disposal.
Mind you, I'm absolutely not defending them; I find them ignorant and contemptible, and their actions contradict nearly every moral and ethical value I have. But, as someone who reads a lot of history, and often feels just as alienated from modern society, I think I have a pretty good idea how they feel, and the word is desperate. They're not winning, they're fighting a rearguard action, trying to return to a idyllic, morally virtuous, and thoroughly mythical past.
Treason may be the wrong word if one wants to be precise, but there is certainly something like treason going on. The creationists are willfully trying to undermine the country's scientific future and to infect school children's receptive minds with pure nonsense. As an analogy it's very true.
There's also some very severe professional misconduct occurring there, because non-scientists are pretending to be scientifically competent and dictating school science curricula.
Are carpenters allowed to establish guidelines for how surgeons will do heart surgery? No, they lack the professional competence so they are not accepted as having standing in the matter. What's happening in science education in a few US states is directly analogous. The creationists have no standing in science and so should have the door shut firmly in their faces.
Pretending to have scientific competency when you don't even know how science works is pretty clear fraud. Aren't there controls in education to keep charlatans from taking jobs for which they have no professional competence? Apparently not.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Then why do all of these supposed teeming masses of enlightened people sit about on their fat asses and DO NOTHING ABOUT IT.
These religious nutjobs got elected by the majority of people. They stayed elected and started trying to pass religious laws. And they passed. And still, you all sat there and did nothing.
How many more times do we all have to read about this shit happening in the US before people take a genuine stand against this tripe?
You non-religiously-affiliated -people need to grow a pair and start changing things before the shit really starts hitting the fan.
Do you have any other justification than "we are right" to explain why a state's citizens should decide what the schools that they pay for teach their children?
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Not to their own facts.
If it teaches unverifiable bullshit, it isn't education, and doesn't belong in a school.
By all means, let parents and special interest groups pay for teaching their children whatever they want, but not within the school system. Remember that schooling isn't just by and for the tax payers of a state, but part of the UN charter on children's rights. As such, it transcends mere state legislation.
It's not just about Evolution - that's a hook for getting one particular voting block supporting the Republican Party, and a favor to them for cooperating, but there's more to it than that. Teaching Anti-Evolution Anti-Science makes it easier to teach Anti-Global-Warming Anti-Science - same tools, same skepticism and unwillingness to believe the real world instead of the authorities.
The Republican Party doesn't really care much about evolution. But their Corporate Sponsors really do care about global warming, and about anything that might force the government to make laws that affect their business. Anti-Evolution is fun, but anti-global-warming is where the money is.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks