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Creationism In Texas Public Schools
An anonymous reader writes "Slate reports on new anti-science education coming out of Texas. The state has a charter school system called Responsive Education Solutions, which is publicly funded. Unfortunately, 'it has been connected from its inception to the creationist movement and to far-right fundamentalists who seek to undermine the separation of church and state.' The biology workbook used in these schools actually reads, "In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth." It also brings up social Darwinism as if it's an aspect of evolutionary theory and introduces doubt that the Earth is billions of years old. The article continues, 'To get around court rulings, Responsive Ed and other creationists resort to rhetoric about teaching "all sides" of "competing theories" and claiming that this approach promotes "critical thinking." In response to a question about whether Responsive Ed teaches creationism, its vice president of academic affairs, Rosalinda Gonzalez, told me that the curriculum "teaches evolution, noting, but not exploring, the existence of competing theories."' Other so-called education texts being used by the Responsive Ed program teach Western superiority and how feminism forced women to 'turn to the state as a surrogate husband.'"
Shouldn't the opening of the Biology workbook alone be enough to get this squashed?
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
The more effort texas puts into "uneducating" their students the better chance the rest of the US has to get into good Colleges & Universities. Let them live in their world of denial while the rest of us move forward with science and technology.
Born and raised, got out of there as soon as a can. Still like to visit my friends and the cheese enchiladas are incomparable but it's a hot, sweaty hellhole full of bible thumping nitwits.
Goes without saying with most people here .. but please tell me there is a court challenge in progress, as religious indoctrination has no place in public schools ...
and we wonder why STEM involvement is perpetually an issue in the US.
I'm fine with that. Teach that the vast overwhelming majority of the world's scientists support the theory of evolution by natural selection, a handful of people support intelligent design, and millions more support unintelligent design, the theory that the Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe. (Disclaimer: I am an ordained Pastafarian Minister)
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
These schools are also in Arkansas and Indiana.
The biology workbook used in these schools actually reads, "In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth."
This sort of thing is why everyone thinks you're dumb.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Other so-called education texts being used by the Responsive Ed program teach Western superiority and how feminism forced women to 'turn to the state as a surrogate husband."
It brings up a whole new connotation when they say "fuck the state"!
It also brings up social Darwinism as if it's an aspect of evolutionary theory
Actually, Social Darwinism is the one kind of Darwinism your typical Creationist is happy to believe whole-heartedly in. If you start believing the poor might not necessarily deserve to be poor, a whole lot of modern Republican politics suddenly starts to look very unchristian.
Texas may be the largest textbook market in the US but the people making those textbooks aren't catering to the religious extremists.
I have to say, as a non American, your Christians are horribly broken. Between this, and this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1PfkZqa_R0), I think you need to contact the manufacturer for some technical support.
Why look at trillion dollar deficits that are destroying the economy, widespread graft and corruption in our political elites, or ongoing job losses in America when when can talk about the Westborough Baptist Church or a Hispanic stranger shooting a black stranger or a creationist school somewhere in Texas?
Let's manufacture distractions to keep you from looking at the real issues...
I do not consider " teaching "all sides" of "competing theories" to be rhetoric. If "science" cannot withstand alternative theories to be taught alongside their theories then it is not science. Those advocating creationism have just as many valid points as the rabid theorists believing as they do.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
Tornado touches down and vaporizes the Responsive Ed corporate headquaters. No hands were lost, but several people were struck by flying Stop signs.
The funny thing is that God exists, but He said literal Creationists were stupid. The atheists look funny. God says... how_about on_the_otherhand What_are_you_doing_dave radio umm_what_now umm heathen special_case dance what's_the_plan you're_in_big_trouble yep I'll_think_about_it chaos that's_for_me_to_know walking talk_to_my_lawyer not_that_theres_anything_wrong dance whiner sky bye sports yeah I_didn't_see_that theres_no_place_like_home cosmetics nevada
I hate to be harsh about this, and I do feel sorry for the kids involved (they didn't ask to be taught dumb shit). But wtf do I care if a bunch of bible-thumping loonies want to teach their kids to be fucking stupid, just like mom and dad? If parents want to turn their kids into idiots, that less competition for me when the world needs real engineers to do real shit (stuff that requires real math, not prayer).
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
Maybe it's because we fire 10% of our engineers in a year, but claim there's a shortage. There's multiple things going on here in the U.S. but mostly we haven't come to terms with being a post-industrial society.
kinda scary unless you want to create a lot of drones
The worst mistake that we can make is believe that we humans do know it all. We observe, we learn, we draw conclusions...repeat. We need to teach critical thinking and allow our youth to draw their own conclusions and learn to challenge everything they are taught.
There are many theories on how the universe and life began. I for one have no issue being taught the top 5 theories where there are differing opinions, order the teachings randomly, but pass along who believes what and why they believe it. Allow the student to draw their own conclusions. They'll be stronger for it.
I was taught in both public and private Christian schools. I have my own beliefs that differ from others, and that is fine. Do I believe Darwin's theory? Sure I do. Do I believe in the lessons in the Bible? Sure I do. Do I believe that we humans are infallible? Nah, and that extends into both science and religion, people were involved in the interpretation, teaching, and writing of both.
Now for the binary solo. 0000001, 00000011 000000111, 00001111 0000001, 00000011 000000111, 00001111.
God isn't real. Abolish the US government.
..is the way to take this article. While I'm fully behind evolution, and there is surely some truth in their reporting, Slate is pretty hard far left, and nearly everything they write has that political stance. I'd want to read several other sources to see if they're exaggerating certain things, or taking snippets out of context. Seems like another obligatory bash Texas fest. Also, this is in charter schools, not the public schools.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
one of many http://www.indiatimes.com/technology/science/decoded-why-birds-form-a-v-to-fly-123409.html
freeing up 100s of 1000s of our civil servants from spying on each other & us cannot hurt?
The problem is legal standing. Unless someone at the school objects (which is unlikely), then there won't be a court case about it.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
The understanding that Genesis is a metaphorical, and not literal, goes as far back as the 4th century (even further, possibly, that is just what am aware of explicitly from my early church history studies). Protestantism is very recent compared to that, and this protestant misinterpretation of scripture as being literal is more recent still.
A bunch of relatively uneducated Christians cooked up this weird and grossly simplistic way of reading scripture, and it has become wildly popular, and gives the entire religion a bad name. :(
That's probably all that needed to be said here.
I wonder how hard it would be to get them to teach about the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster! Hell, I would enroll in that class!
It's not a "theories on how the universe and life began class", though, it's a "biology" class. If you want to teach kids ontology, then by all means advocate the creation of a class for that purpose, but don't try to craft one out of the existing and important lessons on the science of living things.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
taking a note:
Do not hire Texans!
OK, continue.
Did feminism lead to single parent homes with greater financial dependency on public welfare? Unless I'm very much mistaken, it did promote movement in that direction. We can't blame women (entirely) for this, as both sexes have done a really lousy job of sustaining the two parent homes they usually start out with, leading to both social problems and economic problems when they break up. Does anybody actually think that divorced, single parent homes are an improvement?
Is Western Civilization superior? It depends on how you mean the question, but... yeah, in some respects. I'll take the best elements of what are traditionally lumped under Western Civilization any day over the alternatives. Things like representative government, the traditional freedoms of speech and property, the rule of law instead of the whims of a tyrant. It's these elements that have logically driven us to the point today where we don't put gays to death, and we disallow religious people to indoctrinate in public schools. Western Civ FTW. (Yes, of course the same good ideas have been raised in other parts of the world, and there is some romanticizing going on in classifying it as Western Civilization... but there is still a recognizable strain of historical excellence that emerged through Western civilization more profoundly than elsewhere in the world, and it's only silly, self-flagellating liberals who try to deny it.)
This story is not about textbook selection, but textbook selection is the primary viral decay effect that Texas has on national education, and it is very important.
The problem with Texas textbook selection is that Texas buys its textbooks 4.8m at a time (which is a huge chunk of the textbook market). Publishers cannot afford to lose Texas as a customer, so you get "the walmart effect" - Texas censors national textbooks by approving the one they like, everyone else can pick from the one texas drove the price down on, or they can pay twice as much for a "marginally more correct" textbook. In this way, Texas can dictate the behavior of national (and even international, to an extent) textbooks, because Texas is giant, organized, and horribly corrupted by the religious reich err, right.
The issue with pubically funded charter schools teaching bullshit mysticism instead of educating children is that charter schools are a convenient back door for this anti-science, conservative consortium to exert its corrupting influence on the texas education system. They are normalizing, perpetuating, and setting legal precident for further fucking over the entire United States education system.
Please care about this. This is important. Our future depends on the nation collectively saying "WTF, Texas"
Not to mention teaching creationism is teaching nothing.
"God put us here. The end."
WTF kind of education is that? It's over in seconds. What a waste of time.
This is just a ploy to make non-religious kids to question their parents and make them feel bad.
"Why didn't you teach me about god daddy? Teacher says he made us all and if you loved me you would tell me."
This whole thing reeks like the Jr.
Gestapo.
This is why America is in decline.
Because drooling morons and Luddites are being allowed to teach their nut-job theories on the same footing as actual science.
America continues on the decline to voluntary ignorance, and this is little better than the Taliban -- a bunch of religious fundamentalists who can't accept reality as it exists, but wish to impose their beliefs on it and define it as true.
Fuck you, fuck your god, fuck your stupid notions about how the world works, and fuck your creationism.
That these people hold political office and somehow function in the real world astounds me.
Because this level of stupidity should have caused you to be killed before surviving to adulthood.
Fucking morons. The rest of the country suffers because you guys are fucking idiots.
A lecture on natural law would have been out of place and unhelpful to the faithful for the following 5,000 years; the message was simply "I, God, made you and this world."
The fact that this short message was stretched out to a seven-day process in no way makes it literal. The specifics of creation were not the point, and would have been lost on those folks; so it was omitted. Those same young earth creationists must believe that the God of Abraham has a bit of Loki the Norse Trickster god in him, given that there is so much physical evidence contradicting a 6,000 year old earth. Either that, or they must believe that there's a massive satanic conspiracy to invent evidence for an earth billions of years old, an equally preposterous claim.
Religion gives us the 'Why' of life; science is the 'How.' They cannot serve each other's purposes.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
Using their own logic, then shouldn't there be descriptions of creation theories from *every* religion? As well as those of atheists who believe the universe "just always existed as it is?" It's not like there are only two schools of thought.
Fear is the motivator. These people do not understand evolution and are afraid that if it is explained to them (in a way they can understand) then their entire belief system will be called into question. That is why they close their minds to the reality of the world around then and the processes that life employs in it (i.e. evolution). Arguing facts and viewpoints with a person who is in this mind-set is about as productive as having a lively debate with a brick (actually the brick can make a more compelling argument that this lot....). They just need to be prevented from doing this...plain and simple.
resort to rhetoric about teaching "all sides" of "competing theories" and claiming that this approach promotes "critical thinking."
So basically what the proponents of evolution do, but since we don't like it...now it's bad. Right or wrong: you can't shame "them" for using the same tactics as "us." Well, I guess in America you can because people are too goddamn stupid to look behind the curtain.
We just had a layoff at work and about 1/3 of our engineering was let go (50-100 size). Interesting that it was almost exclusively Americans that were let go and all the Asians and Indians were still allowed to stay. Note, this is a Bay Area job. Ie, the USA. And at this point, not a single American is employed there in engineering.
Was it done to improve quality? Of course not. I find it highly suspicious how they picked who is to stay and who is to go. But, fwiw, everyone who was allowed to stay is an H1B holder.
that's what it is?
If you believe in "government by the people", then you will eat your own dog food and accept what "the people" demand. After all, your core philosophy is that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Well, guess what? The many have spoken, and this time, YOU are the few.
"STEM" is perpetually an issue because while people are more than willing to march in the streets over what's in a biology text, the same people smugly tell American engineers it's their own fault they are homeless and bankrupt.
Congress shall pass no law respecting an establishment of religion, nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof...
There is nothing in this that even remotely implies that the government can have no association with religious practices. Congress has not passed any law respecting an establishment of religion, nor has it passed a law prohibiting the free exercise of an established religion.
A Christian praying in a public school is not depriving anyone else of their free exercise rights, however prohibiting said prayer in a public school clearly is.
Words mean things, and the Constitution means what the words in it say. Nothing more. Nothing less. Am I wrong?
There are many theories on how the universe and life began.
This article is about evolution. Evolutionary theory is silent on how life first began. Read up a little before you weigh in with such a huge misconception. Here, take a look at this; it includes a cartoon to clarify the point.
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/misconceps/IAorigintheory.shtml
Where is separation of church and state mandated? Being from the south, we are taught it's origin was from a personal letter by Ben Franklin but never part of the actual founding documents. Are we being taught incorrectly?
When technical stories are posted that have crappy summaries (and articles) like this one, out come the internet sleuths to show that the real story is something altogether different.
But apparently obviously quarter-truth stories like this one get a free pass, because it's always in style to "come for the Socialists/Jews".
Just because this textbook teaches that there exist alternate theories to evolution doesn't make it bad. It's funny that "information wants to be free" until it's information you disagree with.
I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous...
If it is nationally funded then they should stop or not accept federal money, but if it is only locally funded then who are we to force people from teaching what they believe. You can say that you want to stop it to protect their children, but they probably feel the same way about your children. At what point does a community no longer have a say in what it teaches its own children, when do you say it is okay to force people to do something they don't believe in, and in that case should you not expect someone to force you to do something you don't believe in.
Long story short it's 2014, not 1914, and not 1964. The hippies are the man now.
lose != loose
Take a look at the arguments used by Creationists in the Responsive Ed workbook:
Many of them are very similar to the arguments used by "skeptics" of Global Climate Change.
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Scientific Theory: Something that describes the current state of the world in a way that makes testable predictions about the future. Useful in furthering our knowledge. Should be taught in science classes.
Colloquial "Theory": Any explanation that potentially describes the current state of the world. Not testable. Makes no predictions about the future. Potentially useful in exploring moral or ethical quandaries. Should be taught in philosophy classes.
Please learn the difference. Teach creationism if you want, I don't give a rat's ass. But don't teach it in a science classroom. It is not science. It never will be science.
It may look like I'm doing nothing, but I'm actively waiting for my problems to go away.
--Scott Adams
fauxking choreographing
We also fire engineers when there is a shortage of work even though we know that in 2 months we are starting up a new project and are going to need to hire to meet program needs. Keeping engineers on overhead for even a day while the program works its way through corporate policy is unacceptable.
Probably because it's not easy legally to fire an H1B before their visa time is up.
Opens the company to more lawsuits, and requires them to pay for the trip home.
http://www.murthy.com/2012/11/01/bona-fide-termination-requirement-for-h1b-employee/
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
... how feminism forced women to 'turn to the state as a surrogate husband.'"
Here at last is the agenda they've been pushing for decades made visible. By simultaneously keeping up the massive pressure on men to identify their own self worth with their job (not work, just the job) and shipping millions of jobs out of the country, these lunatics are conspiring to reduce the participation rate to the point that all women in the country have to leave the work force. Because naturally the men will be taking the remaining jobs, not women. Then women will be forced to cleave to their husbands, as is Right and Proper and Biblical. No more of this evil "independence" and "thought".
The fact that it's not happening that way, and women have been the majority of the work force for years and the gap is widening in favor of women is entirely lost on these idiots, but that doesn't stop them from pursuing their social agenda to destruction, because they have faith. They certainly don't need facts interfering.
It's a reflection of the similarly insane situation in China, where the combination of denigrating women and the One Child Policy has resulted in a massive disparity in numbers between the sexes. The current generation of Chinese are learning to value women, whether they like it or not, because there aren't any to be had. This attempt at social engineering in the US may result in similar upheaval. The US could end up being a female-dominated society, because women end up holding a substantial majority of jobs. And wouldn't that be entertaining.
. . . violence. Americans have the right to violently overthrow their government - and to own the weapons necessary to do so. I used to find this a little silly, but less so these days.
How does Texas prepare students for Med School? Do they finally start teaching science when a student is in college or do they have to leave the state completely?
What the hell Texas? Can you guys please quit fucking up life as we know it with your school books, especially with your school book depositories?
Sincerely,
JFK
Maybe the more important factor in education is teaching people how to process information- not what variety of information they happen to be regurgitating on their test papers? It seems that what is at stake here is freedom in education. Why do we need a corrupt, inefficient government forcing ideologies on our children?
With a little maturity, a wider variety in what is taught around the country and even in a local community may lead to a healthier, well rounded population. Healthy discourse between opposing viewpoints can be beneficial for everyone involved. What- are we going to start sending the education gestapo after any school who's curriculum we don't care for?
Maybe it's time to give up our illusion of control, and stop acting like entitled Nazis. If you don't like what is being taught at one school, move to another one. Better yet, do your child a favor and home-school them. WE should be educating our children, and choosing their curriculum. Not our coercive, corrupt government and its agencies. Might I suggest a system of smaller education clusters, in which parents in a neighborhood take a more direct roll in teaching their children? Again- why send our children into a government run wasteland to be indoctrinated and institutionalized?
Exactly. Even if our entire understanding of science is wrong, there is at least value in teaching the scientific process.
Apparently wizard is not a legitimate career path, so I chose programmer instead.
Santa Clause comes from the North Pole. The Easter Bunny comes from the East Pole. Uncle Sam comes from the South Pole on July 4th. And the Wicked Witch comes from the West Pole on Halloween. (That's what I tell my 4-yo son and I live in Texas.)
I remember during one of the Bush 2 nationally televised debates; All of the Republican hopefuls were on stage and the question was asked “do you believe in evolution” – not a single one on stage raised their hand. It’s a sad state when the leader of the free world can’t have a foundation in science or critical thinking as a prerequisite to the job. There is not one single example in the history of mankind of a successful theocracy. The evidence tends to point to the exact opposite – the increase of religion leads to the downfall of any given society.
Do I believe in the lessons in the Bible? Sure I do.
Either you're a dangerous sociopath, either you cherry picked the lessons that make sense and chose to ignore the others. What other holy book did you use as an axiomatic ruleset to do the cherry picking ?
Over 300 years ago, Isaac Newton discovered the laws of gravity which describe the attractive force between all objects. Newton’s laws of motion predicted the orbits of the planets around the Sun. Because he used approximations when calculating the forces of the planets upon each other, he came to the conclusion that the orbits are unstable and would decay after thousands of years. Newton suggested that God occasionally intervened with a miracle, by sending a comet or other object with just the right direction, size, and velocity, to gravitationally nudge the planets back into their correct orbits. Years after Newton, Pierre Laplace found better methods to solve Newton’s equations, showing that the planetary orbits are indeed stable. When asked by Napoleon, “Monsieur Laplace, why wasn’t the Creator mentioned in your book on celestial mechanics?”, Laplace replied, “Sir, I have no need for that hypothesis.” Laplace was likely an atheist, but we know that his findings about planetary motion were true. If he were a believer, he could have just as well said, “We don’t need to explicitly invoke God’s miraculous intervention when describing planetary motion.” Two hundred years prior, John Calvin wrote, “If the Lord has willed that we be helped in physics, dialectic, mathematics, and other like disciplines, by the work and ministry of the ungodly, let us use this assistance. For if we neglect God’s gift freely offered in these arts, we ought to suffer just punishment for our sloth.”
To this day, Newton’s law of gravity and his equations of planetary motion hold true, but we have a much better understanding of them through Einstein’s special and general relativity, and a much richer understanding of cosmology from hundreds of years of subsequent research, much of which was done by Christians. Interestingly enough, Einstein’s theory was also met with pseudoscientific criticism [XIII-3]. In a 1920 letter to a colleague, Einstein wrote, “This world is a strange madhouse. Currently, every coachman and every waiter is debating whether relativity theory is correct. Belief in this matter depends on political party affiliation.”
- Excerpted from the online book at: http://truecreation.info/
References:
[XIII-1] Haarsma, Loren. Does Science Exclude God? Perspectives on an Evolving Creation. 2003, William B. Erdmans Publishing Company. Grand Rapids, Michigan. pp. 88-94.
[XIII-2] http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/cm/v3/n3/history-of-ideas
[XIII-3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_relativity_theory#Hundred_authors_against_Einstein
[XIII-4] Van Dongen, Jeroen. “On Einstein’s Opponents, and Other Crackpots.” Essay review of “Einsteins Gegner. Die àöàÇffentliche Kontroverse um die Relativitàößtstheorie in den 1920er Jahren” by Milena Wazeck. (arxiv.org/pdf/1111.2181)
transient (tough luck?) spirit? as we're dragged from our roots we begin to rot?
“Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men.
“If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.”
– St. Augustine of Hippo, 5th Century AD (considered by some Protestants to be one of the theological fathers of the Reformation)
(from http://truecreation.info/)
...about the use of the words "could probably" instead of "should certainly."
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Using public money to promote one flavor of fairy tales is going to pull the US back to where the religious fanatics have taken Muslim countries; dark ages.
If we can't get self-replicating cells to work by the theories put forward for how they were done, then that theory has been falsified.
Bam.
Done.
I'll go one better -- I'd be happy to let them get away with creationism as a legitimate theory -- if they actually examined it critically.
Let them get all into buffoonlike "design". Let them explore irreducible grotesquerie and irreducible cruelty. Let them examine the statistical validity of intelligent design, where, of dozens of examples, most have been shot down, an ongoing process, so let them draw their own conclusions as to the probable certainty of the remaining.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I think creationism is great scientific training. It's the training that Galileo had. He learned to use his brain, record his observations, and experiment. It teaches you to think outside the box. Listen to what your teachers are saying, then experiment. Just because someone says there are 2 electrons in Helium doesn't mean it's always true. If you have evidence to the contrary, explore it. Question. Observe. You might figure out there are isotopes.
If your study seems to say that alcohol causes heart disease, but some evidence contradicts that, keep digging. You might find that the correlation between alcohol consumption and smoking was clouding your study. If your study finds that smoking causes heart disease, but some evidence contradicts that, keep digging. You might discover that people who drink orange eucalyptus tea seem to be immune to the cancerous effects of smoking.
If you discover a bicycle sprocket in the middle of the desert, ask questions. You might come to realize that it wasn't a result of local geo-thermal activity.
A hurd of sheep with identical DNA might indicate a strange breeding pattern as a result of geographical isolation. Or it could indicate a high-tech bio lab at work.
I'm reminded of the breakthrough invention of the sewing machine. As the story goes, the inventor had a nightmare of been chased by cannibals with long spears that had a hole in the spear tip. When he woke up, he realized that this solved a mechanical problem for him. He moved the hole of his sewing needles from the back end to the front tip and finally overcame a hurdle that had been blocking his invention. It's a great thing that someone had taught him about cannibals, even if his understanding of cannibals was completely wrong or misinformed.
A good scientist will seek learning from many sources, then sift through it to find what is useful. A good scientist will reject what "everyone knows" and pursue provable truth. A good science teacher will teach students that frogs have six legs, then mark them wrong on their homework if they say that frogs have six legs. And a good teacher will mark students wrong who say that water contains Oxygen. Just enough to get across the points that science isn't about memorizing facts. It's about fact checking. And because one person can't verify everything, science is also about source checking. Science classes should teach fundamentals like peer review.
Then, if you throw some FSM, or Scientology, or Bhuddism, or Christianity at students in their social studies class, you enrich their education. After all, Anthropology, as a scientific pursuit, might rely on an understanding of such things.
Theory by definition is something that changes based on scientific data whereas belief isn't. A South Park Episode would be more appropriate for putting Christianity,Islam, Scientology as alternate "theories" to evolution. Evolution is real, how do viruses become drug resistant?
I'd like to point out a few things that might give some of y'all hope this year...
* Open election November 2014. Perry is stepping down. State Sen. Wendy Davis (D), is running and has a lot of momentum behind her on this! Yes, she's riding her 15 minutes, but that doesn't mean it won't work!
* Texas Board of Education Commisioner is appointed by the Governor. The present Commisioner was former head of the Texas Railroad Comission ( what does that tell you???)
* The Democratic party has grown considerably in last 2 decades, and with an open election on the plate, they are getting very good funding for this run.
The Republicans in Texas have really done such a number on minorities and women that there is a very strong chance a Democrat, Davis, will win. If that happens, Texas Board of Ed. Commisioner is out! And THAT, is what gives me hope when it comes to the absurdity of creationism even being mentioned with science or in schools.
What you have to understand though, is that the Dem's and Repub's are the same party as what's in the rest of the US, but they really aren't. Texas is it's own battle ground of a country. The parties are connected, but in a very different way. So much is in play in Texas, that D/R(TX) really does not equal D/R(any other state). They're similar, but far from the same.
ernest & julio included... free the innocent stem cells help undestruct us
Yes...I mean affirmative.
Give Texas back to Mexico.
Homeland of the Bush family... smells like a stupid state allright.
"[they also] teach Western superiority and how feminism forced women to 'turn to the state as a surrogate husband."
Even if evolution is correct they're still 2 for 3.
no matter how much we shakily 'observe' 'it' 'it' just keeps happening? uncomplicating 'it' is not possible for us? we must become artificially precognitive? yikes almighty? another shocker is that no one in the universe is 'after us' except us & we're under black hole alert up there? big no-fly zone in the cosmos, bearded wonders shaking their awesome heads.... never ends hopefully
Therefore they get money that state schools would get instead.
How is this confusing you? Do you think that the money is made up, "created out of nothing by god" for these charter schools?
I live in Texas and I have a child in public school. I am a Christian. Faith is a gift from God. Full stop. As a Christian, I also understand that science and faith are partners, not enemies. The issue is with fundamentalists, not Christians in general. I am a huge fan of science and believe, as a Christian, that God gave us the ability to discover things and blossom as a society. Fundamentalists are dangerous and should be shunned. Why would God created all of this stuff and not expect man to discover and use it...
Actually, what he was saying was that theories and observations should be questioned if we want good science. Telling people they came from a monkey is stating facts without evidence. But this is what kids are being told: "Memorize this, it happened, and when you get older, you can learn why if you choose".
Why delay the learning? Why not explain the reasons, observations, rationales, and methods? Shouldn't we teach kids good science by having them learn the basis for knowledge?
In your paradigm, we tell people facts, require them to memorize it, and then tell them how we got there...only after they have memorized what we have taught them. Talk about bad methodology.
A story in the bible isn't a theory, its a story. using the bible to prove that god exists is like using the "Night Before Christmas" to prove that Santa Claus exists.
who do this shit!
It's important to note that right now in US politics one party is completely and totally against the concept of scientific inquiry putting Newspeak-like religious rhetoric above all else.
There is no 'but the Democrats...' counterpoint on this...it's ALWAYS REPUBLICANS. It doesn't make the Democrat/Liberals better in some long-term philosophical way at all, but it forces a choice in a real-world context that alot of /.'ers can't mentally make.
I can't stress how important it is when placing blame to see past false dichotomies & historicity filled narratives to understand what these people who run our country *actually do*...and when you look it that way, the GOP are the enemy of society.
As someone pointed out below, the Texas system has a check/balance against this, but AGAIN, the person in that decision node is a REPUBLICAN and they do not operate as individual decision makers weighing options.
The GOP is a cadre of ignorance, working in rabid lockstep to kiss up to whatever money interest is telling them to on any particular day...this time its the religious conservatives anti-science people.
It's ok to just blame one party when they are truly at fault. Decide they are at fault and vote appropriately. The US system has been corrupted but the prinicples of it are sound if we **use** our democracy to it's full power.
Thank you Dave Raggett
There's a historical analogy to all this going on: Until the rennaissance, the middle east was vastly more advanced than the West (it had medicine, mathematics and so on that just weren't known in the west until scholars studied there). Arabic was the language of trade, commerce and learning during the centuries of its pre-eminence as a cultural and scholarly center.
People would come from all areas of the 'civilised world' (this didn't really include Europe at this point, apart from maybe Italy) to study.
The problems arose with the ascendancy of a faction (Asharite) which was distinctly anti-rationalist. It gained increasing popularity over the Mutazilite faction (which had led the Islamic world to scientific ascendancy over centuries, epousing the Greek philosophers such as Aristotle and Plato, and following in those traditions).
As the power of the Asharites grew, scientific advancement in the middle east stagnated, and eventually it became a crime to copy philosophical texts, as they were an abhorrence in the eyes of God. These sins would eventually be punishable by executions, and the candle of scientific advancement was effectively snuffed out.
Compare this to today. From England grew a large empire (comparable effectively with the Islamic Caliphate) crossing many countries, and being quite the center of learning. People came from all over to study in England. This Empire has been largely disbanded, but the strings of learning have still carried on beyond it.
Over the last hundred years or so, the power and center of effective empire has shifted to America as the rationalist factions invested in learning, keeping church and state separate (as the founders would probably have been painfully aware of the problems of allowing them to merge), and ensuring minds could be kept open, and difficult questions asked.
However, there's now a growing push towards anti-rationalism. It hides itself within the main power structure, and has permeated the political strata to a huge extent (I believe the parts of the national pledge that mention god were only included in the 50s or 60s, never having been present before then), and seems to be getting ever more powerful. Parts of the population (and I've met them on travels) consider it taboo to "Trust science" as it's all God's Will. Exactly analogous to the Asharite faction of a thousand years ago.
We know what happens if that faction gains ascendancy. Scientific tradition fails, as being an intellectual makes you a threat to the religious theocrats, and they're very good at getting rid of threats, and making it 'acceptable', even desirable that these people are removed.
Arabic ceased to be the language of trade and learning once the Asharites gained ascendancy and the Islamic world was in their grip. They were overtaken by the West, which had learned from their teaching earlier, and took on the torch passed to them by the Greeks even earlier.
Nowadays, China is investing massively in education, and particularly science; their technological base has caught up with the Western World at a furious pace. This, quite possibly, is a saving grace; it means that there are definitely alternatives to keep learning alive, just in case the anti-rationalists that are gaining traction in America manage to topple it from within. It would likely mean that the language of trade and learning becomes Chinese, but hey, the world can survive that quite easily.
I guess we see if history does indeed repeat itself, or whether humanity, as a species, has got any brighter since the last time this rise and fall happened.
I never understood why California didn't exercise as much, if not more, power?
Creationism is not a theory, it's a complete fabrication of ideas that have been formed to explain what we don't know / understand, which means it's not science, it's pure hogwash. I have no problem teaching the concept of creationism in a religion class and offering up "holy" books as an example of early human's attempt to understand the world before proper science, but that is about it.
I honestly feel that religious contexts and teachings should be left out of the home and school for kids under the age of 14 or when you start high school. Giving a young child the amazing, magical, wonderful and beautiful story of a loving God, prophets, a loving church and eternal life is very damaging and very misguided. We should be helping young children to learn the skills required to reason and objectivity question everything, including those things we tell them that have proof.
Religion is the exact opposite of logic and reason, it laughs ( metaphorically ) in the face of using evidence to support claims and it shows children that if you blindly believe whatever is written down that you become a moral and ethical human, even when what is written down ( in the case of the bible ), is rape, slavery, death, sadomasochism and more. Now what loving parent would do that to a child?
A loving parent would promote critical thinking and reasoning. A loving parent would guide their child in the thought process that would be required to form objective questions and then help them seek evidence to support those questions. A loving parent would first teach the ACCEPTED theories that science supports, such as evolution, and allow the child to form alternative viewpoints. By having religion in schools and in fact in the science class you destroy all concepts of education, you teach children that a completive theory need only say no and offer no evidence and you basically start to erode the moral, ethical and logical fabric of society.
Personally I don’t want to live in a society where we teach kids that questioning without evidence is okay, where lying is personally acceptable as long as you have anything randomly written down and where you can disregard scientific principals because your random, immoral, unethical book says you can.
Religion is for religion class and should only be taught to children who have become old enough and smart enough to properly weight and compare the information provided to them. Until then you are only harming the child to teach them pure fiction. It would be no different than teaching harry potter as an acceptable alternative to evolution and the best part is that no school would do that, yet bring the bible into the classroom, which is no different and you bet it’s not only acceptable but the truth.
Hey, leave philosophy out of this. Clearly you have never taken a philosophy class. The philosophy classes you are remembering passed with Enlightenment. I didn't realize you were that old. You do recall the Enlightenment, yes?
I wish I had mod points to mod this up.
My only hope is that as schools transition to using eBooks for textbooks, that textbook publishers no longer care as much. They can create a "Texas edition" complete with Jesus on a T-Rex, and a different edition that the rest of the country can use.
There are many theories on how the universe and life began. I for one have no issue being taught the top 5 theories where there are differing opinions, order the teachings randomly, but pass along who believes what and why they believe it. Allow the student to draw their own conclusions. They'll be stronger for it.
Right so:
Membrane first, protein first, nucleic acids first, Earth origin, extraterrestrial origin, and maybe slipping in volcanic vents somewhere in there.
That sounds like a pretty good top 5 list of current working theories. Notice that "god did it" is NOWHERE near the top 5 theories of how it happened.
It's like how most of America think the "big three" religions are the Christians, the Muslims, and the Jews.
Do I believe Darwin's theory? Sure I do. Do I believe in the lessons in the Bible? Sure I do.
That's good. That's really really good. That makes you a sane and rational person. Realize that the people behind the creationist movement and the ID movement are not like you. They believe in the Bible. Full stop. Everything else must conform to rule 1. To hell with the lessons of the bible, if the bible says 6 days, it was 6 days. That's a fact and you will have to pierce that veil of true belief to make them see otherwise. And any attempt to do so will make you a tool of Satan.
I remember the beginning. it was almost 10 years ago and The catholic church was shutting down churches and loosing members. They identified the problem as "science is killing god". internal documents stated that a war between religion and science was hitting a tipping point. The church hired a think tank. A memo from the think tank was leaked. It read that to cause doubt about religion in science was the same tactic needed to fight science. A wedge needed to be driven into the foundation of science to cause doubt. They had Identified an "exploit" . It was Evolution. The tactic would be to cause doubt by offering a religious based explanation and it was called creationism.
Creationism lives only in Iran and Murica.
Biological evolution (molecules to Mary) is also colloquial theory - thus is it not 'science' - never was. You, like so many other super super intellectual superiors deliberately confuse natural selection with species-to-species evolution (what you guys like to call 'macro-evolution').
Natural selection is valid and verifiable, macro-evolution is not.
How sad for these children no one is thinking about.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
If you want to teach kids ontology, then by all means advocate the creation of a class for that purpose
Look, I'm all for opening the doors of knowledge, but isn't an entire course on cancer a bit heavy for elementary school children?
Last post!
The original article is slanted to the point that it's viewpoint can be described as a religion into itself. There are plenty of scientists and engineers (I'm one) who see the elegance and complexity of the universe as proof of a designer. So why the anger on Slashdot to people with my point of view? We are no threat to you. To the contrary, the anger I'm reading here causes me to believe you are more a threat to me. If you really believe in a free and open exchange of view, allow me to have my beliefs without your anger. I'm not angry with you!
Any relation to Mr. Ed? Without Mr. Ed's horse sense.
The worst mistake that we can make is believe that we humans do know it all. We observe, we learn, we draw conclusions...repeat. We need to teach critical thinking and allow our youth to draw their own conclusions and learn to challenge everything they are taught.
If you teach critical thinking correctly, they might grow up to disagree with you. Most of the Christian schools want to brainwash their children and indoctrinate them. They are quite unabashed about it. They keep harping "critical thinking" because they think that is a rock solid argument and all science supporters must agree once you invoke critical thinking. But science supporters immediately see through their hypocrisy.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Abiogenesis is the proper term for the beginnings of life. The scientific theory of evolution does not apply there at all. Abiogenesis is a completely different field of study than evolution.
As far a species to species evolution (what I would call "speciation", rather than "macro-evolution") _has_ been observed in laboratory conditions and in the field. And even more than that, the scientific theory of evolution predicts that it would happen.
What's that, you say? A scientific theory made a prediction, and that prediction was found to be true? Damn.
And not only does the theory of evolution make predictions about future speciation events, it makes predictions about those that happened in the past as well. There has not been a single case of transitional fossils found that contradicts the theory of evolution.
Please take your tired, ad-hominem rhetoric home.
It may look like I'm doing nothing, but I'm actively waiting for my problems to go away.
--Scott Adams
When the students at the charter schools are suing because their teachers are inadequate, overprotected creeps/drunks/pedophiles/idiots then you can whine about charter schools taking funding from traditional public ones.
So far the kids are, I believe, doing well in their case.
Meanwhile, don't pretend like thetraditional public school system is really any good, or has been any good for decades.
*note: this is in aggregate, there are high/low spots on both ends, in both systems
Haha, this is exactly what you deserve if you think education should be "publicly" funded and run by the federal government!
-Nick B.
USA, land of the enslaved, home of the dumb.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
You touch on an important point here.
It's a biology class, so teach the facts. Speculation (and evolution is exactly that) about how that biology came to be is pointless and undermines the lessons contained within the cold, hard facts of biological structures.
In short, teach what is, not what might have been. That's not science, it's philosophy.
It's always democrats who want you to only choose what they approve of.
Don't want health insurance? Tough, you have to buy what we say.
Want to teach your kids creationism? Tough, you have to teach them evolution and *nothing* else.
Want to get your kid into a better school where the teachers aren't drunks/dropouts? Tough- we claim that any other options violate the rights of people who aren't involved.
It's ironic that liberals cry out that intelligent design is totally false when many of their own experiments demonstrate it. Just look at modern agriculture- selective breeding (whattaya know- intelligent design) has seriously changed the size/shape of most farm animals.
There is very much doubt about the age of the earth, solar system., universe, and all the "dating" methods used to obtain these numbers. What you don't want to admit is that this doubt exists because if you do, you have a huge amount of work ahead of you in re-writing everything you believe. Dr. Hugh Ross made an interesting comment about this: let y'all have those 6 or 9 zeroes and say, "So what?" You need HUNDREDS of zeroes to even get your life-by-incremental-changes started. Or do you not know the actual probability of randomly assembling a DNA molecule with ALL laevo-rotary amino acids? If you don't like "creation," who cares? At least it doesn't self-contradict.
Cranky educator.
It does. Everyone who spews the bullshit, "Texas buys the most text books and thus controls the market" is just wrong. The textbook market it broken into two markets that can be described as California and Texas. The reason you don't hear about California is that were are not Bible thumping morons and Science rules our Science Classes and Religion is rules the Religion Classes. Same thing with our Sex Ed. You don't hear about the controversy about California Sex Education, because there is none. We teach real sex in our sex ed. classes.
Linux O Muerte!
Thanks for posting. Very interesting. Asimov wrote of similar trends in his Foundation series, when ignorance and superstition would make cyclical gains and losses. He talked of an age in which ignorance was so widespread that doctors just referred to medicine as "magic food" rather than try to get it into the people's thick skulls that it was good for them.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
thought they could get away with it, they would to the exact same thing here. Instead they have to go to places like Africa to really get their hate filled beliefs put into action.
Critical thinking requires observation of opinion and fact, of weighing evidence presented in front you in a unbiased way. If this was a critical thinking class they would teach both sides then give evidence of both sides and have the children decide which is more plausible. I doubt creationism have much going for it, unlike the earth being billions of years old (carbon dating) and theory of evolution (super bugs)
This isnt for critical thinking, this is to teach our kids the exact opposite of critical thinking, this is to teach kids how to blindly follow any stupid idea someone throws at them....i guess it makes sense parents like this want there kids to be like this.
"In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth." It also brings up social Darwinism as if it's an aspect of evolutionary theory and introduces doubt that the Earth is billions of years old."
"Other so-called education texts being used by the Responsive Ed program teach Western superiority and how feminism forced women to 'turn to the state as a surrogate husband.'"
Stone: ... I think I'm gonna be unwell.
Swan: Stone, women are unwell, men vomit.
Kudos to the person who knows which movie this is from. The star of this movie died just recently.
"Unfortunately, the person whose job it is to do the squashing (Sen. Dan Patrick, chair of the Texas Senate Education Committee) has said that he believes in Creationism and is a fan of the program."
Is there some reason this guy(??) isn't in prison or dead for violating his oath of office?
Actually California is a special case, and there are several political and economic reasons why Texas is more influential, even though California is bigger.
There are California-centric text books, not just for history - this makes it tough to get the "volume discount" for the rest of the nation.
Texas is one of the few states with a pervasive and separate multi-year state specific history curriculum (throughout your education, you have a "Texas History" class as well as a "History" class). Because of this seperation, "History" books approved in Texas can be used in any state, because the locale specific stuff is an entire separate book.
California and New York have strong unions especially for educators. In Texas, though they exist, Unions are hobbled and have little influence on the board of education, because... conservative. The result is that unilateral decisions are more difficult. It may be more enlightened, but it is a lot more difficult to make a decision when you have to ask someone besides your Minister.
Of California, Texas, and New York... Texas has the lowest spending per pupil. Again, Walmart effect. It is to get your own books if you are able to spend more per pupil than the big 3, but when you have to budget LESS per pupil? you have to buy the cheaper books... the ones Texas bought. CA and NY can insulate themselves from TX textbooks, a few rich smaller states can too... everyone else is on a budget, with either less money or less buying power, or both.
Because you have to live in country where someone who believes Adam and Eve rode on dinosaurs will have the same say in the running of the country as you?
It's also the same country where someone who believes we evolved from Apes, even though the fossil record is clearly lacking, will have the same say in the running of the country also...
Get out of there! There are businesses out there that consider their employees to be the people who make the company valuable and successful, rather than costs to be cut.
we're building the bomb!
How did life originate ? You grade-schoolers are so smug in your "science", answer that question scientifically.
nm
...let them teach what they like.
And watch the young couples with children move to the next state sharpish.
I thought that was the American Way?
as much as Florida! Where else can adults walk around dressed up like a cowboys without people thinking they look sort of silly?
In dental school we had a joke: How do you know the toothbrush was invented in Texas? Because if it had been invented somewhere else it would have been called a teethbrush!
I used to get upset about things like teaching creation as science and denying real science. I've decided not to let it bother me. The world needs Walmart greeters and people to clean toilets. Apparently Texans have decided that that is best use of their youth. More power to them!
Native Texan here, 42 years old, I can say this is 100% accurate and I am thoroughly disgusted with my state. They are not trying to remove the separation of church and state, they have obliterated it altogether. You may have to live here to understand how bad the far right-wing fundies have wormed their way in to every aspect of social life here in TX, but you won't have to live here for long to get it. Pushing the religious ideologies, through the use of law, is alive and well in TX. In 2010, lobbyists spent 43 million dollars on Ideological/single issues, and that is just what is accounted for. When I visit my dentist, they have a certain hygienist that thinks she is being coy, and without fail, pings me about my beliefs... best answer is no answer. Fortunately, you can spot a fundie pretty easy... they usually have anti-abortion and gospel radio bumper stickers, right beside a Jesus fish or two. Not only are these people on the board of education slowly deleting history, they are proud and smiling about it. They believe it is a real accomplishment that they have made for the citizens of Texas, and they absolutely understand the impact it has on the rest of the nations textbook purchases. I tried to find the picture that was snapped as they voted on a certain science textbook a few years ago, it was almost unanimous, and you could see the shit-eating grins on their faces. Just disgusting, and the ignorance runs rampant. Folks, their is a reason TX ranks 50th in a couple of key areas. Number of minimum wage jobs and number of citizens without health insurance.
Because they don't purchase them all at once. TX does it very uniform.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
"Do I believe that we humans are infallible?"
Wrong question. It should be "Do I believe any human is infallible?" Gets rid of the Pope concept directly.
If they want to teach creationism in science class, there should also be a requirement to teach 'alternative' religions in their churches. Just imagine how rabid they'd get if we required their Sunday schools to include Islam and Hinduism... would be totally worth it since it would reveal these people for what they are - violent, bigoted assholes.
Everyone knows that the entire world was created about 5 seconds ago, and all our memories were planted by Satan to make us believe otherwise.
You guys haven't even grasped the idea of *society* yet.
"Congress shall pass no law respecting an establishment of religion, nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof"
there's the separation clause. what do you think teaching kids the christian belief about creation and speciation with public money is doing?
Shortened: Don't let on that it's a scam by sharing the obvious falsehoods that Christians believe.
It was sound advice back in the 5th century, but at this point pretty much all of Christianity is obviously absurd. Their god became a god of the gaps, and the gaps keep getting smaller.
there are schools in Texas!!!
Stories like these, the export of rotten legislation and the recent NSA debacle makes you wonder if we were not all better off without the US.
Please just go away
Greetings from EU
How come when I look at any forum, it is the atheists that are always the asshats? Compared to the atheists, the Christians and people with spiritual beliefs come off as sane and polite.
Atheist: ur all stoopid because you don't believe the earth is a gazillion years old
Christian: sorry you don't believe in the things we do
Atheist: ur all stoopid &#@$*
There are many theories on how the universe and life began.
This article is about evolution. Evolutionary theory is silent on how life first began. Read up a little before you weigh in with such a huge misconception. Here, take a look at this; it includes a cartoon to clarify the point.
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/misconceps/IAorigintheory.shtml
Regardless of what you consider to be included in evolutionary theory - plenty of scientific theories deal with the early existence of self replicating molecules. Molecules that attract additional molecules/atoms until they have completely created a copy of themselves which is able to detach due to whatever chemical process. This is purely accidental - and many competing strands may have popped into existence alongside one another. One eventually takes hold and DNA is well on it's way. Random mutation in molecules that for whatever reason make them better able to collect the atoms/molecules they need to 'clone' then the more successful they are. At what point these are considered 'life' is probably debatable. I guess some form of respiration possibly.
They fail because of the "starve the beast" approach that the GOP loves to use when they want to kill something. take away it's funding a little at a time until it falters, then point out what a failure it is.
Remember, us public schools were number 1 in the world for a long time before the starvation began. the only reason they want it dead is to divert all that money away from children's heads and into their own pockets via "privatization". Many examples in towns where they have managed to kill the public schools and use the charter system to replace them- they cost more and have slipped further down the ranks than they were when the program was initiated. less efficient, less effective, but someone is getting rich from the whole deal.
however, way back then they were good schools, and had none of this horseshit polluting the education program.
A few people whined and bitched, but they were told to take it to a church school or STFU about it.
"But, fwiw, everyone who was allowed to stay is an H1B holder."
And being paid an average of 25% less, with deportation threats to hold over them if they decide 80 hours a week should rate overtime or comp time.
"Don't take it personal, it's just business." -Direct quote when I and about 1000 others were laid off to be replaced by H1B holders and outsourcing.
I highly doubt there is much crossover between the ones who protest creationist biology books and the people telling you to get a job ya bum.
Unless you mean the ones protesting good biology- in which case you are mistaken. they do not go the democratic route- they pay of elected officials and insert their own people to head up critical points in the selection process instead.
It always saddens me when I encounter the religion vs. science debate because I don't think there should be any disagreement between the two. Both science and religion are studies of reality; though the approaches are radically different. I'm not familiar with the creation accounts of other religions, but I think the overall progression of creation described in the Bible fits current scientific understanding of planetary and ecological development quite well (though I'm no expert in either field). God used the natural laws that He created to form the universe that we see. I think the belief held by many biblical creationists that the universe was formed in six literal days is a misinterpretation of the biblical text. Days are often used in the Bible (and in modern colloquial English) to represent time periods or eras. I also think that the theory of macro evolution arose and is perpetuated by serious misinterpretation of observed data. Maybe my understanding of the theory is flawed, but wouldn't a good test of the theory be whether or not we find evidence of countless transitional species representing the ancestry of all the species that we see today? Have we found those and I'm just unaware of it? By the way, for anyone who is more interested in learning how science and the Bible agree than in mud-slinging, this website offers a lot of good information: http://www.reasons.org/
You may be on to something there. The creator as incompetent and sadistic cretin sounds pretty consistent with observable facts.
Have you noticed that life is cruel and insensible?
That's because the creator is angry and insane -- Sithrak the Blind Gibberer!
So why not convert to Sithrak -- the god who hates you unconditionally.
http://imgur.com/gallery/YmOBmx1, sourced from:
http://oglaf.com/sithrak/ (use caution: other pages on this site are definitely NSFW)
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Any theory they wish to present is welcome. they present nothing- all they do is attack existing science with lies. They distort findings, quote mine, and outright lie in their claims. When debunked, in detail, with facts, findings, and a point by point explanation of where their claim has been falsified- they merely repeat the claim louder.
It is not a matter of being afraid of the competition. It is a matter of keeping lunatics from polluting the education system with nonsense.
Perhaps you are a product of these religious PUBLICLY FUNDED charter schools?
Anyone can pray, anytime they choose. The only thing outlawed is the ability of any employee to force kids to pray.
you'd shit yourself in the rush to burn down the school if your kid came home and told you the principal led them all in prayer to Satan.
building they can fly.
It just as real.
In one of the great ironies of our time, those arguing for or supporting creationism are actually providing clinching proof that they themselves have failed to evolve into human beings: they're not members of homo sapiens, as they have clearly failed part of the qualifying intelligence test.
Given that they are -- at best -- inferior primates, why should those of us who are clearly superior grant them human rights -- which, as the label indicates, are exclusive to humans? I certainly see no reason why we should be so generous.
Instead, I think, we should strip of them of the franchise, of the right to own property, of their financial assets, and of their citizenship. They should be treated decently, of course, for the same reasons that we should treat horses or dogs decently. But certainly they don't merit consideration as peers, as by their own actions, they've shown they aren't. I envision vast farms where they're lovingly tended until it is time to harvest their organs -- painlessly, of course, but inevitably. Their meat is the only value that they have to the human race, and it would be a pity to waste or damage it.
Selective breeding is artificial selection and *demonstrates* current evolutionary theory.
Genetic engineering is intelligent design. That can work, but it requires a lot more outside intervention.
Leave the STEM jobs to the blue state kids....
The UN Charter on Human Rights that says everyone has a right to an education (Article 26)? [And the USA is a signatory]
I don't recall it saying that anyone has the right to be indoctrinated.
This is hilarious. Because anyone who thinks that selective breeding equals intelligent design would flunk out of both evolution-based and intelligent design-based curriculla.
I never understood why California didn't exercise as much, if not more, power?
In many states, textbooks are selected at the level of the local school district. In Texas, they are selected at the state level for all school districts.
There are many theories on how the universe and life began.
This article is about evolution. Evolutionary theory is silent on how life first began. Read up a little before you weigh in with such a huge misconception. Here, take a look at this; it includes a cartoon to clarify the point.
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/misconceps/IAorigintheory.shtml
Regardless of what you consider to be included in evolutionary theory - plenty of scientific theories deal with the early existence of self replicating molecules. Molecules that attract additional molecules/atoms until they have completely created a copy of themselves which is able to detach due to whatever chemical process. This is purely accidental - and many competing strands may have popped into existence alongside one another. One eventually takes hold and DNA is well on it's way. Random mutation in molecules that for whatever reason make them better able to collect the atoms/molecules they need to 'clone' then the more successful they are. At what point these are considered 'life' is probably debatable. I guess some form of respiration possibly.
Congratulations, you have posited a theory about the beginning of life (or, at least a tiny fragment of one).
But that's not evolution. And evolution doesn't attempt to cover that area. The story in this post, and the thread are about evolution. What you wrote is not.
Is this getting through?
I am in full agreement with you, but if there's one tip I can give: please, always triple check that you spell pub*l*ically properly.
sorry, I was educated in Texas... We weren't taught what "Pubic" meant.
Texas has basically one school district while California has several as do most states. So I don't think they just order one set of books.
kick texas out of the union, along with the entire south.
I thought Evolutionary theory tells us that Gil Gerard used a time machine, went back in time, and ejaculated in the primordial ooze. But I could be wrong buy it's not like your going to prove it.
what the hell are you talking about
It includes an experiment that shows the creation of the precursor molecules to such things as RNA within a sealed environment given an atmosphere similar to early earth.
There is no way we can experimentally test our ability to accurately predict the distant past from present day evidence, and no way we could have already done so. The past will never happen again, and we cannot magically create time machines. We do not know, and cannot know. What we can work out, however, is the answer to the question of what happened provided we assume 'continuity' of things like the laws of physics, and many other such assumptions.
There is a nice neat parallel in mathematics. You'll see people claim that 1+2+3+... = -1/12. This is not true, but is almost true. The zeta funciton zeta(s) = sum_{n=1}^{infinity} 1/n^s for all s>1. There is a unique analytic continuation of the funciton given by this sum where convergent to almost of the rest of the complex plane (and that almost the rest includes -1). If you evaluate that continuation at -1, you get -1/12. If you abuse notation, you get 1+2+3+...=-1/12. What is actually the case is that if 1+2+3+... converged to a meaningful value, that value would have to be -1/12. But obviously this doesn't prove convergence.
When it comes to distant past stuff, everything is done under an unproven hypothesis that the methods used work: there is no point researchers questioning this since it can't be verified. Again, this is similar to proofs that rely on the Riemann hypothesis. When we can't show something, we do our best to work around it. What you read in science books comes from that sensible school.
When people forget those tacit assumptions and make metaphysical pronouncements that things we can never have seen must look a certain way, using arguments based on evidence that we cannot possibly have tested in the circumstances we are applying them, is when proper science descends into pseudoscience. And too many of the science crowd are guilty here. You should know precisely what hypotheses your results rely on, and only a few have the time to care, what with all the need to crank out n peer-reviewed research papers a year to satisfy your funding body.
John_Chalisque
are you trying to have a discussion on this topic?
posting links to Fox News and blockquoting me in large swaths is not a discussion...it's you trying to earn your pay as a paid PR commentator
get a real fucking job...or at least do yours better & try engaging in a discussion
Thank you Dave Raggett
Imposing a religion on anyone is antithetical to true Christian doctrine. I am to proclaim the truth of Jesus Christ which includes His creation.
Science is experimentation, observation, then conclusion. Science is repeatable.
Evolution is speculation about the past. Neither any of you nor I were present during any of your speculations about the past. Evolution is a belief. Non-scientists applied dates to fossils based on arbitrary underground layers, but those same non-scientists dated the varying levels underground by the fossils. Clearly circular reasoning as opposed to science. Evolution is superstition. RCA assumes a steady rate of decay, but once again, none of us were present even 1,000 years ago to confirm through proper scientific method a steady rate of decay.
Know this, Jesus Christ loves you. He made the world, and He owns it. Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father without Him. The Kingdom of God is at hand, and the last days are coming to a close when the earth will be consumed by fire. Believe and repent.
"Other so-called education texts being used by the Responsive Ed program teach Western superiority and how feminism forced women to 'turn to the state as a surrogate husband.'" I don't know what this has to do with either creationism or "anti-science". "According to anthropologist Lionel Tiger, the ancient unit of a mother, a child and a father has morphed from monogamy into “bureaugamy,” a mother, a child and a bureaucrat. The state has become a substitute husband. In fact, it doesn’t replace just the husband, it replaces the entire nuclear and extended family, raises the children and cares for the elderly." Quoted in 'The Fatherless Civilization' :: http://tresmontes.wordpress.com/2007/11/29/the-fatherless-civilization/
A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes. ~ Mark Twain
Evolution has overwhelming evidence.
Unfortunately evolution doesn't explain how life began.
Evolution explains how life changed after it began.
Too many on both sides fail to understand this.
Evolution and creationism aren't mutually exclusive.
They aren't even talking about the same theory.
One is how life began on this planet.
The other is about how life changes over time.
There is nothing wrong with teaching both.
Both could easily be true.
It's like how most of America think the "big three" religions are the Christians, the Muslims, and the Jews.
What's wrong with that? 2 of the 3 are the top 2, and the third is arguably the basis for the other two.
Learn to love Alaska
gosgog:
I lived there (Texas) for years and N.Texas (Dallas etc.,) has more religious Freaks making TONS OF TAX FREE CASH because Religion and it Ministers are not TAXED. So if they wan't to continue with their CREATIONIST Bullshit and all their other Money Making Baloney, then TAX 'EM. When the PROFITS GONE, mebbe they'll find some useful to do!
Imagine how they will get a job?
If their science is based on mythology, fairy stories and make believe, it is reasonable to assume the rest of their education is too.
1+1= any number you want!
Just bought a new quantum computer, but I'm uncertain how it works.
It's not anti-science your idiot, moron democrats!! Creation was real, science has proved it time and time again. If you don't like it, then give up your citizenship and move to the facist, socialist or communist country of your choice at your own expense, since you hate the United States so much!!!
Because #3, Judaism is not "big". The numbers just aren't there.There are more Sikh than there are Jews. But hey, you hear a lot more about the Jews than you do about the Sikh, so obviously it's the more major religion, right?
Go on, look it up.
And, just to explain the joke: if you were to propose "the top 5 theories" of abiogenesis, a number of very vocal Americans would assume that included their personal pet theory of creationism. Just like they assume that Judaism is religion #3 on the charts, they assume creationism has more of a following than it really does. Get it?
No, I don't get it. Judeaism is "important" but not "big" (in numbers). You are arguing that "not big" necessarily makes it "not important". You haven't substantiated that position.
It wouldn't be unreasonable to argue that Christianity and Islam are sects or branches of Judaism (as well as other offshoots, such as Baha'i).
Chrysler was one of the "Big 3" even after Toyota made more cars in the USA and Chrysler was owned by a German company. Sometimes the definitions are updated more slowly that reality.
Regardless, it doesn't seem unreasonable to include Judaism in the religious Big 3.
Learn to love Alaska
No, my argument is that creationism isn't in the top 5 theories of abiogenesis.
And along the way, I didn't say Judaism is not important. I pointed out that people erroneously believe it's "big". You know, when they call it one of the "big 3".
It wouldn't be unreasonable to argue that Christianity and Islam are sects or branches of Judaism (as well as other offshoots, such as Baha'i).
It's about as reasonable as trying to argue that there are more Buddhists(376 million) than there are Baptists (100 million), Lutherans (75 million), or Methodists (75 million). It also about as reasonable as calling Judaism a branch/sect/offshoot of the Cannaanite's religion. (The dudes with Yahweh)
Sometimes the definitions are updated more slowly that reality.
Yeah, that's kind of my point. The worldview of a lot of people out there doesn't jive with reality.
Well, every time you turn on talk radio in the US, you hear about the Jew-owned banks and the Jew-started wars in the Middle-East. For so few Jews left, they sure get around.
Learn to love Alaska