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South Carolina Education Committee Removes Evolution From Standards
Toe, The writes "The South Carolina Education Oversight Committee approved new science standards for students except for one clause: the one that involves the use of the phrase 'natural selection.' Sen. Mike Fair, R-Greenville, argued against teaching natural selection as fact, when he believes there are other theories students deserve to learn. Fair argued South Carolina's students are learning the philosophy of natural selection but teachers are not calling it such. He said the best way for students to learn is for the schools to teach the controversy. Hopefully they're going to teach the controversy of gravity and valence bonds too. After all, they're just theories."
So, if a State chooses to not teach their children what is accepted in the scientific community, should this be their prerogative? At the same time, a decade later, when their students do not fair well at college, or professionally, they should be comfortable with that aspect to their decisions.
I have no problem with presenting creationism as an alternative, as long as you include ALL creation myths in the curriculum. It wouldn't be "teaching the controversy" unless you teach them all.
I mean, sure, we all really KNOW that the world began when Udu the Space Tortoise shat out the earth and His godly flatulence created the sun, but we have to let the kids decide for themselves.
Creationism is not a theory. They can discuss any issues with evolution as it currently stands (and any science course worth its salt will teach any student how to think critically)
Teach religion in religion class and science in science class. If you can't test it, it's not science. If you CAN, even if it's something you find distasteful, it IS science...
There's no controversy here, merely people who don't like the fact that the sun doesn't come up in the south.
Anybody who says is is a fact is just as dishonest as theses people. Evolution is a very well supported theory, far in advance of any competition. It is incomplete, and there is a residual possibility of it being completely wrong, but anybody that has even a bit of understanding of Science will accept it as very likely true unless exceedingly strong evidence to the contrary shows up. As such evidence has not turned up so far, Evolution is the way to go.
Unfortunately, most people cannot deal with non-absolutes or very small probabilities. That is why so many hope to win the lottery or are afraid of being harmed by terrorists. Both events are so exceedingly unlikely that for all practical purposes they cannot happen to them. But there is a small, insignificant residual chance that they may happen and that confuses many, many people.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Because there are no other competing scientific theories.
Do you have a scientific theory that explains what we see, makes prediction, and is factual verified 1000's of time?
No. This is a politician shoving religion down are throat under a very thin vale. He should be tossed out for violating the constitution.
Creationism is not science. Not my any stretch. It is a belief made on biblical literalism.
Maybe you should learn what science is?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Creationism is not a theory.
Sure it is. It just isn't a *scientific* theory.
A scientific theory makes testable predictions. Experiments can be devised whose results confirm or refute the predictions. Knowledge can be collected from the environment which either fits or refutes the predictions. That's what makes it science.
Creationism and it's stepchild Intelligent Design make no testable predictions. Therefore they are not science. Therefore they do not belong in a science curriculum.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Creationism actually is a theory. It is just not supported by evidence at all and quite a few established facts contradict it. So it is a theory with a very low probability of being a model for reality and hence not worthy of study.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Only when there are other theories worthy of discussion. As far as scientific credibility goes, creationism is ridiculous. I'm all for silencing any discussion of creationism in schools - alongside astrology, palm-reading and other fields of nonsense.
Further erosion of the American education system means less competition for those of us (and our kids) living elsewhere in world.
The government needs to get out of the business of policing ideas.
Get the government out of the public school system!!!
There is no "controversy". No. There isn't. So there is nothing else to teach, other than credible scientific theory, when it comes to how we got here. No, your beliefs do not come anywhere near to the definition of "scientific theory". Get over it and stop trying to make your children stupid.
The distinction between what is and is not "science" doesn't mean much to those who want to make sure that their kids are not taught lies in school.
Some people turn to religion to gain certainty where there is none. In order for this psychological device to work, they must honestly believe that the points of their religious teaching are inarguable fact, and that any evidence to the contrary is a result of either incompetence or deception. People who believe this don't give a hoot what is or is not "science," since they only care about what does or does not agree with their forgone conclusions.
"Teach the controversy," is the second-best stance that they take only because they know that "teach our religion as fact" is already a lost battle (but would still be the best option).
Trying to get logical consistency on these points is futile, since the basic motivation has nothing to do with challenging kids to think critically, and everything to do with ensuring that their kids don't lose their faith by going to school.
How Does the U.S. Compare to Other Countries in STEM Education?
The World Economic Forum ranks the United States 52nd in the quality of mathematics and science education, and 5th (and declining) in overall global competitiveness
The United States ranks 27th in developed nations in the proportion of college students receiving undergraduate degrees in science or engineering
There are more foreign students studying in U.S. graduate schools than the number of U.S. students [vii] and over 2/3 of the engineers who receive Ph.D.’s from United States universities are not United States citizens
And the government will wonder why?
Creationism is not a scientific theory. A scientific theory not only ties together a wide range of observations, it makes testable predictions that have gone on to be tested and verified. In science, 'hypothesis' is closest to what people commonly mean by the word 'theory'. For example, it's still the "Germ Theory of Disease" in science, but that's been, er, rather thorougly confirmed.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
Up until a few decades there was a controversy around gravity. There were some discrepancies between the current model for gravity and observations. 2 leading hypotheses emerged. One proposed to change the model, Modified Newtonian Dynamics (or MOND), and the other proposed to change the observations, the existence of dark matter. In recent years it seems the dark matter hypothesis has the clear advantage.
The "controversy of gravity" is not *that* gravity exists, but rather with the correctness of the explanation for gravity as demonstrated by the ability to make accurate predictions. The dark matter hypothesis is currently "winning" because it is making better predictions than MOND in circumstances where the predictions of both models diverge (e.g. galaxy collisions).
I would also like to point out the difference between the two concepts of "evolution" (*that* life evolves), and "the theory of evolution by natural selection", originally proposed by Charles Darwin and later improved by others which is an explanation of *how* life evolved. There really isn't any controversy regarding "evolution" (*that* it happened). Evolution by natural selection is also on very firm ground, although there are lots of holes to fill in, to improve our understanding of the specifics of evolution by natural selection. Maybe there is some controversy somewhere in the study of evolution, but hypotheses that are unfalsifiable (e.g. creationism, and intelligent design, etc) are not valid as opposing hypotheses in any controversy.
So we should absolutely *not* "teach the controversy" of evolution in regards to intelligent design, because it is just fabricated. However, we should not attempt the reductio ad absurdum of "teaching the controversy of gravity", given that ther actually *was* a controversy regarding gravity in the recent past, and this controversy probably should have been taught given that it was legitimate.
Also, gravity is the last of the 4 primary forces yet to be made compatible with quantum mechanics. because of this, our understanding of gravity is currently known to be incomplete. There absolutely is controversy in our understanding of gravity, and I think teaching it would be a great way to show the scientific method in action.
No one said anything about "provable" above. You seem confused between "provable" and "testable". Evolution as an origin of species is certainly testable, as we have built models from fossil records into which archaeological findings seem to fit nicely. Intelligent Design is a lost cause from the get-go, as it relies on the absence of evidence to insist upon the point that "you gotta believe" that we were created in our present form, and evolution from ape to human never occurred... because you know... some people find it threatening to think their ancestors might have been apes.
Crimey
First of all, evolution is simply the observation that the genetic makeup of a population changes over time. It is not an attempt to explain the origins of life, any more than geology attempts to explain the origin of planets or astronomy attempts to explain the Big Bang.
Second of all, evolution is testable by every meaningful scientific definition of test, and so is abiogenesis for that matter.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
does this make South Carolina the bottom 2%?
We put all sorts of limits on democracy. You can't democratically decide to enslave all red haired people. Even if the popular will is that red haired people are subhumans who can be treated like cattle, there are constitutional protections against this kind of an abuse. In other words, in most Western countries, and most certainly in the United States, the constitutional framers were all to aware that pure democracy; or mobocracy if you will, is as vulnerable to abuses against individual liberties as are governments.
The same applies to public education. As public schools are a branch of the government, the Establishment Clause applies to them, and thus teaching Creationism, even in the watered down form of Intelligent Design, is a blatant attempt to use the organs of state to push a specific set of religious beliefs. That was the finding of the Kitzmiller v. Dover, and while the trial sadly doesn't apply universally, it, coupled with judgments like Edwards v. Aguillard create a compelling set of case law that will likely demolish just about every attempt to sneak Creationism into the class, or to somehow earmark evolution as being controversial.
But really, particularly at the state level, politicians don't give a flying fuck about constitutionality. They probably know in most cases that any pro-Creationism law they try to pass will ultimately get tossed, but that makes vote-getting legislation even better, as when it gets tossed, they can make a lot of noise about meddling activist courts, and the deluded idiots who lap this kind of performance up nod their heads in agreement. It's a win win for these politicians, although it does become a tragic waste of taxpayer money.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I'm an atheist, dumbass.
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
Some religious schools teach science, catholics and many protestant denominations. They seem to teach science in their science class and religion in their religion class. This includes teaching evolution and cosmology.