Slashdot Mirror
Jewish School Removes Evolution Questions From Exams
Alain Williams writes "Religious sponsored ignorance is not just in the USA, a school in Hackney, England is trying to hide the idea of evolution from its pupils. Maybe they fear that their creation story will be seen for what it is if pupils get to learn ideas supported evidence. The girls are also disadvantaged since they can't answer the redacted questions, thus making it harder to get good marks."
Then don't send your kids to a Jewish school. Religious freedom is part of that whole "freedom" idea that some folks are pretty fond of.
"Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes." - Mahatma Gandhi
Wait, so the school decides what questions they want on their exam, and people are complaining?
All the students are sitting exactly the same are they not?
"The examinations body, OCR, says it was satisfied that the girls did not have an unfair advantage. It now plans to allow the practice, saying it has come to an agreement with the school to protect the future integrity of the exams."
"The Department of Education meanwhile has asked for assurances that the children will be taught the full curriculum."
If they're still being taught the stuff, what's the problem. No exam that I've ever done has every single sentence that a teacher has ever said on the exam paper in question form.
It's a girl's school, there's no extra sexism angle as might be implied by the summary.
Because DNA is a digital storage medium and genes change in steps.
There's no in-between states when you start modifying DNA just as there's nothing in between 1 and 0 in binary numbers.
No sig today...
That's not mainstream Judaism. That's a Haredi institution. They're not just anti-evolution. They're anti-TV, anti-Internet, anti-movies, anti-newspaper reading, anti birth control, anti public library usage, anti knowing the language of the country they're in, anti wearing colors, anti female equality... The sect is set up to give kids no option other than to stay in the Haredi community and overdose on religion for their entire lives.
It's a lot like Shia Islam, down to the beards. There's even a Haredi group in Canada that wants to move to Iran because Canada won't let them abuse their kids.
The question: what makes evolution split the species into these two clearly distinctive species, instead of, say a hundred different species which are something between RockMonster ant and BigAss RockMonster ant?
Who says it doesn't split the ant into 100 different species? The term species is a human invention to help us classify the different forms of life on the planet. It doesn't define the forms of life on the planet, but instead is defined by the forms of life on the planet. This is a subtle but necessary distinction.
I have determined that my sig is indeterminate.
...beyond the fact that someone wants to deny evolution.
What answers are being changed, on what test?
Why bother to give the test at all if you don't like the material on it? Is it a government-required test? For what purpose? Is the government really OK with these arbitrary changes by the school?
The summary is pretty horrible, in terms of journalism, and the original article not much better.
Don't they know wikipedia exists?
Maybe not - quoting said wikipedia:
The school primarily serves the Charedi Jewish community of Stamford Hill. The Charedi community do not have access to television, the internet or other media, and members of the community aim to lead modest lives governed by the codes of Torah observance.
Inbreeding will at some point make potential offspring from the other group (if any ever happen to spawn) infertile. See mules.
This may take a very long time and it differs per starting condition. For example, Tigers and Lions can still mate with eachother to produce viable offspring. However, this never happens in nature due to geological differences. See seas.
So yea, if a jewish community who denied evolution would only breed within the jewish community they may eventually split off from the rest of humanity. See Irony.
At the core of evolution is survival of the fittest. The theory of evolution also implies that "man", as in created by God in his own image, is nothing special, only a series of fortunate mutations, migrations and accidents. The Christian Bible basically starts out with a huge lie.
What is really perplexing is the fact that the Catholic Pope has conceded that man is descended from the apes, and there really isn't anywhere else in the first world where this "creationism vs evolution" is even a thing (to my knowledge at least).
... whatever
Nothing at all.
First, let's just cover the fact that it wouldn't quite work this way in the real world. You don't tend to have species A living at the same time as species B which evolved from it. What you usually get is the common ancestor, species A, which is by now extinct, and it's two descendant species, B and C. You occasionally get people scoffing that we couldn't have evolved from chimps; well, we didn't.
So, why do we only have LittleAss ants and BigAss ants, and no NiceAss ants? Well, in this simplistic example, it's probably because they've evolved to occupy two different ecological niches, and are no longer competing with each other. Any species too "close" to another would find itself competing, which hinders both species in the fight for survival - until one of them wins.
A real-world is the Neanderthals. We out-competed them, in our shared ecological niche, with our higher intelligence and smokin' bods. The chimps, meanwhile, were settled in the forests where we weren't, and thus didn't have to compete with us.
In actual fact, you sometimes do get lots of closely related, or even inter-breeding, species spread out geographically. There's an oft-cited examples involving geckos, I believe, where you have a species living, say, at the Southern point of a mountain range which then evolves as it spreads North, around both the Eastern and Western sides of the mountain range. What you end up with is two trails of closely related species, which may interbreed with their neighbours, but at the Northern end of the mountain range the two species which find themselves meeting up are so divergent that they can't interbreed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
You need to learn more, because it does indeed split the species(es) into hundreds (or more) of different "species" over time - however, we do not generally refer to such as species because they are very tiny changes, many of which will breed back out of the population. However, some mutations tends to accumulate because they provide an advantage (or possibly disadvantage, but there is a second mutation that provides a bigger advantage and so both are perpetuated - this is possible to see in some species today, eg: the peacock - its tail provides a disadvantage, but apparently the female peacocks dig those fancy tails so the ones with the best tails get the chicks to breed with - its an example of a runaway mutation).
If enough within the population receive the mutation and it becomes dominant, this is a step along the path to becoming a new species. Depending on the size of the mutation it may or may not get classified by brainy people as a new species or not, it may take many generations of the change becoming more profound or multiple mutations before it becomes recognized as being a new species.
For this to happen there often also has to be some element of isolation of the group so that the mutation doesn't spread to other populations, or other populations do not interbreed with the new variant and wipe out the new feature.
Anyway, you may then end up with two separate distinct species, or more. Most mutations though do not provide any advantage, so they simply die out. So unless you want to go down the road of classifying every change of DNA as a mutation - which would lead to every single human being classed as a separate species, since all our DNAs are unique - then usually it takes some noticeable difference.
The isolation aspect also comes in with hybrid vigour, which can happen both naturally and artificially.
After some time, we describe both populations as different species.
Some experiments of speciations were already performed. For instance, there was a long running experiment with E.coli (the wellknown bacterium from our indestines). As bacteria don't mate, there are other methods to difference between species, and one specificum of E.coli compared with similar bacteria is that E.coli doesn't metabolize Citric acid. But experimentators were putting some E.coli bacteria in an artificial environment which was rich with Citric acid. After many generations (about 40,000) they found that this strain of E.coli indeed had started to metabolize Citric acid. So from a classification point of view, this strain is no longer E.coli, but a new species of bacteria.
They were caught in October.
http://www.secularism.org.uk/n...
There are lots of whats that speciation could occur -- one obvious one is that the population gets split into two which then evolves away from each other. If you had 100 different high related species then they would likely compete with each other or interbred. The end result of either is that you end up with fewer populations -- one wipes out the other, or the two interbred till they become one.
I find it amusing that through the decades and centuries some fundamentalists, religious groups etc simply do everything they can no to not change.
Resisting change in new and interesting ways. They come up with new counter arguments, new legislation proposals, new interpretations of the same old texts.
That very same behaviour is evolutionary in nature. We need no other explanation to demonstrate that evolution as a fact is quite well grounded in fact.Sure there are gaps in our ability to explain everything but every time we have stepped forward and discovered something, solved what was thought to be impossible etc the arguments against evolution then evolved with the discovery. Much like the "Irreducibly complex" malarkey.
So some sect/faction/aspect/cult of Judaism or some other belief want X removed or have removed it from their school. Good. Evolution at work, they are one step closer to removing themselves from the gene pool. While some religious groups may have 11 - 15 kids per family religion overall is in decline.
We can argue these points on slashdot, religious people can counter argue and millions will read and judge for themselves -all very evolved.
A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
In most religions its a womans "duty" to have as many kids as possible regardless of the effects upon her health. "Go forth and multiply" was one of the biggest pieces of social propaganda ever divised.
And seriously what the fuck up with the UK and this stupid policy? They could learn a thing or two from the French on this - education should be secular. There should be no religious dress, no segregation by sexes, no exemptions from subjects on religious grounds, no indoctrination into religion and no pandering to the sensibilities of religion in any way shape or form. In the long term this will mean far less religious whackaloons which can only be a good thing.
"So yea, if a jewish community who denied evolution would only breed within the jewish community they may eventually split off from the rest of humanity" - the orthodox jewish community are already suffering the consequences of breeding within a small community. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
The differentiation between species is still being defined, but within a species there are many variations and sub-species. It's only when those differences become significant enough do biologists consider it a separate species. Even then, yes, there may be hundreds of descendant species from a single ancestor species, and the more time that passes, the more diversify from their progenitors.
Of course, nature is a total bitch, and a lot of species go extinct for various reasons, including competition from their related species. Of the many species alive now, some have no closely related species that we know of, and others have tons of them.
Now if you're upset about not knowing about the intermediate ones, you're worried over nothing. The fossil record has shown a clear progression of those in many different animals, so it's not like it's some big mystery as the creationists claim, rather it's their ignorance of evolutionary and paleontological studies. In fast replication species, we have a lot more experience with this, and samples of the intermediate forms are stored. Mostly this is bacterial for the simple reason that those suckers multiply faster than Bugs Bunny locked in a room full of viagra with Jessica Rabbit. There are of course other studies with non microbial life, but those have far fewer generations to work with and so aren't as advanced.
Evolution has been observed, tracked, and even experimented with. It's existence is not in doubt among biologists, though they are constantly refining and testing it.
Because to the fundamentalist, it's an all-or-nothing thing. If you accept evolution, you have to throw out the story in Genesis - but if you do that, how can you be sure the rest happened? How can you be sure the story is right about the flood, or the slavery of the hebrews in egypt, or the exodus event, or the settlement of Israel, or all the prophets that followed? If you accept that one part of the holy text is a lie, then you open the whole thing up to doubt.
They are against evolution, and in general science, because science is all at odds with one of the most important fundamental "virtue" of Christian: faith.
This post isn't about Christianity, as can be inferred from the title.
Isolation. Geographic, mate choice, breeding season. Lots of factors can cause two nearly-identical populations to stop interbreeding, and divergence follows from there. That's simplified, of course. Species is something of an artificial concept - there are things like ring species that show just how hard it can be to classify.
Don't they know wikipedia exists?
Do you know that conservapedia exists?
http://www.conservapedia.com/
Which one is correct? Teach the controversy!
No sig today...
In England this may be incidental, but in the Netherlands, it is institutional. Questions about evolution are up to this day not allowed in Dutch highschool exams, as ruled by law.
Open your mind and keep looking, the ants are there man, keep looking, apply scientific methods.
The other option is to find all the answers in a book/oral tradition dictated by god to men thousands of years ago, over the years the orations/writings/books have been mutated/translated many times and spawned many different species of religions all fighting for survival.
...Not sure who you're replying too....
I have determined that my sig is indeterminate.
Exactly, I know in The Netherlands you're in big trouble as a school if you even *open* the packaged exams before they are going to be distributed to the pupils.
Not really. Catholics see the bible as a work inspired by God, not the literal word of God. As such, every story is interpreted rhetorically, not literally. It's supposed to teach us something about God, not a series of literal facts.
As you can imagine, this is a way way better approach than interpreting in a literal way an ancient book full of contradictions, obvious historical errors, false data and magic everywhere. I mean, science and reason can't fight the Catholic approach to God and the Bible, but it's not even a true effort to take down the literalists approach. It's not surprising at all that those are the people behind all these attacks to science and education.
Is that still around? I remember reading a few articles there a couple years ago. Hilarious and depressing at the same time.
Gosh, thanks. That must be why the other ships call me Meatfucker -- GCU Grey Area (Eccentric)
Indeed not. I've only had a little rather indirect contact with those sorts of communities in London, but as I understand it they also tend to shun proper education - university level especially because that's where a lot of people leave their communities - have low income levels and be dependent on state benefits in one of the most expensive cities in the world. Personally, I have no problem funding appropriately limited benefits for people who are unlucky, disabled, not educated properly by their parents and so on....but when a whole community is dependent on forced charity in a self-perpetuating cultural cycle but the problem is considered untouchable because 'religion' then I think it needs to be dealt with a little better. Requiring a proper education would be a good start (and being prepared to help children who want to go to university against their parents' wishes could be a good second thing).
Very good observation .. you hit ze nail on ze head. +1 from me
Nah, it's a classic strawman question used by creationists.
This one is a variant of "irreducible complexity": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
No sig today...
Not entirely true w/r Dutch exams.
http://www.examenblad.nl/exame..., page 13-14 for those who can read Dutch.
We did have a period in time where it was indeed entirely removed from exams and even in the above 2014 biology syllabus it uses weasel words to describe what a student needs to know about evolution for exams.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Because science is about doubting, learning and knowing, religion is about faith and believe. They're mutually exclusive.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
p.s. "period of time" where evolution was not on exams is roughly somewhere between mid 1990's and mid 2000's. It was in the news around 1995/1996 and I could find practice-exams with evolution in them starting 2004.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
In England this may be incidental, but in the Netherlands, it is institutional. Questions about evolution are up to this day not allowed in Dutch highschool exams, as ruled by law.
This is where a link is welcome
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
He was then, because of the way he was brought up and the time he was living in. I bet he wouldn't be now. These days, science and religion are mutually exclusive. Unless you want to be labelled a 'crack pot'. People didn't know any better then. They do now. Religion has had it's day..... time to grow up and move on.
School children should be taught *facts*.
If it's a religious owned/operated school, save the mythology for the theology class. Be fair, make it a honest comparative religions class, so they can see how their stories compare with the rest.
For public schools, leave the mythology out entirely, except in the historical context.
Teaching kids the mythology encourages them to grow up to be adults that believe the mythology. They fail to grow up and learn in the real world there is a cause and effect relationship.
The last thing I need is someone coming into my office asking for help, and then praying to their deity to solve it. When I fix their problem, they'll thank their deity, who didn't have a thing to do with it.
I swear, if one more person prays for a fix, I'm going to stop working. Let the deity of their choice fix it, and I'll go helping other people.
Ya buddy, your deity works in mysterious ways, that's why you still can't log into your email, and your application server is still down. Keep praying, maybe it will miraculously recover. Ha.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Are we the debtor or the creditor here?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Why don't you try to misunderstand the scientific definition of the word "theory" some more?
A theory is the most accepted, most rigorous, best description of facts that we have that fits in with all evidential proof. It is *proven*. Like "Pythagoras' theory" (which is what we call it, and has been proven beyond doubt countless millions of times).
What you're implying is that evolution is a "hypothesis". A hypothesis is, quite literally, our "best guess" at what the truth is. It's not proven.
If you were taught evolution was a theory, you were taught correctly. Maybe you should have a word with your English and science teachers, though, to establish which definition of "theory" was referred to in a science lesson.
We don't have "laws" by the way. It''s an old-fashioned way of saying theory (in the scientific sense), e.g. Newton's Third Law of Motion, or the Law of Conservation of Energy. Both of which, by the way, are proven theories (subject to the terms of Newtonian descriptions of motion which do not act on the quantum scale, but still - they are proven theories at the levels that they apply to).
And neither are "facts". Facts are indisputable items of information. They do not, in themselves, form an explanation. The explanation of the facts can be a hypothesis or theory, but a fact is just a datum.
Nobody gives a shit what you teach, so long as it's what is required by law. Unfortunately, the Department of Education take a dim view of failing to teach an area of the National Curriculum. If you don't want to teach it, don't run a school. Run a religious group. Or an after-school club. Or a church. Not a school.
It's spreading, Id rather hoped this kind of shit was going to stay on the other side of the pond :(
Lifesigns: Present Hair: Escaped Age: Increasing
Of course they're going to ignore the 500 madrassas in England which do precisely the same thing and seek out the only Jewish school they could find than shriek and moan and predict the Evil Jew Menace (tm, BBC) is going to destroy all of civilization. This is what they do every day.
In the mean time the Muslims teach their kids much worse things than creationism. Like children as young as 11 learning that Hindus have ‘no intellect’ and that they ‘drink cow piss, and hatred of Jews and Christians.
But of course it's the one Jewish school that they pick on.
As long as all their examination pupils forfeit the marks from those questions, and if the school's reputation suffers as it slips down the league table, and if the government withdraws all public funding from the school for failing to follow the national curriculum.
The school is supported by a small religious community that is comfortable in its separation from the modern world ---
or more precisely, the modern world as the geek chooses to define it.
I am profoundly wary of using the power of the state bring everyone around to a uniform secularist world-view. In perfect confidence that world-view will be the same as your own world-view.
It has been tried before, after all.
It is? I have never noticed it. I thought the BBC had some kind of institutional policy that forbade them from showing nay bias.
Rosie
Will you PLEASE F off with the Fing beta now?
They're not so much mutually exclusive as orthogonal. However, if you try to apply religion to scientific questions (e.g. how does evolution work) then you'll get nowhere and similarly, science isn't much use when evaluating why gods produce so much suffering.
You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
Obviously more than one religion have sects that just can't handle facing facts. It seems to start with an inability to read. The notion that a scripture is inspired somehow gets twisted into the idea that a scripture is perfect. Poor readers can not sort out the difference. Dwayne Wade may play an inspired game of basketball but no man has ever played a perfect game of basketball. Congregations turn this into a real problem by claiming that the perfect scripture is the word of God and can have no flaws or alternate interpretations. What makes more sense is to believe that God has no limits and therefore God can use evolution to create worlds and creatures that inhabit those worlds. And then realize that scriptures could only be handed to people in a manner in which they could be received and understood. Imagine going back 2,000 years or more and handing people texts about creatures changing over time and having past relatives that were not even human. The effect would not have been instructive and no faith could have been built. Whether it is a Bible or a Torah, either can be used to guide one through a good life. Yet both will fail miserably if used as a manual to try and repair a TV set. Primitive ministers make the error of trying to imply that a scripture is the perfect answer for all problems.
You are adorable. The BBC spent hundreds of thousands of pounds in court to block the release of their OWN report highlighting how biased they are. There are whole websites dedicated to simply listing the instances of the Beeb's bias.
Different species can often interbreed:
Horses/donkeys
Lions/Tigers
etc.
The offspring aren't always sterile, either. Mules are usually sterile but ligers can often be fertile: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Bengal cats are an artificially created crossbreed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The original ("rather stupid") answer assumed the parent was simply a troll who was trying a variant of the creationist's "Irreducible complexity" argument.
No sig today...
Oh, thank you for noticing. I AM adorable but I don't like to draw attention to it, being the modest sort.
I was asking an honest question as I hadn't come across any reports one way or the other. Given the BBC are meant to be unbiased and I tend to (more-or-less, hopefully without descending into hopeless naivety) use them as my primary news source. So if there are areas where there is endemic bias I would be interested in knowing them so I can adjust my impressions accordingly. Do you have any reliable sources that would show where there is bias please?
Rosie.
Will you PLEASE F off with the Fing beta now?
... learn ideas supported evidence.
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Wait, so the school decides what questions they want on their exam, and people are complaining?
Yes because in the UK the exams are not written by the schools but written by a central exam board so that the standard is consistent across the country. The same happens here in Alberta, Canada. By redacting the questions the school is preventing the students from being able to get any marks for those questions. I the exam board produced a paper where sufficient questions were "objectionable" then every pupil at that school would automatically fail the exam.
While the exam board might be ok with it because it offers zero advantage to the students the school inspectors ought to be all over this since it is grossly unfair to the students and may prevent them getting into university. We already have laws which limit religious freedom when it comes to refusing medical treatment for children because it harms them and frankly we should have similar ones when it comes to science education for exactly the same reason.
Those are after school institutions, not instead of school institutions, you Daily Mail reader.
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
The problem is mostly that the answers they're looking for are very different. Science asks "how", religion asks "why". Science will never try to explain why something is the way it is. Why things fall down due to gravity has, at least to my knowledge, never been a topic of scientific study. Why do masses move towards each other? We know THAT they do it, we can calculate and predict how they will react when subjected to each other's influence, but so far I at least have no idea just why they do it.
Religion on the other hand tries to answer exactly that question. Why does this world exist? Why are we here on this planet? Those are the question religion tries to answer, and the questions science can't really offer a good answer to. Simply because it's not their field of study.
And honestly, I don't think science should try to find the meaning of life. It's far more productive to find the reason for life.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
There is a difference between a theory and a set of beliefs. It looks similar on the surface, but the way they come into existence is a different one.
The order of things in a theory are: observation - pondering - formulating a theory - testing the theory against the findings - adjusting theory to fit new findings.
The order of things in a set of beliefs are: Truth found in a holy book - observation of reality - finding a way to fit observation to truth - if discrepancies are found, find an explanation why reality does not behave as it should.
What's different is the order of observation and theory/belief. Religion comes with a belief to the observation, science comes from an observation to a theory.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The Mutiny was a result of various grievances. However the flashpoint was reached when the soldiers were asked to bite off the paper cartridges for their rifles which were greased with animal fat, namely beef and pork. This was, and is, against the religious beliefs of Hindus and Muslims, respectively.
Personally i find eating cow shit disgusting and not eating only beef quite amusing, but then again I am Hindu and a vegetarian.
Don't they know wikipedia exists?
Do you know that conservapedia exists?
http://www.conservapedia.com/
Which one is correct? Teach the controversy!
Do you know uncyclopedia exists? http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/...
You forgot to call me a neocon Zionazi apartheid colonialist capitalist Islamophobe. There's a script you know, stick with it.
There is no creationism in government public schools in Israel (hasidic schools are a different matter). Biblical stories are taught in bible studies and nowhere else. ... 20+ years ago) I did not hear a whisper of evolutionary biology as well. All I know about it is self taught.
However... In 18 years of basic and high school (in my day at school
https://www.google.com/search?...
The Telegraph has a nice one right now about the madrassas discriminating by gender in hiring teachers. The BBC, however, has had a history of being soft on Islam.
What you fail to appreciate is that "species" is an abstraction - a useful tool when you classify living creatures and a great aid when you communicate with your fellow biologists, but there is nothing stopping you from classifying your ant species according to the shape of their left foot or whatever.
So, the split into distinct species is more a question of what we can agree on; the common criterion is that they are distinct species when they can not produce fertile hybrids, although this is not always strictly applied. The question of why two populations of the same species drift apart, this is something has been the subject of much scientific treatment - I think the consensus is that it starts off when the two groups stop interbreeding for whatever reason, and the natural changes that accumulate over time make them "drift apart" until they can be considered separate species.
Umm not. Nice link but what you are hiding from the community is the extensive pre-engagement genetic testing that is done in the community. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D...
form the article " a New York neurologist who credits the near-total disappearance of the condition (Tay-Sachs disease) from the ultra-orthodox community due to Dor Yeshorim's involvement"
Sanity is the trademark of a weak mind. -- Mark Harrold
An obligatory disclaimer as an observant Jew, I can think of no one in my social or academic circles who would support or condone such a move. Sadly, the extremists ruin things for everyone.
Keep the faith, share the code
Jewish teaching is all about asking questions. The entire religion is asking questions and challenging the answers. What this school is doing is wrong.
No one has seen what you have seen, and until that happens, we're all going to think that you're nuts. - Jack O'Neil
Nah, I'd prefer to call you a Daily Mail reader, as it much better represents your inability to think critically, and willingness to parrot the xenophobic tripe they print.
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
Information reported by the Daily Mail and The Commentator making the BBC look bad is reliable? Really? The Evening Standard (part-owned by the Daily Fail anyway) is similarly as reliable.
The report you refer to was published 10 years ago and meant that "As a result of the internal BBC publication of the Balen Report, changes were instigated in the methodology of the BBC’s Middle East" (http://bbcwatch.org/the-balen-report-2004/). The results of the changes seem to be fairly reasonable (http://bbcwatch.org/bbc-responses-to-criticism/).
I am not sure that I find the evidence terribly compelling at this point. Do you have any more?
Rosie.
Will you PLEASE F off with the Fing beta now?
>It's the one Jewish school that they pick on.
No, it isn't.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-e...
However, one Jewish reference gets the propaganda industry into full swing.
I especially like that "Conservapedia proven right" is one of the most popular articles.
Who ordered that?
The papers are being deliberately mishandled by the teachers. It doesn't matter that the effect of the mishandling does not increase the marks *. The exam board should refuse to mark every one of these papers and blacklist the teachers from ever administering exams again.
* Note: as far as they know. How can they be sure that there is no cheating going on?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Teach it. Teach everything.....no one says the kids have to believe it. While your at it teach the weaknesses of Empiricism in a Philosophy class.
1) I wasn't talking to you.
2) I didn't so much as bring up evolution.
3) So far, the discourse has been rather measured. You're the one trying to incite a flame war.
4) I'm assuming you meant fascist. Facism is discrimination based on the perceived attractiveness of a face, according to Urban Dictionary.
Withholding further comment because I only feed quality trolls. Only a snack for you.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
Because science is about doubting, learning and knowing, religion is about faith and believe. They're mutually exclusive.
I can't speak for other religions, but since the article is about Judaism, I can say that within Judaism specifically, doubting, questioning, and debating are essential components of a Jewish education. In fact, the entire Talmud is basically the arguments and debates of religious scholars.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
No one's trying to control your thoughts. Stop trying to turn yourself into the victim so you feel better. Also, I believe in evolution, and it HAS helped me in my day to day life, greatly. It informs my diet, my relationships, my moods... my way of life. And my life is awesome, thank you very much. :D
As you demonstrate, ignorant, hateful people can be found everywhere. One way to spot them is that they depict the world as one group vs. another (Jews vs. Muslims), and talk about a group of people as if they are a single-minded whole (Jews do this, Muslims do that) rather than as millions or billions of individuals.
My reading of history is that the hateful people are the ones that cause the most trouble, independently of what other group they belong to.
BBC uber alles it is then. All Hail. Well at least it's not that fucking terrorist rag, the Guardian. Which is great for making fucking paper mache heads idiots like you march around with angrily protesting the right to honor kill your sisters.
'evolution facists' (facist as in trying to control other people's thoughts)
Eh? Teaching evolution in a *science* class is now controlling other people's thoughts? The whole reason this is an issue is because hardcore theists want to prevent it from being taught because they think it conflicts with one cultures interpretation of a creation story. Is that not attempting to control people's thoughts?
"religious ignorance" = you are the ignorant one: the first to use the insults loses. Fact is, there is no evidence of life-by-incremental-changes. Darwin RAILED against jumps but there it is: life with neither the time nor the ability to exist. Instead of insulting those who choose to not repeat unproven theories (i.e., lies), commend them for thinking for themselves instead of believing what everyone else says.
Cranky educator.
If you are wondering why Christians, Muslims and Jewdaists hate evolution so much, it's because it breaks their belief that humans are pefrect (made after the image of god). So, the belief that humans are not capable of evil and that it's some devil doing it is shattered.
"Maybe they fear that their creation story will be seen for what it is if pupils get to learn ideas supported evidence."
What would that be? I see nothing wrong with accepting the creation story in a theological context and evolution in a scientific context. I totally agree evolution should be taught in school over creationism since the context is science. But I also detest snide comments such as this.
The Theory of Evolution is a scientific paradigm which explains the observed facts that allelle frequencies change in populations over time in response to environmental factors. It's also a theory that accounts for the observed facts that most life on earth is related to most of the rest of life on earth.
So to answer your question: we teach the Theory of Evolution because it explains some of facts about the world in which live.
"Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_in_Biology_Makes_Sense_Except_in_the_Light_of_Evolution)
Yes, but it's a very strange thing. Wikipedia tries to be a source of information; secondarily trying to be neutral (whether is succeeds or not is beside the point). Conservapedia does neither. It is almost purely an editorial site. It also seems like it was written by just a tiny handful of people as the style and tone of language in each article seem so similar to each other.
In some ways this is like Fox News, where it explicitly took a stance that since other media is biased, it will intentionally be even more biased in the other direction. Except that conservapedia makes Fox News look fair and balanced.
What sort of summary were you expecting to be 'written in stone'?
These ideas, fleshed out in detail, in science and mathematics, may grow to be so much more than a cliched one liner:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...
compare with
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...
In what sense are these not science?
Maybe you are being confused over the terminology:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...
or more simply
http://www.notjustatheory.com/
Ok, allow me to rephrase it. Science does not ask for the meaning of things. Science does not ask why this world exists. Or why the universe exists. Why human walks the earth or why we have our self consciousness and the ability to ponder these things in the first place. If any field is interested in this, it would probably be psychology and philosophy. Certainly not physics or astronomy.
Science does not question the meaning or purpose of something. Science tries to find out how something works. Not to what purpose it does it. Science does not anthropomorphise the world and try to find its purpose or some "grand plan" behind it. Science is concerned with how things work, what makes them tick. The "why is the sky blue" question is, from a scientific point of view, a question for the physical reason behind it. Not trying to give it some higher purpose in the grand scheme of things.
Religion usually does just that, and answers these questions about meaning and purpose. That's its appeal for people, people like it when things have a purpose. The idea that some things "just are" seem to make people uneasy. Especially when it's themselves that "just are".
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Too bad there arent things like books or the internet where people can learn alternative explanations of things.
This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
My apology for using the wrong term. But my original line of reasoning stands. Wake me up if Jewish starts planning to question their bible and abolish it.
First, what on earth are you on about?
Second, how about we draw a line between "education" (which I'll define as evidence-based teaching, and a good thing) and "indoctrination" (which I'll define as belief-based teaching; not automatically bad, unless it conflicts with evidence).
Third, evidence is evidence. You can ignore it if you like, but it won't go away. And you can make whatever tenuous speculative connections you wish to any bizarro conclusion of your choice, but do keep them out of reach of impressionable children.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Of course evolution should no longer be taught. It is a very bad theory.
That's a hackneyed belief.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Evolution; is it something you were born with, or is or is it a choice you make?
Should evolved people be allowed to marry or should they just be allowed civil unions? What about all the studies which show that children need two created parents?
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
There is no such thing as a proven theory in science, just theories that have failed to be disproved despite a long line of smart people trying to disprove them. As an example, the Law of Conservation of Energy has been disproved, most spectacularly by nuclear bombs
Similarly, things presented as facts are disputable; consider, for example, Piltdown Man. You can get to a level of facts that really aren't disputable, such as "Professor X claims in this journal that he dropped a feather and a coin in hard vacuum, and they hit at the same time", but most people will take what Professor X claimed as a fact.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
And the big lie is that fundamentalism is some sort of return to that good old time religion which we have fallen away from, rather than a new fangled mass market attempt to dumb down religion and reduce it to a cookbook so that people who think of themselves as Good don't have to put much time and energy into it, and they get a guaranteed return on investment.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
The history of religion from this angle is the cumulative humbling of the male European Christian, particularly those with property and/or power, from being the Crown of Creation, literally the center of the universe, to being a subgroup of a species of souped up ape on an externally unremarkable planet revolving around an undistinguished star in a distant backwater of a vast galaxy among innumerable others in a literally unimaginable universe, the function and purpose of which will never be known to us.
You can see why lots of people might fight this idea.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Absolutely. As pointed out to me once, the fact that most people remain in the religion into which they were born is good evidence that none of them confer any tangible advantage in life.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Well the definition of divergent species is they can't breed with each other, although there's often a stretch; like species that don't interbreed because they live on opposite sides of a river, or even dogs and wolves, that generally don't interbreed because they just don't.
However the fact that species diverging takes time is a factor. I was having the usual discussion with a particularly intelligent creationist, and he asked the usual "where are the intermediate steps in evolution? " And I replied with the usual "well the fossil record is incomplete, but look at horses, where we do have a good fossil record of the steps from eohippus to now", but he had a good counter: "what makes you call all those steps different species, rather than one species evolving over time but still remaining one species? " And I didn't have a good counterexample.
So, unless we have a fossil record of two species diverging from a single one with ask the intermediate steps, resulting in two existing separate species, we don't really have solid QED evidence. And that's a lot to ask of fossils.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
First, ot seems to me that Jews are somewhat more tolerant of different views on things than others of the Abrahanic tradition, Christians and Moslms; there seems to be a dialectical approach to dogna in the training of young Jews. Still because Jews, Christians and Moslms share the same roots, they can make the same sort of mistakes when their faith is a source of power. I call that mistake "The Sin of Abraham". It is the myth that any one tribe or ethnicity or group of mankind is more select than another, spiritually, or in the eyes of God. It is an idea that should be expunged from religion and why it is so important to western religion is a matter of historical empire and ethnocentrism that should be discouraged. It is surely the unassailable basis of all of the friction between the world religions that share it, and it is a myth as bad as Creationism.
It does not surprise me that some Conservative Jews would deny evolution, just as Christians and others might deny it. Creationism is a rehtorical position whose sole role is to protect dogma based on an authoritarian use of Scripture. It is based on using faith as a argument by force and is a testiment to the weakness of a faith that does not rest on morality by deed rather than moral authority in which an elite gets to abuse others. It is better to do right by deed than by prescription or order.
Any quiz questions on the New Testament?
Well if the schools, want to teach evolution, they need to also teach the controversies with it, not just paint a rosy picture that it is infallible, because otherwise that is deception and not teaching the kids to think critically. Trust us. We are scientists. It's completely true! (Hogwash.)
What? There are creationist scientists who reject evolution? They must be mad! Don't listen to them!!
Evolution. Teach the controversy.
There is no convincing controversy. Your ideas are "fringe" science that nobody takes seriously. It's not a conspiracy to keep theists down. It's just that your arguments are not convincing.
Teaching kids nonsense like this is detrimental to their development in many areas. Sadly, when US parents murder their children for religious reasons, the courts have basically said: "shame on you, try not to kill them the next time". When they do kill them the next time the courts have again said: "Shucks, that wasn't nice of you. Give us your wrist so we can slap it, and don't do it again".
Religious fruit-cakes in the US have far too much liberty in abusing their children. Bastardizing their education should not be one of them, neither should killing them, but apparently that is almost OK.
>> Which one is correct? Teach the controversy!
There is no controversy to teach. If there was, schools should teach it. So far though, only one theory has ever been proposed, so schools have to teach that. If another one ever comes along, of course they should teach that too.
yes, but if the genetic testing to stop the unlucky couples reproducing was not there, the community would eventually be wiped out because of the small gene pool which is the point being made
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)