Posted on 03/01/2004 1:02:07 PM PST by Mr. Silverback
Almost 150 years ago, Charles Darwin knew something that the scientific establishment seems to have forgotten -- something that is being endangered today in the state of Ohio.
In Ohio, high school science students are at risk of being told that they are not allowed to discuss questions and problems that scientists themselves openly debate. While most people understand that science is supposed to consider all of the evidence, these students, and their teachers, may be prevented from even looking at the evidence -- evidence already freely available in top science publications.
In late 2002, the Ohio Board of Education adopted science education standards that said students should know "how scientists investigate and critically analyze aspects of evolutionary theory." The standards did not say that schools should teach intelligent design. They mandate something much milder. According to the standards, students should know that "scientists may disagree about explanations . . . and interpretations of data" -- including the biological evidence used to support evolutionary theory. If that sounds like basic intellectual freedom, that's because it is.
The Ohio Department of Education has responded by implementing this policy through the development of an innovative curriculum that allows students to evaluate both the strengths and the weaknesses of Darwinian evolution.
And that has the American scientific establishment up in arms. Some groups are pressuring the Ohio Board to reverse its decision. The president of the National Academy of Sciences has denounced the "Critical Analysis" lesson -- even though it does nothing more than report criticisms of evolutionary theory that are readily available in scientific literature.
Hard as it may be to believe, prominent scientists want to censor what high school students can read and discuss. It's a story that is upside-down, and it's outrageous. Organizations like the National Academy of Sciences and others that are supposed to advance science are doing their best to suppress scientific information and stop discussion.
Debates about whether natural selection can generate fundamentally new forms of life, or whether the fossil record supports Darwin's picture of the history of life, would be off-limits. It's a bizarre case of scientists against "critical analysis."
And the irony of all of this is that this was not Charles Darwin's approach. He stated his belief in the ORIGIN OF SPECIES: "A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question." Darwin knew that objective science demands free and open inquiry, and while I disagree with Darwin on many things, on this he was absolutely right. And I say what's good enough for scientists themselves, as they debate how we got here, is good enough for high school students.
Contact us here at BreakPoint (1-877-322-5527) to learn more about this issue and about an intelligent design conference we're co-hosting this June.
The Ohio decision is the leading edge of a wedge breaking open the Darwinist stranglehold on science education in this country. The students in Ohio -- and every other state -- deserve intellectual freedom, and they deserve it now.
You mean, critical analysis in the postmodern sense?
Or what?
But, NO dna gets 'exchanged' when an organism merely SPLITS IN TWO...
FLASHBACK:
In the mists of time we find a slightly changed organism thinking, "Today, I'm gonna f**k myself."
"Critical analysis" that uses creationist literature as it's source material......
If you were taught that as anything but the most speculative attempt to get an abiotic origin of life, you were not being taught religion, but you were being taught speculation disguised as something more. When my course on the chemical basis of evolution last semester covered abiogenesis, I gave them a menu of a half dozen theories, asked each student to give a ten-minute presentation about each one (over two classes), and then we looked at how one could test and distinguish between what are still preliminary efforts to solve the question of abiogenesis.
Just use an appropriate pseudonym like Grossunblatt or Dumbski or Lightbringer.
So RightWingNilla, you think you are the spokes-model for all of science. You have an interesting variation on delusions of grandeur
AAAAAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
This website includes the old canard about "the Earth's decaying magnetic field".
Again, though, what this (incorrect) geomagnetic argument has to do with *evolution* is something that's apparent only to creationists.
The author of this article is implying that evolution is a contreversial theory among scientists. It isn't.
No you haven't. What you have seen, and mistaken for that, is people rightly resisting attempts to change the subject.
which they taught me as part of evolution when I went to school in the 70s
No, they taught it to you as part of biology, which includes both biogenesis and evolution.
(any rational person would as it is preposterous on its face).
Could we have that again in grammatical English?
I am a rational person, and I do not see anything wrong with the theory of abiogenesis. Perhaps you could explain why you consider it to be irrational.
So I guess there is no science out there that in any way refutes or disproves the notion that we were created by someone or something.
You would guess wrongly. The lack of evidence for that notion effectively refutes it.
Since evolution cannot explain how we got here,
What gave you that idea? Sure it can.
only why some of us our born without wisdom teeth,
Ooookay.
what do we have to fill this void with in education?
The extremely well supported theory of evolution, which is supported by massive amounts of evidence via multiple independent methods.
I am sure enquiring young minds want to know.
Glad to be of service.
I just love a good conspiracy theory, but this one isn't very good.
No, care to try again?
You obviously don't know who you're dealing with here.
I can see how that would be one opinion, yes. Many Christians disagree with you, though.
Just as soon as Christians can all get together and agree on a single view on this matter, however, I'll find the argument that "God refutes evolution" to be less than convincing. Certainly less convincing than the hard evidence which clearly indicates that evolution has indeed occurred.
Wrong.
What if we found some evidence on earth or a device that seems to have with it an explanation the origins of life, but it looks like evidence of another intelligent life form's ship or capsule, then we could not study it scientifically. We would just haul it off to the nearest church.
What part of the word "supernatural" was unclear?
Your inability to address any of the scientific points in made in those papers is duly noted.
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