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Scientists unite for science curriculum
Houston Chronicle ^ | Sept. 30, 2008 | KELLEY SHANNON

Posted on 09/30/2008 7:21:06 PM PDT by Soliton

AUSTIN — Scientists from Texas universities on Tuesday denounced what they called supernatural and religious teaching in public school science classrooms and voiced opposition to attempts to water down evolution instruction.

The newly formed 21st Century Science Coalition said so far it has 800 members who have signed up online.

"Texas public schools should be preparing our kids to succeed in the 21st century, not promoting political and ideological agendas that are hostile to a sound science education," said David Hillis, a professor of integrative biology at the University of Texas at Austin.

The State Board of Education is considering new science curriculum standards. It is expected to vote next spring. Because Texas is such a large purchaser of textbooks, its ongoing science debate affects textbooks nationwide.

An academic work group proposed that Texas standards for biology courses eliminate the long-held language of teaching students the "strengths and weaknesses" of theories.

The science coalition supports that language change because it says talking of "weaknesses" of evolution allows for religion-based concepts like creationism and intelligent design to enter the instruction. The Texas Freedom Network, an Austin-based group that says it monitors the influence of the religious right, also praises the proposed language change.

(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...


TOPICS: Education; Religion; Science
KEYWORDS: agnostics; atheism; atheist; atheists; churchofdarwin; coyotespeaks; creationism; darwin; evangelicalatheists; evolution; id; materialism
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To: tpanther
And next we’ll no doubt hear about the inevitable coming 2nd Inquisition Theocracy if parents are somehow “ALLOWED” their will of teaching the truth to their kids in public school science class.

And "truth" of course is your particular narrow brand of religion, eh?

Sorry, science is about evidence, and evidence is the last thing religions want. Religions operate on belief, scripture, revelation and the like, and generally do their best to inoculate their believers against scientific evidence.

The purported global flood is a classic example; belief in a young earth is another. Both are contradicted by mountains of scientific evidence, yet this is the very type of thing you probably would like to see taught in science class.

Just one little problem--there's no evidence for those beliefs.

You want into science classes you will have to come up with scientific evidence.

41 posted on 09/30/2008 9:26:57 PM PDT by Coyoteman (Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.)
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To: Coyoteman

Try to pay attrention...

http://www.dissentfromdarwin.org

SCIENTISTS...no religion to be found ANYWHERE here, whatsoever on this website. NONE, notta, zero...

It’s NOT a creation website!

Set aside your problems with religion and just try to actually put your money where your mouth is and forget about religion, JUST THIS ONCE!

TAKE YOUR VERY OWN ADVICE AND TRY TO STAY ON THE SCIENCE!

It’s exactly what you’ve been demanding...so when you get what you demand are you STILL going to whine about these scientists injecting religion into science yet again?

When there’s absolutely ZERO mention of religion on this website of SCIENTISTS that disagree with your paranoid worldview?


42 posted on 09/30/2008 10:03:25 PM PDT by tpanther (All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. Edmund Burke)
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To: Coyoteman; tpanther

I would like to see just when coyote ever does science, cant find any science for coyote here.


43 posted on 09/30/2008 10:14:18 PM PDT by valkyry1 (McCain/Palin 2008)
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To: Coyoteman

This cultish paranoia is exactly why people put stickers on text books explaining to students that evolution is indeed theory and not fact.

If a student is asking honest scientific questions about evolution, he’s shouted down as a religious nut.

Atheists have run education for far too long at the exclusion of Christians to the point they now go elsewhere AND get stuck paying for failed godless liberal govt run schools too.

Thus this total collapse and failure of NEA run lunacy and social programming.

This is how we got to kids not being allowed to play dodgeball anymore or not allowed to keep score because EVERYONE is a winner...ala Al Franken.

If the angry at God crowd spent 1/100th the time they’re worried about ‘parents teaching their kids about God in public’ as they should be on global warming destroying science, we’d ALL be much better off!


44 posted on 09/30/2008 10:22:35 PM PDT by tpanther (All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. Edmund Burke)
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To: valkyry1

I keep hearing how science must be kept pure from religion and how God must be sterlized out of the discussion, and yet, when you point out science doesn’t and can’t coherently “care” about God one way or another, we always circle back to the disbelief cult as the “only” scientific starting point as if this is the neutral position of science.

It’s as if it’s not atheism or theism but the begin point is now anti-theism.

Science has been hijacked by algore and other angry at God liberals.

So even when that’s debunked and you point out actual scientists DO dissent from their cult of disbelief...well that’s not good enough either.

Then comes the “we’re just gonna be another Christian Iran...or here comes the 2nd Inquisition” lunacy, just as sure as the sun will rise.

Rush Limbaugh is right, these people simply need to be defeated. THEN we can sit them down on the couch and try to unwind their psychoses!

Liberalism is a disease.


45 posted on 09/30/2008 10:32:16 PM PDT by tpanther (All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. Edmund Burke)
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To: LiteKeeper; metmom

Fights back against what? I guess they will have to throw out Newton (who wrote more theology than science), Kepler, and a host of others who were all theists!


Obviously itself!

The science coalition supports that language change because it says talking of “weaknesses” of evolution allows for religion-based concepts like creationism and intelligent design to enter the instruction. The Texas Freedom Network, an Austin-based group that says it monitors the influence of the religious right, also praises the proposed language change.

As we see these paranoid loons could care less about the science, any dissent is always automatically labeled religious in nature.

What other theory has to stomp out words such as “weakness” needing stickers on textbooks to remind students of it’s cultish phobias?

Once upon a time students were taught that theory was exactly that...theory and as such was treated as though questions about it were welcome, in that this would only add to the body of scientific knowledge.

Not so today with the cult of evolution as we see in NEA run failed schools.


46 posted on 09/30/2008 10:39:05 PM PDT by tpanther (All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. Edmund Burke)
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To: Soliton
Why can't we get this kind of uprising out of all the errors in science textbooks that are far less controversial than evolution?
47 posted on 09/30/2008 10:45:38 PM PDT by dan1123 (If you want to find a person's true religion, ask them what makes them a "good person".)
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To: tpanther
“When there’s absolutely ZERO mention of religion on this website of SCIENTISTS that disagree with your paranoid worldview?”

Actually, if you follow the links they've provided, you will be subjected to “information” courtesy of the Discovery Institute; not exactly an unbiased source.

48 posted on 09/30/2008 10:47:18 PM PDT by stormer
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To: dan1123
Why can't we get this kind of uprising out of all the errors in science textbooks that are far less controversial than evolution?

They're teachers, they don't know that there are errors in the books

49 posted on 09/30/2008 10:48:40 PM PDT by Soliton (> 100)
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To: stormer

Actually, if you follow the links they’ve provided, you will be subjected to “information” courtesy of the Discovery Institute; not exactly an unbiased source.


Sure, there’s links to this information, but read the “scientists” links, what they the scientists themselves have to say, such as:

Professor Colin Reeves, Coventry University

Darwinism was an interesting idea in the 19th century, when handwaving explanations gave a plausible, if not properly scientific, framework into which we could fit biological facts. However, what we have learned since the days of Darwin throws doubt on natural selection’s ability to create complex biological systems - and we still have little more than handwaving as an argument in its favour.

Professor Colin Reeves
Dept of Mathematical Sciences
Coventry University

Posted by Robert Crowther on September 22, 2008 1:34 PM | Permalink


Edward Peltzer, University of California, San Diego (Scripps Institute)

As a chemist, the most fascinating issue for me revolves around the origin of life. Before life began, there was no biology, only chemistry – and chemistry is the same for all time. What works (or not) today, worked (or not) back in the beginning. So, our ideas about what happened on Earth prior to the emergence of life are eminently testable in the lab. And what we have seen thus far when the reactions are left unguided as they would be in the natural world is not much. Indeed, the decomposition reactions and competing reactions out distance the synthetic reactions by far. It is only when an intelligent agent (such as a scientist or graduate student) intervenes and “tweaks” the reactions conditions “just right” do we see any progress at all, and even then it is still quite limited and very far from where we need to get. Thus, it is the very chemistry that speaks of a need for something more than just time and chance. And whether that be simply a highly specified set of initial conditions (fine-tuning) or some form of continual guidance until life ultimately emerges is still unknown. But what we do know is the random chemical reactions are both woefully insufficient and are often working against the pathways needed to succeed. For these reasons I have serious doubts about whether the current Darwinian paradigm will ever make additional progress in this area.

Edward Peltzer
Ph.D. Oceanography, University of California, San Diego (Scripps Institute)

Associate Editor, Marine Chemistry

Posted by Robert Crowther on September 2, 2008 3:16 PM | Permalink


Chris Williams, Ph.D., Biochemistry Ohio State University

As a biochemist and software developer who works in genetic and metabolic screening, I am continually amazed by the incredible complexity of life. For example, each of us has a vast ‘computer program’ of six billion DNA bases in every cell that guided our development from a fertilized egg, specifies how to make more than 200 tissue types, and ties all this together in numerous highly functional organ systems. Few people outside of genetics or biochemistry realize that evolutionists still can provide no substantive details at all about the origin of life, and particularly the origin of genetic information in the first self-replicating organism. What genes did it require – or did it even have genes? How much DNA and RNA did it have – or did it even have nucleic acids? How did huge information-rich molecules arise before natural selection? Exactly how did the genetic code linking nucleic acids to amino acid sequence originate? Clearly the origin of life – the foundation of evolution - is still virtually all speculation, and little if no fact.

Posted by Robert Crowther on August 11, 2008 7:29 AM | Permalink

BTW, have you seen the list?

Quite a bit to ignore!

http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?command=download&id=660


50 posted on 09/30/2008 11:10:54 PM PDT by tpanther (All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. Edmund Burke)
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To: Soliton
and voiced opposition to attempts to water down evolution instruction.

Translation:

ANYTHING that would cast DOUBT on Evolution's #1 place on the BELIEF food chain.

51 posted on 10/01/2008 4:02:23 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Soliton
It's a thoroughly tested theory supported by mountains of evidence.

SOMEbody has a lot of HOPE in CHANGE.

52 posted on 10/01/2008 4:04:37 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Soliton
You can be a Christian AND accept evolution.

And "when you eat it, you will be like GOD."

53 posted on 10/01/2008 4:06:24 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: grey_whiskers

CALVINOSAURUS lives!


54 posted on 10/01/2008 4:07:03 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: dr_lew
...establishing the fact of evolution...

Yeah... Sure...


 
 
 

 

Charles Darwin (1809-1882)

"By further reflecting that the clearest evidence would be requisite to make any sane man believe in the miracles by which Christianity is supported,—and that the more we know of the fixed laws of nature the more incredible do miracles become,—that the men at that time were ignorant and credulous to a degree almost incomprehensible by us,—that the Gospels cannot be proven to have been written simultaneously with the events,—that they differ in many important details, far too important, as it seemed to me to be admitted as the usual inaccuracies of eye witnesses;—by such reflections as these, which I give not as having the least novelty or value, but as they influenced me, I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation. The fact that many fake religions have spread over large portions of the earth like wildfire had some weight with me. But I was very unwilling to give up my belief; I feel sure of this, for I can remember often and often inventing day-dreams of old letters between distinguished Romans, and manuscripts being discovered at Pompeii or elsewhere, which confirmed in the most striking manner all that was written in the Gospels. But I found it more and more difficult, with free scope given to my imagination, to invent evidence which would suffice to convince me. Thus disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but was at last complete. The rate was so slow that I felt no distress, and have never since doubted even for a single second that my conclusion was correct."

( Charles Darwin in his Autobiography of Charles Darwin, Dover Publications, 1992, p. 62. )


Charles Darwin (1809-1882)

"I think that generally (& more & more as I grow older), but not always, that an agnostic would be the most correct description of my state of mind."

( Quoted from Adrian Desmond and James Moore, Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1991, p. 636. )

 
 
 
 

NIV 1 Timothy 1:20-21
 20.  Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to your care. Turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge,
 21.  which some have professed and in so doing have wandered from the faith.   Grace be with you.

 
NIV Proverbs 4:13
   Hold on to instruction, do not let it go; guard it well, for it is your life.
 

NIV Hebrews 3:6
   But Christ is faithful as a son over God's house. And we are his house, if we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast.
 

NIV Hebrews 3:14
   We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first.
 

NIV Hebrews 6:11
   We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, in order to make your hope sure.
 
 
NIV Hebrews 12:3
   Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
 
 
NIV 2 Timothy 2:11-13
 11.  Here is a trustworthy saying: If we died with him, we will also live with him;
 12.  if we endure, we will also reign with him.
If we disown him, he will also disown us;
 13.  if we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself.
 

NIV 2 Peter 2:20-21
 20.  If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning.
 21.  It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them.
 
 
 
NIV 2 John 1:8
  Watch out that you do not lose what you have worked for, but that you may be rewarded fully.
 

NIV Jude 1:21
   Keep yourselves in God's love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.
 

NIV Revelation 2:25
   Only hold on to what you have until I come.
 

NIV Revelation 3:11
   I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown.


55 posted on 10/01/2008 4:11:21 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Coyoteman
And fundamentalists whose knowledge of science is abysmal are going to point those problems out, eh?

Just like those knuckle dragging scientists.

56 posted on 10/01/2008 4:12:43 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: dr_lew
All Vertebrates Pass through a Highly Conserved Phylotypic Stage

Which PROVES what?

57 posted on 10/01/2008 4:13:34 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Coyoteman
The purported global flood is a classic example; belief in a young earth is another. Both are contradicted by mountains of scientific evidence, yet this is the very type of thing you probably would like to see taught in science class.

Hey!

You CREATIONISTS!!

Defend agin THIS!!!

58 posted on 10/01/2008 4:14:33 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: stormer
Actually, if you follow the links they've provided, you will be subjected to “information” courtesy of the Discovery Institute; not exactly an unbiased source.

Kinda like the stuff that is APPROVED by the NEA and school boards across the country.

59 posted on 10/01/2008 4:16:46 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Elsie
You can be a Christian AND accept evolution.
 

 

Most Christians 'believe' Evolution because they do NOT know what their Bible says.

If, as they say, they 'believe' the words of Jesus and the New Testament writers,

they have to decide what the following verses mean:

Acts 17:26-27
26. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.
27. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.

Romans 5:12-21
12. Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned--
13. for before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law.
14. Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come.
15. But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God's grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!
16. Again, the gift of God is not like the result of the one man's sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification.
17. For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.
18. Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men.
19. For just as through the disobedience of the one man, the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.
20. The law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more,
21. so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

If there were no one man, that means SIN did NOT enter the World thru him.

If Adam was NOT the one man, that means SPIRITUAL DEATH did not come thru him.

If SIN did NOT enter the World thru the one man, that means Jesus does not save from SIN.

Are we to believe that the one man is symbolic? Does that mean Jesus is symbolic as well?

The Theory of Evolution states that there WAS no one man, but a wide population that managed to inherit that last mutated gene that makes MEN different from APES.

Acts 17:24-26

24. "The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands.
25. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.
26.
From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.

Was LUKE wrong about this?

 

1 Corinthians 11:8-9
8. For
man did not come from woman, but woman from man;
9. neither was man
created for woman, but woman for man.

1 Timothy 2:13
For Adam was formed first, then Eve.


Was Paul
WRONG about these???

 

If so, is GOD so puny that He allows this 'inaccuracy' in His Word??



And THIS verse is completely against E!!!

NIV Genesis 2:18
The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him."

60 posted on 10/01/2008 4:19:36 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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