Posted on 07/09/2003 12:08:32 PM PDT by PatrickHenry
FORT WORTH, Texas - (KRT) -
The long-running debate over the origins of mankind continues Wednesday before the Texas State Board of Education, and the result could change the way science is taught here and across the nation.
Local and out-of-state lobbying groups will try to convince the board that the next generation of biology books should contain new scientific evidence that reportedly pokes holes in Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.
Many of those groups say that they are not pushing to place a divine creator back into science books, but to show that Darwin's theory is far from a perfect explanation of the origin of mankind.
"It has become a battle ground," said Eugenie Scott, executive director of theNational Center of Science Education, which is dedicated to defending the teaching of evolution in the classroom.
Almost 45 scientists, educators and special interest groups from across the state will testify at the state's first public hearing this year on the next generation of textbooks for the courses of biology, family and career studies and English as a Second Language.
Approved textbooks will be available for classrooms for the 2004-05 school year. And because Texas is the second largest textbook buyer in the nation, the outcome could affect education nationwide.
The Texas Freedom Network and a handful of educators held a conference call last week to warn that conservative Christians and special interest organizations will try to twist textbook content to further their own views.
"We are seeing the wave of the future of religious right's attack on basic scientific principles," said Samantha Smoot, executive director of the network, an anti-censorship group and opponent of the radical right.
Those named by the network disagree with the claim, including the Discovery Institute and its Science and Culture Center of Seattle.
"Instead of wasting time looking at motivations, we wish people would look at the facts," said John West, associate director of the center.
"Our goal nationally is to encourage schools and educators to include more about evolution, including controversies about various parts of Darwinian theory that exists between even evolutionary scientists," West said. "We are a secular think tank."
The institute also is perhaps the nation's leading proponent of intelligent design - the idea that life is too complex to have occurred without the help of an unknown, intelligent being.
It pushed this view through grants to teachers and scientists, including Michael J. Behe, professor of biological sciences at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. The Institute receives millions of dollars from philanthropists and foundations dedicated to discrediting Darwin's theory.
The center sent the state board a 55-page report that graded 11 high school biology textbooks submitted for adoption. None earned a grade above a C minus. The report also includes four arguments it says show that evolutionary theory is not as solid as presented in biology textbooks.
Discovery Institute Fellow Raymond Bohlin, who also is executive director of Probe Ministries, based in Richardson, Texas, will deliver that message in person Wednesday before the State Board of Education. Bohlin has a doctorate degree in molecular cell biology from the University of Texas at Dallas.
"If we can simply allow students to see that evolution is not an established fact, that leaves freedom for students to pursue other ideas," Bohlin said. "All I can do is continue to point these things out and hopefully get a group that hears and sees relevant data and insist on some changes."
The executive director of Texas Citizens for Science, Steven Schafersman, calls the institute's information "pseudoscience nonsense." Schafersman is an evolutionary scientist who, for more than two decades, taught biology, geology, paleontology and environmental science at a number of universities, including the University of Houston and the University of Texas of the Permian Basin.
"It sounds plausible to people who are not scientifically informed," Schafersman said. "But they are fraudulently trying to deceive board members. They might succeed, but it will be over the public protests of scientists."
The last time Texas looked at biology books, in 1997, the State Board of Education considered replacing them all with new ones that did not mention evolution. The board voted down the proposal by a slim margin.
The state requires that evolution be in textbooks. But arguments against evolution have been successful over the last decade in other states. Alabama, New Mexico and Nebraska made changes that, to varying degrees, challenge the pre-eminence of evolution in the scientific curriculum.
In 1999, the Kansas Board of Education voted to wash the concepts of evolution from the state's science curricula. A new state board has since put evolution back in. Last year, the Cobb County school board in Georgia voted to include creationism in science classes.
Texas education requirements demand that textbooks include arguments for and against evolution, said Neal Frey, an analyst working with perhaps Texas' most famous textbook reviewers, Mel and Norma Gabler.
The Gablers, of Longview, have been reviewing Texas textbooks for almost four decades. They describe themselves as conservative Christians. Some of their priorities include making sure textbooks include scientific flaws in arguments for evolution.
"None of the texts truly conform to the state's requirements that the strengths and weaknesses of scientific theories be presented to students," Frey said.
The Texas textbook proclamation of 2001, which is part of the standard for the state's curriculum, Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, requires that biology textbooks instruct students so they may "analyze, review and critique scientific explanations, including hypotheses and theories, as to their strengths and weakness using scientific evidence and information."
The state board is empowered to reject books only for factual errors or for not meeting the state's curriculum requirements. If speakers convince the state board that their evidence is scientifically sound, members may see little choice but to demand its presence in schoolbooks.
Proposed books already have been reviewed and approved by Texas Tech University. After a public hearing Wednesday and another Sept. 10, the state board is scheduled to adopt the new textbooks in November.
Satisfying the state board is only half the battle for textbook publishers. Individual school districts choose which books to use and are reimbursed by the state unless they buy texts rejected by the state board.
Districts can opt not to use books with passages they find objectionable. So when speakers at the public hearings criticize what they perceived as flaws in various books - such as failing to portray the United States or Christianity in a positive light - many publishers listen.
New books will be distributed next summer.
State Board member Terri Leo said the Discovery Institute works with esteemed scientists and that their evidence should be heard.
"You cannot teach students how to think if you don't present both sides of a scientific issue," Leo said. "Wouldn't you think that the body that has the responsibility of what's in the classroom would look at all scientific arguments?"
State board member Bob Craig said he had heard of the Intelligent Design theory.
"I'm going in with an open mind about everybody's presentation," Craig said. "I need to hear their presentation before I make any decisions or comments.
State board member Mary Helen Berlanga said she wanted to hear from local scientists.
"If we are going to discuss scientific information in the textbooks, the discussion will have to remain scientific," Berlanga said. "I'd like to hear from some of our scientists in the field on the subject."
an age, lifetime, eternity. Indo-european base *aiw-, vitality.
It's true. You and your city council can vote to teach that pi=3.0 and the earth is flat. It's a sad thing, but considering the revisionist history and crooked politics that is espoused in schools, it may not be the worst of it. Kids will outgrow the yoke of parental influence and see that the world is different than what their parents taught. Just don't call it science. It isn't.
Thank you for your previous responses.
I will go away since I'm not here to create dissension among conservatives, instead I want to expand the conservative movement. I already expressed my views on "creationism" clearly, so I'm just beating a dead horse.
Discussing pure theology [What is a Christian?] is a recipe for unnecessary confrontation and discord. You might be a heretic according to my interpretation of the Scriptures, so I will refrain from counterproductive posts.
I suggest you consult with a medium.
I cited a source for Popper's analysis of the demarcation problem. The philosophy of science awaits your rebuttal of Popper's arguments. Popper, incidentally, rejected logical positivism.
Yes, like they did in the days of geocentrism and phlogiston...so much for 100% reliability.
You are confusing two issues: the demarcation between scientific truth and scientific falsity; and the demarcation between science and non-science.
There was no scientific community, in any meaningful sense of the term, which believed in geocentrism. There was a nascent scientific community around the time phlogiston was being discredited. That community was in the process of sorting out for itself what arguments could be called scientific and what could be considered non-scientific.
Priestley, for example, made a spirited defense of phlogiston based on what were clearly scientific arguments. He was wrong, but he was being scientific. Had he defended phlogiston based on Biblical exegesis he would have been both wrong and non-scientific.
Clearly, these men were able to make their discoveries as a DIRECT RESULT of their theistic worldview which says that the universe is rational and ordered and understandable because the Creator is rational and ordered.
That the universe is ordered is clearly false by observation; the Universe is substantially disordered, and has been shown to be so, on length scales from nanometers to megaparsecs. The central scientific concept of temperature requires disorder; entropy, a state function central to thermodynamics, is a quantitative measure of that disorder. Any component of the universe at a temperature higher than 0 K has a positive entropy. Therefore the statement that the Universe is ordered is scientific but false.
That the universe is rational and understandable remains to be demonstrated, since the only way we can prove something to be understandable is to understand it, and there is much of the Universe we don't understand. I would argue this is therefore an unscientific statement at present, given that the means do not exist to test it, either directly, or by means of predictions dependent on it.
The premise that there exists a Creator is not testable. Given the inability to test the existence of the Creator by observation or experiment, statements about the qualities of the Creator must similarly be untestable by observation or experiment. The statements are therefore not scientific by Popper's demarcation criteria.
Summary:
Universe is ordered: Scientific, false
Universe is rational, understandable: Unscientific
Creator is rational, ordered: Unscientific because premise is unscientific.
Thank you for your wise words.
You stated an opinion.
No, we are a representative REPUBLIC formed to protect the rights of individuals. Particularly, the right to be left alone from rampaging mobs of anti-science loonies like you and your "community".
<boots>Now about free will:
In How the Mind Works, MIT professor Harold Pinker argues that the fundamental premise of ethics has been disproved by science. "Ethical theory," he writes, "requires idealisations like free, sentient, rational, equivalent agents whose behaviour is uncaused." Yet, "the world, as seen by science, does not really have uncaused events." In other words, moral reasoning assumes the existence of things that science tells us are unreal (Pearcey, 2000). These formulations demonstrate that in practice scientific materialism is a monist view ignoring completely the autonomy of any other ontological levels.
I'm sure there is a Nobel prize waiting for anyone who can formulate indisputable definitions of causation and free will. It hasn't happened yet. I find it interesting to speculate on possible definitions, but rather pointless to argue as if they had been defined, all the time ignoring other parties to the conversation who do not accept your basic terms.
From an ethical viepoint it is only necessary to establish that the future is indeterminant, that causal links to the future cannot be exhaustively established. One cannot ever say that any person, given his physical structure and history, will behave in a particular way in the future. Philosophical determinsm doesn't enter into ethics because practical determinism is impossible.
In the practical world, ethics is bounded by results. We observe that people's behavior is shaped by consequenses, and we attempt to structure consequenses that will bring about acceptable behavior. Even God does this, apparently, because I know of no popular religion that does not impose sanctions, immediate or in the afterlife, on behavior.
The net result of all this is that ethics places the locus of causation in the future rather than the past. Since you are a great admirer of extradimensional space, envision ethics as an attractive force outside the ordinary bounds of space and time.
</boots>
That's what evolution is ... saying the most and believing --- preposterous (( LIES )) things !
WHACKS - NAZIS !
Chapter 14
Daniel and the Coming King---Daniel 9
By Dr.Desmond Ford
"Sir Isaac Newton, the greatest of scientists prior to the modern period, wrote a commentary upon the prohecies of Daniel and Revelations. He desribed Daniel 9:24-27 as "the foudation-stone of the Christian religion" because centuries in advance it gave the time of appearance of the Messiah and His death, as well as a comprehensive description of His saving work in heaven and earth. The prophecy likewise tells what would be the fate of the Jews consequent upon their rejection of the One whose coming they had long anticpated. The destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, foretold in Daniel 9:24-27, was history's testimony that the offerings and services of the sanctuary had met their fulfillment in the advent of the promised Messiah."
Newton, Isaac. Observsations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalpse of St. John. London: J. Darby and T. Browne, 1733 (Isaac Newton)
Syllables: pre-pos-ter-ous
Part of Speech adjective
Pronunciation prih pa stE rEs
Definition 1. totally unlikely, unbelievable, or senseless; absurd.
Example He was wearing a preposterous hat for the occasion ; Your conclusions from such weak evidence are preposterous.
Synonyms unbelievable , absurd , ridiculous
Crossref. Syn. unearthly , inane
Similar Words ludicrous , irrational , farcical , outrageous , crackbrained , laughable , unlikely , cockamamie , improbable , unthinkable , impossible , senseless
Related Words fantastic , tall , grotesque , incredible , silly , quixotic , wild
Derived Forms preposterously, adv. ; preposterousness, n.
So much for school choice. You might not want to believe this, but I do hope you find a way to get your kids the education you want for them. Meanwhile, I and a lot of other people, will hope to find another community.
I wouldn't try to translate it myself these days, but a literal word for word transliteration and lookup is:
| DI | OU | KAI | EPOIHSEN | TOUS | AIWNAS |
| through | whom | indeed | he made | the | ages |
From the Bible there's definitely supporting evidence God created all things through Jesus (the Word). And I could always use prayer, thanks.
It isn't, as you've pointed out many times. Most scientists in Darwin's time were creationist. It did not prevent them from studying Darwin and accepting the evidence for his hypothesis. That is because they behaved as scientists.
I think you've gone off the deep end, prof. Now, where did I last see that North Star? Hmmmm.
3,469 posted on 07/16/2003 11:32 AM PDT by balrog666 (My tag line is broken.)
Yes, we were a representative theistic REPUBLIC ... thanks to the evo nazis --- rampaging mobs of anti-science loonies like you and your "community" --- we are an ATHIEST fascist God - truth - SCIENCE hating NAZI country now !
Parents who are theistic who want to teach their children are called loonies by you ?
"science and ethics are two self-contained systems played out among the same entities in the world...
Free will is an idealization of human beings that makes the ethics game playable. Euclidean geometry requires idealizations like infinite straight lines and perfect circles, and its deductions are sound and useful even though the world does not really have infinite straight lines or perfect circles. The world is close enough to the idealization that the theorems can usefully be applied. Similarly, ethical theory requires idealizations like free, sentient, rational, equivalent agents whose behavior is uncaused, and its conclusions can be sound and useful even though the world, as seen by science, does not really have uncaused events. As long as there is no outright coercion or gross malfunction of reasoning, the world is close enough to the idealization of free will that moral theory can meaningully be applied to it. ...
Science and morality are separate spheres of reasoning. Only by recognizing them as separate can we have them both."
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