The Hour of the Trolls is once more upon us.
Virtual Ignore is the only solution!!
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."
Ahem, what about the Platypus?
I wouldn't know - probably, 'I cry, make mama come.' Maybe 'what instincts does a 9 month old have' is the better question, since 'making assumptions' might give you the idea that I think 9 month olds are sitting around thinking through everything they do with articulated rationality. Your original phrasing, though, was:
When you were 9 months old, and noticed that when you cried, your mother appeared almost immediately, what was the philosophical basis of your actions?
Are you re-asking because you think 9 month olds don't have any assumptions or instincts about anything at all? Is there an infinite regress of observations?
We have already established that f.c. is a BTO fan.
For me looking at the Constitution is probably a lot like what Radio Astronomer experiences when he looks at the night sky, only when I see the complexity, I also see the living, breathing people who made it so.
When I was in college, and even more so when I was in law school, I used to wonder about the people behind the cases and read backwards through the appeals to see what the case was all about, and read legal history to find out what happened to them.
My law professors would laugh at me because the cases were supposed to stand for principles, and the people were not important. After first year, I quit letting people know my proclivities. I think not caring about the people is the reason they are professors, for what it's worth.
Some really good history has been written about legal cases. For example, Gideon's Trumpet, about Gideon vs. Wainwright (Indigent's right to appointed counsel, a great book and an excellent movie starring Henry Fonda as Gideon). Scottsboro, a great book about the Scottsboro boys (tough slogging unless the topic really fascinates you). Amistad was a wonderful movie, although I have read that it wasn't all that historically accurate. It seemed consistent with the legal case, anyway.
To me, Dred Scott isn't just a name. Neither is Brown of Brown vs. Board of Education fame. Neither is Milligan of Ex parte Milligan. Neither is Korematsu. I know the entire history of the Bank of the United States, both of them, and the roles of Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Justice Marshall, Andrew Jackson and Justice Taney. I could go on but you get the point. Constitutional law has involved hard fought battles between real men and women made of real flesh and blood over matters of life and death from the beginning.
To say you can pick up the Constitution and understand it just by reading it is as charming as a child insisting that Polaris is always the North Star and the moon is made of green cheese.
Wouldn't it be pretty to think so?
Informational Properties
The hologram exhibits some very profound properties beyond the three-dimensional image. In fact, it is one of the most profound means to distribute information throughout a given media. All of the information it contains is distributed over the entire image surface. One can remove a portion of the hologram without losing the image! Drill a hole in the hologram, and one can still view the entire object by simply moving one's eye to a more convenient angle (some resolution, or sharpness, will be lost however). Cut the film into pieces, and each piece contains the complete image.
An engineer who is designing a communication system in anticipation of hostile jamming, or other countermeasures, needs to employ several critical techniques to be effective. In addition to taking advantage of available error detection and correction techniques, he will also attempt to spread his message throughout the available bandwidth. He will avoid clustering his message into areas which would increase his vulnerability to jamming or interference.
It is provocative to notice that the Biblical text evidences these same techniques. Where is the chapter on baptism? Or salvation? Or any specific critical doctrine? Every major theme is spread throughout the 66 books making up the total message. There is no concentration of any critical element in any single location. One can tear out a surprising number of pages and still not lose visibility of the essential message. (Some resolution or clarity would be lost, however.) This design intent of distributing the vital elements throughout the entire message system is even highlighted by Isaiah:
Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts. For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little:
Isaiah 28:9,10
(snip)
The holographic paradigm thus seems to give us a glimpse into the interconnected relationships of the human mind (reviewed last month), and even the very nature of physical reality itself ... also appears to leave its imprint within the Word of God itself. This would appear to be a subtle, but significant, fingerprint of the Author of it all.
A Biblical Analogy
When one examines a hologram in natural (uncollimated, noncoherent) light, it has no apparent form nor attractiveness. However, when one examines it with the laser with which it was formulated, a three-dimensional image appears. When one examines the Bible in unaided, natural light, it "has no form nor comeliness that we should desire it."3 But when we examine it illuminated by the Light that created it, the Spirit of God that put it all together in the first place, we see an image: the image of the One that every detail in it illuminates, the promised Messiah Himself.
From Genesis to Revelation, God's program for the redemption of mankind is carefully distributed throughout 66 books,4 penned by more than 40 different individuals spanning several thousand years! And, indeed, this abused collection has survived the jamming and interference of its enemies over many centuries without material damage!
(However, if we illuminate the hologram with a laser of a different frequency, it will yield a false or distorted image. So, too, the Scripture!)
I propose that people who completely disagree with the foundational values become intellectually honest and do one of the following three things:
1.) they propose that the U.S. Constitution is scrapped and we start all over, perhaps creating a new constitution based on their own set of values,
2.) they completely divorce themselves from all involvement in government and politics, especially holding office and voting,
3.) they relocate to a place where their values are more consistently applied, such as Cuba or North Korea.
Or inane stellar motion posts few will read ping!
I'm one of the few. Keep posting them.
Whoohooo! :-)
Deal!
I sense a design flaw there...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.