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Antievolutionists asked to review draft standards in Texas
The National Center for Science Education ^ | October 16, 2008

Posted on 10/17/2008 7:59:18 AM PDT by Soliton

Three antievolutionists have been appointed to a six-member committee to review the draft set of Texas state science standards, and defenders of the integrity of science education in the Lone Star state are livid. "The committee was chosen by 12 of the 15 members of the board of education, with each panel member receiving the support of two board members," as the Dallas Morning News (October 16, 2008) explains. Six members of the board "aligned with social conservative groups" chose Stephen C. Meyer, the director of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, Ralph Seelke, a biology professor at the University of Wiconsin, Superior, and Charles Garner, a chemistry professor at Baylor University.

Meyer, Seelke, and Garner are all signatories of the Discovery Institute-sponsored "Dissent from Darwinism" statement. Meyer and Seelke are also coauthors of Explore Evolution: The Arguments For and Against Neo-Darwinism (Hill House, 2008), which, like Of Pandas and People, is a supplementary textbook that is intended to instill scientifically unwarranted doubts about evolution. A recent review by biologist John Timmer summarized, "But the book doesn't only promote stupidity, it demands it. In every way except its use of the actual term, this is a creationist book." Garner reportedly told the Houston Press (December 14, 2000) that he "criticizes evolutionary theory in class."

Meyer and Seelke also testified in the 2005 "kangaroo court" hearings held by three antievolutionist members of the Kansas state board of education, in which a parade of antievolutionist witnesses expressed their support for the so-called minority report version of the state science standards (written with the aid of a local "intelligent design" organization), complained of repression by a dogmatic evolutionary establishment, and claimed to have detected atheism lurking "between the lines" of the standards..

(Excerpt) Read more at ncseweb.org ...


TOPICS: Education; Religion; Science
KEYWORDS: creationism; evolution; id; scientism
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To: Soliton
This is where the hidden agenda comes in.

Projection: "The attribution of one's own attitudes, feelings, or suppositions to others..."

221 posted on 10/18/2008 3:08:08 AM PDT by Mojave
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To: Mojave

Proof

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-tk7MkHKtI


222 posted on 10/18/2008 3:17:06 AM PDT by Soliton (Faith is an act of love; Love is an act of faith)
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To: Soliton

What does that have to do with your agenda?


223 posted on 10/18/2008 3:19:15 AM PDT by Mojave
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To: Mojave
What does that have to do with your agenda?

So I prove that these guys of the Discovery Institute have a hidden agenda and you just want to be cute?

224 posted on 10/18/2008 3:23:28 AM PDT by Soliton (Faith is an act of love; Love is an act of faith)
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To: Soliton
So I prove that these guys of the Discovery Institute have a hidden agenda

And you don't? LOL

BTW, is there a transcript for your YouTube video?

225 posted on 10/18/2008 3:26:19 AM PDT by Mojave
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To: Mojave
And you don't? LOL

I have no hidden agenda. I believe in science AND faith. I believe that confusing the two damages both. I will defend science against fools, and the sincerely faithful against criticism. I can not abide people who claim faith and demand proof to support it. Faith is faith and science is science. Teach faith in church. Teach science in public schools.

226 posted on 10/18/2008 3:41:46 AM PDT by Soliton (Faith is an act of love; Love is an act of faith)
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To: Soliton

Discussion should be encouraged, right? Critical examination of what we know is vital to science. As you said, teachers are already free to discuss the “weaker points of ToE.” As they should be.

I used the term “creation narratives” as it covers the stories that cultures develop - and includes the origination narratives of evolution. Some are myths, virtually all are flawed, and few approach the truth.

If you are determined to blame all this on Christians and “fundamentalists,” then you ignore men like Ben Stein and Stephen Jay Gould. Even those “fundamentalists” don’t all agree on exactly what it means to believe in a “literal” interpretation of Genesis.

I think Gould was instrumental in my using the term narratives. He used to discuss evolution and science on the old bulletin boards. He noted that science allows us to see finer detail, but it doesn’t always throw the blurred pictures of previous years out as falsehoods or myths. And he wasn’t the first to note the existence of “fundamentalist” Darwinists.


227 posted on 10/18/2008 3:47:19 AM PDT by hocndoc (http://www.LifeEthics.org (I've got a mustard seed and I'm not afraid to use it.))
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To: Soliton
1. Most scientists recognize some global warming as does Sarah Palin.

2. I have no hidden agenda.

Tell me another one.

228 posted on 10/18/2008 3:48:25 AM PDT by Mojave
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To: LeGrande

“teaching proper science in Church”? They’re too busy trying not to specifically endorse any political candidates.

I guess we could get each beneficiary of tax money to teach civics, American History and the Romantic Poets?

LeGrande, those of us who pay the alternative minimum tax don’t get to deduct our charitable contributions any way. Churches already pay income tax, Social Security, and Medicare taxes on employees.


229 posted on 10/18/2008 3:56:33 AM PDT by hocndoc (http://www.LifeEthics.org (I've got a mustard seed and I'm not afraid to use it.))
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To: Coyoteman
And this is just one issue of one journal. There are thousands of journals.

Must be a LOT of money involved in all this research.

230 posted on 10/18/2008 4:21:36 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: allmendream
It makes no difference if you want to call citrate plus e.coli a new species or a new strain.

Anyone besides me wonder why so many folks spend so much time studying shit?

231 posted on 10/18/2008 4:24:54 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: tacticalogic
I believe bringing unfinished arguements from one thread into another is considered "bad form".

Well...

Both sides do it, for the whole C vs E thingy IS 'unfinished'.

232 posted on 10/18/2008 4:26:21 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: allmendream
You asked for a definition of evolution.

That's EASY!!

All one has to do is look around at all the unnecessary (now) extraneous pieces of STUFF in each of our bodies.

Genuine PROOF of Evolution trying to take place now.

(Except in first world counties. We REALLY do not believe in Evolution; for we keep calling the effects of it Birth Defects, and doing our very best to eliminate them.)

233 posted on 10/18/2008 4:31:13 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: allmendream
Bacteria reproduce asexually.

One more reason I'm glad I ain't a GERM!


Although I am REALLY glad that somewhere back in time, one of my ancestors took a look at the germ next door and said...

"What yer sign?"

234 posted on 10/18/2008 4:34:33 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: allmendream
Bacteria do not interbreed.

Dang!

Rebuffed at the Germy Singles Bar!

235 posted on 10/18/2008 4:35:41 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
They did not come to their beliefs through INTERPRETATION of evidence, and no amount of evidence 'interpretation' will change those beliefs.

Fixed...

236 posted on 10/18/2008 4:37:12 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Ha Ha Thats Very Logical
Dictionaries don't help people who can't understand what they're saying.

Likewise...

Fossils don't help people who already have an idea as to what they are saying.

237 posted on 10/18/2008 4:41:00 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: csense
"Three antievolutionists..."

Nothing like poisoning the well of rational criticism...

During the Six Day War, this division of Arabs is making its way across the burning desert sands towards Israel, when the Arab commander, bouncing along in his jeep, spots an aged Israeli on top a distant sand dune. The commander drops his binoculars and shouts orders to a foot soldier to run up ahead and kill the infidel Israeli. The soldier sprints ahead of the advancing troops, and soon disappears over the sand dune. The general stops the troops and waits to see what happens.

Nothing happens. The commander sends a whole platoon of soldiers to investigate. All twelve Arabs disappear over the sand dune, never to be seen again. The now-slightly-anxious commander dispatches 3 tanks to find out just what in the heck is going on, and they disappear over the dune, too. Sweat pours down the commander's forehead as he orders his entire division to overrun the solitary Israeli behind the sand dune.

But just then, the first soldier reappears on the distant sand dune and cups his hands to his lips. "Go back!" he shouts. "Go back! It's hopeless-- there's TWO of them!"

238 posted on 10/18/2008 4:45:22 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
Teach faith in church. Teach science in public schools.

But one must have faith to believe that Evolution has worked they way folks say it did.

239 posted on 10/18/2008 4:47:22 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
Both sides do it, for the whole C vs E thingy IS 'unfinished'.

If you think that wasn't a fair assesment, then we can ask the moderator. If I've misunderstood the posting guidelines I'll apologize.

240 posted on 10/18/2008 5:32:50 AM PDT by tacticalogic ("Oh bother!" said Pooh, as he chambered his last round.)
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