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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: allmendream
By thawing generation 20,000 from that population Dr. Lenski can replicate his results and re-evolve citrate plus e.coli.

One day, I actually tried eating something that for YEARS I just KNEw I didn't like.

561 posted on 10/20/2008 6:01:50 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 is obviously a series of mutations that enabled e.coli to utilize citrate.

Oh.. Kay...

562 posted on 10/20/2008 6:03:13 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: LeGrande
Your father elected to pay taxes, not the Church. Most probably so that he could collect a higher Social Security payment.

What has TAXES to do with SS?

563 posted on 10/20/2008 6:04:15 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 expect a twelve year experiment to be replicated from scratch by a different scientist in less than a year?

If it's SCIENCE, then the rules would apply to all; I would think.

564 posted on 10/20/2008 6:06:08 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: LeGrande

Evolution is religion, therefore, everyone around here is religious.


565 posted on 10/20/2008 6:07:15 AM PDT by DungeonMaster (Proverbs 24:21 My son, fear the LORD and the king; Do not associate with those given to CHANGE)
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To: Oztrich Boy
You are correct. But for some reason Spellcheck did not list that as an alternative.

FR's 'spellcheck' is a bit lame, I've found.

566 posted on 10/20/2008 6:07:52 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
No indication that he knocked on anyone's door, and a clear statement that he didn't knock on Joe's.

Perhaps he meant a metaphorical door: by coming INTO his neighborhood.

SURELY Obama didn't drive down the street in a sound truck, announcing his presence among the commoners.

567 posted on 10/20/2008 6:12:57 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: DungeonMaster
Evolution is religion, therefore, everyone around here is religious.

Do you consider the Theory of Relativity or the speed of light to be religious concepts?

568 posted on 10/20/2008 6:33:29 AM PDT by LeGrande
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To: Elsie
What has TAXES to do with SS?

SS is a tax. Or do you think that it is just a suggestion? LOL

569 posted on 10/20/2008 6:35:13 AM PDT by LeGrande
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To: LeGrande

“”There is a deep seated fundamental conflict between Quantum theory and Einstein’s theory of relativity. Subtle difficulties become insurmountable problems when gravity is added.” —Paul Renteln, “Quantum Gravity”, American Scientist, 79, 508-527 (1991).


570 posted on 10/20/2008 6:38:00 AM PDT by Mojave
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To: LeGrande
Do you consider the Theory of Relativity or the speed of light to be religious concepts?

No.

No one uses the speed of light to define their origin or afterlife or ethics or world view though.

571 posted on 10/20/2008 6:38:49 AM PDT by DungeonMaster (Proverbs 24:21 My son, fear the LORD and the king; Do not associate with those given to CHANGE)
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To: Elsie
You think you know the rules of science? Do you think every experiment is replicated by an independent lab before Science provisionally accepts the data? Your ignorance is showing.
572 posted on 10/20/2008 6:59:05 AM PDT by allmendream (White Dog Democrat: A Democrat who will not vote for 0bama because he's black.)
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To: metmom
What gives you the idiotic idea that it took 31,500 generations for a SINGLE mutation?

Obviously from the experiment there was a mutation or series of mutations in generation 20,000 that enabled the bacteria to utilize citrate in generation 31,500 after another series of mutations.

The scope of the mutations that enabled an entire metabolic pathway to be utilized is being discovered as we speak by Dr. Lenski. But it was most assuredly not a single mutation.

The human mutation rate is quite sufficient to explain the 2% genetic difference and 6% genomic difference we observe between humans and chimps over an estimated six million years.

Neutral mutations have no problem persisting and accumulating within a population. Obviously you don't know much about Kimura’s theory of neutral mutation and the phylogenetic data of common species.

If your complaint is that this experiment took to long to develop a new trait, then one must ignore the many thousands of experiments on natural selection where beneficial mutations can be derived much quicker. But those actually ARE simple mutations (making the protein more heat stable in the face of high heat as a selective pressure for example); not utilization of a new metabolic pathway.

Do you understand the difference?

573 posted on 10/20/2008 7:07:52 AM PDT by allmendream (White Dog Democrat: A Democrat who will not vote for 0bama because he's black.)
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To: Mojave
Successfully? Never.

How many times unsuccessfully?

574 posted on 10/20/2008 7:35:21 AM PDT by Toddsterpatriot (Do you remember when blue was a feeling, gray was a word and one was a number...)
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To: DungeonMaster
No one uses the speed of light to define their origin or afterlife or ethics or world view though.

Most people who accept the theory of evolution don't use it to define any of those things either.

575 posted on 10/20/2008 8:03:18 AM PDT by Ha Ha Thats Very Logical
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To: Ha Ha Thats Very Logical
No indication that he knocked on anyone's door, and a clear statement that he didn't knock on Joe's. Now you're trying to pretend that being in the neighborhood meant that Obama had somehow metaphorically knocked on his door. Why aren't you man (or woman, whatever) enough to admit that you said something that wasn't true?

Ummmm, I saw the video and several stations showed him knocking at the door of a house in his neighborhood, it didn't have to be Joe's house to understand he was knocking on doors in Joe's neighborhood, seeking Joe and his neighbors out. Joe was throwing the football, so he wouldn't have any way of knowing if bambi was knocking on doors BEFORE he was aware of bambi's presence on HIS turf. Sheesh even a 5 year old could understand this.

Thanks for confirming bambi sought these people out in their own neighborhood. WE knew that from the very beginning however.

And I agree with Joe, ANY candidate should be made to answer something other than the usual drive-by media's softball questions. In ANY environment.

I find it disturbing when people cast you as a liberal or conservative not by what views you hold but by what lies you're willing to go along with.

As usual you're completely wrong, but MORE disturbing is taking up for bambi and bashing the average American exploiting bambi's fascade, and accusing someone of lying on bambi's behalf and pretending you're conservative.

576 posted on 10/20/2008 8:17:52 AM 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: Ha Ha Thats Very Logical
And it is essential to Young Earth Creation “Scientists” to monkey with the speed of light. After all, if we see light from a galaxy one hundred million light years away, that, to any intelligent observer, would mean that the light took one hundred million years to reach earth.

So the speed of light IS used to try to define the time scale of the existence of the universe, and the preposterous ideas put forth by Creationists to explain away the clear and compelling data are the source of much amusement.

577 posted on 10/20/2008 8:19:39 AM PDT by allmendream (White Dog Democrat: A Democrat who will not vote for 0bama because he's black.)
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To: Mojave

Empirical verification for thee, but not for me. They’ve demonstrated their hypocrisy dozens (hundreds?) of times in this thread alone.


Yup...along with their endless projections, strawmen and hysteria. Like fire ants protecting a cult.


578 posted on 10/20/2008 8:20:55 AM 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: Toddsterpatriot
How many times unsuccessfully?

You think that unsuccessful attempts to reproduce the results support the experiment? You are desperate.

579 posted on 10/20/2008 8:28:43 AM PDT by Mojave
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To: Mojave
You think that unsuccessful attempts to reproduce the results support the experiment?

No. I'm just trying to find out how many unsuccessful attempts are needed before you say it is irreproducible.

How many?

580 posted on 10/20/2008 8:30:45 AM PDT by Toddsterpatriot (Do you remember when blue was a feeling, gray was a word and one was a number...)
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