Posted on 01/22/2005 7:38:12 AM PST by PatrickHenry
A movement to drag the teaching of science in the United States back into the Dark Ages continues to gain momentum. So far, it's a handful of judges -- "activist judges" in the view of their critics -- who are preventing the spread of Saudi-style religious dogma into more and more of America's public-school classrooms.
The ruling this month in Georgia by Federal District Judge Clarence Cooper ordering the Cobb County School Board to remove stickers it had inserted in biology textbooks questioning Darwin's theory of evolution is being appealed by the suburban Atlanta district. Similar legal battles pitting evolution against biblical creationism are erupting across the country. Judges are conscientiously observing the constitutionally required separation of church and state, and specifically a 1987 Supreme Court ruling forbidding the teaching of creationism, a religious belief, in public schools. But seekers of scientific truth have to be unnerved by a November 2004 CBS News poll in which nearly two-thirds of Americans favored teaching creationism, the notion that God created heaven and earth in six days, alongside evolution in schools.
If this style of "science" ever took hold in U.S. schools, it is safe to say that as a nation we could well be headed for Third World status, along with everything that dire label implies. Much of the Arab world is stuck in a miasma of imam-enforced repression and non-thought. Could it happen here? Our Constitution protects creativity and dissent, but no civilization has lasted forever, and our current national leaders seem happy with the present trends.
It is the creationists, of course, who forecast doom if U.S. schools follow a secularist path. Science, however, by its nature, relies on evidence, and all the fossil and other evidence points toward an evolved human species over millions of years on a planet tens of millions of years old [ooops!] in a universe over two billion years in existence [ooops again!].
Some creationists are promoting an idea they call "intelligent design" as an alternative to Darwinism, eliminating the randomness and survival-of-the-fittest of Darwinian thought. But, again, no evidence exists to support any theory of evolution except Charles Darwin's. Science classes can only teach the scientific method or they become meaningless.
Many creationists say that teaching Darwin is tantamount to teaching atheism, but most science teachers, believers as well as non-believers, scoff at that. The Rev. Warren Eschbach, a professor at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Gettysburg, Pa., believes that "science is figuring out what God has already done" and the book of Genesis was never "meant to be a science textbook for the 21st century." Rev. Eschbach is the father of Robert Eschbach, one of the science teachers in Dover, Pa., who refused to teach a school-board-mandated statement to biology students criticizing the theory of evolution and promoting intelligent design. Last week, the school district gathered students together and the statement was read to them by an assistant superintendent.
Similar pro-creationist initiatives are underway in Texas, Wisconsin and South Carolina. And a newly elected creationist majority on the state board of education in Kansas plans to rewrite the entire state's science curriculum this spring. This means the state's public-school science teachers will have to choose between being scientists or ayatollahs -- or perhaps abandoning their students and fleeing Kansas, like academic truth-seekers in China in the 1980s or Tehran today.
It doesn't matter. I've seen what creationist websites do with stories from mainstream journals. If you'd cited the original source rather than the creationist site, you might've had a case.
No problem. We just mandate stickers on creationoid websites, probably some kind of un-blockable popup. It would say something like:
WARNING: This is a creationist website. All quotes are out-of-context, or else just flat-out made up. All "science" essays are written by idiots. Buy the tapes and comics if you want, but they're not on the exam.
The speed of light varies with the medium and gravitational influence.
The acceleration is not constant but depends on the altitude. "g" will be different in LA than in Denver.
I hadn't thought of that. It would be easy to use a filter on the anti-porn software in place already to do that!
For two posts I explained which religion ID supports. But, if you need me to spell it out more clearly: ID directly supports the religious teachings of Christianity and Judaism. If the government were to support ID, they would be picking the side of Judaism and Christianity to the exclusion of all others. Satisfied?
Discussing God is no way establishes a religion any more than discussing the weather establishes a religion.
Discussing God in a government funded school strikes at the very heart of the 1st Amendment! It means that the government has taken the side of a religion to the exclusion of any other. That's what the establishment clause was designed to prevent.
You are just anti-Christian.
Oh bull! You can't win the argument, so like a liberal you resort to name calling.
Only the wavelength varies with gravitational influence. If the gravity is weak enough, light escapes at c.
One is science, the other faith. Faith does not belong in the science classroom.
Discussing God in no way establishes a religion. I don't know why you have such a problem comprehending that.
Yes, kill two birds with one piece of software. Porn & creationism blockers! Great idea.
Ok. What are your estimates for the change in size of the sun? Please remember that if you are using "oxidation" figures, you will be off by thousands of times.
Thank you for fascisticly dictating where truth can be discerned from.
Truth: A verified or indisputable fact.
Please show how you have verified the existence of God.
The editing process mainstream science articles undergo at, say, Creation-Evolution Headlines is flat-out corrupt. The person producing that one-man show is so rabidly delusional that he doesn't think it matters how he butchers things. I wouldn't go there for any straight science news. Really.
Thank you. My fingers are faster than my mind tonight.
You're going to have to pay better attention if you wish to appear educated.
My driving argument has been math. I posted the link to such math in my original message for this thread, and I've hammered various neophytes who have dodged the mathematical issues at play.
Math.
If you can only debate "faith," then you are going to be viewed as somewhat unscientific.
Are you really so uneducated that you've never heard of error bounds?
Or do you really think we've measured the peed of light under all galactic or universal conditions?
Or that the Earth's Gravity attracts at 9.8m/ss?!
It doesn't and you can look up the variance in the Earth's gravitational field on Google. Ask a third grader if you do't know how to do a proper search.
Goodness! < /mocking! >
Idiocy! < Evident! > < Rampant! > < Disgustingly stupid! > Wow I feel like Barnum!
Buy a clue, dumbass!
No, and no.
No, the math hasn't been "debunked," and no, I don't presume that everything is random. Pay attention.
There are two possibilities:
1. that abiogenesis is caused by unaided natural processes, or
2. that abiogenesis is caused by intelligent, aided processes.
Either or both of the above may be true.
And yet, contrary to your repeatedly false assertation, "randomness" has nothing to do with either.
And it's been shown to be laughable. Do you not understand even the obvious?
Now, since I've shown my work, your next post must be to show *your* math to the contrary (you can't).
You mean since you've shown sh!t, we should throw some back at you?
You're simply pathetic.
Oook, oook!
I've done the math. It's 69% probable. Nice round number. Prove I'm wrong!
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.