Greenville senator challenging standard for teaching evolution

TheState.com ^ | 6/17/05 | Bill Robinson

[Michael_Michaelangelo]

If there’s one dominant voice advocating for S.C. schools to teach more than Charles Darwin’s theories of evolution, it’s state Sen. Mike Fair, R-Greenville.

Fair says he plans to mount a major push during the next legislative session to win colleagues’ support for his latest idea to modify standards for teaching science, particularly in high schools.

Public school students, he said, should be told a “full range of scientific views ... exist” when it comes to explaining how fauna, flora and man came to inhabit the earth.

Fair is lead sponsor of a bill filled June 1, a day before the Legislature adjourned, that puts the issue in play when lawmakers return to work in January.

[Michael_Michaelangelo]

This guy has guts! Doesn't he realize that his career could now be in jeopardy and he may now be labeled anti-Science?!

[orionblamblam]

> he may now be labeled anti-Science

That happens when you don't understand science and yet choose to legislate what *is* science.

[Michael_Michaelangelo]

Ping

[politicket]

That happens when you don't understand science and yet choose to legislate what *is* science.

"Science" in the form of a hypothesis. Please don't try to attach the "Theory" label to it, because scientifically it doesn't pass the muster...

[Chiapet]

Hey, you know what? More power to him. With Kansas and South Carolina students at such a severe disadvantage, my kids have less competition for getting into the top college science programs. Go Mike Fair!!

[Slings and Arrows]

SC ping!

[politicket]

...my kids have less competition for getting into the top college science programs.

Oh really! Is that why homeschooled kids are placed well ahead of the public school kids for college enrollment into Science and Engineering fields?

And what do you think homeschooled kids are taught regarding the creation of our universe, etc.? Hmmmm?

[orionblamblam]

> Please don't try to attach the "Theory" label to it, because scientifically it doesn't pass the muster...

Indeed Creationism doesn't pass scientific muster. Only one theory does, and that's the one he's trying to legislate against.

[politicket]

Only one theory does, and that's the one he's trying to legislate against.

OK...I'll try this one more time - your "theory" is actually only a "hypothesis" - scientifically speaking.

I'm not trying to disallow your hypothesis - just wanting you to use proper scientific terms for your belief.

[stormer]

"Oh really! Is that why homeschooled kids are placed well ahead of the public school kids for college enrollment into Science and Engineering fields?"

Source please.

[Chiapet]

Oh really! Is that why homeschooled kids are placed well ahead of the public school kids for college enrollment into Science and Engineering fields?

Oh really right back at you! I'm sure that you can easily produce the citations demonstrating that (A) not only do homeschooled kids "place ahead" (whatever that means exactly) of public school kids, but also that (B) those homeschooled kids who "place ahead" of public school kids are specifically taught only the biblical account of creation. I won't hold my breath waiting for your proof.

[upchuck]

South Carolina Ping

Add me to the ping list. Remove me from the ping list.

[politicket]

Why don't you begin here....

Homeschool statistics

Also, I don't have immediate access to it (since I am at work), but the statistical percentages of homeschooled kids being accepted to Stanford University in relation to public schooled children show that homeschoolers are accepted at a higher rate - just as one example.

[stormer]

You don't think the HSLDA might have an axe to grind, do you?

[politicket]

You don't think the HSLDA might have an axe to grind, do you?

You don't think that the NEA might have an axe to grind, do you? ;-)

I have been involved in the homeschool community for many years and have seen first hand the superiority of homeschooling over public education. How can you really expect it to be any different given the fact that the children are receiving personalized instruction and there is a TON of quality curriculum available (we just had a state conference attended by 5,000 people with close to 200 vendors).

You can argue the issues all that you want - but the FACT is that the NEA is out to indoctrinate your children with their particular world-view. I am out to indoctrinate my children with the world-view of Christianity.

Children are going to learn a world-view no matter what. Who do you want choosing it for them?

[WmDonovan]

"Hey, you know what? More power to him. With Kansas and South Carolina students at such a severe disadvantage, my kids have less competition for getting into the top college science programs. Go Mike Fair!!"

The theory of evolution is utterly and completely useless when it comes to science and engineering. I've a Master's Degree in engineering and can't really remember ever making use of Darwin's ideas in my work. How strange that back in the 1960's, when evolution (or at least evolution-only), was not the rule, the country actually went from a standstill to the moon in ten years. Now, in these enlightened times, we can't even get the stupid space shuttle off the ground.

How is the theory important to science? Have any new life-saving drugs been discovered by using the theory of evolution? Louis Pasteur (Creator of the first vaccine and pasteurization and really the first scientist to discover germs) was a religious man who said “The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the work of the Creator.” Has a new branch of science and math been discovered by careful use of the theory of evolution? Sir Issac Newton (the discoverer of basic physics and calculus) was a deeply religious man. What of medicine? Joesph Lister, the father of antiseptic surgery, was a Quaker. What of genetics? Mendel was a Monk. What of practical science as applied to agriculture? George Washington Carver was a devout Christian. Maybe they were smart, but not rocket scientists? A rocket scientist named Wernher von Braun said “To be forced to believe only one conclusion—that everything in the universe happened by chance-would violate the very objectivity of science itself. Certainly there are those who argue that the universe evolved out of a random process, but what random process could produce the brain of a man or the system of the human eye?” If the contributions of backwards religious people such as Bacon, Boyle, Faraday, Lord Kelvin, Maxwell, Euler, Boole, et al were to be discarded, science as we know it would be a mere shadow of its present self if it even existed at all. In science and engineering, evolution is useless at best, a distraction at worst.

It is most telling that people don't really care what is taught in science courses, so long as the ground work for materialism is laid.

[Renegade]

My kids were NOT home-schooled and managed to land a Microbiology degree and a Mechanical Engineering degree respectively . Best of all they both landed jobs in their field before graduation ...

[megatherium]

A lot of people in cr/evo debates talk past each other. Evolution is a fact to scientists in that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old, and in that all life has descended from a simple common ancestor.

ID people acknowledge this but claim that chance and necessity (random variation and natural selection) cannot explain the development of more complex life, nor (especially) the origin of life.

Mainstream science regards any explanation that involves something non-material (an intelligent Designer) as non-scientific, and more to the point, unnecessary in light of what we do know about evolution. A very small minority of scientists challenges the mainstream point of view.

[Chiapet]

I took a look at that. Interesting. It does demonstrate that homeschooled students score well on reading and math tests.

However, it still doesn't support your original assertion, which is that homeschooled students "place ahead" of public school students with respect to acceptance in college science programs (at least I think that is what you were saying), and that these same students are taught biblical creation and/or not taught evolution.

[Michael_Michaelangelo]

Let's hope Stanford isn't as closed-minded as OSU:

Not So Intelligently Designed Ph.D. Panel

Ohio State University called off a dissertation defense scheduled for this week amid faculty concerns that it was set up to favor a Ph.D. candidate’s controversial views that question evolution.

(This one probably deserves it's own thread)