Posted on 11/06/2005 6:26:17 AM PST by Non-Sequitur
In the beginning, when voters created the Kansas Board of Education to oversee schools, those intelligent designers couldn’t have imagined it would go forth and multiply all this controversy.
The board could close the latest chapter of the evolution debate Tuesday when it is set to vote on science curriculum standards that change the definition of science and cast doubt on the theory of evolution. It’s possible another administrative delay could postpone the vote, but the approval is seen as inevitable.
Inevitable, maybe. Permanent, maybe not. The standards won’t go into effect until the 2007 school year. By then the school board could look dramatically different if moderates are successful in unseating conservatives in the November 2006 elections, both sides say. That could make the new standards moot, and start the whole debate over again. Both sides say the controversy has been too heated, and the implications for science, religion and education too great, for any easy solution.
The board’s conservative majority says it’s merely injecting criticism of what it calls a blindly accepted theory, and allowing students to decide for themselves. And they have their supporters. Polls indicate most Kansans have doubts about evolution and don’t dismiss the idea of teaching alternatives. Other states like Ohio and schools in Georgia and Pennsylvania have joined the debate as well.
“We want students to understand more about evolution, not less,” said John Calvert, leader of the Intelligent Design Network and one of the driving forces behind the changes. Intelligent Design is the belief that aspects of the natural world show signs of design, and not random evolution. “To understand a claim, you should also understand those aspects of the claim that some people think are problematic. That’s all these changes do.”
Moderates disagree and aren’t conceding defeat. They hope to unseat enough conservative board members in November 2006 to retake control of the board in time to change the standards back. They say the revisions to the standards are a step toward creationism and an unacceptable marriage of religion and public education. The changes, they say, jeopardize the state’s efforts to grow the bioscience industry and hurt school children who will one day graduate to an ever globalizing high-tech economy.
“This is distracting us from the goal of making sure every kid is well-educated,” said board member Sue Gamble, a Shawnee moderate. “Regular people are starting to say, ‘Enough is enough. We’ve got to stand up for ourselves.’ ”
In 1999, the board voted to remove most references to evolution, the origin of the universe and the age of the Earth. The next year, voters responded and the board’s majority went to moderates. The standards were changed back.
In politics, however, there’s no such thing as extinction: conservatives regrouped, retaking the majority in 2004.
“The state board used to be a pretty mundane office,” said Kansas State University political science professor Joe Aistrup. “But this is a clash of ideas, and it reverberates up and down, with everything that’s going on with conservatives and moderates. It’s not surprising that it’s become this high-profile, and voters will remember.”
The board’s 10 members serve four-year terms. Every two years, five seats come up for election. Conservative board members John Bacon of Olathe, Connie Morris of St. Francis, Iris Van Meter of Thayer and Ken Willard of Hutchinson all face re-election in November 2006, as does Waugh. Not every incumbent has announced re-election plans, but most are expected to run.
Conservative groups say they’re ready for a fight, and say the evolution issue cuts both ways.
“People will vote their wishes,” Bacon said. “I think the public of Kansas supports what we’re doing.”
Doubts about Darwin
The board routinely reviews curriculum standards for just about every facet of education, kindergarten through high school. The standards are the basis for state assessment tests and serve as a template for local school districts and teachers. Local districts are not required to teach the standards — they just risk lower assessment scores if they choose not to.
When a 27-member committee of scientists and teachers began the process of updating the standards, a vocal minority proposed inserting criticism of evolution. Six members of the Board of Education applauded the changes, and agreed to put most of them into the standards. Now the board is poised to put the amended standards to a final vote.
The changes to the standards incorporate substantial criticism of evolutionary theory, calling into question the theory made famous by Charles Darwin. Supporters say there isn’t proof of the origin and variety of life and the genetic code. The changes also alter the definition of science to allow for non-natural explanations.
Supporters of the changes say they don’t want children indoctrinated with an unproven theory. The board had two weeks of hearings in May to hear testimony from scientists who dispute evolution. Conservative board members said they made their case.
Calling them a farcical publicity stunt, mainstream scientists boycotted the hearings. Nobel Prize winners, scientists and religious leaders signed petitions opposing what they said was a blurring of the lines between science and religion and thinly veiled push for creationism.
Bloggers and national comedians lampooned the hearings as national and international media poured into Topeka. Board members say they received mocking e-mails from around the world. If the ridicule got to them, the conservatives won’t say. But they admit to a certain evolution fatigue.
“I’m extremely anxious to put this behind us,” Morris said. She has been a strong critic of evolution, even calling it “impossible” in a newsletter to supporters.
Other states have seen similar fights to change the way evolution is taught. Education officials in Ohio changed science standards there to cast doubt on evolution. A Georgia school district tried to put stickers on textbooks that read “Evolution is a theory, not a fact.” A judge later ruled the stickers illegal, saying their message promotes Christian fundamentalism. And a legal challenge is now in court in Dover, Pa., where school officials voted to include alternative explanations to evolution.
Morris and her fellow conservatives cite polls that show Kansans have doubts when it comes to evolution. The Kansas City Star conducted a poll last summer and 55 percent said they believe in either creationism or intelligent design — more than double the 26 percent who said they believe evolution to be responsible for the origin of life. But opponents say that’s beside the point: Most Americans say they believe in God, too, but that doesn’t mean he should be taught in public schools.
“I believe in the Biblical account of creation,” Waugh said. “But it has no place in the science class. In a comparative religions class, sure. The best place to teach is at home or at your place of worship.”
Board members say the public is behind them, and that unseating them on Election Day won’t be easy.
“People come up to me and tell me we’re doing the right thing,” Van Meter said. “We wouldn’t do this if Kansans didn’t support it.”
All eyes on Kansas
Evolution turned this little-known governmental entity into a battleground in the state’s clash between conservatives and moderates. And that’s the way it’s likely to stay for a while.
This year, it’s not just the board’s take on evolution that’s stirred controversy. Conservatives also want to make it easier for parents to pull children from sex education classes, and last month they chose Bob Corkins as education commissioner, even though he had no experience teaching or running schools.
All those issues prompted a group of Kansas residents to form the Kansas Alliance for Education, a group with the goal of defeating board conservatives. Alliance leader Don Hineman, a cattle rancher from Dighton, Kan., said the group will work to support candidates and get out the vote.
“There’s a sense of frustration that I think many Kansans share,” he said. “The conservative majority on the board is focused on a narrow agenda, at the expense of their objective, which is improving education for Kansas children.”
He’s not alone. Harry McDonald, an Olathe resident and the leader of Kansas Citizens for Science, has announced his candidacy for the seat now occupied by John Bacon. More candidates are expected.
“We need to take down two to retake the majority,” Gamble said. “I’m focused on four, but that’s an enormous undertaking.”
Calvert, the intelligent design leader, said he knows the evolution debate will factor into the election. No matter what happens at the polls, he said the public is coming around to the notion of challenging one of science’s sacred cows.
“It’s going to happen,” he said. “It’s really what the public wants. Anybody who takes these changes out really needs to be thinking seriously about what they’re doing.”
If conservatives hold on to the majority, Gamble said she expects a legal challenge to the new science standards. If moderates unseat conservatives, the latter will pour its energies into the next election, even if some conservatives admit to being weary of the fray.
Kris Van Meteren is a conservative activist who helped get his mother, Iris Van Meter, on the school board. He’s part of the effort that has kept evolution front and center. He said he hopes it’s not necessary, but his side will keep pushing until evolution comes down from its pedestal in the academic world.
“We’re not in this for one or two elections,” said Van Meteren, who changed his name to reflect his Dutch heritage. “That was clear in ’99 when we lost control of the board. Everybody thought, ‘They’re gone, that’s over.’ But even if we lose another election, we’re not going away.”
One hears the loud scrape of the creationist moving the goalposts. You started with the claim that the ToE's position within science is being eroded over time as new evidence comes in. When this was pointed out as absolutely flat-out false, you "defended" it by citing what it would supposedly take to overcome your personal incredulity. This in itself is shifty behavior.
Worse, your new defense trench is a risible strawman of evolutionary mechanisms in an arena (abiogenesis) in which they do not apply.
You're stinking up the joint.
Darwinism cannot explain scientifically the origins of life.
Drammach's Post #7:
Darwins TOE does not even attempt to explain the origins of life..I am sure you know that full well, but continue to misrepresent TOE at every opportunity..
Your Post #11:
When advocates of pure TOE can demonstrate repeatedly, under identical conditions, in a variety of locations and times, the competition among complex organic and inorganic compounds leading to viable primitive life, then I will say that TOE absent everthing else is science. Until then, begging to introduce immense spans of time as the deus ex machina of a materialist theory is the same thing as saying "The gods did it!"The inadequacies of TOE as an explanation of origins of life, which seem to be forgotten when it is taught, must be mentioned even as the truths of TOE are explained. Otherwise, education is incomplete and limited by secularist and materialist prejudices and opinion.
Why do you keep harping on the origins of life when evolution talks about change in life? A definition from the web provides a good example: "In the life sciences, evolution is a change in the traits of living organisms over generations, including the emergence of new species."
Can you say strawman, boys and girls? I knew you could!
laughing.
Why is this restricted to bacteria and eucaryotic protists?
I think she's worried about the political damage to her posterior.
You are not real clear on your definitions I see. The theory of gravity will always remain "the theory of gravity" no matter how much evidence is accumulated. BTW, there is more evidence supporting evolution than there is gravity. This may help:
Let me post my own example of gravity:
A little history here:
Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation
“Every object in the universe attracts every other object with a force directed along the line of centers for the two objects that is proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the separation between the two objects.”
F=Gm1m2/r2
Where:
F equals the gravitational force between two objects
m1 equals the mass of the first object
m2 equals the mass of the second object
R equals the distance between the objects
G equals the universal constant of gravitation = (6.6726 )* 10-11 N*m2/kg2 (which is still being refined and tested today)
(BTW this is a simple form of the equation and is only applied to point sources. Usually it is expressed as a vector equation)
Even though it works well for most practical purposes, this formulation has problems.
A few of the problems are:
It shows the change is gravitational force is transmitted instantaneously (Violates C), assumes an absolute space and time (this contradicts Special Relativity), etc.
Enter Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity
In 1915 Einstein developed a new theory of gravity called General Relativity.
A number of experiments showed this theory explained some of the problems with the classical Newtonian model. However, this theory like all others is still being explored and tested.
From an NSF abstract:
“As with all scientific knowledge, a theory can be refined or even replaced by an alternative theory in light of new and compelling evidence. The geocentric theory that the sun revolves around the earth was replaced by the heliocentric theory of the earth's rotation on its axis and revolution around the sun. However, ideas are not referred to as "theories" in science unless they are supported by bodies of evidence that make their subsequent abandonment very unlikely. When a theory is supported by as much evidence as evolution, it is held with a very high degree of confidence.
In science, the word "hypothesis" conveys the tentativeness inherent in the common use of the word "theory.' A hypothesis is a testable statement about the natural world. Through experiment and observation, hypotheses can be supported or rejected. At the earliest level of understanding, hypotheses can be used to construct more complex inferences and explanations. Like "theory," the word "fact" has a different meaning in science than it does in common usage. A scientific fact is an observation that has been confirmed over and over. However, observations are gathered by our senses, which can never be trusted entirely. Observations also can change with better technologies or with better ways of looking at data. For example, it was held as a scientific fact for many years that human cells have 24 pairs of chromosomes, until improved techniques of microscopy revealed that they actually have 23. Ironically, facts in science often are more susceptible to change than theories, which is one reason why the word "fact" is not much used in science.
Finally, "laws" in science are typically descriptions of how the physical world behaves under certain circumstances. For example, the laws of motion describe how objects move when subjected to certain forces. These laws can be very useful in supporting hypotheses and theories, but like all elements of science they can be altered with new information and observations.
Those who oppose the teaching of evolution often say that evolution should be taught as a "theory, not as a fact." This statement confuses the common use of these words with the scientific use. In science, theories do not turn into facts through the accumulation of evidence. Rather, theories are the end points of science. They are understandings that develop from extensive observation, experimentation, and creative reflection. They incorporate a large body of scientific facts, laws, tested hypotheses, and logical inferences. In this sense, evolution is one of the strongest and most useful scientific theories we have.
Here is another nice page of what a theory is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory
"In common usage a theory is often viewed as little more than a guess or a hypothesis. But in science and generally in academic usage, a theory is much more than that. A theory is an established paradigm that explains all or many of the data we have and offers valid predictions that can be tested. In science, a theory can never be proven true, because we can never assume we know all there is to know. Instead, theories remain standing until they are disproven, at which point they are thrown out altogether or modified slightly.
Theories start out with empirical observations such as “sometimes water turns into ice.” At some point, there is a need or curiosity to find out why this is, which leads to a theoretical/scientific phase. In scientific theories, this then leads to research, in combination with auxiliary and other hypotheses (see scientific method), which may then eventually lead to a theory. Some scientific theories (such as the theory of gravity) are so widely accepted that they are often seen as laws. This, however, rests on a mistaken assumption of what theories and laws are. Theories and laws are not rungs in a ladder of truth, but different sets of data. A law is a general statement based on observations."
For Laws:
"A well-known example is that of Newton's law of gravity: while it describes the world accurately for most pertinent observations, such as of the movements of astronomical objects in the solar system, it was found to be inaccurate when applied to extremely large masses or velocities. Einstein's theory of general relativity, however, accurately handles gravitational interactions at those extreme conditions, in addition to the range covered by Newton's law. Newton's formula for gravity is still used in most circumstances, as an easier-to-calculate approximation of gravitational law. A similar relationship exists between Maxwell's equations and the theory of quantum electrodynamics; there are several such cases. This suggests the (unanswered) question of whether there are any ultimately true physical laws, or whether they are all just cases where our sensory and rational apparatus have generated mathematically simple approximations, valid within the range of normal human experience, to unobtainable true formulas."
And Intelligent Design does explain scientifically the origins of life?
There is one Democrat on the School Board, but she's hardly a liberal. The board is made up primarily of candidates of the other two political parties in the state, socially conservative Republicans and socially moderate Republicans.
The problem with this debate is that adherents of TOE as the only acceptable curriculum argue that TOE does not teach anything about life's origins, but when someone suggests that something about life's origins should be mentioned in curricula, even if to say that TOE does not explain origins of life, TOE adherents say precisely what you have responded to me: that is not the point of this debate (and they usually do it insultingly, as you have. But I forgive you since I know you must feel threatened).
I have actually plainly stated that TOE does not pretend to explain the origins of life. I do not understand why, on one hand, TOE advocates demand as an imperative the implication of accidental creation of life when teaching TOE, but object so strongly to mere mention of that implication's inadequacy at the same time? Why do you respond so condescendingly to a valid objection to that approach to teaching TOE?
TOE is not without other problems, of course. For example, returning to my objection to pure TOE advocate use of the deus ex machina of vast expanses of time, while one may observe the shift in population numbers of subspecies of moths in London suburbs as an accident of use of high- versus low-emission coal in manufacturies at the turn of the century, and use that as proof of an advantage of one coloring over another vis-a-vis predation, but it does not prove at all the emergence of a new species from an old one or even the survival of one species versus another. In other words, it is just a thoery.
Oh well, I know well that academic egos do not want to be questioned? "Get away from me, boy! Ya bother me!" (with apologies to W.C. Fields)
Regards.
I doubt that it will come to that...yet. Screwing with the biology curriculum doesn't discount the other hard sciences or math. But give the board time and there is no telling how much damage they can do.
Thank you. And you have a lovely Eloi screename.
It's never a good thing when science becomes political.
Do the Catholics just rip Genesis out of their Bibles?
"Next the ID nuts"
The name-calling begins...once again.
How many times over the past few months on these threads have you used the term "strawman"? LOL It's getting old.
What are the statistics of science revenue generated via public education funds vs. research grants, royalties from academic patents, commercial applications (including pharmaceuticals), etc? I am sure you have these figures, since your post claims that education dollars are the biggest source of money for science.
My primary theme was the scope of the theory of evolution. It does not deal with the origins of life, rather the changes which have occurred since those origins. However, you continue to bring up origins as a part of the theory of evolution. For example, you write the following (my responses in blue):
I do not understand why, on one hand, TOE advocates demand as an imperative the implication of accidental creation of life when teaching TOEI hope this helps to clarify things.Evolution does not mention the creation of life
but object so strongly to mere mention of that implication's inadequacy at the same time?
Evolution does not mention the creation of life
Why do you respond so condescendingly to a valid objection to that approach to teaching TOE?
Because evolution does not mention the creation of life
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