Posted on 11/08/2005 4:17:17 AM PST by PatrickHenry
For the past six weeks, the debate over evolution and intelligent design has played out in a Pennsylvania courtroom.
Today, Kansas gets the national spotlight back — and with it, the possibility of a federal lawsuit here.
“What’s going on in Kansas,” said Kenneth Miller, a Brown University biologist, “is much more radical and much more dangerous to science education” than the contested decision in Dover, Pa., to mandate the teaching of “intelligent design” in public school science classes.
Intelligent design speculates that the world is too complex to have evolved without the help of an unknown designer — an alien, perhaps, or God. Such teachings in public schools, the ACLU says, violate constitutional restrictions on the separation of church and state.
“Absolutely, absolutely,” said T. Jeremy Gunn, director of the ACLU’s Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief, when asked if the new science standards Kansas is expected to adopt today could be vulnerable to litigation.
An official with the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, which helped defend the Dover school board, said Kansas should be able to avoid legal scrutiny. Casey Luskin said the standards here critique evolution, but they don’t promote intelligent design.
“It’s definitely a different issue in Kansas” than in Pennsylvania, Luskin said.
‘More radical’
It’s a different battle, perhaps, but definitely the same war. Many of the participants in the Pennsylvania trial are veterans of the Kansas evolution debates, and are keeping a close eye on today’s meeting of the Kansas Board of Education.
Miller, for example, testified in the Pennsylvania trial against intelligent design. He came to Kansas in 2000 to campaign against conservative school board members the last time the evolution debate flared up here.
The new Kansas standards literally change the definition of science, he said, so that natural explanations aren’t necessary to explain natural phenomena. That opens the door, he said, for astrology to be taught in public school classrooms.
“Is this what proponents on the Kansas Board of Education have in mind?” Miller asked.
Michael Behe, a Lehigh University scientist, wrote “Darwin’s Black Box” — a touchstone text of the intelligent design movement. He testified in Pennsylvania, and before the Kansas Board of Education when it held hearings on the science standards.
“I think having students hear criticisms of any theory is a great idea,” Behe said. “I think in one respect, it’ll mean it’s permissible to question evolution. For odd historical reasons, questioning evolution has been put off-limits. If Kansas can do it, it can be done elsewhere.”
More evolution?
Luskin agreed.
“In contrast to what everybody has said, Kansas students will hear more about evolution and not less about evolution,” he said. “This is a victory for people who want students to learn critical thinking skills in science.”
But Gunn noted that the vast majority of scientists believed in evolution as a proven explanation for the origins of life. The “handful” who don’t, he said, have resorted to making their case through politics instead of through traditional scientific methods.
“Do we teach both sides of the controversy on astrology in science class? Do we teach both sides of phrenology?” Gunn said. “This is not a scientific controversy, it’s a political controversy.”
Testimony in the Pennsylvania trial wrapped up on Friday. A ruling in that case is expected in January.
How about an Evolution weekend with all your classic favorites from The Turtles, The Beatles, The Monkees, The Troggs, The Zombies, The Animals, Blue Oyster Cult and more.
But didn't you get the memo? Conservatives are supposed to be Christians who believe in a literal interpretation of the English translation of the Bible before anything else.
Let's see; flight, gravity, physics. Come on down to the nearest grain elevator and bring your hang glider. When you step off the top edge to prove the theory of gravity and flight you'd better be strapped in because without it physics will come to an abrupt halt in your case.
Go read Joshua. It DOES NOT SAY THAT THE SUN REVOLVES AROUND THE EARTH! Joshua says that: So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on its enemies, as it is written in the Book of Jashar. The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day. Joshua 10:13. It merely describes how it looks to an observer (and if you try to tell me that you have never said "the sun set"...).
I can see it now
bio 101 for science majors
bio 101a for non-science majors
bio 101b for nonsense majors from Kansas
The arrogance is breathtaking ...Creation doesn't fit under "science" ...re-define science!
In addition to the basic group of legal stuff you alluded to, I can also see lawsuits by parents whose kids don't get into Prestige U.
Nebraska's more rural than Kansas, and we've been able to fend this sort of thing off. Partly the problem was the passivity of the scientists in Kansas, who let this thing develop into a monster before really getting mobilized against it. And partly it's the much higher proportion of Southern Baptists, who seem to be the most virulenty creationist of all the denominations.
The start of my homepage has an essay devoted to the powerful linkage between conservatism, science, and rationality. It won't impress the creationists, because they're so unhinged from reality that nothing will impress them.
Conservatism isn't religious fanaticism, which quickly takes you into nightmarish totalitarianism. Probably you're a conservative only in the sense that the Taliban is conservative.
Too flat. Bizarrely flat. Has to do something to stunt the cognitive development.
Or maybe nobody ever taught you that "I don't know" is a valid answer to most questions...
I can understand scientists concern that science be kept "pure" (for lack of a better word) and why they want to keep non-science out of the classroom. The ACLU is obviously anti-Jewish, anti-Christain, and anti-religion and yet has found very willing accomplices in eradicating religion from schools. For the scientists, it's about science. The ACLU had just found the hot button issue to get science's backing. To tell the truth, I really don't think they give a rat's posterior about whether science is being taught correctly or not as long as they can further their agenda using it.
I know I for one don't object to science being taught properly and I'd bet a lot of other Creationists don't either. I don't think that's the issue with them. The issue is resisting the attempts by the ACLU to by legal precedent to attempt to further their agenda. I believe that's what the Creationists/Christians are fighting. Evolution is just the weapon chosen by the ACLU in that fight because they can get the support of the scientific community and that gives it some teeth.
Thanks for the ping!
Check out post 29 by Right Wing Professor.
Although I personally cannot understand voluntarily living in a flat place. Drive me nits.
"Conservatives are supposed to be Christians who believe in a literal interpretation of the English translation of the Bible before anything else."
Maybe "suposed to be" to some people but aren't in real life.
Truly a miracle beyond comprehension. In theory, one can "stop the Sun" by stopping the Earth in its rotation. However, you'd notice that as the earthquake from Hades before you could be bothered to notice astonomical oddities. Someone somewhere did some calculations on the difficulties after Velikovsky's book Worlds In Collision proposed that the Earth had indeed stopped. Suffice it to say that the energy of the Earth's spin, about 1000 mph at the equator, wouldn't normally just disappear. And even that won't stop the moon's apparent motion, much of which is the moon's real orbital motion about the Earth.
So, am I to understand that you are basing your entire understanding of a very large and complex theory comprising numerous interconnected fields of scientific study upon a statement by a guy you heard on talk radio?
If that is really true, you should favor the teaching of evolution and you shouldn't have any problem with ID being excluded.
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