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.
We agree on this. But the school board didn't start this ball rolling in order to attack the ACLU. The school board's motives were entirely religious. There are ways to attack the ACLU when they're stretching the law to support some leftist cause (science isn't leftist, by the way, any more than math is leftist). I disagree with the ACLU on virtually everything, but in this one case -- whatever their motives -- they're on the right side (pretty much like a broken clock).
The parochial nature of the movement to change all of science is the funniest aspect of it all. ID may have Behe and Dembski as spokesmen and a headquarters in Seattle, but behind the false front it's all Bible Belt YECs. No matter what a few southern US states and some equally undeveloped areas of Australia do, the rest of the world will continue to do real science. The only issue is whether we get left in the dust.
It was really, really a huge mistake to attack science education and thus hand the lefties a no-brainer sure-win issue, if you think about it.
Yep. A high school diploma isn't worth much if the kids have to take remedial science classes to make up for what the public school did not teach them. The really hard part would be un-teaching them the garbage that the school board wants the schools to teach. The colleges would have to have de-programming classes.
you won't get those alternatives in physics, astronomy, flight, gravity, and all the other scientific theories out there because these are based in science not religion, unlike the religion of evolution which is much more faith based than intelligent design. like most religions of the world other than Christianity, any ideas which question it must not be made available in the marketplace or, even better, make them illegal by perverting the establishment clause of the first amendment.
For a couple of generations, we've all understood that the leftists (commies, socialists, etc.) were deliberately dumbing down the schools. Why, suddenly, do "conservatives" want to join in that left-wing effort, to destroy what little remains of the schools? There is nothing conservative about raising a generation of know-nothings.
Enough nits=nuts. (Maybe nits is Pink Panther for nuts, in honor of the French riot threads
Most of the educated world hasn't the slightest problem with evolution.
In addition, to eliminate evolution a lot of geology also has to go.
Kansas really is flatter than a pancake: http://www.improbable.com/airchives/paperair/volume9/v9i3/kansas.html
"A high school diploma isn't worth much if the kids have to take remedial science classes to make up for what the public school did not teach them."
That's been happening for more than twenty years in colleges as it is, and that's with Math and English. I saw that when I went back to finish up my degree. As a non-traditional sudent (read: not a recent high school graduate) I was much closer in age to many of my profs and became friends with some of them and boy did I hear about it from them. IMO, "deprogramming" kids from a belief in creation is the least of the colleges worries when so many of these kids can't even read, write, or do calulations without a calculator.
“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.”
What a moron this Behe is. It is totally permissible to question evolution, but you have to do it with science. And that's where these knuckleheads like Behe fly off the tracks. I don't understand how someone can be so (dumb? brainwashed?) as to expect that the scientific community should renounce the pursuit of science in order to accommodate someone's religion. It's astounding.
Thanks. The second -real- lol of my posting history.
I think it's time to get caffeinated.
the religion of evolution which is much more faith based than intelligent design.
And once again, we see that when creationists want to diminish or insult the Theory of Evolution, they call it a "religion."
That never ceases to amuse me. Don't they ever read their own posts?
ROFL!!!
Man, you have *got* to put down those creationist tracts and start reading some actual science journals.
Evolution is based on over a century of solid science, and is based on an overwhelmingly huge amount of validated research and an enormous mountain of evidence, along multiply independent cross-confirming lines of investigatino.
I guess the creationist propagandists you made the mistake of relying upon sort of "forgot" to mention that when they were lying to you about evolution, eh?
You've been brainwashed, badly. The only question now is what you plan to do about it.
Yep. Oddly enough, the imperfections in the flatness are visible, sort of. Kansas has this thing called a "rise," which is a hill so flat you can't really see it as a hill. The way it works is, as you drive, you notice the horizon is actually creeping closer. This is startling, because you don't see a hill anywhere, but you realize the horizon is acting the way a hill would act if a hill were there. Eventually, you get to the "top" and your view broadens out again.
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