Posted on 11/10/2005 4:22:26 AM PST by PatrickHenry
Pennsylvania school rejects intelligent design, just as Kansas embraces it.
Despite fierce opposition from scientists and teachers, the Kansas State Board of Education has adopted teaching standards that support intelligent design, the idea that an intelligent creator shaped the course of evolution.
"This is just the latest in a series of troubling decisions by the board," Kathleen Sebelius, the Democratic governor of Kansas, said in a statement. "If we're going to continue to bring high-tech jobs to Kansas and move our state forward, we need to strengthen science standards, not weaken them."
At the same time, things have moved in the opposite direction in Dover, Pennsylvania, which is home to the highest profile court case against intelligent design.
The Dover school board has been in court since September (see 'School board in court over bid to teach intelligent design'), after adopting standards that criticize evolution and, say parents, violate the separation of church and state.
On 8 November, eight of the nine members of the school board were voted out by the community. They were replaced by people who oppose the teaching of intelligent design in science class.
Critical assessment
In Kansas, this is the second time in six years that there has been a vote to change education standards in favour of what scientists see as a pro-religion agenda. In 1999, the school board voted to eliminate teaching evolution, cosmology, and some aspects of geology (see 'Kansas kicks evolution out of the classroom').
The following year, a vigorous campaign by scientists and teachers cost conservatives a majority on the elected board and led to the standards being overturned.
But now the new standards, adopted by a six to four vote on 8 November, require the teaching of specific criticisms of evolution in high school classrooms. These talk about a lack of evidence for a "primordial soup" in which life originated and "a lack of adequate natural explanations for the genetic code".
"This is a huge victory for students in Kansas," says Casey Luskin, a programme officer in policy and legal affairs at the Discovery Institute, an intelligent-design think-tank in Seattle.
Luskin says that the standards will help students to recognize legitimate scientific criticisms of evolution. He notes that they make no direct reference to intelligent design: "Critics say that the school board is bringing religion into the classroom, but they're not."
Open door
Not so, says Jack Krebs, vice-president of Kansas Citizens for Science, which opposes the new standards. Krebs fears that the standards will embolden teachers in conservative schools across the state to begin teaching intelligent design. "This decision is going to open the door for anyone who's leaning towards creationism," he says.
The decision had long been expected, and some scientific groups have already stated their opposition to the changes (see 'Kansas backs lessons critical of evolution').
The National Academy of Sciences and the National Science Teachers Association recently withheld the copyright for the national science standards on which Kansas' standards are based, as a protest against the changes.
Krebs says he hopes that still more support will be rallied in the months ahead. "I think it will be critical to get the religious and academic communities aroused and involved," he says.
Meanwhile the trial in Dover awaits a decision. Although the ruling, expected in December or January, may no longer have a direct effect on the school that started the case, the legal precedent it sets could influence the way schools teach evolution nationwide.
Too bad these huge and expensive books aren't available on the internet. They are't making the authors rich selling a few hundred copies at $200.
Many colleges and universities give lifetime library priveleges to graduates. That, plus interlibrary loan could make much off this material available.
My thought is why not make this stuff available on the internet, reinbursing the authors via university libraries? Anyon who has library priveleges could download the text, and anyone not affiliated with a library could join for a fee.
Google has the means and the motive to host a project like this.
You can spend a lot of money very quickly buying books and if you don't need them all you have is dust collectors. I have had great luck with my local library getting books.
The problem is with journals. I could spend the rest of my life in a cubicle reading journals and never keep up. And how am I supposed to put food on the table at the same time? I don't see any way around it. Even if all the journals were available online, you still couldn't keep up.
That's why they need to be put online by an organization like google. They need to be searchable, and searches need to bring up appropriate excerpts.
About 15 years ago I had an idea for a science fiction novel dealing with what is now google books. In my story the project was secretly run by the CIA. My plot was overtaken by events, as they say.
Some of the best things I've read, I've stumbled on. If you just search areas of interest you run the risk of becoming myopic.
True, but I find google to be a great source of stumbles. At any given time there are many people pondering new ideas in different ways.
I read a review of a Darwin biography which claimed that Darwin did indeed lose his faith towards the end of his life. Not for any reason directly connected with his scientific work but because of the untimely death of his favourite daughter.
Crevos in the UK are indeed a despised moonbat micro-minority. Oddly enough the only encouragement they have had has been from Blair, whose education policy allows rich evangelicals of robust creationist views (and inspired directly by the likes of the Discovery Institute) to endow State schools and enforce creationist teachings there. Such initiatives are small and failing however.
For some reason the guy from the DI (Mier?) was interviewed on R4 the other day. The interviewer was knowlegable and the IDer came accross as a complete idiot.
Redundant. He came across as an IDer. That says it all.
He ended up as an agnostic in the end. But he did beleive in a designer.
Thanks for editing my spelling blooper.
What he did take from Christianity though was a deep respect for the moral teachings of Christ. That's why he could feel no qualms about donating money to his local church.
Of course, as you said, this is a fascinating but totally irrelevant biographical point. The ToE stands or falls not on the religious views of it's supporters but on the evidence for or against it.
The Brits have always had a unique perspective on this grave.
There's something about this country that makes every guy with a Bible think that he is an expert on Biology.
One thing I find mystifying is the application of information theory to either evolution or ID, or even cosmology. It seems as appropriate as applying relativity to sociology or digital computers to psychology. Analogies don't serve as philosophical proofs, and metaphors don't provide more than fleeting poetic images.
The book is its contents, but I won't quibble :-)
Sometimes libraries will buy a book if someone shows interest (like why don't you have a copy of this?). I've had some success doing this.
I certainly wouldn't bug my library to buy an expensive technical reference that is probably over my head, but I might browse through it and learn something if it popped up on the internet.
That's the beauty of the internet. You can find information written at various levels, easily searched and browsed. I only hope it gets better.
I certainly wouldn't bug my library to buy an expensive technical reference that is probably over my head, but I might browse through it and learn something if it popped up on the internet.
I would. It's one of the few ways I can get a tangible, real, material, unambiguous return on my tax dollars. It's worth a try sometimes.
And I enthusiastically agree with you about about getting as much as possible on the Internet.
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