Posted on 12/14/2005 6:23:06 AM PST by PatrickHenry
An education oversight panel has put off a final recommendation on the state's biology teaching standards at the urging of a state senator who wants alternatives to evolution - including creationism - taught in classrooms.
The Education Oversight Committee voted Monday to recommend approval of the state's biology content standards, but by an 8-7 vote, the panel removed for further study the wording that deals with teaching evolution.
The committee plans to put together a panel of scientists and science teachers to advise committee members on the biology standards dealing with evolution, JoAnne Anderson, the committee's executive director, said Tuesday.
State Sen. Mike Fair, a panel member, wants the education department to change the standards to encourage teaching alternatives to the theory of evolution. Fair, R-Greenville, also has proposed a bill that would give lawmakers more say on biology curriculum.
The Education Department writes standards teachers must follow in designing their daily lessons. The State Board of Education must give those standards final approval. The Education Oversight Committee can recommend the board approve or reject those standards.
The head attorney for the state Department of Education said he didn't think committee members are authorized to change the standards.
"This is unprecedented," attorney Dale Stuckey said. "It's my interpretation of the law that [EOC members] have no authority to change the standards."
Anderson said Tuesday that is not the committee's intent. The committee issued a news release clarifying that it does not have the authority to revise content standards.
"We are asking our colleagues at the State Department of Education for recommendations of individuals from the science community who can assist the committee in bringing about a resolution."
Fair said he wants to encourage "critical analysis of a controversial subject in the classroom."
State Education Superintendent Inez Tenenbaum, a Democrat, said Fair was trying to derail teaching standard revisions she said have wide support in academia. The agency recently conducted a yearlong review of key subjects and basic knowledge all science teachers in public schools must teach.
Current biology curriculum includes Charles Darwin's 19th century theory that life evolved over millions of years from simple cells that adapted to their environment. Creationism relies on the biblical explanation that mankind's origin is the result of a divine action.
In November, the S.C. Board of Education approved changes to science standards some teachers said needed clarification. The oversight committee put off voting on the rules in October to give Fair more time to lobby education officials.
Karen Floyd, a Republican candidate for state education superintendent, has said she will encourage the teaching of intelligent design.
Rep. Bob Walker, R-Spartanburg, said he supports Fair's efforts because "there are other ideas that can be addressed as to how this world came about."
One school official, Lexington-Richland 5 science supervisor Kitty Farnell, said the committee's questioning of educators' work sets "a terrible example for our students."
"It's an embarrassment," she said.
Keyboards and cars don't propagate.
Sea gulls don't give birth to wood peckers then
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Strawman
No evolutionary biologist suggests that sea gulls DO give birth to woodpeckers. However, the evidence suggests that woodpeckers and gulls do share a common ancestor.
Well, of course! "We" call it an accident, a mutation--and violate the very foundation of science itself, that the universe behaves according to observable and recordable, (albeit complex) laws.
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How does a mutation violate the foundation of science? Are you suggesting that they do not exist? As for the random nature of mutations, well, at their heart they are very often driven by events that are governed by quantum mechanics (atomic radiation et al) and so, in a sense they *are* random. But, like all truly random events, their distribution can be predicted. And as it happens the predicted distributions match with the recorded distributions.
Thanks for the ping!
Except that it seems to spread more easily.
Then its a new analogy, but equally flawed. Marco Polo was TOLD by people that gunpowder was created.
This is where C.S. Lewis was right. Scientists verge on being cultural dimwits. You don't think stories of of the Grand Designer are "told" from one generation to another? You don't think the Bible--which brought order and civilization to countless savage cultures around the globe--is a record of "telling?"
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No more than any other religious text is. Why would I believe the Bible when I have no evidence of any divine authorship would be an accurate description of the beginning of the universe? Particularly when it seems to disagree with evidence that I can actually see and feel..
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If someone rushes up to you and says, "heah, I can't explain this, but I just saw a Gallilean carpenter raise a man from the dead," you can dismiss this out of hand, or you can perhaps admit that there is a super-natural power that stands above the physical world, that defines the phsyical world, that explains the physical world. If you reject this theory, you spend a fruitless life looking for gap species in the mud.
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If someone came and told me they saw someone rise from the dead, I would ask them for some evidence. I would also ask them if they thoroughly tested the "dead" guy for signs of life. I would also ask them if they had been drinking. I would ask them all sorts of questions. None of which I can do to the author of a book when I dont even know that he exists.
Once again for those who refuse to read or comprehend: "evolution" is a scientific fact under the defintion of "scientific fact". Even the most mule-headed creationists on this board seem to concede it, hence the continual redrawing of arbitrarily shifting lines like "macroevolution". The "Theory of Evolution" is a theory, as should be evident from the name.
> That is what government schools ARE! They ARE police threat in action.
Then argue in favor of eliminating governemtn support for school. That's quite a bit different than argueing that a government-funded science class should teach pseudo-scientific claptrap.
Who said this? :
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I am going to guess Hitler, which is another good move from the troll toolkit
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"...for we have good reason to believe that animals existed long before men...For long centuries God perfected the animal form which was to become the vehicle of humanity and the image of Himself...[Eventually,] God caused a new kind of consciousness to descend upon this organism"
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Well, it is someone who doesnt seem to understand evolutionary biology, as evolution is not a striving to "perfection". Indeed, the idea of perfection is not part of the theory
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"...Man, the highest of the animals"
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Well, again, there is no "ladder of creation", in evolutionary biology. The idea that man is "higher" is essentially a religious, or a moral one. Not a scientific one
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"...but he (man) remains still a primate and an animal"
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Well, he is right here. Homo Sapiens fits the definition for primate AND animal. Or do you think man is a fungus instead?
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"If...you mean simply that man is physically descended from animals, I have no objection"
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Again, man IS an animal. We fit all the criteria to be classified in Kingdom Animalia.
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"He made an earth at first 'without form and void' and brought it to its perfection"
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This is another religious statement, not a scientific one
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"Nature's "pregnancy has been long and painful and anxious, but it has reached its climax"
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Again, evolutionary biology does not suggest that there is, in any sense, a climax to evolution. It will just keep on going as long as there are imperfect replicators.
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"I have therefore no difficulty accepting, say, the view of those scholars who tell that the account of Creation in Genesis is derived from earlier Semitic stories which were Pagan and mythical."
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Again, a point of view on a religious text rather than on science.
"I am going to guess Hitler, which is another good move from the troll toolkit"
Not quite the answer I was going for lol.
LOL!!!
D'oh!
Good job I SAID it was a guess!
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