Posted on 12/26/2005 8:37:06 AM PST by PatrickHenry
Questioned about the national debate over ''intelligent design,'' [Florida] Gov. Jeb Bush last week said he's more interested in seeing some evolution of the science standards that Florida public school students must meet.
He wants those standards to become more rigorous -- and raising the standards should take priority over discussing whether intelligent design has a place in the public schools' curriculum, he said.
Nationally, the discussion over whether to teach intelligent design -- a concept that says life is too complex to have occurred without the involvement of a higher force -- in public school classes heated up after U.S. District Judge John E. Jones ruled that it smacked of creationism and was a violation of church and state separation. (President Bush appointed Jones to the federal bench in 2004.)
Jones, in his decision, wrote that the concept of intelligent design ''cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents,'' according to a Knight Ridder News Service report published Wednesday in The Miami Herald. [PH here: For a more reliable source than the Herald, here's the judge's opinion (big pdf file).]
In Florida, education officials and science teachers will be reviewing the state's science curriculum in 2007 or 2008, after the governor has left office, and ''it is possible that people would make an effort to include [intelligent design] in the debate,'' Gov. Bush told The Watchdog Report on Wednesday. ''My personal belief is we ought to look at whether our standards are high first,'' he said.
SCIENCE FIRST
``The more important point is science itself and how important it is, and we right now have adequate standards that may need to be raised. But worse: Students are not given the course work necessary to do well with those standards.''
Bush, after meeting with Coral Gables Mayor Don Slesnick and city commissioners concerning the community's widespread power outages after hurricanes Katrina and Wilma, also noted that the federal ruling came in a case that involves Pennsylvania's Dover Area School District.
''It is one school district in Pennsylvania,'' he said.
POINT OF VIEW
The Watchdog Report asked a follow-up question: Does the governor believe in Darwin's theory of evolution?
Bush said: ``Yeah, but I don't think it should actually be part of the curriculum, to be honest with you. And people have different points of view and they can be discussed at school, but it does not need to be in the curriculum.''
Nowhere else can I find such entertaining interaction involving large numbers of conservatives who are either: (a) truly educated and intelligent people; or (b) truly un-educated people with no rational capacity whatsoever. It's fascinating
Now setting aside the condescending attitude,more at home at DU than here,perhaps it would be helpful to know the qualifications you have to set yourself up as the judge of who has "rational capacity"
Nowhere else can I find such entertaining interaction involving large numbers of conservatives who are either: (a) truly educated and intelligent people; or (b) truly un-educated people with no rational capacity whatsoever. It's fascinating.
I like the part when the (b) group attempts to lecture, indict, judge, and condemn the (a) group. It's 'reality as satire' at it's best.
What is it about something being either Contingent, Complex or Specified that is nebulous to you?
I guess what you show is indeed an accurate portrayal of the scientific validity of intelligent design.
And I guess this little dart is indicitive of the basis from which you operate concerning the debate over IDT or ET. Mocking my, or anyone's post in this way is not you showing superior argument rather it is you belittling without some sincere rebuttal. Should I respond that this is an accurate portrayal of how closed minded someone can be? I don't begin with that, Quark.
That's a howler.
Like I say, the normal English term for mutation is "birth defect". Have you ever heard anybody talking about "birth enhancements", as in "My little Suzy is making straight A's in school because of that birth enhancement" (i.e. because of some supposedly beneficial mutation like being born with two heads), and supposing also that two heads are better than one for taking tests in school?
For that matter, have you ever had the ladies from the Mothers' March of Dimes come to your door asking for money for research to CAUSE mutations? My own experience has been that they're always asking for money for research to prevent them.
Mayr.
Please give a few examples of where this has happened.
The inconsistent definitions in Dembski's literature and the lack of rational in the default of design. The lack of real world application, and its high potential for false positives make it questionable in use.
Uh... science would be 3000 years ahead of where it is now?
It's not hard to imagine God whispering into Job's ear "takest thou a strip of copper, and also one of tin..." and electrolyzing water.
Your thinking of mutations as in X-men or chernobyl, not mutations in the sense of genetics.
At my church??
"The church" isn't a building.
God's people (the wheat) compose "the invisible church". Those who are not God's people (the tares - the unregenerate who don't have "the mind of Christ") are the ones who "go" to where the invisible church may be meeting and together they make up the visible church.
The tares are growing unnoticed among the wheat (because outwardly -the way people judge things - they look just like them) -- until Christ returns and exposes and separates them out when he establishes the new heavens and the new earth.
But things are much more complicated than the natural man can perceive. :)
Substituting 'mouse' for 'man', so said the mouse at the entrance to the maze to the other mice. So why bother?
Jones also wrote the following:
""Second, by directing students to their families to learn about the Origins of Life, the paragraph performs the exact same function as did the Freiler disclaimer: It reminds school children that they can rightly maintain beliefs taught by their parents on the subject of the origin of life,(what he is saying here is that the state declaring that students have a right to maintain beliefs taught by their parents is unconstitutional) thereby stifling the critical thinking that the classs study of evolutionary theory might otherwise prompt, to protect a religious view from what the Board considers to be a threat."
Now it's bad enough that Judge Jones has found the free exercise clause unconstitutional because it stifles critical thinking but the support it gets from so called conservatives is, well, sickening.
He then goes on to say later in the opinion: "Plaintiffs believe that ID is an inherently religious concept and that its inclusion in the Districts science curriculum interferes with their rights to teach their children about religion."
And he held for those plaintiffs.
One can only conclude from this that the Plaintiffs have parental rights that do not stifle critical thinking while those siding with the board do not.
The guy is a loon and and those describing themselves as conservatives who are pushing this opinion as one wondrous to behold really should find a new ideology to align themselves with.
And that group includes you.
We are not concerned with the 'normal English' definition, but the scientific definition. The scientific definition includes mutations of germ cells brought on by radiation, chemical damage and even random photon collisions, but applies primarily to replication errors during meiosis. Birth defects also include errors during ontogensis which are brought about by damage to non-germ cells by radiation, chemicals or some other errors while in the womb.
Mutation as far as evolution is concerned only applies to changes in gametes. Birth defects can be caused by factors not related to evolution. That is why 'birth defects' can not be used when speaking of evolution.
Science 101: The human genome is rather plastic over generations. Genes that are beneficial allow that individual to breed and propogate the gene.
An extreme example is the sickle cell hemogoblin gene. No doubt you are aware of sickle cell disease and its sad consequences for those afflicted. Is this gene a curse from God? Of course not. Individuals who carry only one sickle cell gene (heterozygous) have an advantage over those who have no sickle cell gene. The heterozygous sickle cell gene is protective against malaria. Hence many people from malaria endemic regions e.g. Africa carry the sickle cell gene. They live to adulthood and proprogate their genes to future generations. Those unfortunate individuals who have two sickle cell genes (homozygous) die. Assuming four children: statistically one will be homozygous with sickle cell and die, one is homozygous without sickle cell and may die from malaria but two are heterozygous and will likely live to adulthood and propogate their genes.
Evolution is not complicated and it's occuring everyday on this planet.
You have shown yourself to be a biblical illiterate. Click on my screen name and read about your predicament at this link:
Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments
I already answered it correctly.
This is not true. The commonest birth defects (cystic fibrosis, sickle cell, Tay-Sachs, and so forth) are caused by having two copies of a recessive gene. The reason that these recessive genes are comparatively common is that they confer resistance to diseases (cystic fibrosis - cholera, sickle-cell - malaria, Tay-Sachs - TB).
More specifically, if you have one normal hemoglobin gene, and also the recessive sickle cell gene, you have no symptoms at all, but are able to resist malaria better than if you were homozygous for normal hempglobin.
This partially explains their distribution in different populations.
The non-beneficial, non-neutral mutations are most often called 'miscarriages'
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