[Jeb] Bush: Science comes before intelligent design [Jeb gets the message]

Miami Herald ^ | 26 December 2005 | Daniel A. Ricker

[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.''

---

"The Watchdog Report" mentioned in the article is Ricker's own newsletter. He's the author of the article. Apparently the interview with Jeb was deemed important enough that the Miami Herald agreed to run it.

[mc6809e]

Evolution is a lie. Science does not equal evolution. Science is compatible with creation.

Ever hear of bacteria that evolve resistance to antibiotics?

I guess you think god did it just to keep the pharmaceutical companies in business.

[MineralMan]

Science is not a democracy. Science is not run by non-scientists taking a poll.

[MineralMan]

"Could one not use your same argument to say the biblical creation stories are just a way to explain things in a way that the people of the day could understand?"

Ding! Ding! Ding! Don Pardo...please tell our contestant what he has won!

It's a brand new car!

[muir_redwoods]

"Well, you'll never get called as an expert in Bible verse understanding. It does not say this."

Leviticus, Chapter 11, Verses 13-19. "You must not eat any of the following birds: Eagles, owls, hawks,falcons, buzzards, vultures,crows, ostriches, seagulls, herons, pelicans, cormorants, hoopoes or bats."

As for Joshua, see chapter 10, verse 13, "The sun stood still and the moon did not move until the nation had conquered its enemy"

If you don't think that says that the sun moves and the earth is immovable, it's a pity you weren't available to counsel Galileo's defense.

[MineralMan]

"Show me the four-legged flying animal that is good food."

Err...uhh...sorry. People eat bats, especially the large fruit bats. I hate to do that, but it's true.

[VadeRetro]

Jones: Okay, Karl. Bombs away!

Don't know if he cleared it with Karl, but he sure dropped the whole load.

[mlc9852]

It really doesn't matter if it's a democracy or not. Again, the majority of Americans polled believe God is the creator. And from my children's experience in high school biology, Darwin just wasn't a big deal. They spent more time learning the parts of plants.

[x5452]

Oh more heresay and unsourced comments.

So you're apprently of the opinion that if one can't backup assertions with sources they should just spew BS right?

[mlc9852]

Who eats fruit bats?

[MineralMan]

Folks in the Pacific East, where fruit bats live. Here's an account from Taiwan:

---

“They are perhaps the first mammals to settle the Marianas. Guam, Rota, Tinian, Saipan and the rest of the northern islands have populations of Marianas Fruit Bats.

“Fruit bats are the favorite food for the Chamorros. The Carolinians don’t particularly care to eat fruit bats, but it’s a delicacy for the Chamorros. I don’t know why, but people of the Chamorro decent prefer fruit bats more than almost any other kind of meat.

"And they don’t waste hardly anything in there. Only the hard bones, maybe the skulls and the teeth are discarded. From the furs to the stomach, all are eaten. And you know the rubbery part of the bats, the modified hair used as wings, are the delicious part of the fruit bats."



“Now that’s why they were hunted down almost to extinction here on Saipan. The advent of guns kind of decimated the populations of fruit bats on Tinian, on Saipan. And there’s another island south of Tinian called Goat Island, Aguijan, that used to have lots of fruit bats, but the advent of shotguns changed that. Now big shotguns are illegal. Only the small, 410 shotgun is legal here. And the bats are now a protected species. We had them protected by our local laws, and then the Federal Government came in and listed it under threatened species.

“But from Anatahan up to Agrigan, fruit bats thrive up there, simply because there’s not enough people hunting them, and also, because there’s more Carolinians up there who are not very keen on eating fruit bats. So that saves a lot.”

[Dog Gone]

But bats were excluded earlier in the chapter as good food. And I would quibble with you with they are four-legged. They have arms that are wings, but only two legs.

[MineralMan]

And, from Indonesia:

---

"Unfortunately, our pleasure at witnessing this peaceful relationship between bats and people was marred by our growing realization that many Sulawesians hunt and eat fruit bats without regard for the bats' future. The consumption of bats is common in the non-Muslim and Chinese populations, found mainly in northern Sulawesi. In other areas, bats are used in traditional medicine as cures for asthma or kidney ailments. In southern Sulawesi, we met a prominent Muslim businessman who regularly eats bat kidneys to treat his asthma. In the north, we met a school teacher who admitted that, even though he knows continued hunting of bats is causing a decline in their populations, he continues to eat bats because he likes the taste. Bats are caught by nets, air rifles, and even kites with fish hooks attached to their strings. The kites are flown in the evening, near roosting trees, as the bats are leaving to feed. Many bats can be caught quickly and with few deaths, which is important because they are sold in the markets alive. In a market in Ujung Pandang, we saw a single vendor selling more than 100 black flying foxes, some with pups. As Sulawesi's human population grows, its road systems are bettered, and the rain forests get logged and fragmented at an increasing rate. Fruit bat populations may soon be at great risk, and Sulawesi could lose some of its most important living treasures. "

[MineralMan]

"But bats were excluded earlier in the chapter as good food. And I would quibble with you with they are four-legged. They have arms that are wings, but only two legs."

Nope. They have four legs. They crawl using their forelegs, just like any other four-legged animals. They don't have arms. They have legs. The front legs are modified to serve primarily as wings, but they are forelegs, not arms. Monkeys and apes have arms.

[bobdsmith]

Right and I guess none of the dinosaur fossils dug up are "true" dinosaurs either...

[b_sharp]

"Survival of the fittest is a tautology

Only because as stated it is a an overly simple generalization. Fittest is not defined as those who survive, but those who pass on their genes to more offspring's offspring than others who do not possess whatever morphological feature the fittest has. The definition is contingent on the environment. If extra long legs enable more offspring to be born then 'survival of the fittest' would mean 'survival of those with the longest legs'. In this form it is not a tautology.

"and all known mutations are detrimental. Not much to hang any sort of a theory of how everything got here on.

Most mutations occur in non-conserved, non-coding areas of the genome so are neutral. Some mutations in the coding and highly conserved NC areas are detrimental but selected out before birth or shortly after birth, some mutations in those areas are beneficial: sickle-cell, milk-tolerence, light colour skin, etc., and many mutations in those areas are neutral, either because they give no benefit given the environment or because they are point mutations that only change the third base in a codon (Changing the third base does not change the amino acid formed by the first two bases).

[darkocean]

The normal English term for 'mutation' is 'birth defect'.

[MineralMan]

"The normal English term for 'mutation' is 'birth defect'."

Uh, no, it isn't. They are two completely separate terms, and have nothing to do with one another. Very few birth defects are caused by mutations. Most are genetic in origin, meaning that the genes that cause them already exist in the parent.

There are a few birth defects caused by mutations, but those are very rare and happen once, generally.

You are confused with your terminology. A good dictionary will help you out, or a web site on birth defects.

[bobdsmith]

That isn't true as most mutations aren't even noticable in any shape or form. They simply are a change to one of 3 billion bases in the DNA.

[Tijeras_Slim]

Most of them are caused by radioactive bug bites.

[b_sharp]

How about the third option (fourth really since you actually mentioned three)?

Teach a correct version of the ToE and evolution, including those areas where knowledge is incomplete (and what is being done to rectify the shortage), without mentioning the typical creationist strawman arguments.