Posted on 02/28/2006 4:05:45 AM PST by PatrickHenry
House lawmakers scuttled a bill that would have required public school students to be told that evolution is not empirically proven - the latest setback for critics of evolution.
The bill's sponsor, Republican state Sen. Chris Buttars, had said it was time to rein in teachers who were teaching that man descended from apes and rattling the faith of students. The Senate earlier passed the measure 16-12.
But the bill failed in the House on a 28-46 vote Monday. The bill would have required teachers to tell students that evolution is not a fact and the state doesn't endorse the theory.
Rep. Scott Wyatt, a Republican, said he feared passing the bill would force the state to then address hundreds of other scientific theories - "from Quantum physics to Freud" - in the same manner.
"I would leave you with two questions," Wyatt said. "If we decide to weigh in on this part, are we going to begin weighing in on all the others and are we the correct body to do that?"
Buttars said he didn't believe the defeat means that most House members think Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is correct.
"I don't believe that anybody in there really wants their kids to be taught that their great-grandfather was an ape," Buttars said.
The vote represents the latest loss for critics of evolution. In December, a federal judge barred the school system in Dover, Pa., from teaching intelligent design alongside evolution in high school biology classes.
Also last year, a federal judge ordered the school system in suburban Atlanta's Cobb County to remove from biology textbooks stickers that called evolution a theory, not a fact.
Earlier this year, a rural California school district canceled an elective philosophy course on intelligent design and agreed never to promote the topic in class again.
But critics of evolution got a boost in Kansas in November when the state Board of Education adopted new science teaching standards that treat evolution as a flawed theory, defying the view of science groups.
There are thousands of threads on this topic, and one can get about 95% of the arguments, fallacious ones and all, by reading just one. It's a lot like a forest of squirrels. Any one squirrel, if understood, will represent all the rest. Still, they have individual personalities: some stay in the forest and will raise many generations of squirrels with the evolved behavior of staying in the forest; others will come near the house and will raise no generations with any kind of behavior.
Did you have a point besides demonstrating that Plato obviously wasn't a biologist?
In what units is continental drift measured?
So it isn't a taxonomic scheme. It's an error.
Probably kilometers, but maybe nanometers if you want to be really precise.
Ahh! I wouldn't be likely to use that term anyway as I prefer to think people come by their wrongness honestly. ;-)
Most of the INTERPRETERS of the evidence says it does.
If you have an interpretation that actually addresses the evidence, and makes no appeal to the supernatural, we'd love to hear it.
So far, no proponent of ID has bothered to actually articulate one. Except for the parts of the ToE (such as the common ancestor and the age of the Earth) that they borrowed from science to fill out their notion.
So let's have it. What's the other scientific interpretation of the wealth of evidence that supports evolution?
Good argument here.
Now if only Evolution was a "Law". Its a working explanation.
"Please go read before you continue the discussion."
Once again...proving my point that "Evolution" is a religion to some.
Unless I believe right down the line as you do.....I don't have the intelligence to argue the issue.
Try again.
redrock
p.s....and perhaps you should relearn some manners.
So what does God do with a penis?
Is there a Mrs. God? And if so, who married them?
Evolution has lots of numbers. Numbers of base pairs. Numbers of species. Numbers of years. Numbers of generations.
But like the science of weather observation (not prediction, just observation), no one number really tells it. You can measure the humidity, but that's just the humidity at one latitude/longitude/altitude. You can measure wind speed, but the same problem applies.
Evolution and weather can have numbers applied to their measurement, but they are both too chaotic to be described with numbers alone.
Plumbing is taught at universities. My daughter majored in building construction and is managing projects in Manhattan. Should plumbing not be a subject of study?
Not much, except that some creationists aren't either. Once one gets into the taxonomy, one finds that classifying groups by common ancestry is easiest and most practical. This type of classification is useful for agriculture, medicine, etc. Creationist classifications (or Plato's) aren't very useful.
Note that Linnaeus's scheme (even though done earlier) ends up being, for the most part, a common ancestry scheme. Linnaeus did common features but ended up with common ancestry.
Aristotle did make a classification of edible vs non-edible; it's also useful, if a bit crude.
So there is a Theory of Weather?
LOL! Maybe if they had gone for a Thirty-Five Years War?
[Insert own 'Peace of Westphalia' joke here]
Wow...mind reading too!!!
As I have said (written)...evolution is a good starting place. But there ARE holes....and things that don't make sense.
Instead of just accepting it carte-blanche....I will continue to question it.
Sorry if that upsets some...but too bad.
redrock
Wrong. Centimeters. Meaning you're only off by a factor of 10^5 where continental drift is concerned--making you fairly accurate on continental drift compared to evolution.
But then...Paleontology is as much an artform as it is a science.
(probably pissed off all the high-priests of evolution...ah well)
Have a nice time.
Gotta go do some planning for some field work this summer.(gotta love that heat)
redrock
By what defenition?
I'm just curious how much ignorance it would take to satiate your appetite. Tell me you are just joking.
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