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.
Here's a hint. Ready? Take your centimeter number.
Got it? Now, divide by 10^5.
(Use your calculator if you have to.)
See that little period like thing? (If in Europe, make it a comma.)
That's called a decimal point.
You see, any number in centimeters can be written as a number in kilometers with one of those wacky doohickeys.
Try it.
I know it's a deeeeeeeeep concept, but I have confidence that after several years of study, you might be able to understand it most of the time.
Kilometers from what point to what point? Measurements from the surface, when that surface subducts below ground at a later date. How about plasticity? Where does time enter the measurement? Changes in temperature. Glacial accumulation/melt causing vertical changes.
My point is that lots of numbers can be applied to both continental drift and evolution. But there is no single "unit" of continental drift, or "unit" of evolution.
George Carlin, the noted evolutionary scientist, or is he perhaps better known as a totally irreverent comedian.
Unless I believe right down the line as you do.....I don't have the intelligence to argue the issue.
You misunderstand me. I'm suggesting you read so that the discussion can occur with a mutual understanding of definitions. Not because you need to be "reeducated." There are many here who think that argument is about demeaning those who approach evolution with a healthy skepticism, but I will not join them.
I suggested the talkorigins.org site because it help me understand my mistakes in definitions and the state of the science when I first wandered into the CREVO threads a few months ago.
Please don't be insulted.
Revelation given through Joseph Smith the Prophet, at Nauvoo, Illinois, recorded July 12, 1843, relating to the new and everlasting covenant, including the eternity of the marriage covenant, as also plurality of wives. HC 5: 501507. Although the revelation was recorded in 1843, it is evident from the historical records that the doctrines and principles involved in this revelation had been known by the Prophet since 1831. 16, Exaltation is gained through the new and everlasting covenant; 714, The terms and conditions of that covenant are set forth; 1520, Celestial marriage and a continuation of the family unit enable men to become gods; 2125, The strait and narrow way that leads to eternal lives; 2627, Law given relative to blasphemy against the Holy Ghost; 2839, Promises of eternal increase and exaltation made to prophets and saints in all ages; 4047, Joseph Smith is given the power to bind and seal on earth and in heaven; 4850, The Lord seals upon him his exaltation; 5157, Emma Smith is counseled to be faithful and true; 5866, Laws governing the plurality of wives are set forth. 1 VERILY, thus saith the Lord unto you my servant Joseph, that inasmuch as you have inquired of my hand to know and understand wherein I, the Lord, justified my servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as also Moses, David and Solomon, my servants, as touching the principle and doctrine of their having many awives and bconcubines |
(Oops! backpedal time....) To Whom It May Concern: PRESIDENT WILFORD WOODRUFF REGARDING THE MANIFESTO The Lord will never permit me or any other man who stands as President of this Church to lead you astray. It is not in the programme. It is not in the mind of God. If I were to attempt that, the Lord would remove me out of my place, and so He will any other man who attempts to lead the children of men astray from the oracles of God and from their duty. (Sixty-first Semiannual General Conference of the Church, Monday, October 6, 1890, Salt Lake City, Utah. Reported in Deseret Evening News, October 11, 1890, p. 2.) It matters not who lives or who dies, or who is called to lead this Church, they have got to lead it by the inspiration of Almighty God. If they do not do it that way, they cannot do it at all. . . . I have had some revelations of late, and very important ones to me, and I will tell you what the Lord has said to me. Let me bring your minds to what is termed the manifesto. . . . The Lord has told me to ask the Latter-day Saints a question, and He also told me that if they would listen to what I said to them and answer the question put to them, by the Spirit and power of God, they would all answer alike, and they would all believe alike with regard to this matter. The question is this: Which is the wisest course for the Latter-day Saints to pursueto continue to attempt to practice plural marriage, with the laws of the nation against it and the opposition of sixty millions of people, and at the cost of the confiscation and loss of all the Temples, and the stopping of all the ordinances therein, both for the living and the dead, and the imprisonment of the First Presidency and Twelve and the heads of families in the Church, and the confiscation of personal property of the people (all of which of themselves would stop the practice); or, after doing and suffering what we have through our adherence to this principle to cease the practice and submit to the law, and through doing so leave the Prophets, Apostles and fathers at home, so that they can instruct the people and attend to the duties of the Church, and also leave the Temples in the hands of the Saints, so that they can attend to the ordinances of the Gospel, both for the living and the dead? The Lord showed me by vision and revelation exactly what would take place if we did not stop this practice. If we had not stopped it, you would have had no use for . . . any of the men in this temple at Logan; for all ordinances would be stopped throughout the land of Zion. Confusion would reign throughout Israel, and many men would be made prisoners. This trouble would have come upon the whole Church, and we should have been compelled to stop the practice. Now, the question is, whether it should be stopped in this manner, or in the way the Lord has manifested to us, and leave our Prophets and Apostles and fathers free men, and the temples in the hands of the people, so that the dead may be redeemed. A large number has already been delivered from the prison house in the spirit world by this people, and shall the work go on or stop? This is the question I lay before the Latter-day Saints. You have to judge for yourselves. I want you to answer it for yourselves. I shall not answer it; but I say to you that that is exactly the condition we as a people would have been in had we not taken the course we have. . . . I saw exactly what would come to pass if there was not something done. I have had this spirit upon me for a long time. But I want to say this: I should have let all the temples go out of our hands; I should have gone to prison myself, and let every other man go there, had not the God of heaven commanded me to do what I did do; and when the hour came that I was commanded to do that, it was all clear to me. I went before the Lord, and I wrote what the Lord told me to write. . . . I leave this with you, for you to contemplate and consider. The Lord is at work with us. (Cache Stake Conference, Logan, Utah, Sunday, November 1, 1891. Reported in Deseret Weekly, November 14, 1891.) Now I will tell you what was manifested to me and what the Son of God performed in this thing. . . . All these things would have come to pass, as God Almighty lives, had not that Manifesto been given. Therefore, the Son of God felt disposed to have that thing presented to the Church and to the world for purposes in his own mind. The Lord had decreed the establishment of Zion. He had decreed the finishing of this temple. He had decreed that the salvation of the living and the dead should be given in these valleys of the mountains. And Almighty God decreed that the Devil should not thwart it. If you can understand that, that is a key to it. (From a discourse at the sixth session of the dedication of the Salt Lake Temple, April 1893. Typescript of Dedicatory Services, Archives, Church Historical Department, Salt Lake City, Utah.) So much for an 'Everlasting Covenant' that thundered out of Heaven!!!
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He's serious. He thinks math is superior to science in describing the physical world. It's a more pretentious version of the *why can't evolution be reduced to a formula* argument.
Spare no expense!
Get a bigger 'fridge!!! ;^)
Got 'em?
Now, put them all together with commas between and little brackety things on the end.
We call this a vector.
Nice little objects. Think of it as a toolbox where you can carry around the numbers all in one neat little package.
Just because a vector doesn't have a linear order, doesn't mean it isn't quantitative.
We've had vectors for a couple-a-hundred years. We do neat stuff with them, even when the coordinates can't be compared, like the vectors in physics.
This coming from a *man* who would crap on the floor rather than learn something about plumbing.
I suppose mechanical engineering is beneath his dignity as a savant.
The more abstract the concept, the more you are able to understand.
But now that MJ has moved to Bahrain... (Has he taken Bubbles with him??)
Do you have any evidence upon which to base this assertion, or do we need to take it on faith?
When you reach level nine you will be able to vaporize your own excrement without the need for plumbing. Until then it still stinks.
Too many (far too many) simply wallow around arguing terms.(maybe it's a defense against actually having to think for themselves).
I did a good job explaining to the audience that I had (and I kept them interested in learning more. Does any of this "Evolutionist Masturbation" that I continue to see on so many threads keep ANYONE interested from outside the subject??)
Probably not....
Really..gotta go. Southern Utah can be brutal in the summer...especially on some of the excavations.
redrock
My wife says I'm mostly methane!
Narby is also right that it is difficult to measure continental drift directly, but it can be done indirectly taking many variables into account.
It's very simple. Plumbing is fine. So is mechanical engineering. But it's narrow. Step back, there's a bigger picture and it encompasses much more than a single, narrow application.
The garbage man is essential to my existence. The mailman, the plumber, etc. But it also isn't very deep stuff. Neither is racquetball. I play that, but I don't pretend it's intellectually taxing.
Yes, I know what a vector is. I write software with mathematical vectors at work every day.
But to go down to a level to describe either evolution or continental drift using pure math requires quantifying down to the atomic level.
When you aquire enough data to make that work in any field of science outside of math, let me know.
Math is a great tool. But it's just one tool out of many.
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