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Nevada proposal raises evolution questions [constitutional amendment!]
Fort Worth Star-Telegram ^ | 28 February 2006 | BRENDAN RILEY

Posted on 02/28/2006 7:05:48 PM PST by PatrickHenry

A proposed constitutional amendment would require Nevada teachers to instruct students that there are many questions about evolution - a method viewed by critics as an opening to teach intelligent design.

Las Vegas masonry contractor Steve Brown filed his initiative petition with the secretary of state's office, and must collect 83,184 signatures by June 20 to get the plan on the November ballot. To amend the Nevada Constitution, he'd have to win voter approval this year and again in the 2008 elections.

Brown said Tuesday that he hopes that volunteers will help him collect the signatures, but at this point has no name-gathering organization set up. A Democrat and member of a nondenominational church, he said he hoped for broad support from people who share his views.

"I just want them to start telling the truth about evolution," Brown said. "Evolution has occurred, but parts of it are flat-out unproven theories. They're not telling students that in school."

Brown, who has three school-age children, said he's been interested in evolution for years. He added that if people take time to read his proposal "how can this not pass?"

The petition says students must be informed before the end of the 10th grade that "although most scientists agree that Darwin's theory of evolution is well supported, a small minority of scientists do not agree."

The plan says several "areas of disagreement" would have to be covered by teachers, including the view by some scientists that "it is mathematically impossible for the first cell to have evolved by itself."

Students also would have to be told some scientists argue "that nowhere in the fossil record is there an indisputable skeleton of a transitional species, or a 'missing link,'" the proposal says.

Also, the proposal says students "must be informed that the origin of sex, or sex drive, is one of biology's mysteries" and that some scientists contend that sexual reproduction "would require an unbelievable series of chance events that would have had to occur in the evolutionary theory."

Brown commented on his plan following a decision Monday by the Utah House to scuttle a bill that would have required public school students to be told that evolution isn't empirically proven.

Last month, the Ohio Board of Education deleted a science standard and lesson plan encouraging students to seek evidence for and against evolution - another setback for intelligent design advocates who maintain that life is so complex it must have been created by a higher authority.

In December, a federal judge barred the school system in Dover, Pa., from teaching intelligent design alongside evolution in high school biology classes. The judge said that intelligent design is religion masquerading as science.

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.

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.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: biofraud; crevolist
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To: Mamzelle
You're going to have to sell your definitions every time you use them.

Why is this the case? Moreover, I still do not understand your continued disputing of the definitions of terms used by scientists. Even if you do not accept their definitions, the fact remains that the scientists who use the terms do accept the definitions, and it is the implications of these definitions in their statements where such terms are used. Do you hope to somehow retroactively change the implications of their statements by claiming that terms that they use have different meanings?
61 posted on 03/01/2006 2:32:26 PM PST by Dimensio (http://angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif <-- required reading before you use your next apostrophe!)
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To: Coyoteman
re: My initial list was modified by suggestions made by many posters)))

Uh, huh. An evo tea party -- I'm sure a lot of "free inquiry" was going on. And lots of differing POVs were entertained by the Grand Master.

62 posted on 03/01/2006 2:47:41 PM PST by Mamzelle
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To: Mamzelle
re: My initial list was modified by suggestions made by many posters)))

Uh, huh. An evo tea party -- I'm sure a lot of "free inquiry" was going on. And lots of differing POVs were entertained by the Grand Master.

Have you actually read the thread?

I just checked it, and note that you have not availed yourself of the opportunity to contribute.

63 posted on 03/01/2006 2:51:42 PM PST by Coyoteman (I love the sound of beta decay in the morning!)
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To: Coyoteman

Yep--read it. Have no interest in your bogus display of "opportunity"--


64 posted on 03/01/2006 2:54:40 PM PST by Mamzelle
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To: shuckmaster
The question is are there 83,184 all ready in Nevada stupid enough to go along with him.

How many Nevadans patronize the casinos?

65 posted on 03/01/2006 6:39:21 PM PST by Gumlegs
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To: Mamzelle; Dimensio
You're going to have to sell your definitions every time you use them.

Wow.

That's a stunning admission.

I used to think that "Words Mean Things" was a bedrock of conservatism.

The number of people on these threads who advocate re-defining words to advance a political agenda would be depressing if it wasn't so outrageous.

66 posted on 03/01/2006 8:12:03 PM PST by highball (Proud to announce the birth of little Highball, Junior - Feb. 7, 2006!)
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To: PatrickHenry
I'm delighted that this idiot is a democrat. Let's give that party some of the joy.

Let me first state that my understanding of what is entailed by your Democratic Party is incomplete, but from that perspective (which assumes your Democrats are generally analogous to our Labour Party), it is the Democrats whom I would expect to more strongly favour the ID 'teach the controversy' line, as a form of ideological interference with science (science as a high order form of rational empiricism, which provides the ultimate refuations of leftist irrational ideology). Here (Britain) it is the Labour Party which ceaselessly toils to push relativism into the educational curricula, most apparently in disciplines such as History but more recently into other areas. ID is clearly a distinctly minority view, which appears to have presented nothing with which scientists can engage; the notion of demanding equal time, as it were, for it at introductory level in your secondary schools seems to me precisely the same political agenda as that pursued by those who have expunged British imperial history (warts and all) from our school curricula in favour of 'culture studies.'

It may be of interest to note that over here, the drive for ID, though small, chiefly originates from parts of the Muslim population, and our current socialist government is seeking to facilitate an expansion of Islamic schools which can teach Darwin-free biology.

You clearly do have a culture war roaring away over there. We have a smaller one over here; the players are slightly different, but the battle lines are looking similar.

67 posted on 03/02/2006 4:28:24 AM PST by ToryHeartland
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To: highball
Words mean things--exactly. A bully is a bully, even if he's a rhetorical bully. And the first thing a bully tries to do is set the terms--unless you want to capitulate right out of the gate, and I have no intention of doing so, you set to negotiations. Sign on their dotted line, if you like.

Among the boilerplate fine print, you will generally find that the bully has defined terms to suit himself.

68 posted on 03/02/2006 5:05:39 AM PST by Mamzelle
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To: Mamzelle

So you think, what, the entire scientific industry is a bully?

The meanings of these words have been established through long use. You wish to change them to suit your political agenda.


69 posted on 03/02/2006 5:41:57 AM PST by highball (Proud to announce the birth of little Highball, Junior - Feb. 7, 2006!)
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To: highball
re: he entire scientific industry is a bully

The evos on Fr are would-be bullies, and obsessives. Some of them have an anti-GOP agenda.

What they are not is the scientific industry. Science has very little need for pathological evofreaks--evolution at its most useful is just a framework for classification.

70 posted on 03/02/2006 5:57:51 AM PST by Mamzelle
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To: highball
Good grief, your homepage is nothing but that list of definitions. Ugh. Another FR evo-kook. Or maybe one of the same old kooks with a bright new name.

Well, when you arrive to try to browbeat some freeper with your evo-spam, it won't go unchallenged. Goodbye for now.

71 posted on 03/02/2006 6:03:16 AM PST by Mamzelle
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To: Coyoteman
What an idiot. No theory s proved in science.

Right, that's why Evolution (non-science) attempts to hide behind science - to avoid proofs.. Nice begoff. And you wonder why evolution has lost the debate among Americans and continues to lose ground. This detergent works - trust us. If truth in advertising were applied to evolution, you'd all be in jail.

72 posted on 03/02/2006 6:06:58 AM PST by Havoc (Evolutionists and Democrats: "We aren't getting our message out" (coincidence?))
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To: Mamzelle
The evos on Fr are would-be bullies, and obsessives. Some of them have an anti-GOP agenda.

Cards on the table. Who here has an "anti-GOP agenda"? No vague anonymous smears now, - if you have something to say, say it. If you have a specific charge against a specific poster, let's get it out there.

This isn't a place where we hide. This is a place for open debate and discussion. Veiled and unspecified charges are not helpful.

Besides, I'm against anyone with an anti-GOP agenda. If you can show us such a person, I'll join you in your fight against him.

What they are not is the scientific industry. Science has very little need for pathological evofreaks--evolution at its most useful is just a framework for classification.

How refreshing. More namecalling. And more wild assertions.

If you would like to claim that the debate over the meaning of words is not settled in the scientific community, it is your burden to demonstrate that.

I look forward to the evidence supporting your numerous claims.

73 posted on 03/02/2006 6:10:34 AM PST by highball (Proud to announce the birth of little Highball, Junior - Feb. 7, 2006!)
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To: highball

Gosh, you sound familiar. Either evos have all gone to the same writing classes, or there's not as many of them as there seems.


74 posted on 03/02/2006 6:13:13 AM PST by Mamzelle
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To: ToryHeartland
... from that perspective (which assumes your Democrats are generally analogous to our Labour Party), it is the Democrats whom I would expect to more strongly favour the ID 'teach the controversy' line, as a form of ideological interference with science (science as a high order form of rational empiricism, which provides the ultimate refuations of leftist irrational ideology).

I agree. When the evidence and clear reasoning are both against one's position, then all that remains is a campaign of obfuscation, deconstruction, "critical analysis," and the whole arsenal of post-modernism. That's all that ID has, and for most of their followers that connection hasn't been realized. Here I speak of those who regard themselves as conservatives (and who therefore vote Republican, probably for the first time, as their ancestors were the "Solid South" which voted democrat since the "compromise of 1877").

Background quickies:
Compromise of 1877.
Solid South.

75 posted on 03/02/2006 6:40:30 AM PST by PatrickHenry (Virtual Ignore for trolls, lunatics, dotards, scolds, & incurable ignoramuses.)
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To: Mamzelle
Gosh, you sound familiar. Either evos have all gone to the same writing classes, or there's not as many of them as there seems.

Once again, the creationists respond not with a substantive argument, but with insults.

Good for the lurkers to see.

76 posted on 03/02/2006 10:42:40 AM PST by highball (Proud to announce the birth of little Highball, Junior - Feb. 7, 2006!)
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To: highball
A sensible freeper, and most of them avoid evo threads like the plague, will figure out quickly that an evo never argues in good faith.
77 posted on 03/02/2006 10:50:00 AM PST by Mamzelle
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To: Mamzelle
A sensible freeper, and most of them avoid evo threads like the plague, will figure out quickly that an evo never argues in good faith.

More insults, this time with a good stiff dose of paranoia.

Been able to find any evidence to support your many claims yet, Mamzelle? Or is asking you to back up your assertions not "arguing in good faith"?

78 posted on 03/02/2006 11:02:39 AM PST by highball (Proud to announce the birth of little Highball, Junior - Feb. 7, 2006!)
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To: ToryHeartland; PatrickHenry
[Republican vs. Dhimocrat support for ID]

At the time of the Scopes trial, the Dhims were the ones supporting creationism, and the GOP was on the side of the pointy-headed Yankee professors.

If it weren't for the fact that ID gets all of its support from religious literalists (either Biblical or Koranic), I too would expect the Dhims to support "teaching the "controversy".

They are the ones pushing all sorts of relativism, Ebonics, Afrocentric history, affirmative action in general, and also watered-down curricula and low standards for teachers.

ID is all about affirmative action, but the people pushing it aren't one of the Dhims' mascot groups.

It may be of interest to note that over here, the drive for ID, though small, chiefly originates from parts of the Muslim population, and our current socialist government is seeking to facilitate an expansion of Islamic schools which can teach Darwin-free biology.

The IDers in Kansas had a Muslim testify. See Islam OnLine (North American Affairs) for a non-Christian perspective on Kansas.

Excerpt:

The theory of Evolution has important ramifications in the lives of lay believers as well as the believing intellectuals. To teach young students in the school about it merely as one of the theories would be one thing, but to teach it as a scientifically proven fact, as it is generally done, would be utterly preposterous.

[snip]

The theory of evolution cuts the vertical relationship between man and God and possibility of creation. It horizontalizes the process of creation in terms of linearity of time, which cannot be adequately verified.

It tries to base its validity on Paleontology, which in fact is this theory's worst enemy as it does not lend reliable data for the inter-species hiatus.

Scientific proofs besides, there are important social and ethical ramifications of this theory. If biological progress is slowly incremental overtime and the humans gradually evolve towards their perfect state, then it is logical to assume that their moment of ultimate perfection resides in the future.

[snip]

And if the futuristic improved version of us humans will be free of the present human defects such as lying, cheating, greed and violence, then shouldn't we logically accept lower moral standards because we are not so smart after all? at least not yet!

This would also mean that Moses, Christ and Mohammad (Peace Be Upon Them) were not quite as perfect as some of us are already or will be at some point in the future.

Thus, the world-view they propagated must also be a faulty and outmoded one...

79 posted on 03/02/2006 2:03:34 PM PST by Virginia-American
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To: Mamzelle
...Some of them have an anti-GOP agenda. ...

Please give some specific (eg links to posts) examples of this.

BTW, to claim that ID is a losing proposition politically, then to say "I told you so" after the election in Dover, is not an anti-Gop agenda. Quite the opposite in fact.

80 posted on 03/02/2006 2:11:42 PM PST by Virginia-American
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