Darwinism Critic Applauds California School District's New Science Policy

Agape Press ^ | March 31, 2006 | Jim Brown

[balch3]

AgapePress) - A southern California school district has voted to allow teachers to present scientific criticisms of evolution in biology class. Under a new policy adopted by the Lancaster School District, "discussions that question the theory of evolution may be appropriate as long as they do not stray from current criteria of scientific fact, hypothesis, and theory."

The school district officials' vote came after a citizens group called Integrity in Academics organized support for the policy change. Attorney Larry Caldwell, president of the group Quality Science Education for All, also backed the new guidelines. Such policies are not frequently found in public schools, Caldwell notes. "This is significant because, in too many school districts around the country, we find that any criticism of Darwinism is suppressed," he says.

Education activists have been advocating revisions in the Lancaster, California, school district with respect to the teaching of evolution for some time now. Besides the changes in the school's science education policy, the district is also looking to adopt new science textbooks: the current texts do not even mention the so-called Cambrian explosion -- a period in the fossil record marked by a geologically sudden appearance of complex multi-cellular macroscopic organisms.

This omission, despite the fact that California's science framework specifically says that the Cambrian explosion should be presented in seventh-grade science, is significant to those who claim much of the evidence and many of the weaknesses of Darwin's evolutionary theory are not adequately addressed in public school science classrooms.

Caldwell is pleased with the Lancaster schools' new guidelines allowing for the scientific questioning of Darwin's theory and the discussion of its flaws in science classrooms. He says getting a school system to adopt a science policy like the one this district has now embraced can be a difficult and daunting task.

"One of the things I was so impressed with in this district," the quality education advocate notes, "is that the assistant superintendent in charge of curriculum, Dr. Howard Sundberg, was the one who actually crafted the policy that was passed. Before he went to the board for the vote, he was able to get the science teachers in the district on board with the policy as well. And that, in my experience, is very rare."

Caldwell, who tried unsuccessfully to get a similar policy passed in Roseville, California, is urging other school systems to follow Lancaster's lead. The Lancaster School District will be adopting new biology textbooks next year.

[balch3]

Academic Freedom marches on. Darwinists are 'deeply saddened.'

[Coyoteman]

Is this The Wedge Strategy at work?

[Ping me when the Discovery Institute actually discovers something]

[demitall]

I count myself an evolutionist (or at least a pro-science person), and am not only NOT deeply saddened but happy.

Questioning existing theories and attempting to falsify them IS solid science. It's only when talking about presenting material that is NOT science in a science class that I have a problem. If you were to say present the gospel of the flying spaghetti monster in a biology class that would be bad, or if you presented Apache (native american) creation as science.

As to the book issue, I DO consider that bad in that there is PHYSICAL evidence that is being skipped over (regardless if it's good or bad for evolution is immaterial.)

Other than that, this is a good thing, questioning science is how it advances.

[wallcrawlr]

^{Revelation 4:11}Intelligent Design
Constantly searching for objectivity in the evolution debate...
See my profile for info

[Names Ash Housewares]

flying spaghetti monster!

In his holy name, Ramen!

Scientific challenge of theorys clearly belongs in science class. An I with you see this as what is expected and makes me neither deeply saddened nor should I be happy. It is simply the process. Religious views belong in philosophy class. I have no problem with that, it belongs there. If someone trusts in a particular religious view, they can attend the church of their choice as we are free to do in this nation.

All the evidence I have observed in my time indicates an evolutionary process has taken place. and more and more evidence is discovered every year supporting this.
Did it happen exactly the way science thinks right now?
probably not. But just as a puzzle becomes more clear as you put more of the pieces in, the picture becomes more clear. If people choose to see supernatural influence in that picture. That is their freedom to do so.
"Choose" being the operative word there.
Creation?

Which one?

There are hundreds. All claiming to be the "truth".
I like facts better. Everyone has their own "truth" these days.

but for some its "turtles all the way down".............



"A well known scientist has just finished a public lecture on cosmology, describing how the Earth orbits the Sun, the Moon orbits the Earth, and even the sun itself orbits around the galactic center along with billions of other stars which constitute our galaxy. At the end of the lecture an old woman in the back stands up and says, "What you've told us is rubbish! I happen to know the world is a flat plate resting on the back of four gigantic elephants!"

"And what do the elephants stand on?" says the scientist, thinking to foil her.

She crows back, "Why, on the back of an even larger turtle, of course!"

"And what does the turtle stand on?" he continues, sure he has her now.

"On the back of another turtle!"

"And what does that turtle stand on?" asks the scientist, now growing exasperated.

"It's no use, young man," the old woman replies brightly, "it's turtles all the way down!"

[taxesareforever]

Hope so.

[Lunatic Fringe]

This has ALWAYS been the accepted process of scientific theory. A scientist that doesn't question theories is a zealot. Even the so-called "Law" of gravity is constantly challenged.

[Nextrush]

Freedom is the "F" word for too many people.

[jennyp]

As to the book issue, I DO consider that bad in that there is PHYSICAL evidence that is being skipped over (regardless if it's good or bad for evolution is immaterial.)

You mean like the physical evidence that the "sudden" Cambrian "explosion" took place over millions of years? Or that many of the Cambrian organisms had precursors in the Precambrian? Or that many phyla didn't appear until way after the Cambrian?

Yes, I hope the books cover facts like these too. :-)

[Hacksaw]

Yes, I hope the books cover facts like these too. :-)

Posting a link of Darwinist talking points (full of words like "some" - real solid evidence there) does not an argument make. :-)

[D-fendr]

In general, isn't a model of species an upside down tree shape? I've never understood that in evolutionary theory. Do you know a brief explanation?

thanks..

[WKB]

Is this The Wedge Strategy at work?



No this is the "wedgie" strategy at work...

[Ichneumon]

Posting a link of Darwinist talking points (full of words like "some" - real solid evidence there) does not an argument make. :-)

I guess you completely overlooked the 23 references containing the evidence... And there's nothing wrong with the passages which correctly employ the word "some". Twit.

[Ichneumon]

In general, isn't a model of species an upside down tree shape? I've never understood that in evolutionary theory. Do you know a brief explanation?

I think you're going to have to explain this question in more detail before jennyp or anyone else can answer it for you. What do you mean by "a model of a species", and what is an "upside down tree shape"?

I've answered a lot of questions about evolution and written a lot of articles about it, and I can't figure out what you're trying to ask here.

[MonroeDNA]

Religeous nutjobs are deeply gladdened.

[King Prout]

Academic Freedom marches on. Darwinists are 'deeply saddened.'

your response suggests either that you missed the part wherin such critical inquiry must meet "current criteria of scientific fact, hypothesis, and theory" or that you hold some secret information indicating that such limitations shall not be enforced.

In no other way would "darwminists" be construed to be made unhappy by this ruling.

[WKB]

Do you know a brief explanation?




Are you kidding???

A brief explanation might make sense and be understandable.
They have to ramble on and on and on and on filled
scientific words like maybe, might,could have ,possibly,etc,etc,etc. Never making a coherent statement
to prove how brilliant they and there theories are.
example

The distinctions between theism and polytheism would have been less powerfully made, and less clear an object lesson to the original hearers of Genesis, if they had been introduced along with an entirely new cosmology.

It is precisely because the cosmology is otherwise the same as that of surrounding, polytheistic, cultures that the central point -- animals, celestial objects, etc, are mere objects devoid of inherent divinity, and only their (singular and transcendent) Creator is worthy of worship -- is made stark and obvious by comparison.

Well, stark and obvious to the original hearers anyway. Modern antievolutionary creationists seem to entirely miss the point, focusing obsessively on the details of the cosmology rather than on the central teaching to which the cosmological details are only incidental. In this miss-focus, Hyers argues, creationists actually compromise scripture through the demeaning (and pointless) task of trying to make it fit with modern, secular science.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1605656/posts

DNA "could" modify itself with no outside help, say biologists
"may" also actively modify themselves
"some" single strands of DNA are "capable" of
it raises the possibility
has the potential to
We can only speculate
"If" we have indeed found one way that DNA can change itself spontaneously,

[WKB]

Religeous nutjobs are deeply gladdened.



And evo nut jobs are still blind people walking
around in the dark with no dog or cane.

[King Prout]

WKB,

all scientific theories, without exception, are provisional. it is a form of philosophical conservatism which is deeply rooted in the scientific method.

you don't like this.
ok.
we get it.

now, don't let us catch you complaining out the other side of your head that science pontificates of having absolute certainty in its theories.