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State Legislators Seek Bills to Allow Questioning of Evolution Theory in Schools
Fox News ^ | Thursday, May 01, 2008 | Julienne Gage

Posted on 05/01/2008 11:35:33 AM PDT by Sopater

MIAMI, Fla. — The debate over evolution is evolving. Although federal courts have banned teaching "creation theory" or "intelligent design theory" in public schools, legislators in several states are seeking new ways to allow teachers to cast doubt on the theory of evolution.

The Florida House of Representatives passed a bill this week that will require schools to teach "critical analysis" of evolution.

On Tuesday Michigan introduced a similar "academic freedom" bill. Louisiana, Alabama and Missouri also have legislation under debate, although no state has adopted a law yet.

Opponents say these bills that allow the questioning of evolution are a smokescreen for teaching creationism or intelligent design.

Creation theory is the religious belief that God created all life. Intelligent design is the theory that some features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an "intelligent cause." While advocates contend intelligent design is a scientific theory, a federal judge in 2005 ruled that the theory is religious in nature and it is unconstitutional to teach it in public schools.

In Florida, Rep. Alan Hays, R-Umatilla, who sponsored the House bill, insists it would "not permit, nor authorize, nor allow the teaching of creationism or intelligent design" or any other religious theory.

(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government
KEYWORDS: creationism; evolution; intelligentdesign
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To: Mr. Quarterpanel

You simply can’t deny that evolution is what atheists use to “prove” there is no creator.

Watch your logic. Your statement that SOME evos are religious in no way negates my assertion.

Here’s an analysis:
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/DineshDSouza/2008/04/14/atheism_masquerading_as_science


21 posted on 05/01/2008 12:12:44 PM PDT by MrB (You can't reason people out of a position that they didn't use reason to get into in the first place)
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To: L98Fiero
Given that logic, there is no sound arguement against teaching every religion, cult, booster club or wild-eyed man on the street’s idea of how we came to be.

Exactly. That is precisely why teaching humans have evolved from anything else that is not human does not belong in the science room.
22 posted on 05/01/2008 12:13:07 PM PDT by Sopater (A wise man's heart inclines him to the right, but a fool's heart to the left. ~ Ecclesiastes 10:2)
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To: Mr. Quarterpanel

Had to address another aspect of your post separately.

Belief in God does not advance science?

Quite a laugher considering that the basis of modern science is the belief that God created a universe that was consistent and empirically discoverable, instead of the belief that no one can “know the mind of God” in other religions, or the complete randomness of the belief in no designed laws of creation.


23 posted on 05/01/2008 12:15:55 PM PDT by MrB (You can't reason people out of a position that they didn't use reason to get into in the first place)
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To: Mr. Quarterpanel

There’s a great difference between not allowing the generic “God did it” as an answer and insisting that the answer must be “God definitely had nothing to do with it.”


24 posted on 05/01/2008 12:16:46 PM PDT by shineon
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To: Mr. Quarterpanel
I do have a problem with students being offered an a' la carte science curriculum.

Accepted scientific theories should be taught, otherwise the students can become confused as to what is scientific theory.


Agreed, but that's not waht the article is talking about. The proposed legislation allows for scientific critique of the ToE which is necessary to promote scientific advancements in biological studies.

ID has nothing to bring to the party but trying to poke holes in Evo, and that is not how science is done. Any theory has to stand on its merits. ID has none. ID is trying to discredit Evo, and win by default.

There really is nothing wrong with trying to poke holes in any theory including Evo. What is wrong is to use the motives for doing so as an excuse to discredit the person who brings a valid criticism to the table.
25 posted on 05/01/2008 12:18:28 PM PDT by Sopater (A wise man's heart inclines him to the right, but a fool's heart to the left. ~ Ecclesiastes 10:2)
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To: Sopater
I'm sure those who are anti-science and pro-evolution will have plenty to say about this...

I'm pro-science, period. I'm only for evolution insofar as it happens to be the current best scientific , let me say that again, scientific theory. It should be questioned, and it should be attacked, as is the nature of science. If it is wrong, another scientific theory should replace it and relegate it to science history along with Phlogiston Theory.

But come on. We all know this is a cover for introducing religious beliefs (Inteligent Design) under the guise of science. Somewhere lurking in the shadows of this is the Discovery Institute. The last time something like this happened we found out after the fact, after all the denials of religious intent, that the Dover board had a religious intent from the beginning.

26 posted on 05/01/2008 12:18:40 PM PDT by antiRepublicrat
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To: Coyoteman
Ummm - Why does any government agency think they have the jurisdiction to decide what is taught? - Oh yea the schools are theirs, supported by mandatory taxation. Get rid of the government schools and let parents decide what goes into their child's curriculum. As an added benefit abolish property taxes and the NEA.

This is only an issue because the socialist schools are is the business of creating socialists. To that end an anthropology that exists absent a metaphysic is conducive to those ends. If the students learned a Christian world view they might be harder to control. The divine right of kings or in this case the social engineers is at stake. Take away God and His law and you are left with the collapse of ethics and the state can become god!

27 posted on 05/01/2008 12:19:28 PM PDT by DaveyB (Ignorance is part of the human condition - atheism makes it permanent!)
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To: TeleStraightShooter
How do you include faith into the scientific method?

You cannot. How do you include Evolution into the scientific method?
28 posted on 05/01/2008 12:20:13 PM PDT by Sopater (A wise man's heart inclines him to the right, but a fool's heart to the left. ~ Ecclesiastes 10:2)
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To: shineon

It should also be mandatory to note in every classroom that teaches Darwinism, that the book “The Descent of Man” contains racist accusations presented as scientific fact.


29 posted on 05/01/2008 12:20:24 PM PDT by shineon
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To: antiRepublicrat
We all know this is a cover for introducing religious beliefs (Inteligent Design) under the guise of science.

If the ToE can stand up to critical analysis, then folks like you really have nothing to worry about. Your faith can remain in tact.
30 posted on 05/01/2008 12:26:25 PM PDT by Sopater (A wise man's heart inclines him to the right, but a fool's heart to the left. ~ Ecclesiastes 10:2)
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To: Sopater

This bill will fail. They will not be allowed to speak the Unspeakable.


31 posted on 05/01/2008 12:29:07 PM PDT by Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus (Here they come boys! As thick as grass, and as black as thunder!)
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To: Sopater

“That is precisely why teaching humans have evolved from anything else that is not human does not belong in the science room.”

Depends on what your definition of “human” is. If you are talking about the old strawman canard that “man evolved from apes”, I have never heard a serious discussion on evoloution wher anyone said such. I HAVE heard many creationists atribute that to evolutionary theory, but not students of evolution themselves.

I am open to any debate on evolution. I am not open to to the idea that God snapped his fingers and made Adam then took one of his ribs and made Eve. I am not open to the idea that man has always existed in his current form. I am not open to the idea that the entire world flooded and a man put every animal on earth on a boat. Why not? Because science disproves both of those notions and many more that creationists hold onto. Science should not be needed to disprove those fables. Common sense should do.


32 posted on 05/01/2008 12:32:18 PM PDT by L98Fiero (A fool who'll waste his life, God rest his guts.)
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To: Aquinasfan
It’s time to “teach the controversy,” as the ID people say.

"But there is no controversy," the scientists will say.

33 posted on 05/01/2008 12:34:41 PM PDT by Non-Sequitur
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To: Sopater
...How do you include Evolution/faith into the scientific method?

The scientific method is itself based on faith. The induction can only be valid if the universe is orderly and that the past is a valid predictor of the future. Francis Bacon, the father of the scientific method, believed that induction was dependable because God was dependable and orderly - that He revealed His character in creation and providence so that created world was also orderly and dependable.

Induction and the scientific method are not the only valid system of epistemology. For instance prove the validity of the scientific method with out using the scientific method to avoid circular reasoning. Science can not address paternal love or abstract thought of the mind nor beauty. The explanations are insufficient to address metaphysics.

34 posted on 05/01/2008 12:37:05 PM PDT by DaveyB (Ignorance is part of the human condition - atheism makes it permanent!)
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To: Sopater
We all know this is a cover for introducing religious beliefs (Inteligent Design) under the guise of science.

If the ToE can stand up to critical analysis, then folks like you really have nothing to worry about.

"Critical analysis" is a code word for religiously-based, non-scientific attacks on the theory of evolution.

If these "analyses" were science they would be found in science journals, and subject to peer-review.

But we see them coming instead from the Dyscovery Institute and creationist websites. And when examined closely they fall apart as science. But through the creationists' affirmative action program we are going to have to have religious belief taught as science in science classes. (Until the trial.)

By the way, I am still waiting for someone to post a curriculum for this "critical analysis" so that we can see just how scientific it is. (Someone responded to this request on another thread, but half of their curriculum was religion. Made my point.)

35 posted on 05/01/2008 12:44:42 PM PDT by Coyoteman (Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.)
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To: Coyoteman
I had to throw this one into the conversation...
Couldn't help myself

1 Timothy 6:20 (King James Version)

King James Version (KJV)

Public Domain

 20O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called:


36 posted on 05/01/2008 12:53:56 PM PDT by shineon
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To: Sopater
In Florida, Rep. Alan Hays, R-Umatilla, who sponsored the House bill, insists it would "not permit, nor authorize, nor allow the teaching of creationism or intelligent design" or any other religious theory.

Then what's left but The Flying Spaghetti Monster?

37 posted on 05/01/2008 12:56:49 PM PDT by Non-Sequitur
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To: Mr. Quarterpanel
Many Evo's are religious, because they do not find a conflict. However, using "God did it" does not advance science, discovery or thought. It stifles it.

This assumes one of the biggest hoaxes that the evos perpetrate - that evolution is "science".

I'm not referring here to the allegations that evolution is pseudo-science, or that it doesn't meet the actual criteria for empirical science (though these are true). Rather, I am challenging the basic assumption that "evolution" is necessary for us to "have science". As if without evolution, we'd all still be freezing in caves in the Stone Age because nobody "advanced science" or "made discoveries" or used "critical thought". I suggest that none of these things are dependent on evolution in the least (which ought to be tautological to any reasonably competent thinker). We'd still have airplanes, computers, electricity, a space program, pharmaceuticals, polymers, the internal combustion engine, nuclear power, television, metallurgy, and pretty much everything else we have, even if nobody held to the basic assumptions of evolutionism. We'd still have genetics and bioengineering and vaccines and so forth, even if scientists merely stuck to what could be empirically verified, and dropped all the "millions and billions of years" nonsense that relies on ascription to a circularly-reasoned philosophy, rather than actual empirical evidence.

Evolution and science are not synonymous, and it is intellectually dishonest for evos to act as if they were.

38 posted on 05/01/2008 1:07:29 PM PDT by Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus (Here they come boys! As thick as grass, and as black as thunder!)
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To: shineon

So 1 Timothy 6:20 will be part of the new “critical analysis of evolution” curriculum?


39 posted on 05/01/2008 1:08:23 PM PDT by atlaw
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To: Sopater

Maybe if the Florida House of Representatives and those in other states would worry more about things that REALLY matter like getting illegals off the welfare rolls, the ridiculous costs of sending kids to college, the rising prices in the supermarkets which go hand-in-hand with the spiraling costs of gas used to transport those items, the high school drop-out rate, the inability of our kids to grasp math and verbal skills and the blaring loss of morality on the part of people in high places, instead of concerning themselves with concepts they hardly understand and then question solely to promote their own political agendas perhaps they would actually solve some of their constituents’ problems.


40 posted on 05/01/2008 1:16:58 PM PDT by stanz (Those who don't believe in evolution should go jump off the flat edge of the Earth.)
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