Posted on 08/18/2008 9:35:10 AM PDT by GodGunsGuts
With five seats on the State Board of Education up for grabs this year, education advocates say how children learn about evolution hangs in the balance -- and who voters choose could affect Kansas' national reputation.
A frequent flip-flop between moderate and conservative majorities on the 10-member board has resulted in the state changing its science standards four times in the past eight years.
Conservatives have pushed for standards casting doubt on evolution, and moderates have said intelligent design does not belong in the science classroom.
In 2007, a new 6-4 moderate majority removed standards that called evolution into question.
This year, none of the three moderates whose seats are up for election are running again. Only one of the two conservative incumbents is running for re-election...
(Excerpt) Read more at kansas.com ...
Again, if something is true, it is true in both religion and science classes. If life came about not because of random chance, but because a Creator willed it to be, then that is historically true.
Life from non-life has not been shown to occur because of random chance, so perhaps that theory should not be taught either — is that what you favor? Perhaps neither creationism nor evolution should be taught in government-funded schools?
What subject area is string theory usually addressed in when it’s discussed?
Who proposed it in the first place?
I certainly wouldn't approve of abiogenesis conjectures being taught as fact. Can you site a high school textbook where abiogenesis is treated as anything other than a conjecture.
I'd appreciate a textbook title, author, year of publication and page number, if you please.
There are numerous versions of string theory, all conjectures. as to their proponents, you can goole as well as I can. But you could start right here on FR. They were a hot topic as recently as yesterday.
Better to be a laughingstock and be right, then be taken seriously by a bunch of fools.
ThomasMore has won more than they’ve lost...and yes...the ACLU (anti-Christian litigation unit) no longer has free reign.
All the more reason for people to consider voting for McCain and not the godless liberal ObamaNation who will appoint judges that will DEMAND not only your position, but also having Christmas removed from school calendars (as the Georgia ACLU had done secretively here in Newton county) to godless atheists like Micahel Newdow DEMANDING no child NO child say Under God in the pledge...or DEMAND L.A. and Los Cruces remove crosses from their town logos...I could go on.
So, it’s not about competence, it’s about Christians tired of being run over by the godless liberals and their stooge acitivist judges.
I don't think God would like us to cling to our sense of importance, whether it's pride in self, pride in one's church, pride in one's central place in the order of things . . . anything that makes us feel more important.
I haven’t had a need to look...even alot of liberals around here don’t beleive it’s all...
just...
so.
There. Fixed.
The dissent we are getting on these threads is anything but scientific; it is pure religious apologetics masquerading as science in hopes of fooling some school boards.
And that dissent is anything but objective. It is based on religious belief and revelation, not scientific evidence.
Where in that article is that analysis?
I thought the question posed on this thread was whether ID should be taught in science class. It’s interesting that Louisiana has a new law protecting teachers and school boards who teach scientific alternatives to evolution.
Oddly enough, no one has found any.
Why? Because I don't believe "the right way" on what is really, when you get right down to the nuts and bolts, a philosophical controversy? If I might say, that is a pretty idiotic reason for suspecting that I am a "technician, not a scientist".
Are you claiming you earned a Ph.D. in science?
If so, from what university and in what field?
No, I earned a Masters in chemistry with an emphasis on synthetic organic chemistry, and did my thesis work on the synthesis, preparation, purification, and theory of mesophasic behaviour of bent-core liquid crystalline materials centred about the 1,3,4-oxadiazole core. This degree was earned from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Previous to that, I earned my Bachelors in chemistry from Truman State University, Kirksville MO, and put in three years of research on the alpha effect in N-methylbenzohydroxamates and phenyldimethylsulfonium salts, exploring the single electron transfer characteristics of the wavefunction of proposed SN2 transition states during the expulsion of methyl leaving groups, utilising electrochemical, magnetic resonance, and computational means. Since university, I have been involved in research projects such as the exploration of techniques for primary reference standard characterisation of pharmaceuticals to meet FDA requirements, using 1 and 2-D NMR, as well as a host of more mundane qualitative testing/method development projects in support of analytical work (mostly using NMR, DSC, and TGA); research into the synthesis of an insulin conjugate for orally delivered insulin (using technology I can't describe beyond this due to confidentiality agreement); and currently I am involved in investigating the optimisation of bench- and pilot-scale column chromatographic techniques for the purification of a promising protein candidate (again, confidentiality) for use in a vaccine being developed to protect children against streptococcus pneumoniae.
Hate to burst your bubble, but I am and have been actively involved in actual research, despite being recruited out of graduate school early back when the job market was at its hottest. I don't just sit around and push buttons and turn knobs.
Where is there ever any science in your postings?
Lets go back to your 5 hypotheses that TOE works equally well under any one of those (your words not mine)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2063792/posts?page=46#46
I think you must agree that those are hardly scientific, why do you a PHD scientist even seriously use them?
I don't think the Christian folks on this board are really trying to fool anyone, though. I was pointing out that pride can lead one astray. That is the root of the problem: one of the seven deadly sins. If they would humble themselves and think about the issue totally objectively, they might be enlightened.
It's interesting, now that you mention it. I'm currently reading Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time, which I've been thoroughly enjoying, despite the obvious cosmological assumptions that he is forced to make to be consistent with himself. One thing I do find disconcerting, however, is the number of times he has basically asserted something about black holes, grand unification theory, W+ particles, or what have you, and then stated in the very next sentence that we can't actually investigate the claims he has put forth, and won't be for the foreseeable million years or so.
Are you disconcerted that he would speculate, or disappointed by his honesty?
Possibly to exhaust the possibilities. I suspect somewhere in the files at the Pentagon there are plans for war with Sweden.
I'm disconcerted that he asserts things as factual, immediately prior to admitting that there is no way to actually ascertain the factuality of them. That strikes me as more than speculation, and less than honesty.
If high school science had a better philosophy of science section, and a deeper discussion of the scientific method, maybe much of the debate could be avoided.
I personally got such a simple overview of the scientific method (and no philosophy of science to speak of) that it may as well have been the classic "proof" that all odd numbers are prime. (1 is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, and 7 is prime, so all odd numbers are prime).
This is a word best avoided entirely in physics [and science] except when placed in quotes, or with careful qualification. Its colloquial use has so many shades of meaning from ‘it seems to be correct’ to the absolute truths claimed by religion, that it’s use causes nothing but misunderstanding. Someone once said "Science seeks proximate (approximate) truths." Others speak of provisional or tentative truths. Certainly science claims no final or absolute truths.
Personally, I think this definition is a little reactionary. The scientific endeavor relies on creating intellectual models and testing them against reality. The model is not truth, but it helps our understanding of truth, similar to how a map is not a city, nor is it complete, but it aids our navigation of the city. The more evidence is found that proves the model (that the model was not created to describe in the first place), the more we trust the model.
Religion and philosophy have no models. They only have principles that must be accepted as the basis for further reasoning. These principles affect the interpretation of scientific models and may encourage or discourage the creation of new models. Take the mediocrity principle and its discouragement of the exploration of the possible uniqueness of the earth, humanity, or the universe ("At one time, people said, 'Why even bother to sequence the whole genome? Why not just sequence the [protein-coding part]?'" --Anindya Dutta, geneticist at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville). Or take religious exception of embryonic stem cell research due to a philosophical wedding to human exceptionalism.
The basic definition of evolution (change in the frequency of alleles in a population over time) is never questioned by even the most stalwart young-earth creationist. It is a pretty basic model that can be and has been demonstrated many times. However, common understanding of evolution includes philosophical baggage from the mediocrity principle including "man is no better than animals or bacteria" (universal common descent), "life was an accident, created without purpose" (abiogenesis), and "our universe is not unique" (multiverse theory). All of these have much less evidence than evolution, and all are far more controversial.
Making "evolution" a philosophical equivalent to mediocrity theory does a disservice to science, but atheists commonly use such tactics as a dishonest rhetorical technique to sway the public to an anti-religious viewpoint. Most, if not all, debates on the topic of "evolution" do not even touch on evolution as defined by Douglas J. Futuyma and others, but on the popular broadened definition which amounts to mediocrity theory in scientific dress.
One key thumbprint to look for in these debates is what is arguing against what. Model will not argue against principle, and principle will not argue against model, but principle will argue against principle and model against model. So if someone holds up a model and says it argues against a principle, then interpretation is supplying a principle behind the scenes that must be put forth. Similarly, if a principle claims to be against a model, then there is a model which needs to be tested.
Your source worked at Loma Linda school of medicine. They're famous for the Baby Fae case, in which Leonard L Bailey murdered a little girl by replacing her heart with a baboon heart. Baily said he wasn't concerned about rejection because he didn't believe in evolution.
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