Posted on 11/20/2008 6:38:37 AM PST by mnehring
A new survey finds a majority of science professors at Texas' public and private universities are against a state policy requiring weaknesses in the theory of evolution be covered in public school science classes.
The study by the progressive group Texas Freedom Network surveyed 464 university biologists and anthropologists with the help of a sociology professor at the University of Texas at Arlington.
The Dallas Morning News reports 95% said schools should teach "just evolution" in covering the origins of life on earth. The rest said children should learn both evolution and the creationist theory called "intelligent design."
Survey results were released ahead of tomorrow's state Board of Education public hearing on new science curriculum standards.
A main topic of discussion is expected to be how teachers should treat Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.
New science curriculum standards for Texas public school students will be voted on early next year in what is expected to be a close vote by the state Board of Education.
This doesnt match the headline. The headline says they advocate teaching evolution, the body of the article says they advocate NOT teaching evolution in a critical manner. No theory is perfect and can only be made to be more correct by systematically addressing the weaknesses and refining the theory based on findings. But if you are against teaching weaknesses in the theory, well, that isn't science.
Yeah, I’ve seen it. It just states the obvious. If you aren’t allowed to pursue any avenue of study, then it has to get skewed to the rediculous. When flaws show up in Darwinism, they just think up a brand new fiction to make that fit with what they believe, instead of what they observe. Dawinism has been off the track for 20 years, yet they still cling to their religion of Darwinism and lack of guns and hold antipothy to those that don’t believe like they do.( attempt at humor)
They’re going to start teaching evolution in Texas?
You’d think they’d teach modern theories of evolution instead of going back and reading Darwin.
The "flaws" that creationists keep pushing have been evaluated by science and found to have no merit. That's not surprising, as they are really religious beliefs. As beliefs, they are not subject to dismissal by the evidence, so they keep hanging around, pushed by generation after generation of creationists as if they did have some scientific merit.
As for critical thinking skills, do you really want those applied to your religious beliefs? If so, lets start with the 6,000 year old earth and the purported global flood and see where critical thinking leads, eh?
Critical thinking is a requirement in the sciences. I am a biologist. I have posted before that evolution is the most maligned and misunderstood principal in science.
Evolution is the method of change over time. It was never intended by Darwin to describe the beginning of creation - Darwin himself lamented that it was being used to do that. His treatise “Origin of Species” described the process of divergence of species over time. To this end he chose a population in isolation (Gallapagos Island) to study to prevent his results from being tainted by genetic drift. The theory is sound in the premise that more competitively competent individuals are more likely to reproduce and thrive thus becoming more likely to survive (e.g. survival of the fittest). When those traits are encoded and passed on they further the deviation from the original species. Only when the deviation is so great that there can no longer be interbreeding between individuals of new and old type do you have a new speciation. This happens.
I would also like to refer to John Paul II who once said that evolution and creation are not mutually exclusive since God himself set evolution in place.
Commander Data.
ID or other alternatives to evolution should not be taught in science class unless they can be verified in the same scientific way that evolution was shown to be true. I also don't see the teaching of evolution as something that automatically excludes God (or any other supernatural creator) since nowhere in the theory of evolution is the creation of life itself explained.
Therein lies the b*llsh*t.
A poll of the monkey-men yields 95% uniformity. That’s really a bold scientific finding that all the Lefty journalists can trumpet.
Keep this up and Texas Christians will start a long-overdue boycott of Texas public schools.
That's why I home schooled my daughter. When she attended Angelina college, her biology teacher just gave up and said " I know what you believe, and I don't have good answers for you, but to pass the course, I have to teach you Darwinism." He stated that he had changed his mind over the years, but this is what he was required to teach them. He had grown weary of arguing with students with non workable ideas. He was convinced Darwinism was a load of crap and was already disproved.
When she went on to Stephen F. Austin college, Her teachers were just the opposite. They insisted that if anyone even questioned the theory, they couldn't pass. She asked a few questions and embarrassed her teacher more or less like Ben Stein did in "Expelled." She just asked how non organic became organic and what mechanism can be used to prove it, and he went apoplectic. She pointed out several instances where the teacher lied or just covered up past mistakes and asked which answer he preferred on the tests.
She passed, but the teacher was pretty much cut off at the knees with the class. They just aren't used to students that can think. It is discouraging to be forced to regurgitate silly answers even when the class has already seen the answer is impossible. Learning just become a farce.
Did anyone ask the parents?
Why was she taking a university level biology course if she thought she already knew more than the professor?
“The flaws in evolution have been investigated..”
Cough BS Cough cough...
So every question that could possibly be raised about Evolutionary Theory has been completed investigated and reproducable answers have been proferred to answer them?
And to make the counter that “well do you want 6,000 year old”
Who said that? It is sound reasoning to question everything, to not do so, is to reduce oneself to a mere repeater of slogans...
Ehh.. to me the Roman Catholic Church over reaches at times, what is dogma today can be debunked tomorrow.
But the basic point, that Faith and Evolution can co-exist is solid, the problem lays when one tried to dispense with the other one as “discarded”.
In my view, ID is not science, it is a theory in search of evidence to support it, unless and until it does find that evidence, Evolution should be taught in Science Classrooms, flaws and all.
You would think someone that was as bright as you think you are would know she has to take the courses in her degree plan to get a degree. Even Einstein had to go to college and pass.
So other than the fact that evolution and abiogenesis are not the same subject, something your homeschool education left your child ignorant of, what other areas of biological evolution do you feel knowledgeable enough about to school a college professor?
I stated “The flaws in evolution have been investigated” in the context of the "teach the weaknesses" nonsense that is being bandied about now that ID has been shown, in court, to be religion. I am not sure how you read that as "every question that could possibly be raised" -- probably too much association with creation "science," eh?
If there are new weaknesses in the theory of evolution, you can bet that the creationists will learn about them last, in the newspapers, somewhat after journalists wrote about them in the popular science magazines, and long after the scientists who discovered them wrote them up in the technical journals.
You see, the technical journals is where science is done, not in school boards or creation "science" websites, or even in internet chat rooms.
And the "weaknesses" is just the latest ploy that creationists are using to try and sneak their religion back into science classrooms. These "weaknesses" have no relation to real science, but seem to follow particular fundamentalist religious beliefs quite closely. Hmmmmm.
I can observe the process of creating a microprocessor and show that intelligent design is involved. But should I extrapolate from that observation that anything more complex than a microprocessor requires intelligent design?
Well, if not cynically, said. Let’s not confuse the subject here. Let’s start by defining our terms. Evolution means change over time. Nothing more. It does not pretend to describe origins. It wasn’t intended to do so. It only descibes change that are retained and passed on to future generations of a species.
Stein sought to bring the original source into the argument. This is not evolution. This is also an unsolvable riddle. Organic molecules are created from inorganics routinely as part of the balanced chemical equation of this world - but that does not mean an organic compound = life. Only that a carbon based molecule exists in a transitionary state. Life and how it began is a fascinating topic. But as of yet unprovable by the available science. So we can safely take it on faith that life DID happen and thank God that it did. Evolution, as I said, does not address that. Only how life changed once it got here.
One minor point--
In science, as opposed to popular usage, a theory has been thoroughly tested and explains all of the relevant data, and has successfully made predictions leading to new data.
ID would be classified as an idea, or perhaps an hypothesis.
A couple of the definitions from my FR homepage may help:
Theory: a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world; an organized system of accepted knowledge that applies in a variety of circumstances to explain a specific set of phenomena; theories can incorporate facts and laws and tested hypotheses. Theories do not grow up to be laws. Theories explain laws.
Theory: A scientifically testable general principle or body of principles offered to explain observed phenomena. In scientific usage, a theory is distinct from a hypothesis (or conjecture) that is proposed to explain previously observed phenomena. For a hypothesis to rise to the level of theory, it must predict the existence of new phenomena that are subsequently observed. A theory can be overturned if new phenomena are observed that directly contradict the theory. [Source]
When a scientific theory has a long history of being supported by verifiable evidence, it is appropriate to speak about "acceptance" of (not "belief" in) the theory; or we can say that we have "confidence" (not "faith") in the theory. It is the dependence on verifiable data and the capability of testing that distinguish scientific theories from matters of faith.
Hypothesis: a tentative theory about the natural world; a concept that is not yet verified but that if true would explain certain facts or phenomena; "a scientific hypothesis that survives experimental testing becomes a scientific theory"; "he proposed a fresh theory of alkalis that later was accepted in chemical practices."
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