Posted on 03/28/2009 7:45:34 AM PDT by GodGunsGuts
Edited on 03/28/2009 9:16:10 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
Big Texas Win on “Critical Thinking” 03/27/2009 Students in Texas schools will now have more opportunities to hear the flaws in Darwinism as well as evidences for it. After months of acrimonious debate, the Texas State Board of Education adopted science standards that require students learn to “analyze, evaluate and critique scientific explanations” including theories of evolution and the origin of life. The new language replaced the long-standing wording of teaching the “strengths and weaknesses” of evolution. Though Darwin critics were advocating to retain the old language (the website of Texans for Better Science Education is StrengthsAndWeaknesses.org), they feel the new language is even stronger. The general critical thinking language states: As reasonable and straightforward as this language may sound to outside observers, the evolutionists are treating the vote as a defeat for them and a victory for supporters of intelligent design. The NCSE was just crowing over defeat of the “strengths and weaknesses” language by a tie vote (and therefore defeat) on March 26, but was angry at the final vote today, March 27. On the other side, Evolution News and Views blog of the Discovery Institute, which has been giving the blow-by-blow account of the proceedings, calls the vote a big win, a “a huge victory for those who favor teaching the scientific evidence for and against evolution.” Undoubtedly, cheers and boos will soon be heard in the press. Evolution News is keeping a running blog on whether the reporting in the media is accurate or not. What happens in Texas matters to the whole country. Texas is the biggest textbook buyer in the United States. Authors of biology textbooks will not wish to write one version for the Lone Star State and another for other states. The textbooks written to incorporate the new standards, therefore, will likely become normative for the rest of the country. The NCSE and other pro-Darwin groups had tried to persuade the SBOE that their opponents had religious motivations. John West of the Discovery Institute was quick to point out that the vote is a victory for fairness and balance, not the teaching of creationism or religion. “Contrary to the claims of the evolution lobby, absolutely nothing the Board did promotes ‘creationism’ or religion in the classroom. Groups that assert otherwise are lying, plain and simple. Under the new standards, students will be expected to analyze and evaluate the scientific evidence for evolution, not religion. Period.”
Less than a century ago the Darwinists were clamoring for fairness themselves. They wanted to defend the right of a teacher to teach their views in the classroom. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, they have redefined one-sided dogmatism to whole new levels of shame (see 12/16/2008). They’re like crooks who rob a radio station by begging at the door that they just want a minute to give their commercial on the air, because they want fairness and it isn’t right for the owners of the station to give just one point of view. After enough pressure, the exasperated manager lets the Darwinists in. They grab the manager, owner, broadcasters and toss them outside and lock the door. Then they take over the microphones and announce that the station is under new management. While the rightful owners are banging at the locked doors and windows, the usurpers commandeer the airwaves, teaching fairy tales about how dirt came to life and bacteria became human. The owners spend years in court trying to get the usurpers to open the door. The courts (in cahoots with the crooks) rule against the owners over and over, often by one-vote margins. Finally, by a close vote, after months of wrangling, a board still doesn’t let them in, but grants them one small concession: allowing them to insist that the stories the Darwinist usurpers tell on the air can be analyzed and critiqued by the public.
That is where this vote brings us. It does not restore the rightful owners (i.e., the taxpayers) to their place. It does not allow two sides to be heard. It only means that the listeners will no longer be forced to endure propaganda taught as fact; they will have the right to think about it critically in light of empirical evidence. In today’s mad, mad world, one can be grateful for any glimmer of sanity, no matter how slight. This “huge victory” is just a cloud the size of a man’s hand on the horizon (I Kings 16). Whether it ends the drought of reason will require much more work and providence. Lovers of fairness should take heart at the hard work and persistence of Texans for Better Science Education and the many who testified, wrote the Board and assisted in the effort in numerous small ways.
The taxes in Texas should promote facts and a nexus of fair-minded people, not an axis of hacks devoted to dogmatism. Let’s work to make last year’s movie Expelled represent the rock bottom of Darwinist intolerance, about which, from the vantage point of a new era of critical thinking, society will look back at with disgust and promise, “never again.” Fanatics wail, along the trail, deep in the heart of Texas, Reporters beat around the bush, deep in the heart of Texas. The righteous cry, "Ki-yip-pee-yi," deep in the heart of Texas, The bigots brawl, and crawl and bawl, deep in the heart of Texas. ...in all fields of science, analyze, evaluate and critique scientific explanations by using empirical evidence, logical reasoning, and experimental and observational testing including examining all sides of scientific evidence of those scientific explanations so as to encourage critical thinking by the student.
As applied to evolutionary theory, this means students will have opportunity to “analyze, evaluate and critique” hypotheses of natural selection, mutations and common ancestry. They will also be able to evaluate evolutionary explanations for the “sudden appearance, stasis, and sequential nature of groups in the fossil record.” the “complexity of the cell,” and the “formation of simple organic molecules and their organization into long complex molecules having information such as the DNA molecule for self-replicating life.” They can also “discuss scientific hypotheses for the origin of life by abiotic chemical processes in an aqueous environment through complex geochemical cycles given the complexity of living organisms.”It is a sad measure of our cultural demise when getting a vote in favor of fairness and critical thinking requires a herculean effort against a dogmatic establishment. Much as we celebrate with those who won, consider what a small advance this is. The Darwinist totalitarian regime has imposed such thought control on the scientific and educational institutions they can hardly think straight. This should have been common sense. In what other branch of inquiry is it normal for students to have predigested conclusions poured down a funnel into their skulls? Of all subjects, science should be the most open to critical thinking. Not so with the Darwinism.
The stars for right, are big and bright,
deep in the heart of Texas,
The science sky is wide and high,
deep in the heart of Texas.
The sage advice is so precise,
deep in the heart of Texas,
Reminds me of, the vote I love,
deep in the heart of Texas.
Ping!
Can’t really edit the body without causing more damage. If you want to have this thread pulled so that you can redo it, please ask.
Answer: It is impossible to have a religiously, politically, and culturally neutral education. It is axiomatic.
Therefore.....The instant any government school attempts to teach anything about the origin of life the government will:
1) Establish the religious worldview of one group of citizens.
2) Actively undermine and destroy the religious worldview of others.
#1 and #2 will have non-neutral political, religious, and cultural consequences.
Solution: Complete separation of school and state.
Do you know why this keeps happening? It seems whenever I copy and paste the page source code from Firefox, the first several lines turn red. Does it have something to do with the red html link color not being properly terminated or soemthing?
Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!
Do they teach globull warming theory in schools?
Yeah, go ahead an pull it, and I’ll start over. Thanks—GGG
What!? They’re going to allow, nay even attempt to *teach* critical-thinking in high school?
And the evolutionists are apoplectic?
Darn...
It has nothing to do with religion.
Creationism is just another theory in which proofs are established through scientific study, or destroyed through scientic study.
Eevolutionism is also a theory in which proofs are either established or destroyed in the same way.
let the thoery with the greater amount of proven proofs stand. At this point it’s creationism.
It’s tough to say, I’m not an expert. It looks like the “maroon” tag is closed properly, but for some reason the 3/27 date is in red, and the red doesn’t close until the “a href” tag is closed later on.
I guess Darwood’s modern Evo co-religionists are feeling mighty threatened these days. First they chop down Darwood’s “tree of life” and now this!
Do you think you can fix it, or should I just start over?
==Solution: Complete separation of school and state.
I like the way you think!
If the red can’t be fixed, go ahead and pull it, and I’ll start over. Thanks—GGG
If I start messing with the body of your initial post, the forum software will excerpt your entire selection. It’s beyond my control.
Fixed.
Your “pinger” worked. Thanks.
Wow, how did you do that. Might help me “get the red out” in the future :o)
The very next day did they have another vote?
Would someone please explain.
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