Posted on 02/15/2006 12:53:18 AM PST by jennyp
COLUMBUS - The Ohio school board voted Tuesday to eliminate a passage in the state's science standards that critics said opened the door to the teaching of intelligent design.
The Ohio Board of Education decided 11-4 to delete material encouraging students to seek evidence for and against evolution.
The 2002 science standards say students should be able to ``describe how scientists continue to investigate and critically analyze aspects of evolutionary theory.'' It includes a disclaimer that the standards do not require the teaching of intelligent design.
The vote is the latest setback for the intelligent design movement, which holds that life is so complex, it must have been created by a higher authority.
In December, a federal judge barred the school system in Dover, Pa., from teaching intelligent design alongside evolution in high school biology classes. The judge said that intelligent design is religion masquerading as science and that teaching it alongside evolution violates the separation of church and state.
On Tuesday, the Ohio Board of Education directed a committee to study whether a replacement lesson is needed for the deleted material.
The vote was a reversal of a 9-8 decision a month ago to keep the lesson plan. But three board members who voted in January to keep the plan were absent Tuesday. Supporters of the plan pledged to force a new vote to return the material soon.
``We'll do this forever, I guess,'' said board member Michael Cochran, a Columbus lawyer and supporter of the lesson plan.
Board member Martha Wise, who pushed to eliminate the material, said the board took the correct action to avoid problems, including a possible lawsuit.
``It is deeply unfair to the children of this state to mislead them about science,'' said Wise, an elected board member representing northern Ohio.
In approving Wise's motion, the board rejected a competing plan to request a legal opinion from the attorney general on the constitutionality of the science standards.
The state's science lesson plan, approved in 2004, is optional for schools to use in teaching the state's science standards, which are the basis for Ohio's graduation test. Although schools are not required to teach the standards, districts that do not follow the standards put students at risk of not passing that part of the Ohio graduation test.
The Pennsylvania court decision against teaching intelligent design does not apply in Ohio, but critics of state standards say it invites a similar challenge.
Wise said other events since the ruling made removing the standards even more important. Earlier this month, for example, Gov. Bob Taft recommended a legal review of the standards.
In addition, members of a committee that advised state education officials on Ohio's science curriculum said the standards improperly single out the theory of evolution and could lead to the teaching of religion.
Board member Deborah Owens Fink, who voted against eliminating the lesson plan, said it is unfair to deny students the chance to use logic to question a scientific theory. She said scientists who oppose the material are worried that their views won't be supported.
``We respect diversity of opinion in every other arena,'' said Owens Fink, an elected board member from Akron.
"Circle" does not denote "sphere." It more properly denotes "tabletop." Early Hebrew cosmology (from the book of Enoch) saw the Earth as flat, with the sky as a solid dome overhead. The stars were equivalent to angels and they, and the sun and moon, entered the dome through doors in its base, traversed the sky along set routes, and exited through doors on the other side.
A circle is NOT a sphere. A circle is a two dimensional shape - i.e. pancake - whereas a sphere is a three dimensional shape - i.e. ball.
That part of Isaiah uses the word circle and not sphere in the translations I am aware of.
And as you read further down in this section of Isaiah doesn't this also talk about the heaven covering the earth like a tent. So you want to tell me how Australia is supposed be covered by a tent?
What about those other sections of the bible talking about Jesus going up the mountain and could see all four corners of the earth etc.
The bible writers were flat earth folks. If you wanted guys who knew the earth was more of a three dimensional sphere I would suggest you check out the Greece area.
Growing up, I encountered about 50...currently, I know 6. I was taught at home at an early age, spent most of my years in private school, and attended a few public schools as I got older. I stand by my comments re: home schooling with one exception. Parents should supplement their children's education. For instance, each evening I teach my kid Spanish. In a few years, he'll learn Mandarin at home too.
The public schools are a huge failure - in almost every way that is measurable.
Not where my kid attends. I chose to live here because of the excellent quality of the school district. In addition to the school district, I chose to live in an area that feeds into the best high school in the district. Since I'm already paying taxes to support public schools, it would be foolish to pay for an inferior education at a private school too.
You continually read how more and more honest scientists, after reviewing and understanding new discoveries/information, come to believe in ID. It's almost NEVER the other way around. THAT SPEAKS VOLUMES!
LOL. Blue ox...golden calf...what's the difference. :-)
"You continually read how more and more honest scientists, after reviewing and understanding new discoveries/information, come to believe in ID. It's almost NEVER the other way around. THAT SPEAKS VOLUMES!"
Names please, with citations.
That's funny, I consider dolts and idiots people who can't grasp that ol' Bill Paley's 1802 religious musings were flawed from the outset. Analogizing manufactured products that do not reproduce to entities that are imperfect replicators is so far flawed that only an idiot or a dolt would present the claim as some transcendent piece of argument.
You describe problems that I see occurring in inner city public schools. Good schools in the suburbs are a different story.
Of course, the book of Enoch is not a part of the Scripture. The Hebrew word used in Isaiah 40 is chug - which can also mean circuit or sphere. This is one of the few places in Scripture that it is used. Although many may have believed the earth was flat - the Bible didn't say so. It was Christians who first posited the theory that the earth was a round sphere and then put their lives on the line by hopping in little boats and going out on the ocean to prove it. In fact, as you are probably aware, until the government schools of Europe and America became virulently anti-Christian in the 20th century, many advances in science in the prior 300 years was made by devout Christians.
Think about the context in that particular section of the bible including my comments about a tent trying to cover Australia and all of the other sections of the bible that describe the earth as being flat.
I'm not saying that you can't get a decent education in the public schools. You are obviously a parent who is very involved in your child's life and that is the key to any education. My kids have done very well in college and life after college. However, that is more a result of mine and my wife's investment in their lives as opposed to the public school. As I said, our public school is one of the top ones in Ohio. The public schools are a government bureaucracy that disdains competition. It's failure is inevitable. And whether you know it or not, unless your're doing something to counter it, your kid is getting indoctrinated. I'm not sure why my tax dollars should be used for something that I have to counter when the kid comes home.
Those who read their Bibles carefully always knew that the earth was round.
No, those who read their bibles carefully read all about the earth's four corners, its "foundations", about a tree so high that it could be seen from the furthest reaches of the Earth, a mountain so high that the ends of the earth could be seen by someone on the mountain, that the earth is fixed and immovable, that the heavens are a "vault" etc.
The bible is consistent with a flat earth cosmology. (Which should be of no surprise, as this is consistent with the cosmology common to the near east at the time its authors wrote it. It is unsurprising that they had the beliefs of their contemporaries, and expressed that in their writings.)
You forgot to add starving children, evicting little old ladies into the snow, and causing global warming to the parade of imaginary horribles.
I'm a deist. I believe in Nature's God. This is a faith-based belief.
ID is also a faith-based belief. It should be taught in a religion or philosophy class - the same place I would expect to encounter discussions of deism.
I also believe in the scientific theory of evolution. Evolution should be taught in the science classroom.
As mentioned previously, to insist ID is taught in a science class as an alternative to evolution is like demanding that Pig Latin be taught as an alternative in a Spanish course.
Like I think the smarter know better today.
It speaks volumes about your knowledge of basic statistics.
If there are a 100,000 scientists who believe in evolution and 1,000 who believe in ID and it is equally likely for an IDer to change to evolution as it was for an evolutionist to change to ID, we'd still expect the number of conversions to ID to outnumber of the number of converstions to evolution by a ratio of 100 to 1. Even if it were twice as likely for someone to abandon ID in favour of evolution than it was for the reverse to occur, we'd expect converstions to ID to outnumber converstions to evolution by 50 to 1.
Please list them or link to a source. And by scientists, I don't mean the diploma mill experts.
Well, as a matter of fact, I'm describing first hand experiences with good suburban schools, first my own kds, now their kids.
There is a time factor here. The oldest was pretty much ok, limited problems, but had to be told when bullied to get even fast and invisibly, rather than shut up and take it because he'd be punished equally as the bully.
The youngest, now a doctor, was going to fail out of high school because of the participation rule in two classes (gym and one other). He had health problems and the rule was that if you did not get enough participation grades, you class grade was lowered. This was in a university town high school.
All of my kids were national merit scholars, Ivies, are happily married and have wide circles of friends.
There is no question that there are crazies out there who use the idea of home-schooling to abuse their kids in various ways, from poor education to hidden physical abuse. Home schooling advocates need to address that. But for right now, I can understand those responsible parents who want no part of what public school philosophies do to their kids.
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