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 ...
Still, if you don’t believe in the coalition that Reagan put together, feel free to leave the party ANY TIME YOU LIKE.
Good point. I hadn't thought of that. So this isn't a case of missing information, but extra information. If a student is exposed to this idea, then he is "tainted" in some way to the UC system. Makes a stronger case for the gov't pushing ideology rather than "good science".
Of course life was designed. By unspecified entitities having unspecified capabilities and limitations, operating at unspecified times and places, using unspecified methods involving unspecified operations on unspecified materials, and all with the result of making life look exactly like it would if it had evolved.
Kind of like Last Thursdayism.
Contrasting the real world’s definition of *truth*...
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/truth
Main Entry: truth
2 a (1): the state of being the case : fact (2): the body of real things, events, and facts : actuality
b: a judgment, proposition, or idea that is true or accepted as true [truths of thermodynamics]
c: the body of true statements and propositions
3 a: the property (as of a statement) of being in accord with fact or reality c: fidelity to an original or to a standard
***********************************************************
So, if science isn’t about truth, then what’s the alternative? That it’s about non-truth? There’s another word for that.
If prominent scientists think that truth is best avoided in science, then why should we have any confidence in what they say? And why should they be upset when we disagree with them?
Does not the possibility exist that they are wrong?
Are they so sure that there will never be any evidence to contradict their pet theories that they can engage in mockery, ridicule, and derision against those who show any skepticism about their pronouncements?
What if it turns out that the skeptics are right? Then all the mockery, ridicule, and derision was for what? And what does it show about the character of those who engage in it?
And if that’s the case, what’s the point of forcing through legislation something that’s open to being wrong?
Uh-huh, and just how often have we heard the term “godless liberals”?
I know no godless “conservatives”.
Are you claiming you earned a Ph.D. in science?
If so, from what university and in what field?
Well, when you pose the question like that...sounds like you take cues from the drive-bys that pose their tripe in polls about the Iraq war!
How about how many conservatives and Republicans demand God be removed from science, gubmint, and so on and so forth...?
How would THAT work for you?
Religion based definitions of TRVTH are irrelevant. Science accumulates knowledge, not truth. Knowledge enhances our ability to make decisions, but it does not reveal the future in detail.
Knowledge about how weather works does not tell us if it will rain on this day next month, but it nonetheless improves our decision making.
What you and other theists want is certainty. What science provides is probabilities. If you think probabilities are unimportant, check out the bank accounts of casinos.
Really? You have not been looking then. I know lots who are more conservative than average Republicans or Blue Dog Democrats.
no no no...I’m talking about cloning sheep...(to God only knows what in the future...)
how did you jumble all that together in one post? Did you do it all by yourself, or was there just a random, albeit unbelieveable lucky pick of letters to line up just so...and then an even luckier random event whereby I somehow deciphered it...over the internet no less...another astronomically unlikely random accidental event.
and taking that back a step further...when was the first written record? And can you prove that this is the earliest FOREVERMORE?
Not necessarily.
What science provides is probabilities.
Then scientists need to stop promoting science as if it's about certainties.
Belief in God or in a Christian God does NOT define the entirety of conservatism -- only about ten percent of it.
What next? Tying stones to the feet of "fallen women," believing that they are witches if they drown?
Can’t you see it now....???
A doctor tells you drug A is THE best medication for hypertension, then another MD tells you drug B is the best, and both docs went to the same school...call each other quacks, tell you how each other used junk science to reach their conclusions...
what do you do....alternate pills every other day or what? If truth is irrelevant in science I suppose the doctor (and pharmaceutical company) who presents the most “proof” “wins” the debate and that’s the end of that?
But I guess when all you have to start with are big astronomically and virtual impossible probabilities of purposeless big bangs, single cells swimming in pre-mordial soup, again without purpose, grew legs...and ga-jillions of years later...well here we are!
Xians have been fighting a losing battle for over a century now. We've seen it all before. In the case of Kansas, whenever the irrationalists win control of the school board (usually in low turnout elections), they are usually thrown out within 2-4 years.
I asked you to cite a high school texbook which treats string theory as anything other than a conjecture. That was the topic on which you posted to me.
I read quite a bit about the subject in pop science media and have never seen it treated as anything but controversial. Not just as to whether it is “true,” but as to whether it qualifies as science.
There have been at least two recent FR threads on string theory, and both support what I’m saying about this.
And less than 10% of conservatives are angry with God to the point of disbelief in Him. Probably less than 5%.
Which reminds me, a Christian that doesn’t believe God created all we know, rejects Christianity and I’d have a hard time believing they’re indeed Christians.
And this nonsense about creationists...it’s the godless that are so worried they ban not only the truth in textbooks, in at least one case they were such cowards they wouldn’t allow kids to read about it in the school library ON THEIR OWN TIME!
People demanding books be banned....are more likely to be liberals, not conservatives.
But guess what...CHristians are tired of such PC idiocy and are fighting back. Finally!
www.thomasmore.org
www.aclj.org
Ah. Good old Thomas More. They’re the fine people who promised to defend the Dover school board.
I’d love to see them in action again. Maybe they will defend Kansas with the same degree of competence.
Of course, because you are an atheist, you don’t want any talk of a Creator or of creation included in government-funded schools.
I’m primarily wanting to discuss this with those who understand that “all this” came about because of a Creator, and who are incongruously against referencing that truth in theories regarding the development of life on earth.
If it is *true* that a Creator exists, then such *truth* should be taught.
That can be discussed in religion or philosophy classes.
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