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12 Florida Schools Pass Anti-Evolution Resolutions
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Fri Jan 11, 2008 03:53 PM
from the and-the-kids-still-lose dept.
from the and-the-kids-still-lose dept.
Several sources are reporting that twelve school districts in Florida have passed resolutions against the teaching of evolution. Out of all the arguments, however, one administrator seems to have gotten it right: "Then, the final speaker, Lisa Dizengoff, director of science curriculum at Pembroke Pines Charter School's east campus, angrily reminded the crowd that after all the carping over evolution, no one had gotten around to addressing the state's lackadaisical, last-century approach to science education. 'All I heard was this argument about evolution,' she said, disgusted that so many other problems had been preempted by a single controversy. 'The kids lost out again.''"
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of course they did (Score:5, Funny)
Re:of course they did (Score:5, Funny)
Believe me! Based on that sample, I'd disbelieve in evolution theory, too!
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Re:of course they did (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:of course they did (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a real, urgent problem - we are lagging behind other countries and losing our competitive edge, and we wonder why this is when our attitude towards science is: "The Bible is as good at scieence as peer-reviewed journals." As long as this attitude persists, we'll see people like George W. Bush and other anti-science evangelicals shaping our government's science policy, and that affects us all.
It also has to do with the kind of thinking this attitude promotes. Why critically analyze something when you can just think what you've been told to think by your elders? That's not good for democracy, that's not good for anyone.
How to fix? Just aggressively answer every anti-evolution statement, and help sponsor and support people fighting to keep evolution the ONLY scientific theory of the origin of life taught in schools.
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Fundies again (Score:5, Insightful)
-uso.
The Religious Mind (Score:5, Insightful)
For all the philosophical rambling, none of them, absolutely none of them, escape this simple indisputable fact:
All religious teachings are provided to us by humans.
If God Himself appeared next to me and handed me a copy of the Bible, that would be one thing. But instead, a human handed to me. And, in fact, a human wrote every word that is in it. This notion of "divine inspiration" (which is supposed to remove the element of human fallibility from the Bible) was communicated to me by...wait for it....A HUMAN.
I can agree in principle with the presumption that faith in God is well-founded, and faith in human reason (i.e. the theory of evolution) is not so well-founded. However, to put faith in the teachings (or books) of any religion is to put faith in human reason.
There is no denial, only rationalization.
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Re:The Religious Mind (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is, how would you know it was god and not some advanced life form? Ancient humans with smaller brains would consider us or our mysterious technology 'gods'.
"...and faith in human reason (i.e. the theory of evolution) is not so well-founded. However, to put faith in the teachings (or books) of any religion is to put faith in human reason."
What *isn't* human reason? The fact of the matter is, if god showed up beside you and put (x book) in your hand, how would you know the words in it aren't from humans if they are in human language?
I think the whole evolution vs design controversy, is simply about the fear of death and the death of traditional morality and culture, it's not about god, it's not about truth, it's about a way of life and community that's decaying and the old gaurd is reacting to it. Western culture today is a mixed bag when you look at the divorce rate, two-parent families, and the declining birth-rate in north america.
I think more slashdotians need to read Oswald Spenglers Decline of the west, he predicted quite a lot and is quite correct that all knowledge is in fact religious in conception, science can't escape the fact that ultimately it is merely a *description* of the universe it doesn't tell us the true nature of the universe or even what 'nature' is.
All natural laws are merely descriptions of geometry and geometric and other relationships in a metaphorical (mathematical) language. Since if you have a sphere, what are you going to use to describe it? An abstract representational system (math).
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Re:The Religious Mind (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:The Religious Mind (Score:5, Insightful)
"All natural laws are merely descriptions of
You are missing a key concept here. Scientific theories are more than descriptions, they collectively form a 'model' of the observable world. As such, they may be used as predictive tools, which is not true of religious dogma. Given a certain set of conditions, outcome X will occur.
Religion, on the other hand, is descriptive of past events, and assigns causal relationships where there aren't any. Think of miracles - they can't be predicted, there's no evidence finding for a supernatural cause, and given the same set of initial conditions, the miracle can't be reproduced.
So evolution, natural selection, species environmental dynamics, etc. as a body of knowledge can be used to predict to a certain extent. Not exactly --what-- will occur, but that change in species characteristics will occur (speciation, see here: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html [talkorigins.org]) due to selection processes over time that have as their genesis factors such as isolation, mutation, interbreeding, etc.
Science is an axiomatic, rigorous, and predictive model, whereas religion is interpretation of history to fit a non-rigorous faith-based viewpoint.
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Dogmatic is the right word (Score:5, Informative)
Perhaps I can help clear that up.
The Catholic church existed before the Bible existed. The Catholic church assembled the Bible to use as a cannon of study and teaching. They did not say "this single book was given to us by God, and is therefore correct, and therefore we must try to build our church and beliefs around its contents." The structure of authority went the other way...the leaders of the church (the Pope and his underlings) had received all of God's teachings directly, through oral tradition and through the direct (miraculous) transmission of the Holy Spirit. They were the ultimate authority on what was True, and the Bible was just one collection of sacred writings which they were authorizing for spiritual use.
So the authoritive structure of truth went from God, to Jesus, to the Apostles, to the Church, THEN to the Bible.
Inasmuch as the Bible might be lacking in any detail, or stating anything in a confusing way, the Church was there to clarify things for you.
The doctrine of the Trinity, then, does not need to be Biblical in order for it to be a proper Catholic belief. It merely needs to be endorsed by the Church.
Martin Luther stood that on its head when he founded his own version of the church (the Protestants) and based it on his own interpretation of the Bible and of the teachings of the church. Over time, other people followed his example, creating the numerous sects of Christianity that we see today. These sects do not consider themselves Catholics, and as such are "cut off" from the historical roots of their teachings. They have cooked up this notion that their teachings are entirely founded in the Bible, when in fact many of them are just leftovers from Catholicism, or new additions made by their various sect-founders along the way.
So that's why they get so dogmatic about it. They are taught that:
1) The Bible is the foundation of our beliefs.
2) The doctrine of the Holy Trinity is one of our beliefs.
And they therefore infer that the doctrine of the Trinity must be Biblical. Some of the more studious ones have found a few vague and poetic verses in various parts of the Bible and synthesized them (with a little rationalizing glue) to produce what they claim is the scriptural foundation of that belief. However, anyone who reads them without already knowing about the doctrine of the Trinity will very likely not conclude that the Bible teaches that God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are one.
So there you have it.
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Re:Did a human say it? (Score:5, Interesting)
I think that's dead wrong.
It's actually pretty tough for our child sometimes, who we brought up to be caring and considerate of the feelings of others without the fear of a trip to hell if she isn't, when her friends invite her to go to Church with them. She goes along sometimes but afterwards, if there's a study group, she has to excuse herself because she doesn't know what to say or do. What to think even. She tells us that she pretends to pray so they other kids don't think she's a freak, but she really has no clue who she's meant to be praying to.
At least she won't go to hell for doing so, because there is no such thing of course.
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Re:The funny thing is (Score:5, Informative)
from http://www.answers.com/religion&r=67 [answers.com] Religion: Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.
Atheism from http://www.answers.com/atheism&r=67 [answers.com] Disbelief in or denial of the existence of God or gods.
From Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] on scientific method: It is based on gathering observable, empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning
I can't make it any clearer, sorry
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What really sucks is, this isn't really religion. (Score:5, Insightful)
I have to ask those believers, is this what Jesus would do and be about? I'm working my ass off to make sure my kids can go to the finest private non-religious schools available. They can raise their kids in 3rd world ignorance, but I can make sure my kids aren't.
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Re:What really sucks is, this isn't really religio (Score:5, Insightful)
Really, this sort of behavior boils down to tribalism. People have a need to identify themselves as part of a group and what better way to do that then to contrast yourselves with those who are outside of your group. This is why some people glom onto fanatacisim for professional sports teams or fall victim to fashion trends. It's all about establishing your group identity. The Japanese have a notably complex system of in-groups and out-groups and expected behaviors when interacting with people in and out of your many groups.
The foaming at the mouth evangelicals love to portray themselves as under perilous attack by secular heathens despite the fact that North America has an overwhelmingly Christian culture and it isn't going away anytime soon. This is all part of the rhetoric established from the time that Christians really were a minority group who had to withstand the oppression of other dominant groups. Just once, I whish these fools could put themselves in the shoes of a Hindu or Buddhist immigrant to realize what it truly feels like to be a little fish in a bowl of sharks.
Of course this is one of the many problems with modern Christianity: it is permeated with an air of anti-intellectualism. You shouldn't try to question the "truth" as given to you by people serving as intermediaries for God (or direct from the KJV Bible for the literalists). To do so would be to admit that you don't have enough faith and without faith you're going to hell so just shut up and believe everything we tell you to believe in. We have things like idiot Protestants claiming that Roman Catholics aren't real Christians. (WTF?) People like Pat Robertson are lionized by millions and yet he openly expresses hatred for non-Christians. Somehow these people can claim to be followers of Jesus and yet they conveniently fail to realize the core meaning his teachings.
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Re:What really sucks is, this isn't really religio (Score:5, Insightful)
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Read Some Voltaire (Score:5, Interesting)
More of us should read Voltaire's writings. He wrote a great deal about fanaticism and religion (he was not an atheist). Some quotes:
One of my favorites:
From Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary:
Believing that the Earth is 10000 years old in the face of hard scientific evidence is like taking dreams for reality.
Methinks in these days of growing fanaticism, both religious and ideological, we would do well to learn from what Voltaire wrote.
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So....... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So....... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's really what's happening. The theory of Evolution is one of the most heavily supported things in the scientific world, and passing laws against it speaks exceptionally loudly about the given parties ability to discern fact from fiction, intelligence from hand-waving, and most importantly, critical thinking from anything else. They're not just rejecting evolution, they're rejecting the process of science as a whole.
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Re:So....... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:So....... (Score:5, Funny)
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Opposed to facts (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Opposed to facts (Score:5, Interesting)
Gravity is a fact. The theory(s) that explain it and its effects are not facts.
Here are two links which cover this topic:
Link 1 [wilstar.com]
Link 2 [fsteiger.com]
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Re:Opposed to facts (Score:5, Insightful)
No, you're just perpetuating the ignorance.
A theory can be well-supported by evidence or not. It can be proven false by any example which shows it is incorrect. It cannot be proven true, though, because we could discover something in the future for which the theory cannot account.
Creationists essentially argue that since science cannot prove evolution it is a belief system. They promote evolution as 'scientific dogma', intentionally ignoring the fact that science adapts with new theories to explain new phenomena (i.e. science admits when it is wrong). They do this (specifically using ignorance of science's use of the word 'theory' - as you note) to argue that since the theory of evolution is taught, all 'equal' theories (which neither creationism nor ID really are) must be taught as well.
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Only two options now avaliable (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Only two options now avaliable (Score:4, Insightful)
1. Article posted that makes fundies look like idiots.
2. Anti-fundie flaming.
3. Anti-religion flaming.
4. Sideshow discussions about reconciliation of theology and science in one's personal life, usually reasonably posited and humbly submitted; drowned out by the by now raging flame war.
5. Sideshow flame war about the observability of evolution.
6.
7. Profit? No, everyone loses (except the trolls), the smartest stay away completely, the next tier down leaves feeling drawn in and sheepish (c'mon we've all been there), and the trolls emerge stupid as ever, feeling victorious.
8. Ugh.
9. It's Friday, everyone drink a beer or something.
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La la la la, I can't hear you! (Score:5, Insightful)
http://xkcd.com/54/ [xkcd.com] is appropriate right now.
Well not exactly anti-evolution. (Score:4, Insightful)
I would have no problem with them teaching intelligent design if they just followed the rules of science when teaching it.
Simply that some people think this is how life got started but there is no proof or experiments that prove it out and many of their claims have been disproven or at least had a lot of doubt about them.
Science should be open to different ideas even if they are wrong. They must all be looked at using the scientific method. I doubt many creationist would like the way it was being taught but that is just too bad. If they can get some good science to back them up then let's see it.
All that I have seen was really bad.
Not about education (Score:5, Insightful)
They are no doubt congratulating themselves about bringing 17th century thinking to the 21st century.
Sad. I doubt most people in Florida, or even these schools agree with this result. Hopefully, like in Kansas, it will be overturned.
The Round Earth Theory (Score:5, Insightful)
The resolution is actually PRO evolution (Score:5, Funny)
"[we] are requesting that the State Board of Education direct the Florida Department of
Education to revise/edit the new Sunshine State Standards for Science so that evolution is
presented as one of several theories as to how the universe was formed."
I have a graduate degree in physics, but I wasn't aware that the universe was formed by evolution. Although I have to admit that the thought of mating galaxies has a certain appeal.
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People who don't understand sarcasm are bound to be an irresistible target for it.
Taylor County, Florida School Board (Score:5, Interesting)
Now if the state is trying to force these people to accept evolution as an explanation of the origin of the universe, I'd be miffed about it as well. On the other hand, if they came up with this bit all by themselves, I think that they really do require someone to explain what evolution really is. I'd feel sorry for the good people of this county, if they hadn't been the ones electing the board in the first place.
Don't Hire Any Florida Graduates (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, that's unfair to some students, but these willful Luddites need to be taught a lesson.
Re:Opposed to teaching Evolution as a fact.... (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Opposed to teaching Evolution as a fact.... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Opposed to teaching Evolution as a fact.... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Opposed to teaching Evolution as a fact.... (Score:5, Funny)
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Literalism (Score:5, Funny)
God only used an integer because support for floating point operations was severely limited in the CPUs of the time.
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Not as bad as it seems... (Score:5, Interesting)
His example was the bird flu scare. Absolutely nobody went around say: "don't worry it cannot possible evolve into something deadly to us, it was designed for birds and will stay that way". So when push comes to shove these people really do believe in science and evolution. So in the end they are really nothing more than hypocrits which, since most of them are politicians, we already knew anyway.
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Re:Opposed to teaching Evolution as a fact.... (Score:5, Informative)
SPREAD THE WORD
Evolution is a scientific fact, and every organization whose research depends on it should explain why.
Three cheers for the US National Academy of Sciences for publishing an updated version of its booklet Science, Evolution, and Creationism (see http://www.nap.edu/sec [nap.edu]). The document succinctly summarizes what is and isn't science, provides an overview of evidence for evolution by natural selection, and highlights how, time and again, leading religious figures have upheld evolution as consistent with their view of the world.
For a more specific and also entertaining account of evolutionary knowledge, see palaeontologist Kevin Padian's evidence given at the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial (see http://tinyurl.com/2nlgar [tinyurl.com]). Padian destroys the false assertions by creationists that there are critical gaps in the fossil record. He illustrates the fossil-rich paths from fish to land-based tetrapod, from crocodile to dinosaur to feathered dinosaur to bird, from terrestrial quadruped to the whale, and more besides. Creationism is strong in the United States and, according to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, worryingly on the rise in Europe (see http://tinyurl.com/2knrqy [tinyurl.com]). But die-hard creationists aren't a sensible target for raising awareness. What matters are those citizens who aren't sure about evolution -- as much as 55% of the US population according to some surveys.
As the National Academy of Sciences and Padian have shown, it is possible to summarize the reasons why evolution is in effect as much a scientific fact as the existence of atoms or the orbiting of Earth round the Sun, even though there are plenty of refinements to be explored. Yet some actual and potential heads of state refuse to recognize this fact as such. And creationists have a tendency to play on the uncertainties displayed by some citizens. Evolution is of profound importance to modern biology and medicine. Accordingly, anyone who has the ability to explain the evidence behind this fact to their students, their friends and relatives should be given the ammunition to do so. Between now and the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth on 12 February 2009, every science academy and society with a stake in the credibility of evolution should summarize evidence for it on their website and take every opportunity to promote it.
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Re:Opposed to teaching Evolution as a fact.... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Opposed to teaching Evolution as a fact.... (Score:5, Informative)
In short, there is no question--none whatsoever--that evolution takes place. The modern synthesis of evolutionary theory says that it happens because mutations provide a source of variation which natural forces can select for or against. This is observable as well: if you consider the gene for sickle cell anemia (which provides protection against malaria), it tends to be much more common in regions of the world that are rife with malaria, because those are the places where that gene can convey some benefit. This is pretty much as close as you get to bulletproof science. Now, admittedly, there are some areas of the theory which aren't as certain as others, but on the whole, you're talking about a very damn solid theory that's supported by interlocking scientific evidence from dozens of disciplines. Some of the best minds in science have been poking and prodding at this theory for over 150 years and it's still going strong--hell, Darwin's theory predicted some things that we've only recently found with molecular biology. How much better does a theory get?
Personally, I'd be happy to let the religious folks gather round their altars and sing Hosannahs to their invisbile sky daddy, but unfortunately, that's not enough for them. They need to inflict their beliefs, whether on abortion, or stem cell research, or contraception use, or whatever, on all of us. Why should I trust somebody who closes their eyes to basic scientific fact to make decisions rooted in science that might affect me?
The world will be a better place when we grow up enough, as a species, to put away childish things like religion.
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Re:Opposed to teaching Evolution as a fact.... (Score:5, Insightful)
As to evolution, of course you can observe it. We have nylon-digesting bacteria now when nylon didn't even exist before the 1930s. I was just reading about pupfish in Death Valley who have gone through a radical process of speciation since the valley dried up after 20,000 years ago.
If you wish to dip into some sort of solipsism or epistemological nihilism, be my guest, but what you're really doing is denying that any knowledge can be gathered that is reliable. You might as well deny that yesterday ever happened, and that the universe began at midnight, and everything is just fake memories. Just remember, if you want to deny or question evolution "because I've never seen it", then you have to be fair and basically call into question *all* knowledge, because everything is susceptible to such an argument.
If you actually want to learn something about evolution, then I recommend going to http://talkorigins.org/ [talkorigins.org] where there are dozens of articles dealing with all manner of evolutionary problems and explanations, with full citations so you can go to a library and check for yourself.
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Re:Opposed to teaching Evolution as a fact.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course we have seen it. Its all around us. Its in the fossil record. By your logic, nobody has actually seen galaxies evolve because they are looking into the past via the fossil record of the universe - radiation (light, xrays, etc.)
Evolution can be easily traced back to the earliest creatures capable of leaving imprints of themselves behind. The entire process of developing lungs, limbs, spines, etc. etc. is all right there. Each step of the way. It is not a mystery. Just because it doesn't happen in a timespan and a place you personally can witness doesn't make it not so. The sun didn't form before your eyes did it? Did the mountains spring up so you could witness? Is geology a supposition? An educated guess?
You can demonstrate evolution in the lab with bacteria. You can demonstrate complex hydrocarbons doing all sorts of magical stuff in the lab (how life came to be in the first place.)
Tracing the biology of animals of this planet is a well known, well documented science. It is FACT, because the facts are right there in front of the entire worlds eyes, should they choose to look. Fish moving onto land, developing lungs, etc.
We have broken down the DNA code very well at this point, and can trace our origins that way as well. We can see where we differ and what we share with trees, worms, bacteria, dogs and elephants. Natural selection (the mechanism behind evolution) is everywhere as well. Look at dog and cat breeds. Cattle. Plants. Insects. You name it, you can change the creature itself by breeding.
Evolution is science. It is what the facts tell us. This is not a philosophical debate. There are no two sides. It is not a guess. It is about stupidity and blind faith. You can't reject evolution any more than you can reject combustion, or gravity. If people DO reject it, they are simply being ignorant and stupid. Plain and simple.
Basing "science" on something written thousands of years ago by people who were so far from us in their knowledge of the world is ridiculous. It is absurd. Why not simply observe the world? Observe what is right in front of our faces, and learn from it.
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Re:A perfect argument for school vouchers (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want to send your kids to private school, that's your right. That doesn't mean that you get to take funds away from public schools.
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Re:A perfect argument for school vouchers (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't want my tax dollars going to fund some fundamentalists' brain-washing clinic / madrassa. Instead of splitting the nation into private enclaves, we ought to improve the public education system to the point where there isn't any need for an alternative.
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Re:So it continues.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Where did you get that idea from? Evolution has been proven time after time, from Darwin's finches over selective breeding, resistant strains of diseases all the way to artificial intelligence programs. Evolution is no fact, but it is a good explanations for fact we can see all around us.
Whereas intelligent design does not explain anything, very much like the Homunculus argument.
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Re:So it continues.. (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Blasphemy (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Listen, and understand! (Score:5, Interesting)
So when it goes to court, the ACLU lawyers can throw down a ton of quotes showing that the justification for this move was religious, the First Amendment rights of the children were violated, and the books are shut. Of course, it'll screw the kids over because all that money wasted by religious fanatics trying to force a public school system into becoming an organ of religious indoctrination.
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Re:I Believe... (Score:5, Insightful)
Second of all, the evidence shows that we and monkeys share a common ancestor. The fossil record shows this pretty well, but the molecular record is even more clear. You may not like that (I have no idea why), but that's where it sits. We and monkeys are related. We and seasquirts are related. We and bacteria are related. The distances may be greater, but we all share a common ancestor.
And this has nothing to do with God either.
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