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New Science Standards Approved in Florida
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Wed Feb 20, 2008 12:11 PM
from the thinking-of-the-voters-not-the-children dept.
from the thinking-of-the-voters-not-the-children dept.
anonymous_echidna writes "Florida has voted to accept the new K-12 science curriculum standards amidst a storm of controversy around the teaching of evolution, which had up until now been the scientific concept that dare not speak its name. There was a compromise made at the last minute, which was to call evolution a 'scientific theory', rather than a fact. While some lament that the change displays the woeful ignorance of science and scientific terminology, the good news is that the new curriculum emphasizes teaching the meaning of scientific terms and the scientific method in earlier grades."
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Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:5, Insightful)
It just happens that the politics involved are largely being used within the framework of religion in order to maintain a certain population within a given power structure, and to resist attempts to overturn said power structure from the outside.
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Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:5, Funny)
I don't think he could do that, even with miraculous powers. I know, the whole one-in-three business makes it kind of confusing, but I still just don't think it could be done.
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Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:5, Informative)
Evolution *is* a theory. Perhaps they should also teach what "theory" means.
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Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, because without all those fossils showing us the evolution of a horse or human, there would be no way to show the evolutionary process in action. And let's not forget the different shapes of the beaks of the birds that Darwin studied. Those certainly don't show any kind of evolutionary action.
Why do people keep insisting that Evolution, the act itself, isn't a fact? If there were no fact, then there wouldn't be a theory. The only reason theories come about is because of a fact.
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Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:5, Insightful)
The biggest problem with this whole "it's just a theory" argument is that the word "theory" is ambiguous. It's just like "free speech" vs. "free beer".
In science "theory" and "fact" do not necessarily stand in opposition. A theory is a logical explanation or a testable model for a given natural phenomenon.
In common language, however, theory refers to conjecture or opinion. Thus the confusion.
String theory is the former, but it is incomplete. It has yet to be adopted by the scientific community as a proven theory because there are no accepted methods of testing it. In other words, it is a work in progress. To nitpick about calling string theory a "theory" is like nitpicking about a computer program that isn't finished being coded yet being called a "computer program". No matter which side of the fence you decide to sit on you'll be right. It's not technically a program yet because it's incomplete. But to say that it's not a program raises the question of what to call it.
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Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:5, Insightful)
Pick a harder one, like why the human retina is such a lousy design and that of the octopus is so much better.
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Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:5, Informative)
You are mistaken.
It has been proven that genetic mutations exist, and that they cause illness and deformations, but not that they have the ability to create limbs, wings, lungs, etc. in perfect working order.
You are mistaken.
One thing that I am constantly amazed about is that people implant their own logic into Evolution; DNA does not have an agenda. It does not wake up one day and say "over the next 100 generations, I'm going to grow wings and fly!".
No one says that, except the people who are mistaken about what evolution is, what the theory proposes, and how it is tested. People like the ones you got your mistaken information from.
Charles Darwin wrote....
Something, I am sure. But Charles Darwin is not the last word in evolution or natural selection, anymore than Newton is the last word on gravity. Can you at least update your criticisms to refer to science done in the 20th and 21st centuries? A lot of ground has been covered since Darwin.
It is a HUGE leap from this to saying that "We all came from fish".
No one says that. But fish and humans have a common ancestor, which was not a fish nor was it a human.
It is not correct to look at fossils and assume that one came from another because they look similar.
Of course. And no one does that.
You have some very fuzzy and shadowy ideas about what scientists do, and how they come to the conclusions they do. I suggest you do some reading of works by scientists who do evolution, not any more reading of works by preachers debunking it with folklore and thought experiments.
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Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:5, Insightful)
No one has witnessed Macro-Evolution (changes from one species to another).
Until you prove that the mechanism for "micro-evolution" is different than the mechanism for "macro-evolution", then belief one is belief in both.
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Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:5, Insightful)
or this paper that shows "allopatric speciation by reproductive isolation in Drosophila pseudoobscura fruit flies after only eight generations" [Dodd, D.M.B. (1989) "Reproductive isolation as a consequence of adaptive divergence in Drosophila pseudoobscura." Evolution 43:1308-1311.]
or a similar paper using other fruit flys [Kirkpatrick, M. and V. Ravigné (2002) "Speciation by Natural and Sexual Selection: Models and Experiments" The American Naturalist 159:S22-S35 DOI]
or any of the genetic evidence for speciation [wikipedia.org]?
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Re:Einsteins Theory of Gravity (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:5, Informative)
These all differ from hypotheses because they are more than just a prediction of the outcome of a test, but an explanation for why we should expect that outcome.
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Re:Man, ALL religion is crazy... (Score:5, Insightful)
The equivalency of validity between scientific theory (based on evidence, tested by observation, and refined to match the observe phenomenon) and belief (backed up by nothing more than "I said so") has gone too far in this world. I make the stand, not out of arrogance, but out of outrage. Belief != Search for Truth. Belief != Truth. Belief != Philosophical Introspection. Belief != Model of the Universe.
Unless you have EVIDENCE to offer for your claims, I say shove them. Even a well reasoned argument will suffice. But if your theory requires acoutremant like an omniscient daddy sitting in the sky tossing death rays down at us to make it work with no particular need for him given the observed phenomenon, then it is quite frankly invalid. Now, you can preach to those mistaken fools who are silly enough to swallow your garbage, but quit equating what you do to science and philosophy.
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The news media is a major part of the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
We need the news media to take the lead in helping people understand what a theory is vs. a hypothesis. How fact and theory are not opposites. The fact that a "law" is not the opposite of a theory. Too many people are getting away with murder in these debates because the termnology isn't clearly understood and the news media doesn't care to straighten it out.
Re:The news media is a major part of the problem (Score:5, Funny)
Or you were tossing a softball.
"Why, yes, O'Brien, according to our best evidence we did descend from apes - mor precisely, we and modern apes descended from a common, ape-like ancestor. And I'm proud of how far our species has developed, how far up from the muck we've come, how far towards grace we've climbed; and I hope that our umptity-great grandchildren will be as far above us as we are above the Australopithecines. My opponent the Biblical literalist, on the other hand, seems to hold that we're all the fallen result of incestuous inbreeding from a single original pair of idiots dumb enough to be fooled by a talking snake. I've got to say I find the scientific account not only more rational, but orders of magnitude more inspiring."
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Florida... aye (Score:5, Informative)
I saw this guy arguing why evolution shouldn't be taught and i was literally left speechless
That's fair (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:That's fair (Score:5, Informative)
I've noticed in my various arguments that the chief difficulty is getting them to understand the terminology behind the concepts--they simply do not have the vocabulary necessary to vocalize and understand the concepts in question.
One of those words that is most egregiously misused is "theory"--the "common" form of the word is almost universally understood, but the "scientific" meaning of the word, even when carefully explained, becomes conflated with the common form.
(Other difficulties I've noticed are: that those who do not accept evolutionary theory are convinced that evolution is directed towards some 'goal'; that all mutations are necessarily harmful; an ignorance of introns and other means by which genetic material can be added to a genome--one of the current arguments that crops up is the one about how you can't get more information into a genome by evolutionary means, which is, of course, utter bosh; a misunderstanding of the scientific method; the false notion that science attempts to be the Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything rather than a best-fit approximation; and the notion that scientists are trying actively to discourage religion)
Other than teaching the proper meaning of the word 'theory'--which doesn't work very well, frankly; the meaning that they knew first tends to stick no matter how often you teach them the proper one due to recency bias--I'd perhaps recommend a slight change in terminology when speaking of hypotheses that have withstood rigorous testing. Such a change would, of course, have to be accepted by the scientific community as a whole, so it may not be practical--but it's perhaps worth giving some thought to.
I'd almost recommend 'theorem' rather than 'theory', to leech off of the mathematician's meaning, but while that word is appealing for reasons of similarity and having the proper tone, it may not be ideal due to conflation with mathematical proofs.
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Re:That's fair (Score:5, Insightful)
It reminds me of a line from Steven Colbert talking about the "Half Hour News Hour." Something to the effect of "you really need to be on one side or the other because it's hard to be passionately moderate."
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Re:That's fair (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:That's fair (Score:5, Informative)
A fact is what you have observed. A theory is an explanation of why it is so.
In the strictest sense, the fact is that you have always (previously) observed that objects fall to the ground. But in order to link that fact to your prediction that he will fall to the ground after jumping off a building, you have to have a theory of gravity that predicts how a novel event (i.e., the grandparent poster jumping off a 42 story building) will unfold in the future.
Put more succintly: "Objects thrown off a building have always fallen" is a statement of fact. "Objects thrown off a building will always fall" is a hypothesis derived from a theory.
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Re:That's fair (Score:4, Insightful)
Before people go nuts however, I'd like to point out that Creationism is not a theory, or a law, or anything to do with science.
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Re:That's fair (Score:4, Funny)
I do not think I can put this in a softer way, so here it goes:
In the name of $HOLY_THING, please inform yourself before attemptying to participate in a discussion, for otherwise you are become line noise.
The difference you are seeing between `law' and `theory' only exists in your confused mind.
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Re:That's fair (Score:4, Informative)
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Someone call editorial... (Score:5, Funny)
Not sure that's the word said scientists would use in this context themselves...
woo hoo! (Score:5, Funny)
Fear me, for I have studied the dark science of natural selection!
Re:woo hoo! (Score:5, Funny)
My junk looks HUGE!
-Rick
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Re:woo hoo! (Score:5, Funny)
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Evolution is not natural selection (Score:4, Informative)
Lamenting that evolution is called a theory? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why Should We Be Surprised? (Score:5, Funny)
Terminology? (Score:4, Insightful)
Control the meaning of words, you control how they're percieved. For instance, most if not all the old Soviet republics considered themselves 'democratic' in that elections were held on a regular basis. Of course, there was only one slate of candidates to elect, so calling them 'democracies' was a bit of a misnomer. Likewise, their penchant for putting "People's' in front of just about everything, like 'People's Democratic Republic of'. Double whammy there...
Now, if the definition of 'approved' now means 'guaranteed not to piss off any J Random NeoCon Fundie', and 'theory' now means 'something that cannot be proved but must be taken on faith', we're in serious trouble here...
why complain? (Score:4, Insightful)
Losing relevance... (Score:5, Insightful)
The only reason I see for this idiotic push to marginalize evolution and push creationism as a valid theory is because Christian conservatives see their influence on American culture slipping. This is a desperate attempt to make their religion relevant. I don't understand how this is permitted.
Evolution is a science. Creationism and Intelligent Design are not science and have no place in the science class. Those concepts don't conform to the standards established by science. There is a place for creationism, and that's the theology class.
If parents want to compromise their children's education they should do so in private schools or at home instead of trying to force this stupidity on everyone.
Devils advocate (Score:5, Insightful)
Evolution is the least popular theory ever proposed. It has been under continuous attack ever since it was proposed. During this time, the creationists have tried every trick they can think of to get it out of the schools. They have blamed just about every evil of society on it, and they have brainwashed millions into believing that it's incompatible with their religion. They've tried to make it illegal, and they have even tried (unsuccessfully) to disprove it. And evolution has survived all of these attacks because it is true. You can always argue that the physical evidence doesn't accurately represent reality, and of course the creationists have tried that, but it's no use when they're arguing with proper scientists.
Given this, I don't think we need to worry about evolution at all. Sure, creationists would like it to be thrown away entirely, but as long as we have scientists, that simply will not happen. You just can't do useful research in any physical science if you think the Bible has greater authority than a ton of physical evidence. There are worse problems in public schools than a bunch of nutcases wanting their crazy beliefs taught as if they were science.
There is no evidence that will convince a creationist that he is wrong. If Jesus Christ personally appeared in front of John Q. Creationist and said "Hi, John. My name's Jesus, the Earth is billions of years old and evolution is basically true," then John Q. would probably crucify him for blasphemy. That's what the fundamentalists did, the last time Jesus told them they were wrong. "Everyone" knows that God couldn't have created the Universe using evolution: he's omnipotent, sure, but he's not that omnipotent. In summary, there is no point in trying to argue with these people, their beliefs are nuts even in comparison to other Christians, so let's just ignore them..
Monroe County Approved a Stronger Standard (Score:4, Informative)
From the article itself:
She said the concept of evolution is essential to understanding 21st century biology and that, in her opinion, "people who have never been taught evolution in the first place don't understand that it doesn't really undermine religion." "I'm a lifelong Methodist and I find no conflict between my spiritual life and my rational, scientific self," she said. Walker isn't alone. The Clergy Letter Project, a Butler University initiative that works to dispel the notion that religion and science are at odds, has garnered 11,183 signatures from clergy members who say teaching evolution does not undermine religion.
Christianity (Score:5, Funny)
Christianity
The belief that some cosmic, Jewish zombie can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him that you accept him as your master so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree.
Makes perfect sense.
Evolution is a fact, the path is the theory. (Score:4, Insightful)
"Evolution" is a proven fact. Organisms evolve over time. It has been documented, proved, case closed. Again: it is a fact that organisms evolve. Score one for science and zoology.
Now, the more complex question, why do certain evolutionary steps take place? That is subject to theory and speculation, research, anthropology, and study. Did human being evolve from "lesser" primates? Almost certainly, barring some unforeseen UFO landing (8 million years to earth -- Quatermas and the pit) or divine intervention, the fossil record is pretty conclusive.
What is most interesting is the path from lesser primate to our current form, we still do not know everything. For instance, it seems that perhaps the Neanderthals re-joined the genetic pool rather than simply die off.
The problem is that religious fools require absolute certainty in everything but religion. The evolution of human beings is far more proven then genesis, but they "believe" genesis as "gospel." So, evolution and the path between single cell life and 21st century human beings has to be 100% documented with no missing steps or ambiguous lineage or it is just a wild theory and therefor no more valid than what they already believe.
They are, by definition, unreasonable. Unfortunately, "unreason" is the common sense of the day because we "elite" thinkers don't represent "real" America.
Re:I accept evolution and I know God is real. (Score:5, Insightful)
In several places in the Bible it explains how the passage of time is not a factor to God as it is to us (a day is like a millenia, a millenia like a day), but it explicitly says in Genesis, after each day of creation, "And there was evening and there was morning, the Nth day." If you hand-wave away that phrase, then what else do you hand-wave away?
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Re:I accept evolution and I know God is real. (Score:4, Interesting)
Easy. The Old Testament was originally written in ancient Hebrew which has no vowels. In order to read it, a Rabi would have to know the context of the words. When the Bible was translated into Latin and then into Vernacular one could say there is a bit of "finagalling" when it comes to terminology which somehow many people over look.
I forget the exact quote but I think in Psalms there is a part where they talk about the four corners of the earth and it being a sphere which many people like to point out as an example of the ancients knowing about the earth being round. But when you look the word up by its original definition in ancient Hebrew it translate as "Compass" which by all accounts and purposes was not a sphere in ancient Judea.
Others can point flaws to modern English translations such as the the Leviticus's part about homosexuality that there was no word for homosexual in ancient Greek. The literal translation meant "soft" or "feminine" which in ancient times more or less meant "weak willed".
The odd thing is that the Catholic Church and many Jewish Rabbis appear to have no problem with idea of evolution and big bang because they do not adhere to something that conflicts with the idea of genesis seeing that god could have used that as his method.
Ironically, most Christians who are literalists seems to ignore many of the dietary rules (Kosher, Parva, etc) set forth in the old testament that many modern Jews adhere (which also Muslims follow) and seem to not notice that Jews only read the bible in Hebrew due to the fact of the forementioned translation issues. My friend was raised conservative Jewish (not the orthodox) and she said even they would read the Torah in Jewish even in elementary bible study class at their synagogue as a young child.
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Re:Science board is trolling? (Score:4, Informative)
Now, remember, Gravity is just a theory as well, so why don't you test it by jumping out off of a very tall building.
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Re:Science board is trolling? (Score:5, Informative)
Race: "a group of persons related by common descent or heredity." Species: "Biology. the major subdivision of a genus or subgenus, regarded as the basic category of biological classification, composed of related individuals that resemble one another, are able to breed among themselves, but are not able to breed with members of another species." funwithBSD: "An individual who needs to buy a dictionary."
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