Kansas Challenges Definition of Science 2759
nysus writes "Anti-evolutionists have made classrooms in Kansas a key battleground in America's culture war. Again. The New York Times reports they are proposing to change the definition of science in Kansas: 'instead of "seeking natural explanations for what we observe around us," the new standards would describe it as a "continuing investigation that uses observation, hypothesis testing, measurement, experimentation, logical argument and theory building to lead to more adequate explanations of natural phenomena."'" From the article: "In the first of three daylong hearings being referred to here as a direct descendant of the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial in Tennessee, a parade of Ph.D.'s testified Thursday about the flaws they saw in mainstream science's explanation of the origins of life. It was one part biology lesson, one part political theater, and the biggest stage yet for the emerging movement known as intelligent design, which posits that life's complexity cannot be explained without a supernatural creator."
my definition (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah, but (Score:1, Funny)
Only in Kansas... (Score:4, Funny)
In Kansas, you can watch your dog run away for ten days.
They are doing it for the babes (Score:4, Funny)
Re:More like Kansas (Score:2, Funny)
Re:What Science Really is... (Score:0, Funny)
Breaking Point. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Fundamental Fundamentalist question... (Score:3, Funny)
There's no reason kids should live in fear that they're being watched 24*7.
Yeah, that whole Santa Claus thing really traumatized me too.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Call me a conspiracy nut... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Laughingstock (Score:3, Funny)
There even was two years ago a "black humour" TV show at 8PM where women pubes where shown on a few occasions without real problems (the only requirement was: "we advise your children under 10 years old not to watch this show" but that was all).
DarthVain (Score:2, Funny)
If I do not understand something surely it must have been created by GOD, its the only way to explain it. How concited and egoist is that. If I was GOD I will slap the arrogent fools that throught that shit. Of couse things would be a LOT different around here [insert rathful/vengful].
Screw Darwin and natural selection or any scientific explainations.
GOD created boobies, and it was good.
Re:You know... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I almost want the creationists to win... (Score:2, Funny)
HHGttG Reference (Score:5, Funny)
The Intelligent Design proponents had better be careful, or they might end up proving God out of existence.
Re:You know... (Score:1, Funny)
I did. In Java, which is why he works so slowly.
Actually, I did. In obfuscated Perl, which is why he works in mysterious ways.
Re:Laughingstock (Score:4, Funny)
Re:This is more than a culture war, now. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:This is more than a culture war, now. (Score:3, Funny)
At least it's better than the nightmare world of "The Color Purple" as envisioned by Margaret Atwood!
Everyone know's the supernatural creator is... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Intelligent Navel Theory (Score:5, Funny)
You know, this explains a lot of things...
Intelligent designer ? (Score:5, Funny)
Yea, and who put a sewer line in a recreational area!?
Re:What Science Really is... (Score:5, Funny)
Then I drop a duck, and it flies off. So I revise my guess: "All inert objects fall."
Your girlfriend is inert?
Re:More like Kansas (Score:3, Funny)
Collection name correction (Score:1, Funny)
Shouldn't that be an obfuscation of Ph.D.'s?
Re:What Science Really is... (Score:5, Funny)
The rest of the educated world will carry on learning evolution and other current best scientific theories. Our society and culture will advance, our technology will progress and we and our children will prosper in an atmosphere of rationality and freedom.
Kansas will devolve into a state where new ideas are banned, technology regresses and anything that contradicts the "Big Beard In The Sky" theory is first repressed, then outlawed. The people will grow up stupid and ignorant, to raise even more stupid and ignorant kids. Eventually the vicious cycle will spiral on down, until the populace is exclusively composed of barely-intelligent hominids, eventually losing the powers of speech and fire.
At this point we'll stop recognising them as human, and we can hunt and kill them for food. Eventually Homo Kansasians will effectively die out in the wild, out-competed by more intellectual wild animals or hunted into extinction by Homo Sapiens. Oh, alright, some small bedraggled breeding colonies might survive in zoos, and may eventually be Uplifted to normal human cognition again, but as a wild species they'll be extinct.
Voilá. Evolution in action.
Bumper Sticker (Score:5, Funny)
Only Outlaws Will Evolve
Re:More like Kansas (Score:3, Funny)
Re:What Science Really is... (Score:5, Funny)
56??? Geez grandpa, instead of debating the meaning of science, why don't you just tell us whether Evolution or Creationism is the right answer, you must have been around back then.
Re:You know... (Score:5, Funny)
Heh, a nice example from bash.org:
Re:Really? (Score:1, Funny)
Re:What Science Really is... (Score:3, Funny)
Maybe that's why he dropped her off a cliff.
Inert matter. (Score:4, Funny)
>> Then I drop a duck, and it flies off. So I revise my guess: "All inert objects fall."
>
> Your girlfriend is inert?
After we 'trew 'er off the cliff, she done stopped movin'. So we left 'er dere. In'ert? Why, she's under six whole feet o' 'ert!
Re:What Science Really is... (Score:5, Funny)
He doesn't actually have a girlfriend. This is theoretical physics.
Re:More like Kansas (Score:2, Funny)
Re:You know... (Score:3, Funny)
Actually, the reason he works so slowly is because you didn't just design the Creator, you made a Creator interface and CreatorImpl class, which needs to be created by a CreatorFactory. But since you made the CreatorFactory an interface and CreatorFactoryImpl is an abstract class, you need a DefaultCreatorFactoryImpl subclass which reads the initialization parameters for the Creator, including the full class name (org.apache.commons.religion.deterministic.singleO rigin.creator.Creator$DefaultCreatorImpl,
not to be confused with the common misspelling org.apache.commons.religion.deterministic.singleOr igin.creator.Creator.DefaultCreatorImpl).
Re:What Science Really is... (Score:4, Funny)
For the last number of decades, computer science was thought to have been popularized by such so-called "inventions" as the "transistor". Our organization, which is growing in (God-initiated) leaps and bounds, proposes that trapped inside your everyday computer are the souls of literally HUNDREDS of tiny, invisible mathematicians (many of whom were fetuses aborted by their murderous, pro-life, heathen ACLU-type mothers) who use their thousands of holy slide-rules to try and figure out the answer when you ask calc.exe what 1337 squared is (it's 1787569, and I figured that out whith a pen and paper so as not to torture any more fetus' souls).
These lost souls are being enslaved by terrible companies like Intel and Advanced Micro Devices, who claim to be doing "valid research" into crackpot "computer science" just so you won't find out the horrible truth about the inner workings of your computer. We believe that all these so-called "computers" are nothing more than the work of the left-leaning, limousine-liberal, ACLU-loving Jewish Media Conspiracy which aims to destroy the jobs, souls and minds of countless Christian^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H LIMP supporters who might otherwise be spending their time in the valuable industry of transcribing monkish Bibles by hand.
By constantly creating new software, these so-called "computer scientists", whom for the sake of objectivity we shall refer to as "child-murdering sociopaths", are working thousands of fetal souls tirelessly, until enough have been sucked into Hell from overwork that the "computer" owner must purchase a new "computer".
You won't read about our theory in communist rags like "Scientific American" or "Popular Science" because they didn't accept our manifesto^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H article for publication, claiming it was "inconsistent with scientific principles". Clearly, they are simply so afraid of the Truth of our theory that we feel that our theory has been leant extra validity in its very denial by the Godless socialist magazines who are trying to kill religion. We believe that it should not even be called a "theory" any more--as theories are open to question--but rather should be called a fact, since we say that it is one.
Re:What Science Really is... (Score:5, Funny)
The Definition of Kansas (Score:2, Funny)
Kansas - 1. state central U.S. capital Topeka area 82,277 square miles (213,097 square kilometers), population 2,477,574, 2. wellspring of ignorance
Intelligent Design (Score:2, Funny)
"He believed in a door. He must find that door. The door was the way to... to...
The Door was The Way.
Good.
Capital letters were always the best way of dealing with things you didn't have a good answer to."
-- Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
Re:Wrong (Score:2, Funny)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/04/ [pbs.org]
Doubt Anyone Will Read This Far Down, But... (Score:2, Funny)
When debating about this issue, I like to compare it to chemistry:
If it's all right to teach Creationism alongside Evolutionism, then would it be all right to teach Alchemy alongside Chemistry?
Re:What Science Really is... (Score:3, Funny)
The classic proof involves one of the listeners thumping the fool who says empiricists are wrong and then challenging him on whether he was really hit, or just thinks he was hit, and what exactly would be the difference.
A Late Posting (Score:2, Funny)
There ain't no freaking GOD. In the past, there were believed to be MANY gods and somehow we think we are more advanced when we have only one upon which we thank for the "good" things and blame for the "bad" things.
But "we" don't seem to look at the situation objectively to see that the belief in one god and many gods isn't all that different. It boils down to "I don't understand it, therefore it's 'God(s)' doing." If you believe that crap, you're a complete dumbass. When you see how many times that line of thinking has been shot down by what we NOW know is the cause of the effects we observe, it should at least shake the foundation of the simple "god" explanation for everything else. And I think it's perfectly fine to say "I don't understand..." So try it.
But if I were to play your game, I'd hate god for pollen and cottonwood because my allergies are driving me nuts!! Fucking God... I hate you.
Re:What Science Really is... (Score:3, Funny)
All statements about scientific philosophy can be made more efficiently by a one-liner Feynman quote than by a ten-page paper.
Re:Religion will continue to lose... (Score:3, Funny)
Group 2 just behave like they do normally.
I'm sorry, I don't think I understand the distinction.
Re:What Science Really is... (Score:4, Funny)