New Science Standards Approved in Florida 891
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."
Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:4, Insightful)
The driving force behind religion is - in my opinion - social pressure. If your parents are christian, you'll be a christian too. Not because it is testable that it is the only true religion, but a) because you are indoctrinated from day one, and b) because your environment won't allow you to think differently. You won't "fit in" anymore. Just think what happens when two people with different religions want to mary. In extremis, even today, young people are killed by their own family because they want to mary somebody with a different belief. Now that's an extreme case, but it clearly shows how strong social pressure can be. The family rather kills it's own than to have to go through the shame. The individual feels the pressure of the family, and the family feels the pressure of the community.
That's why they want to propagate ID by law instead of scientific proof. It's totally in line with how religion works.
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.
Approved religion? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:5, Informative)
Evolution *is* a theory. Perhaps they should also teach what "theory" means.
Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:5, Insightful)
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Unless, of course, you'd like to claim omniscience and assert no such phenomena will ever be discovered.
Theory means more than one thing. (Score:4, Informative)
Def 1: "hunch" "guess" or "hypothesis". This is the sense that creationists mean when they say "evolution is just a theory". It's not technically correct to use theory this way in science, but people (even scientists) do all the time when speaking colloquially. ("If my theory is correct...") This is a problem - scientists should be careful not to speak this way, and when they do, they muddy the waters and make openings for the creationists.
Def 2: A model that explains all the known facts and has survived at least some testing. "The theory of evolution" and "the theory of special relativity", as phrases, mean this kind of theory. Unfortunately, theories of this definition vary quite a bit in their level of confidence and/or the amount of testing they have undergone.
Def 3: A set of principles, assumptions, and a body of work underlying a certain field. What exists when a def 2 theory has been confirmed so well and so long that it is assumed as true and used as the base principles for an entire field of scientific endeavor. Examples: "Evolutionary theory" is the understanding of DNA, mutation, genetics, heritability, natural selection and evolutionary descent that gives the inseparable background for all of biology. "Atomic theory" is the understanding of atom structure, valence electron, orbitals, quantum states, and bonds that underlies all of chemistry.
Science is a century past def. 2 "the theory of evolution" and long since completely employing def. 3 "evolutionary theory".
The key thing about a Type 3 theory is that it is so key to its field that it has become inseparable. Trying to understand contemporary research in biology while "rejecting evolution" is 100% as stupid as trying to understand chemistry while "rejecting the atom".
Atomic and Evolutionary theory are quite parallel: both arose as type 2 theories in the 19th century, replacing prior assumptions held by most knowledgeable people (special creation and infinitely divisible matter), and through decades of continuously accumulated support and evidence became essentially irrefutable type 3 theories by early in the 20th century. Both actually had inklings all the way back to the ancient Greeks but didn't become coherent (def. 2) theories until missing pieces and observations were filled in by Rutherford and Darwin.
When talking to creationists I often employ the analogy of a faith that demanded that atoms aren't real and that matter is continuously divisible because some allegorical section of their holy book could be read that way. It's easy to imagine:
"And on the second day, The Lord took the clay he had created and divided it in two, and again to make four, and again indefinitely until he had enough lumps of clay. And he fashioned their myriads into the earth, and the stars, and the waters, and the clouds, and every living thing, and every stone, and every grain of sand."
Suppose such a faith demanded that science classes miseducate their children with that obviously unsupportable position based on that one passage of text. That would only be conceivable to people who really don't understand the facts (if the atom isn't real, how in hell did we make the atomic bomb?), and it would be hazardous to our kids.
To anyone who understands biology, creationism is misguided on a nearly identical level. (if evolution isn't real, why do genetic drift/mutation accumulation, genetic structure analysis, morphological structure analysis, and the fossil record *all* produce a broadly similar tree of life? Why do we find literally billions of fossils of extinct intermediate species that fit that tree? Why do we find that every structure both macroscopic and microscopic looks like an adapted version of some preexisting structure that filled a different role?)
If God exists, He used evolution in the same way he used atoms. End of story.
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.
Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:5, Funny)
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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Please, show me how fish can grow lungs to breath only air, without compromising their current breathing system
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoceratodus [wikipedia.org]
This creature normally uses its gills for respiration, but is also capable of taking in oxygen from the air when water quality is poor, or there are low dissolved oxygen levels, such as when water temperatures are high during summer.
Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:5, Informative)
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I think that would be "I'll believe evolution when you show me a frog give birth to a cat".
Also known as "I'll believe in relativity when I drive a car real fast and I see my watch run backwards".
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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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Well I have news for you. Newton STILL is the last word on gravity for our our frame of existence. Now if you can get near the speed of light, then some of the additional effects that Einstein theorized may come into effect. Nobody has been able to test that part of Einstein's theory yet. So for now, Newton's apple still falls as he said it does.
(......fish and humans have a common ancestor..........)
All we can say from what we observe TODAY i
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Science will never convert evolution (whether you use a big e or a little e) into a fact, because in science all explanations and generalizations are theories. Facts are observations, like "All known differences between the DNA of different vertebrate species are of the type created by mutation." Any interpretation, e.g. "These facts
Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:5, Insightful)
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There is plenty of non fossil data. Most obviously from domestic animal/plant breeding and parasites becoming resistant to drugs.
Possibly the issue here is that there are people who dislike the idea of human
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Sure you can observe gravity and model it based on observation, but no one know what actually causes gravity or why it exists. There is no proven theory as to what gravity actually is.
However evolution can be observed and modelled. The process of selective genes being inherited from one generation to the next is observed, d
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EVERY description of how things work in science is a theory. This does not mean it is not also a fact. The only things that are called "laws" are only called that for historical reasons; if thermodynamics were developed today it would be called a theory.
Any theory can be disproven at any time by presenting a contradictory, repeatable example. If a contradictory example is given, then the theory can either be modified or replaced. Theories can never by abs
theory vs tautology (Score:3, Informative)
A "tautology," of course, is a statement that logically must be true, so any valid mathematical equatioin or logical proof is a tautology. Since a scientific theory must be logical, it necessarily contains embedded within it one or more tautologies, but it goes beyond that in that its conclusions constitute predictions about the physical world that
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.
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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29+ evidences for macro-evolution (Score:4, Informative)
Perhaps you ought to have a glance at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/ [talkorigins.org]
Mind you if you come back in 10 minutes (or anything less than 2 weeks) we will know you haven't read it. Especially if you post a random link to "Answers in Genesis".
Re:Einsteins Theory of Gravity (Score:5, Informative)
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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There are aesthetic reasons to be unsatisfied with Einstein's Theory. It is difficult to reconcile with quantum mechanics. And there are nagging difficulties with the brightness of Type 1A Supernova and the red and blue shifts of receding and approaching sides of gal
Mod Parent Down: Dead Wrong (Score:3, Informative)
I can understand the confusion here, given the really inconsistent use of terminology (conjecture, hypothesis, theory, law) by scientists, but who the hell modded this informative??? Mods, if you don't know anything about a subject then you probably should refrain
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Anything that starts with some "There's some invisible guy, up in the sky, who can kill you, because he loves you" is deeply, persistently and fundamentally fucked up.
Agreed, but this is a straw man summary of Christianity. Some fundamentalist sects are getting closer and closer to matching it, but the only people who do are the Westboro Baptists, and you'll see them denounced by the overwhelming majority of Christians.
Creationism is merely an expression of how fucked up it is.
This doesn't follow. Care to elaborate and earn that Insightful mod? Creationism
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.
Re:Man, ALL religion is crazy... (Score:4, Insightful)
It works out great. By being second in command you get all the power and its trappings, great food, great sex, great place to live and the best part is you can pass the buck to the guy in charge if things seem to be going awry. It's actually a much better thought out scam than politics.
I'd be all for it if it wasn't for this demand of universal ignorance they call faith.
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If you're religion says man was made of dirt that was created with the rest of the universe 6000 years ago by an invisible sky ghost in only 144 hours, then there IS conflict between science and religion.
You are making the big assumption that
Science board is trolling? (Score:3, Insightful)
Still, I think it would be an improvement of orders of magnitude if science classes in general focused more on:
"how did we learn this?" (i.e., the scientific method, how observations have to be done to eliminate bias, the formulation of competing theories, how experiments are designed, how hypotheses were ruled out, etc.)
as opposed to:
"here is he official list of truth that you have to memorize and then do cute IQ-test-like problems with".
The latter gives the wrong impression of what science is and why it matters.
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.
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."
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.
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I think back to college, and frankly the journalism students didn't seem to be taking many elective science courses. The journalism community as a whole doesn't seem to have a very good understanding of the scientific method.
On the other hand, there are a good num
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asked his thoughts on Evolution which, in the words of Soledad O'brien, was the belief that man evolved from apes.
Speaking of "dumbing down", you have no idea what's going on, do you?
Referring to Evolution in this way and then asking an opinion (or the reverse) is an example of deliberate spin. You would never say that unless you wanted to get the "I didn't come from no monkey!" camp riled up, or you were an uneducated buffoon.
P.S. Jesus Christ, that woman looks like Ms. The Joker when she smiles. Plastic surgery, or inbreeding? YOU DECIDE!
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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She, also, blamed, partly (among other things she was discussing in the interview), the media for this sort of stupidity. She said the media has gone too far with its equal treatment of different sides of each issue. She said that sometimes one side is right and the other wrong, and giving the wrong side equal weight is not really serving t
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.
I thought so too (Score:3, Insightful)
Because my understanding (as a scientist) has always been that all science was theory - scientific theory and not fact. Some scientific theories, like evolution, have so much evidence that they may as well be fact - but they're still technically not fact.
And like you said gravity is a theory. The fact there is that when I let go of an apple it ends up on the ground, that's the fact - the most sensible theory that explains that fact and other related facts is the th
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."
Re:That's fair (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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.
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.
Re:That's fair (Score:4, Informative)
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A theory is a statement that has been supported by evidence from repeatable experiments and can be used to make accurate predictions that can be borne out by experiment.
No its not--what you describe is a good theory--like evolution or general relativity. Bad theories exist as well (ones that were falsified or that just no longer make sense--like the "aether"), or even theories that I couldn't really say are good or bad (ones which remain untested, or are difficult to use in the formation of testable hypotheses--like string theory).
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And as a True Believer, I tell you that religion (mine , specifically) still works too, even if you don't believe it.
Just try expressing your non-belief to St. Peter when he kindly asks you to step into the Hand Basket instead of inviting you to pass through the Pearly Gates....
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That's one of the tricks when using 'gravity' as part of a discussion regarding 'evolution'. The existance of both is proven. The 'why' of gravity has not yet been proven. But that is a MUCH different 'why' than the 'why' of evolution.
Gravitation is much closer to mathematics than evolution. I'm sure we can agree that if we are to discover the '
Someone call editorial... (Score:5, Funny)
Not sure that's the word said scientists would use in this context themselves...
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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
Re:woo hoo! (Score:5, Funny)
Evolution is not natural selection (Score:4, Informative)
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Cats and dogs go through similar things.
Assuming 'natural selection' is true and not a false hypothesis, this fits the pattern. If it's false, then this may not be the same thing at a
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)
I'm in ur curriculumns... (Score:3, Insightful)
The highest honor SCIENCE can bestow any idea is that of the "Theory". Science cannot claim anything to be a fact because in science, nothing is beyond disproval.
If science starts stating things are fact, and beyond disproval then the idea in question becomes dogma. Dogma is the realm of religion. Science may be your religion, but you do science a great disservice by making it so, at the expense of the scientific schema and method.
I know that the creationist/ID crowd LOVES to rub it in that evolution "is only a theory", but you've got to resist the temptation of fighting back by out-dogma-ing the dogmatists.
Evolution IS only a theory, it's among the most widely studied and tested theories of science. It's the single unifying theory of biology. Everyone say it with me: Evolution IS just a theory. The 800lb Gorrilla, bad-mother-fucker, stomp your colon theory. The king of theories.
In science, that's as good as it gets. And as science-minded people, we should know that.
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The BEST theories have equations and calculations that come with them (some of these are commonly called "Laws"). Gravity and thermodynamics and relativity, and many many others have whole sets of equations that can describe and predict the factually observed behavior. Now with hard core gene sequencing and manipulation we're closer than ever to being able to do X and expect Y, but so far there are no "laws" of
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.
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That, at least to me, is the interesting bit.
On the one hand, we're in the middle of an election cycle where there's serious issues with which to contend, and on the other hand, we have a vocal block of people and their elected representatives whose primary concerns are abortion, gay marriage and the teaching of evolut
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..
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Yes.
Sure, creationists would like it to be thrown away entirely, but as long as we have scientists, that simply will not happen.
. There are worse problems in public schools than a bunch of nutcases wanting their crazy beliefs taught as if they were science.
Weapons, and drugs are worse problems. However if your local school has such problems it has failed completely to BE a school.
There is no ev
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?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Good point. The way I saw it was that God created light before the sun existed. The length of the time that light shown may have been much longer than 12 hours, and what I am suggesting is that it was millions or billions of years. Then when darkness happens, it is only for a short period. Analogous to how the world was in darkness for a short period until Jesus came, an
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There is no explicit statement of how long the days were.
All the quote REALLY tells you, in fact, is that it got dark and then it got light, in between various tasks attributed to Yahweh.
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Which is, of course, a problem in itself because you have plants before a sun. Ignoring suggestions that God could sustain the plants without the sun, it is clearly contrary to any reasonable scientific sequence of events.
Bottom line is that Genesis has a lot of obvious problems if understood literally... the least of which is the length of a "day."
-matthew
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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Um, doesn't the Bible say that the Earth was here BEFORE there was light?
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Um, doesn't the Bible say that the Earth was here BEFORE there was light?
Yes it does. But let's imagine for a moment that God is telling Moses the story of creation as though the observer's point of view were on Earth itself. The early solar system is coalescing into planets, the Sun, etc. When the Sun ignites the planets are already largely coalesced. The solar wind sweeps the system clear of the remaining gas and dust. So our (long-lived and surprisingly hardy) observer on the newborn Earth sees the Earth in the dark, then sees the Sun come in to view as it ignites and
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"Theory" to them is supposed to lower the standing of the teaching of evolution, when in fact it will raise it if those same science classes teach accurate scientific terminology.
Ultimately, it brings evolution back into focus in schools while simultaneously showing the school board to be uneducated dweebs. Win/win as f