Repeal of Louisiana Science Education Act Rejected 318
egjertse writes "A Louisiana law that opponents say leaves the backdoor open to teaching 'creationism' in public schools will stay on the books after a Senate committee Wednesday effectively killed a bill that would repeal the statute. After hours of testimony for and against House Bill 26, which repeals the 2008 Louisiana Science Education Act, the senators narrowly deferred the legislation, effectively killing it in committee. The bill was sponsored by Sen. Karen Carter Peterson, D-New Orleans."
And then there's this asshole: (Score:5, Interesting)
Sen. Elbert Guillory, D-Opelousas, said he had reservations with repealing the act after a spiritual healer correctly diagnosed a specific medical ailment he had. He said he thought repealing the act could "lock the door on being able to view ideas from many places, concepts from many cultures."
"Yet if I closed my mind when I saw this man -- in the dust, throwing some bones on the ground, semi-clothed -- if I had closed him off and just said, 'That's not science. I'm not going to see this doctor,' I would have shut off a very good experience for myself," Guillory said.
Re:And then there's this asshole: (Score:5, Funny)
Re:And then there's this asshole: (Score:5, Insightful)
What countries are not like that? You will find those people everywhere, don't be smug and assume they're not where you live.
Re:And then there's this asshole: (Score:5, Insightful)
True, those people are widespread in many countries, but they usually don't run them.
Re:And then there's this asshole: (Score:4, Insightful)
I didn't realize that I needed to add the qualifier "developed" to countries. I mean, if people want to match US against Iran, by all means, go ahead - it'll be brilliant on all counts. But that's not a particularly useful basis for comparison.
Re:And then there's this asshole: (Score:4, Informative)
What most Europeans don't understand is that Louisiana is about as foreign too 95% of the US as Romania is to the UK. While the states of the US are a little more alike than the countries of Europe, they are still run independently and only tied together by the Federal government. That pendulum is something that swings at times, but is still there. The main example I hope the Europe takes from the US is, don't let the EU become what the US's Federal government has become. It's on that path though, unfortunately.
Re: And then there's this asshole: (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: And then there's this asshole: (Score:4, Insightful)
If it's bullshit, there would be proof it's bullshit. Since it's a possibility, but not a probability, it still remains as worth teaching. S
So, according to you, everything that is a possibility is worth teaching. There isn't enough time in eternity to teach everything that is a possibility. There are an infinite number of possible gods, for example. Since they might be out there, teach them. I think not.
Re: And then there's this asshole: (Score:5, Insightful)
Close minded towards precisely the kind of fuzzy thinking based on anecdotal evidence that science was designed to avoid? Yes, I think sensible should be.
Re: And then there's this asshole: (Score:5, Funny)
Re: And then there's this asshole: (Score:4, Insightful)
How strange, seeing as I never mentioned religion or atheism. But I can see you fear science, and I rather pity you for that, to be that terrified of knowledge.
Good luck to you sir.
Re: And then there's this asshole: (Score:5, Informative)
Please watch this YouTube video; it may be the best 9:40 you'll invest in the inexorably slow building of your critical thinking discipline.
Open-mindedness by QualiaSoup [youtube.com]
Re: And then there's this asshole: (Score:5, Informative)
Open mindedness is not the same thing as tolerance of baseless claims.
Too Open Minded (Score:3)
Wow, why are you so closed minded towards other ideas?
As the saying goes: "Keep an open mind – but not so open that your brain falls out". Even if you accept that his "vision" really happened, and was not the product of a mentally unfit mind, he acknowledges that it is not science and then argues that because sometimes non-scientific methods work it means that science education should contain non-science. That's as logical as arguing that because meteorology sometimes works all music classes should now contain content on predicting the weather..
Re:And then there's this asshole: (Score:5, Insightful)
Politicians are perfectly rational. They do and say exactly what it takes to get themselves re-elected. Whether or not this man believes a word of what he said, he knows full well which side his bread is buttered on.
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They do and say exactly what it takes to get themselves re-elected.
Don't be so simplistic. They balance this against other concerns, like doing what it takes to please the wealthy corporations that might give them highly-paid "political consulting jobs" after retirement from public service.
Re:And then there's this asshole: (Score:5, Insightful)
That's more the career beaurocrat track, but whatever, my point is that there was never a stupid and successful politican. Don't kid yourselves, these guys are slick fish, and it suits them just fine to let people believe they are stupid. Even the most celebrated of the ignorant politicians, GW Bush, famed for his consistent foreign policy gaffes, knew full well that his constituency didn't give one fuck about offended foreigners or their customs. The problem doesn't lie with the politicians, they're just working the system and the electorate.
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Yeah, I'd pretty much agree. I do think in a few cases it's not so much a slick/smart individual as the slick/smart managers behind them --- e.g. Bush II, who has now retired to his true calling of painting naked shower self-portraits, and Reagan, who was by many insider accounts pretty far gone to dementia --- though most positions below President are won on individual wiles.
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my point is that there was never a stupid and successful politican
Depends on what you mean by successful. Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock were both successful for quite a while until they said something so stupid that it ended their career. But I don't think they suddenly got stupid in 2012, more likely they were stupid all along and just got away with it.
Re:And then there's this asshole: (Score:5, Insightful)
As long as they vote the way their consituents want them to, I think they are effectively doing their job correctly. It's only when they take corporate money, and don't listen to the people that they are doing it wrong.
The problem is, their constituents are corporations, not meat citizens.
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However, most countries have fucked up legal affairs.. In some places, you can lose your head if you say something about mohammed (or draw his picture), or have sex out of wedlock.. In other, more 'liberal' countries, you can go to jail just for saying certain things about certain cultures in public, never mind actually defend yourself from them when they bomb your subways. In such countries, 'liberal' politicians roll over backwards to allow immigrant thugs from these protected cultures to build ghettos, gain political mass, then vote to strip their own country of the civil rights used to justify bringing them there in the first place. How 'progressive'!
Nowhere is perfect, but exactly what "liberal" countries throw you in jail for saying what about which cultures in public? Since you mention subways, you're probably talking about England or Japan?
The issue of immigration in Europe is substantially different than in the US because, at least in Western Europe, most of the immigrants come from former colonies, i.e., Indonesians in the Netherlands, or various African countries in France. These historical ties have nothing to do with civil rights or progressive
Re:And then there's this asshole: (Score:5, Funny)
Sen. Elbert Guillory, D-Opelousas, said he had reservations with repealing the act after a spiritual healer correctly diagnosed a specific medical ailment he had.
Like it was that hard to diagnose Cranial Colon Envelopment in a politician. He probably ran into her right outside the Asshat Haberdashery (a dead giveaway).
Re:And then there's this asshole: (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:And then there's this asshole: (Score:4, Insightful)
The spiritual healer obviously called upon the fairies, who conveyed the specific problem to the healer.
Even the crackpots get lucky sometimes.
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Senator Lindsay Graham had nothing to do with this.
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Re:And then there's this asshole: (Score:5, Funny)
I noticed that particular passage, too. One of the things that bothered me about his "decision making" is that spiritual healer is not the opposite of evolution or science. I can't remember a single science or math class where spiritual healers came up even once. I don't recall any lesson about how species evolve including, "therefore, spiritual healers suck". Moreover, "That's not science. I'm not going to see this doctor." Who does that? I would have been driven off by the "semi-clothed" aspect, but the its not science would have never crossed my mind.
Moreover, if it worked, I would want to "use my science" to learn more about it and figure out how it works. If I just accept that it was magic, I would close my mind to learning.
That's a pretty bold statement.
So sue them. (Score:2)
I hope they like losing in Federal court.
Re:So sue them. (Score:5, Insightful)
Why? It's their own kids that will suffer.
Is this the same logic you'd use if you noticed that your neighbor came home stinking drunk and beat his kids every night? And, in case caring for the well-being of other peoples' kids is too much of a stretch for you, how about a little self-interest: you own kids are going to grow up to share the world with these guys.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:So sue them. (Score:5, Insightful)
No, I wouldn't use the same logic there. ... See the difference now?
Yes, I can see that if you are a coward, standing on principle to help others is not part of your logic.
Re:So sue them. (Score:4, Insightful)
Minding you own business isn't part of yours?
There is a difference between someone beating their brats and that same person teaching the same brats something stupid.
If you want to teach your kids Christianity, Islam, Marxism or anything else go to it. The smart kids will be better for it, the dumb ones will never matter anyhow.
Re:So sue them. (Score:4, Interesting)
The point of my post wasn't to say that giving your kids a religious upbringing is as bad as drunkenly beating them; rather, to attack the motivating "logic" of "why should I care if someone else' kids suffer." Perhaps it's my religious upbringing and Christian beliefs talking here, but I don't think "fine if only someone else gets hurt" is a good basis for deciding how to act. You might decide not to interfere for other reasons, like "I respect the right of other parents to raise their children according to their own beliefs," or "the kids aren't really harmed, anyway" --- but "screw you if you're not me or mine" is not a philosophical stance I am particularly friendly towards.
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It's a fine line. Your definition of suffering is likely informed by you own beliefs.
I'm suffering from a 'the lack of a personal relationship with the flying spaghetti monster'. People have been burned for less.
'Screw you if you're not me or mine' is just the reflection of 'Whatever you want to do; no skin off my back'. If you want people to stay out of your business, in the long run you have to keep them out of your business. You want insurance? Expect the insurance agent to think some of your busine
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Let me re-iterate that I'm not trying to indicate "getting a crappy science education" is equivalent to "suffering." But, if (for whatever your reasons) you suspect someone might be "suffering," then you should weigh your reaction against some higher concerns (like respect for privacy and autonomy) rather than "not my kids; let 'em suffer."
'Screw you if you're not me or mine' is just the reflection of 'Whatever you want to do; no skin off my back'.
In this case, one is considering a third party: "Whatever you want to do to those children; no skin off my back." That's a little different from staying out of people's b
Re:So sue them. (Score:4, Insightful)
Minding you own business isn't part of yours?
There is a difference between someone beating their brats and that same person teaching the same brats something stupid.
If you want to teach your kids Christianity, Islam, Marxism or anything else go to it. The smart kids will be better for it, the dumb ones will never matter anyhow.
Even 'dumb' or more accurately 'ignorant and misled' people generally get to vote. When you have a large enough number of ignorant and misled people voting, you have a problem.
Re:So sue them. (Score:4)
As stated in another reply: the point of my response wasn't to say that giving your kids a religious upbringing is like drunkenly beating them; rather, to question your motivating "logic" of "why should I care if someone else' kids suffer." Perhaps it's my religious upbringing and Christian beliefs talking here, but I don't think "fine if only someone else gets hurt" is a good basis for deciding how to act. You might decide not to interfere for other reasons, like "I respect the right of other parents to raise their children according to their own beliefs," or "the kids aren't harmed enough to justify intervention" --- but "screw you if you're not me or mine," the reasoning that lead off your prior post, is not a philosophical stance I am particularly friendly towards.
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If you don't want your kids exposed to religiosity and pseudo-"science", put them in private school or move out of state. It's not the parents that don't want their kids exposed to "intelligent" design and creationism that should have to be putting their kids in private school. It's the ones that do want their kids exposed to that non-sense. If a school is publicly funded (i.e. a state school/institution), there is no reason why religious dogma in any of it's forms should be allowed to be taught. That's the biggest problem with all of this sort of non-sense, it changes the wall of separation, which should be a nice impenetrable wall, though it unfortunately hardly ever is. Into a very slight bump in the road, if it even amounts to that much. God(s) and religion need to be kept out of science, out of government and out of education in general, but since there will always be private religious schools, the least that can be done is to keep it out of public school.
Re:So sue them. (Score:5, Insightful)
Must be nice to grow up with enough wealth that it doesn't even occur to you that not every fucking person can afford private school or to pull up stakes and move to another state across country (because none of Louisiana's neighbors are any better). My niece is stuck in Louisiana for the foreseeable future, through no fault of her own. Her kids are in public schools because the private schools in her area that are affordable are all Baptist shitholes that are even worse.
Education should be a local issue.
Why? So that the children who grow up in Grosse Pointe Shores can get great educations to ensure that they continue to rule unopposed over the children who grow up in Benton Harbor? This was always the whole point of funding schools through local property taxes, so that the rich can forever dominate the poor no matter how intelligent and talented the poor kids might actually be.
Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why are we allowing people who aren't smart enough to decide what's best for children do just that? Why aren't we re-thinking how our government operates to prevent this from happening again?
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Those massive abuses may still be less destructive than what we have now.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Democracy. Rule by the people, half of whom have IQs in the double-digit range.
Or, as Mencken put it even better: "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, we have democracy whenever it suits the interests of a tiny power elite. If "the people" really ruled by democracy, we'd be entangled in a lot less foreign wars, have much lower disparity in wealth distribution, no big push for austerity, no too-big-to-fail bank bailouts, etc. As it is, we get stupid crowd-pleasers like nods toward eliminating separation of church and state, but not any democratically favored changes that oppose the oligarchy.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Interesting)
Not only that, but you're extremely naive if you think that most people want what you want. You'd get a very rude awakening if a real democracy were put in place, North Africa is learning that the hard way right now. The urban liberals in Egypt thought that democracy would make things better, but they're learning that what the majority wants is in fact a society based on oppressive religious conservatism. Large groups of people are ruled brutally by the bell curve. They are of average intellect and average wisdom, and in a place where averages are lower, so goes the entire effect. And as Polybius and contemporaries documented long ago, such simplistic political forms fall inevitably into ochlochcracy. Study history.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Interesting)
Democracy looks like Proposition 8. Majority gets what it wants, even if it means a minority is oppressed.
Yep. And it also looks like the democratic movements to create marriage equality in many other states (despite gays being just as much a minority). You win some, you lose some. I haven't particularly seen our antidemocratic overlords stepping up for marriage equality against popular opinion, either.
The wealthy are a minority, so we'll just vote to take their money make everybody poor.
Yeah, it's so important to protect that minority, that we'd better put them in control of who gets rich and who gets poor. What's that? The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer? What a shocker!
And as Polybius and contemporaries documented long ago, such simplistic political forms fall inevitably into ochlochcracy.
Right, because democracy can only take the most simplistic strawman forms, and the ancient Greeks were the final word on all political science. Better to stay safe with oligarchy.
Re:Why? (Score:4, Informative)
Majority gets what it wants, even if it means a minority is oppressed.
That's the reason why in a civilised society you try to get everyone educated to as high a level as possible, so that there is more chance of people being able to think critically and objectively.
Whereas with an oligarchy, the poorer and dumber the hoi polloi are the better.
ochlochcracy
For those who, like myself, hadn't heard this word before, it's just a knob-end's way of saying "mob rule". Whereas it is simple common sense that having the majority of people on the side of just law and order is the only way to prevent the oppression of minorities.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
No, that's not democracy. Democracy is mob rule. Democracy is, if 51% of the people wanted religious education, persecution of other religions, and modern crusades into the Middle East, the other 49% are stuck doing exactly those same things. That is democracy.
Democracy still tyranny--tyranny of the majority over the minority.
What we have is a republic.
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Where in my post did I say that democracy was guaranteed ponies and rainbows? I was just pointing out that we get to enjoy many of the sucky oppressive parts of democracy, without many of the potential upsides. However, unlike dyed-in-the-wool authoritarians, I have a more optimistic outlook on humankind's capacity for democracy (I don't think we need a tiny oligarchical ruling elite to decide what's best for everyone else). For example, at least in this country, I'm pretty certain that you can gather an ov
Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)
We are a democracy and a republic. We are not a direct democracy, we're a representative democracy, so no.... it's not mob rules, tyranny of the majority (you may be confusing us with Switzerland, or simply be confused for no reason). It can also be called a representative republic, as our president is elected and not a monarch (like in England).
Whenever this stupid argument comes up, i'm often humored by the split in terminology. Conservatives want to claim loudly we're a republic, not a democracy... somehow i'm guessing that this makes them think republicans are better than democrats... yet when push comes to shove, what conservatives really want is a direct democracy so they can continue the tyranny of the majority against gays getting married, women having the right (or not) to self determine their own medical situations, and pretty much every social issue; after all, "the people should be able to vote on that..." as they tend to say right after a judge throws out their discriminatory laws. THE only reason they think that is because they believe they're in the majority.
So, back to the stupid argument...yes, we're a republic...and YES, we're a democracy.
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You will have to excuse the rest of the world if it isn't overly impressed by the fact that you have a fine-sounding statement of universal human rights and freedoms.
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I'd argue that on a very fundamental level we always have had democracy everywhere, because no form of government will remain in place unless enough people support it and few enough people oppose it: a state with more people actively (keyword: actively) fighting it than actively supporting it will inevitably fail.
The question is simply to whom do the masses delegate their power, whether by active support or passive acceptance. A king or dictator? An oligarchy or aristocracy? Some more directly accountable,
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Sure, but what do you do when the people getting elected are so stupid they actively work to make everyone as dumb as then? We're racing towards the bottom here, clearly something is very wrong.
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Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
And the alternative solution, adopted by the US, is to make sure that when it's one frat boy and three girls, the frat boy is still in charge of deciding how to spend the evening (lest he be abused by tyranny of the majority).
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Because the government is firmly stuck as democratic, it would not be easy to change that now.
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You don't just "allow" it, you encourage it by voting them in. By "you" I mean the people of Louisiana.
The only way to stop this would be a general education test for voters which would infringe peoples rights more than this stupid law.
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Isn't this law basically about giving that decision to the teachers instead of politicians?
Re: Why? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The correct response to, "Evolution is just a theory" is, "So is gravity." It's a good way to illustrate what the word theory means in a scientific context.
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Re: Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Whereas evolution has not been revised since it was proposed by Darwin.
This is blatantly wrong. Our understanding of evolution, like our understanding of gravity, has been immensely refined and elaborated since Darwin's time. Perhaps the most radical addition was the discovery of genetics --- a physical mechanism for inheritance of traits and production of variability unknown in Darwin's time. We've now got a huge array of tools to produce a far more detailed and comprehensive evolutionary model, quantitatively answering a huge number of questions left open by Darwin, while posing new ones.
Re: Why? (Score:3)
This is blatantly wrong. Our understanding of evolution, like our understanding of gravity, has been immensely refined and elaborated since Darwin's time.
There is a difference between "revised" and "refined". Newton's idea of gravity being some invisible pull between two objects is radically different than Einstein's notion that gravity is the curvature of space-time around an object.
Perhaps the most radical addition was the discovery of genetics --- a physical mechanism for inheritance of traits and production of variability unknown in Darwin's time.
Again, Darwin's basic premise has not changed. Random mutations occur. Beneficial ones get passed; detrimental ones do not. Species evolve over time. Science has merely explained in more detail how exactly this occurs. But it hasn't dramatically altered how Darwin describe
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Again, Darwin's basic premise has not changed. Random mutations occur. Beneficial ones get passed; detrimental ones do not. Species evolve over time. Science has merely explained in more detail how exactly this occurs. But it hasn't dramatically altered how Darwin described the process. Darwin purposefully left the mechanism unanswered as he did not know.
There has been changes such as horizontal gene transfer, where with the help of a virus, genes can be transferred across species. Totally different way for evolution to occur without mutations.
Re: Why? (Score:3)
In a word: NO. Read it, understand it, be enlightened. Don't be stupid. Please.
Words have exact meanings. Don't be a dick because I choose to be precise in what I mean. I would think precision and accuracy are neccesary when talking about science.
In short, my English Lit friend, living in a mental world of absolute rights and wrongs, may be imagining that because all theories are wrong, the earth may be thought spherical now, but cubical next century, and a hollow icosahedron the next, and a doughnut shape the one after.
In science there are no absolutes. That's why they no longer use "Law" when describing things as previous scientists like Kepler and Newton did. Everything is a theory. And "theory" in science has an exact meaning. Theory does not mean hypothesis or guess.
Has anyone radically changed Darwin's idea of evolution? No. Have they stood 150+ years of testing? Yes. Other long held concepts like gravity has undergone major changes as understanding is better.
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Still no. Our understanding of gravity was refined by Einstein's theory, but it's not a radical change. Einstein's theories add the relativstic aspect to our understanding of gravity. This is an incremental improvement. The fact that you express it using fancy mathematics has no bearing on the crux of the issue -- namely, that it's an improvement that is incremental and subject of Asimov's essay. Similarly, Darwin's main idea has been unchanged just as the main idea of gravity (an attractive force between o
Re: Why? (Score:5, Informative)
Whereas evolution has not been revised since it was proposed by Darwin.
I hereby nominate UnknowingFool for "most appropriate Slashdot user name of the year."
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Because for good or ill you live in a Democracy not a Plutocracy.
Not so sure about that.
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So, instead of asking why "we aren't rethinking how government works" let's ask why we have a populace so ignorant and superstitious that WANT their leaders and politicians to enact such horseshit.
Because the education system put in place by those leaders keeps the population so ignorant and superstitious etc...?
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because this law is nothing more than government forcing christianity into schools. We don't stop that because that's what people want. just try to get Islamic creationism in schools. fat chance.
Actually, that is what it would take - or perhaps Von Danikin's idea of ancient astronauts? There's enough pseudo - science in there to qualify under teh "bones in teh dust" standard for opening eyes to alternate ideas. Of course, the law would be repealed immediately.
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this is great (Score:2, Interesting)
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I'm not so sure more people with poor critical thinking and analytical skills is good for society as a whole. Just because not all work that needs to be done requires these skills doesn't mean these skills aren't good for the world.
I guess I don't mind this (Score:2, Insightful)
Look, it's going to be hard enough for my kids to get into college. Right now it's so competitive for high schoolers that they have to cram their lives full of extracurricular activities and forgo many of the valuable experiences of childhood and adolescence just so that they can keep up with the other young go-getters around them and have a chance of getting into anything better than a state school. I, for one, welcome any measure that will reduce the amount of competition for the intelligent offspring of
Teachers (Score:2)
Does it really matter what the law is?
I really do not see fanatical creationalist teachers not slipping in some creatonalism, and I would say the same thing about the evolutionists but for evolution.
If you are a teacher who teaches biology, you would pretty much necessaries either know that evolution was true, or know that it was false and the bible true.
Digital code in genes, proof that Jesus rode dinos (Score:5, Insightful)
The "Discovery Institute", the leading purveyors of pseudo-science hokum to the Far Right, who have somehow become a "think tank" involved in creating science curriculum in more than 25 states, has started a nationwide campaign on right-wing radio programs, pushing their notion that it's the Christian Conservatives who are the "real protectors of science" not those awful secular scientists (who are probably kenyan muslims too).
I heard their "director of research", a "Dr Stephen Meyer" who wrote a book called Darwinâ(TM)s Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design on the radio earlier this week, talking about how the fact that our genes have "digital code" in them is proof of an "intelligent designer" because you can't have things like "circuits and digital code" without someone intelligent to design them.
I'm not joking, they are spending millions on a PR campaign talking about how the Christian Right are the true lovers of science. And exhibit A is how "the science establishment" still teaches evolution.
We are so fucked.
Re:Digital code in genes, proof that Jesus rode di (Score:4, Funny)
you can't have things like "circuits and digital code" without someone intelligent to design them.
I present Windows 8 ("digital code") and the Zune ("circuits") as counter examples.
Re:Digital code in genes, proof that Jesus rode di (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes. And you can't have an intelligent designer without an intelligent designer designer.
From there it's turtles all the way down.
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The Discovery Institute has a few things to throw at evolution. One is based on information theory, and from a scientific philosophy standpoint it makes sense. It deals with the concept of systems being designed. For example to make an army tank vast amounts of design are required. You do not need to take God into account. You can stop at you have this colossal amount of information that makes a system. You do not have to consider who put it there if you do not want to, thus completely removing religion from intelligent design.
If their argument was compelling, I think they must have explained it a little better than you. Based on your last line, it seems like you're describing the scientific principle of putting your hands over your ears and saying "LALALALALALALA!!!!"
The part of the title "The Explosive Origin of Animal Life" is a hot topic. The problem is the Cambrian Explosion, from where the life you see today originated. The problem with it is it seemingly spontaneously erupted. There should be a clear fossil record of organisms progressing to the Cambrian Explosion organisms, but the fossil record doesn't seem to be lining up. Darwin himself said the theory breaks down until that is resolved
Darwin is not the be all and end all on the subject of evolution. Frankly, he probably only wrote that out of a sense of obligation to Adam Sedgwick, who was one of his mentors. The Cambrian explosion isn't particularly surprising. Before it, organisms that formed f
Scratch Louisiana (Score:5, Funny)
And, for you grammar Nazis, Louisiana is one place to which I will not consider moving.
And, for you Cajuns, I ain't gonna go to loosiana no more.
Looks like more work for Zack (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.repealcreationism.com/ [repealcreationism.com]
FYI: Zack is a college student who, while a high school student in Louisiana, decided that no one was going to repeal this law while he was in school. He started an organization to try and ensure that Louisiana students could get a proper education.
Maybe he should run for state senator!
Pseudoscience in Louisiana (Score:5, Informative)
Pseudoscience is everywhere in Louisiana [rationalblogs.org] - a report from the ground.
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Re:History (Score:5, Informative)
The name you're looking for is James Ussher, a Calvinist archbishop.
The specific works where he specified that the date of Creation was the nightfall before 23 OCT 4004 BC (Julian calendar, mind you) were published between 1650 and 1654 (I don't know which of them first used the 4004bc creation time).
Why so many flavours of Christian seem to be addicted to the writings of a Calvinist archbishop, I've never understood. Most American Christians are, at best, uninspired by Calvinism....
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There's also the Hebrew calendar. Which has us in the 'year or the world' 5773.
Just like a Calvinist to be telling the Hebrews they are wrong about their own legendary history. Bet he set them straight on the meaning of the Torah while he was at it.
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As a person who grew up in a Protestant household, I would like to add that most American Christians are uninspired by Christ.
"Why don't Baptists make love standing up?"
"Because people might think they are dancing!"
*Roar of laughter from the crowd.*
"I grew up Baptist, but am ordained Universalist. Want to know why?"
"Because I wanted to leave the liquor store through the FRONT door!"
*Roar of laughter from the crowd.*
Re:History (Score:5, Funny)
Q: How do you keep a Baptist from drinking all your beer when you are fishing?
A: Invite two.
They are all 'uninspired by Christ'. The scary ones are convinced they are.
Re:History (Score:5, Insightful)
History is a breeze on these schools... they only go back 6,001 years (to include 2013).
What puzzles me, or rather amuses me is how many of the people believing in this nonsense are happy to operate their DVD players and/or GPS (among other things) without hesitation;
- And accept they will work, completely ignoring that those items are based on the same physical laws we determine the age of earth with.
Re:History (Score:5, Insightful)
Because such people do not think about why their GPS works, they expect that it just does as an article of faith. In short, it's magic.
Re:History (Score:4, Funny)
[...] In short, it's magic.
So, you're saying, if we want to visit a different solar system or galaxy, all we have to do is to find someone stupid enough to go down on a long rope and kick the damn turtle in the butt?
Or maybe even better, lower a few billion tons of lettuce on a long rod at the other end...
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...kick the damn turtle in the butt?
My Magic Envelope says that you could fit into the smallest crease in that turtle's starfish with room enough to swing a furious one-eyed cat. Kicking may not be the best way to make an impression.
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Yeah, all DVD players are based on a mass spectrometer.
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Yeah, all DVD players are based on a mass spectrometer.
Replace "mass spectrometer" with "Planck world" and you are there.
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Yes, but those 6001 years are the hardest part of history. If you only had to study what happened in all of history before that time then the books get much thinner.
Re:History (Score:5, Interesting)
Can you (or someone else) expand on this? I am not a physicist and am curious as to what you are referring to.
Ready for a 6 month lesson? ;-)
First off, DVD players use a laser. Lasers obey to certain rules, it's an interaction between electrons, atom nuclei and photons (light, the laser light).
We can reliably predict the behavior of those "systems".
I'll try an example now (to stick with the lettuce).
Let's assume you are a farmer and are growing lettuce. No you find several heads of lettuce. Some fresh, some with leaves withered, some rotten.
As a farmer you can determine how long ago the lettuce head was cut.
Physicists do the same. They know how long lettuce (atoms) need to decay, based on physical laws that make the laser produce light.
So when you look at a stone, you look at the "withered leaves" and can tell how old it is.
Hope this makes sense.
Re:History (Score:4, Insightful)
Predicting it accurately would be very hard... but I think that the several orders-of-magnitude difference between 6000 years and 4.5 billion years means that it 6000 years is unlikely. Here's another way of looking at it: 6000 years/4.5 billion years is 1.33x10^-6 or 0.0001333%.
Secondly I doubt the age of the earth is calculated by fossil record because the earth predates the fossils by some quite significant margin. Only in fairy tales (you know the ones) was the earth and everything on it created in a short space of time. It spent quite a bit of time as a glowing hot ball of molten material, I doubt there were many fossil-leaving creatures around then. The movement of tectonic plates forcing things into the still molten core of the earth puts a bit of an upper bound on the maximum age of fossils as well. If you've found some source dating the earth itself by fossil record then they're either idiots or they have some interest in pushing inaccurate and terrible science
Thirdly in things that are dated by fossil record: I'd wager (even if you wouldn't) that the likely age of the fossil is known through radiocarbon dating or another technique, giving a range of ages where that fossil is likely to be found (extinction not being a modern phenomena). That way when you find rocks with those fossils in you can make a reasonable guess at when the rock formed. In other cases the formation of the rock happens at a known, or discernible rate (e.g. sedimentary rocks where a layer of sediment is formed each year), and so it is practical to date the fossils based on their position in the rock.
The error is pretty large, but then so is the timescale involved, and the accuracy doesn't need to be huge - being accurate to within 6000 years as illustrated above is actually ridiculously tiny, 100's of millions of years is probably a safer error range. The reasoning isn't circular where one of the data sets is calibrated against some other measurable fact.
BTW. I'm no geologist/physicist or other expert on these matters... someone who knows a bit more can chime in if I've made any wild assumptions. What I will say though is that I think it is more than likely we can make a pretty good guess at the age of the earth, with a significant margin for error.
Re:Lesson Learned (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah totally. Also have you ever tried applying critical thought to math class? Those closed-minded teachers won't even consider that Pi might be three. Tell them that's what you believe, and they'll fail you out of sheer bigotry. Man, math must be too weak to expose to differing ideas.
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Almost all modern religions are based on this idea of perfection, that there is some greater being out there that is perfect, and that all humans should strive for that perfection. This god itself is merely an anthropomorphism of the ultimate aspirations of an imperfect, deeply flawed creature.
If there ever was there a place such a god could exist, it could only be found hidden behind the intricacies of mathematics.
Now if only this idea caught on among the deeply religious. Mathematics would be all the theo
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