Texas Science Director Forced To Resign Over ID Statements 984
jeffporcaro writes "Texas' Director of Science Curriculum was 'forced to step down' for favoring evolution over intelligent design (ID). She apparently circulated an e-mail that was critical of ID — although state regulations require her not to have any opinion 'on a subject on which the agency must remain neutral.' 'The agency documents say that officials recommended firing Ms. Comer for repeated acts of misconduct and insubordination. The officials said forwarding the e-mail message conflicted with her job responsibilities and violated a directive that she not communicate with anyone outside the agency regarding a pending science curriculum review.'"
how, exactly (Score:5, Informative)
Re:how, exactly (Score:5, Insightful)
Biggest cop-out excuse ever.
Evolution is proven as far as I'm concerned, we see how micro-organisms become resistant to anti-biotics. This can't be god stepping in and changing them just so someone's ageing relative dies.
If god is in control of everything then why is it the most religious countries get hit with major earthquakes, flooding and tsunamis?
Re:how, exactly (Score:5, Insightful)
Easy.. to test their faith.. see if they're truly worthy. Those that aren't religious are going to hell anyway.
That's the fun thing about most religions - you can easily explain everything away as a whim of a/the god(s). Something good happens? Praise God. Something bad happens? Maybe not praise God, but at least accept that it was 'His' will and he moves in mysterious ways for the greater good and all that.
Assume we take evolution as fact - then after discarding the whole Adam&Eve bit, the religious can easily drop back to "but God -designed- evolution". There's your ID right there.
In the end, even if you can explain every single thing except the "why did the big bang happen?" (assuming the big bang theory is the correct one), then the religious can still say "God made it, and therefore everything, happen".
Re:how, exactly (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:how, exactly (Score:4, Funny)
We all have to take days off, on my days off I don't work, on his days off he's an evil sadistic psychopath.
But he loves you! (Score:5, Insightful)
No contest. No contest. Religion.
Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it.
Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man....
an invisible man, living in the sky, who watches everything you do, every minute of every day.
And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do.
And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, and suffering, and burning, and torture, and pain, and burning, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever 'til the end of time!.........
But He loves you.
He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He's all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, but somehow, He just can't handle money!
Religion takes in billions of dollars, they pay no taxes, and they always need a little more. Now, you talk about a good bullshit story. Holy Shit!
Re:But he loves you! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:how, exactly (Score:5, Interesting)
I tried to play the "infinity" card against an IDer recently, the "paradox of evil" as you put it (and they put it). For the uninitiated, the argument goes: God is infinite, which means by definition that he includes everything. Ergo, if evil exists then it too must be part of God. This requires one of three conclusions, (a) God is not all good, (b) God is not infinite, or (c) evil doesn't exist.
Completely nonplussed, my ID opponent had a ready answer. I have no trouble, he said, with understanding that God is infinite but separate, because God is an infinite presence. He is everywhere and nowhere at the same time. I tried to counter that this does not fit the definition of infinite, although it might meet the definition of pervasive. He would have none of it, and repeated that he had no trouble understanding infinite-but-separate, as if the failure of reasoning was on me.
Now the lesson of this story is that there is no limit to weaseling out of logic if one's precious mental schema is at stake.
As a post-script, here is one other anecdote. In college I was party to a similar debate. One girl, arguing the ID side, was at one point confronted by another student with the statement, "This is basic logic!" To which she replied, "Yeah, human logic, maybe."
Re:how, exactly (Score:5, Informative)
That's a nonsense definition of infinity. Consider this: there are an infinity of numbers from 1 to 2 (1.1, 1.01, 1.001 ... 1.11, 1.101 ... etc). There are an infinity of numbers between 2 and 4 but that second infinity includes none of the numbers in the former infinity. Both series are infinite, both have a definite beginning and a definite end, but both are entirely separate.
Also interesting to note, intuitively the infinity between 2 and 4 ought to be twice the size (whatever "size" means when we are dealing with infinity) of the infinity between 1 and 2. In fact, they are entirely the same size. This can be proven by noting that every number between 2 and 4 can be obtain by multiplying each number between 1 and 2 by 2.
I understand what you are trying to say, but it's important to realise that argument involving concepts like "infinity" are not simple. God may be "infinite" (whatever that means - infinite what??) but that doesn't by neccesity mean God includes everything (that's pantheism).
Re:how, exactly (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, most Biblical arguments against homosexuality all come from the old Testament (most often cited are Genesis 1, Genesis 19, various other Genesis passages, Leviticus 18:22, Leviticus 20:13, and various passages from Deuteronomy, Judges, and Kings). And the hypocrisy is that books like Leviticus are also the ones that admonish, for example, wearing wool and cotton at the same time. If a Christian is not going to keep a completely kosher house and lifestyle, it is pretty hypocritical to attack homosexuality from that same reference.
Some references in the New Testament include Romans 1, 1 Corinthians 6, and 1 Timothy 1. Jesus, however, was notably silent on the issue, despite having a great deal to say about all sorts of other practices in his day. (In fact, Jesus doesn't really have much to say about any of the major "Christian right" hot topics, from homosexuality to abortion, whereas he has a great deal to say about welfare, health care, and the evils of money.)
Re:how, exactly (Score:5, Funny)
Re:how, exactly (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:how, exactly (Score:5, Insightful)
Besides, if were all supposed to be companions to God after we're dead, why the hell would he want to surround himself with stupid people?
Re:how, exactly (Score:5, Funny)
Cthulhu disagrees.
Re:how, exactly (Score:5, Informative)
A simple understanding of Darwinism makes it clear that the latter definition of evolution is critical to Darwin's theories. You can't simply point to changes in a specific population from the greater species - you need to show evidence that that population has become a distinct species "evolves" separately.
Re:how, exactly (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:how, exactly (Score:5, Informative)
Re:how, exactly (Score:5, Insightful)
All you can do ever with ID theory is try to falsify evolution theory, and then propose ID as the alternative. You can never go further than that. It can never be "science", because you can't repeatably and reliably test a being that exists and acts outside the system of the universe. ID theory is only philosophy. I'm not saying ID is right or wrong. I actually believe in an old Earth ID theory, but that's part of my religious belief. What I'm just saying is that if you have a philosophical theory, then it should be taught in a philosophy class, along with string theory.
Re:how, exactly (Score:5, Informative)
But it doesn't really matter, many great scientists were and are religious, many are not. Newton was one of histories biggest geniuses, but he was by today's standards almost fanatically religious. And he had no access to the mountains of biological and geological evidence for the theory of evolution.
Re:how, exactly (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the recurring problems in these kinds of discussion is the definition of speciation. If you nail down an ID'er with evidence of speciation, they change the definition ("Oh, well, it's still a bacterium, isn't it?" ) and start talking about an amorphous concept called "kinds". Then you show the feathered dinosaur fossils, and they yell "hoax" (in spite of the fact that there have been many more species of feathered dinos than archeopteryx discovered), and when that doesn't pan out, they say it's not really a transitional species, it's a distinct, god-created animal that is now extinct. This is clearly the avoidance behavior we all sometimes engage in, designed to protect a comfortable delusion.
You can't 'win' this kind of argument. The BEST we can hope for is that it will fall 'out of fashion' over time.
Re:how, exactly (Score:4, Insightful)
There really isn't any reason science must preclude God or religion. One may simply state that science is a process of understanding God's creation through reason. You also have to admit that science can describe the "How" but not the "Why". You can describe how the universe was created through the Big Bang, but you can never say WHY it was created because that is an article of faith.
CONVINCING religious people of all this is another story...
Re:how, exactly (Score:5, Insightful)
I fucking hate this goddamn ignorant argument like poison, as if science is somehow deficient and in need of some faith-based concept like religion to fill in the blanks. Here's a 'why' for you: why is it that people are so fucking childish that they need to cling the idea that things are the way they for some Higher Purpose? If I roll a die and it comes up 5, I don't ask why that happened: I recognize that given certain physical realities and a finite number of possible outcomes, 5 was one possibility that just happened to come up. The question 'why are we here' is no different, except replace 5 with 'everything happens in such a way that it produces the world we live in now' and add about a zillion other possible outcomes to your die. We're here because things happened the way they happened--they could just have easily happened a different way, in which case we might not be here to see it. But some people obviously need the security blanket of believing that existence has some kind of magic meaning.
Re:how, exactly (Score:4, Informative)
The change in any single individual must necessarily be small enough that it may still interbreed with those around it. But all these small changes can spread through the generations until the population as a whole has changed significantly. If two populations are separated, the changes will not spread between them and they will evolve in different ways.
Re:how, exactly (Score:5, Funny)
He obviously worked in tech support before achiving divine status.
Re:how, exactly (Score:5, Funny)
Re:how, exactly (Score:5, Insightful)
I find that people pray for or about all of these things truly believing that God will listen. I think they are mixing their mythologies up... they have been praying to Goda Claus!
And while I'm on the subject of double-standard beliefs and understandings, we have established that some people have genetic predispositions for violence or impulse controls. We have established that some drugs can even induce violent behavior as a side effect. Why are we always cutting the heads off of people when we're looking at their health? Are the mind and body really as separate as we want to believe? What roles do genetics and chemical balances play in determining the behavior of individuals? We routinely punish and judge others for their behavior, however. Gays, thieves, molesters, even killers might be victims themselves due to defects or the influence of something affecting their brains. We don't want to change our convenient pre-packaged ideas of "good and evil" any more than we have to, though, because changing our understanding of things is bad.
Re:how, exactly (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:how, exactly (Score:4, Funny)
"Some Christian grew their arm back!" Ok I'm born again.
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Formatting counts kids! And previewing!
Re:how, exactly (Score:5, Interesting)
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Here's a simple experiment anyone that is half-competent with science-y things can do.
Take a single bacteria and cultivate it.
Take a any two individual bacteria from that culture and cultivate them separately. Take a third bacteria from this original culture and sequence its DNA for future comparison.
Continue to re-sample each culture and start a new culture, keeping the descendants of the original "split" separate.
After some number of generations, sample and sequence the DNA from each descendant colony. Compare them against each other and the sequence from the original culture.
I predict they will all be different. The fact that both cultures are ultimately descended from a SINGLE bacteria eliminates the possibility that all of these unique DNA sequences existed simultaneously, and the fact that they are different proves that non-lethal mutations have been occurring over time.
As an extra bonus, I also predict that the cultures will have different reactions to the same antibiotic.
As an extra extra bonus, if we continue to develop these two lines of ancestry I predict they will eventually diverge enough in genetic makeup that they can be considered a new species of bacteria. Tada! Macroevolution is the cumulative effect of microevolution!
Science. It works, bitches.
=Smidge=
Re:how, exactly (Score:4, Informative)
HGT is a known mechanism. Pure mutation cannot explain how microbes became drug-resistant in such a short amount of time, neither how different bacterial "species" are able to acquire the same resistance genes.
PS: Just to dwell a bit into the micro vs macro pseudo-dichotomy... Part of the confusion I think arises because the definition of species as a set of phenotypic characters is misleading. And rather useless in the microbial world. That's why genotypic characterization has become so powerful. It gives a whole lot more information, even about the role of non-genetic, 'junk' DNA.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Form a hypothesis ... (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a scientific method - you can apply it to religion - if it doesn't work you get to call religion 'bunk'
ID may be a hypothesis - it's allowed to be that - but the people who put it up need to come up with some experiments to prove their hypothesis if they want respect of other scientists and if they want their hypothesis to be taught as 'science' - otherwise it's just an idea that hasn't been proven
The problem of course is that approaching religion like this upsets a lot of religious people - largely I think because this sort of approach has tended to upset apple carts over the centuries - doesn't mean you should stop doing it though
Re:Form a hypothesis ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Eivind.
Re:Form a hypothesis ... (Score:4, Insightful)
ID proponents love to use the illusion of something incredibly complex that doesn't have any clear intermediary stages showing how we got there. Think about that in every other aspect of life for a moment - old technology is replaced leaving little to no trace of the past. The same would happen with an evolutionary advantage - imagine going from basic light detection to high resolution, dynamic range, color reproduction and so on, it doesn't happen all at once. But surely once good eyesight had evolved, those with lesser eyesight would slowly die out. So in the end you sit with a highly specialized organ and claim "this couldn't have evolved". And in retrospect it's probably hard to see how we got there, but lack of creativity is hardly enough to conclude an intelligent designer must have been at work.
Re:how, exactly (Score:5, Insightful)
Cliff notes: you can't have a "science" that studies "the design" without first positing that there is a designer. That's where ID becomes a religion, and non-scientific. This should not be a complex subject for anyone who was awake during High School science.
Re:how, exactly (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:how, exactly (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:how, exactly (Score:4, Interesting)
What should I have done? First off I was 9 and had just lived in Louisiana for a few months. Second most of the class likely agreed with him from their own parents' teachings.
It just made me uncomfortable. Incidentally the subject we were supposed to be studying at the time was the names of the different cloud shapes. I guess our teacher just wanted to imprint us while we were young.
Re:how, exactly (Score:5, Insightful)
Intelligent design begins with an affirmation: The universe is complex, therefore, it must have been designed by a sort of intelligent being. You just can't jump to assumptions like that. That is a debasement of all that science is. Just because we don't understand something doesn't mean it cannot be understood with more research. Just because we can't explain something through modern scientific theories does not mean that later theories cannot explain them. And most of all, just because we do not KNOW the answer to a question does not mean the answer defaults to "God."
We do not know for certain what created the universe. We theorize the Big Bang, but as to what lead to that, we don't know. This does NOT mean "God willed it to happen." It just means we don't know for now.
We can explain many properties of gravity, but we do not know WHAT it is, exactly. This is not a sign that God, excuse me, "The Designer" simply said "let's have mass attract each other at a rate proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the distance between them." All it means is... we don't know.
This is why ID is not a science. You cannot, under any circumstances, simply declare something "too complex" to occur naturally (which in and of itself is a bit of a joke. Anything that occurs in nature is, by definition, natural, regardless of means.). The only "evidence" we have that suggests God--pardon me, "designer" (and certainly not a thinly-veiled cover for the Judeo-Christian God), created all life is that we don't know for certain what did.
Intelligent Design by its very fundamental nature is not, cannot, and will not ever be a science. It's a debasement of all that is science. It's the lazy man's way out. "Oh, it's too complex for me to understand. It's much easier to just say God did it." If you want to believe that, fine. But keep that thinking, or lack thereof, out of our science classes and don't you dare expect those who actually KNOW what the Scientific Method is to just sit back and ignore the attempts to get rid of it.
Re:how, exactly (Score:5, Interesting)
It seems like there's quite a few (progression from less to more complex organisms, commonality of microscopic biological features between species, observed changes of organisms) that seem to in general point at a mechanism, but there are enough oddball organisms and gaps in the fossil record that seem to throw small exceptions in the general theories I've heard, and cause the theory to change to adapt to them.
So, out of curiosity, at this point (given the evidence we have in favor of evolution) what would we have to find to disprove it? Since the ability to be proved false stands at the core of the criticism of ID.
I'm not trying to argue for ID - I think it's a load of bullocks and evolution has a whole lot of research going for it. I'm just curious for those of us who didn't have to take more than high school bio what would actually prove evolution false?
Re:how, exactly (Score:4, Informative)
Lab results disputing natural selection would also be a blow, since natural selection is the primary mechanism through which evolution is presumed to act.
Re:how, exactly (Score:4, Insightful)
I read an interesting article a while back that would take exception to your statement; the concept is often refered to as 'God in the gaps'.
Put it this way: we don't understand natural process X, so the philosophers says "well, science cannot explain X, so X must be the work of God." Then, a year or two later, scientists figure X out. God has been shoved back by science, and the more we know, the further back he retreats. Theologically speaking, a philosophy that relegates God to more and more marginal roles in the universe is hardly desirable. It's good to think about these things, though. Cheers!
Re:how, exactly (Score:5, Interesting)
Every time a gene is sequenced, it is a test of natural selection. Natural selection makes numerous predictions in this area--the commonality of the genetic code, close relatedness of genes in higher organisms, even down to the degree of similarity. Failure of these predictions to hold up would force the abandonment of natural selection in its current form.
Of course, creationists have worked very hard to promote a nonsensical "two model" idea that the alternative to natural selection is creationism, but the notion that disproof of natural selection would force a return to creationism is nonsensical. When Newton's Laws of motion were shown to be incorrect, science did not return to Aristotle's ideas of motion--a new theory, Einstein's theory of relativity, supplanted it--one that included Newton's Laws as a special case approximation.
It is worth noting that natural selection is not even the only theory of evolution. Remember Lamarck? Darwin came along at a time when scientists were looking for an evolutionary theory, because the predictions of creationism were inconsistent with the data (unlike intelligent design, which is intentionally vague and more a religious notion than a scientific theory, the creationism of Darwin's time was genuinely scientific, in that it made actual predictions).
Re:how, exactly (Score:5, Informative)
Modern ID/creationism does not make predictions, because a prediction arises from the limitations of a theory. Natural selection is unable to create an organism with a different genetic code from other higher organisms. It is unable to create a gene that is completely different from genes in other similar species. A designer could choose to use similar genetic codes, or similar genes--but it can also do the opposite. For example, you might find two computers, quite similar in function, yet with completely different cpu's running completely different machine codes. Natural selection is unable to do this.
You should probably read some actual Darwin; it sounds as if you are getting your "information" from ID/creationist tracts. Since Darwin did not know about genes--he studied phenotypic variation, not gene expression. So he most certainly did not make any "assumption" about random genetic mutations--in fact, you will not even find the word "random" in Origin of Species. Darwin did propose that there had to be some mechanism for generating diversity, and also some form of granularity to keep the diversity from simply being "diluted out" as would happen if the basis for phenotypic traits was not preserved in some discrete form--because his theory would not work without these features. So the discovery of DNA, genes, and genetic mutation, which fit perfectly the requirements of Darwin's theory, even though Darwin did not know about them when formulating the theory, is one of the most dramatic confirmations of a theory's predictions in the history of science.
Re:how, exactly (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure if you're making stuff up or if you're simply repeating something you pulled off the Internet, but mutations are significantly more common than you seem to think they are. Mendel's work definitely does not prove what you think it does.
Well, mutations are a pretty good source of new information.
Re:how, exactly (Score:5, Interesting)
DNA. When DNA was discovered, well after Darwin's time, it could have easily rendered large swathes of evolution irrelevant. It didn't. It verified and strengthened the theory.
Chromosomes. Humans have 23 chromosome pairs; the other great apes have 24. By evolutionary theory, we should find that somewhere along the line, human genes mutated and two of our chromosomes fused. A chromosome has two markers called telomeres, one on each end, and a single centromere in the middle. (T__C___T) What we would expect to find is a chromosome with telomeres on each end, telomeres in the middle (where the fusion happened) and two centromeres. If we don't, our current understanding of evolution is wrong.
But we did find a fused chromosome, exactly as predicted; our chromosome #2. (T__c___TT___C__T)
Re:how, exactly (Score:5, Informative)
Re:how, exactly (Score:4, Informative)
Re:how, exactly (Score:5, Informative)
Re:how, exactly (Score:5, Informative)
Their generations are so short you can WATCH them change in response to stimuli.
Re:Post is pretty much right. (Score:4, Insightful)
I am so goddamn sick of seeing tripe like this being moderated up when it was recognized correctly in the GP as the shit it is. I have a couple points to debunk your arrogant asshole elitisim:
1) You seem to be making the assumption that everyone in urban areas are intelligent. Really? You are going to tell me with a straight face that your average blue collar worker in NY is any smarter than a farmer in Iowa? Bullshit. Maybe if you only look at urban professionals you might be on to something, but in my experience the most ignorant and idiotic people I've ever met have been born and rised in inner cities. YMMV.
2) You make the assumption that there is something innate to being from New York or San Francisco that makes you smarter. But a huge percentage of those urbanites who are intelligent and well-educated are emigrants who were raised and educated by the "uneducated white trash, eating, drinking, sleeping, and living the Bible, the small print on Wal-Mart labels, and little else." The intelligent, educated people move to the big cities because, well, they're big cities. That's where the most opportunity lies.
But no, you're right, everyone that lives a different lifestyle or has different beliefs than you does so because they're stupid and uneducated. I can totally see where you're coming from. You're very deep and insightful.
Fuck you.
Re:Post is pretty much right. (Score:5, Insightful)
Someone who flunked out of high school can either be a janitor in New York city, or a high-school science teacher in East Bumfuck, Arkansas.
To put a personal touch on it, I grew up in WV, but I moved to Baltimore to go to college (and stayed in the Baltimore/DC area ever since).
Re:Post is pretty much right. (Score:4, Insightful)
> New York or San Francisco that makes you smarter. But a huge
Being packed together in a crowded metropolis full of people who ARE NOT
LIKE YOU makes it much more likely that you will NOT BE ABLE TO AVOID
things that would push you out of your comfort zone. You're pretty much
gauranteed and forced to be more worldly. You are forcibly exposed to
diversity that someone from the midwestern bible belt doesn't have to.
In a town of 30K or 50K it's much easier to avoid people not like yourself.
It's like trying to be amish in a city of 1 million versus lancaster county.
Re:Post is pretty much right. (Score:4, Insightful)
--in between trying to outlaw homosexuality and persecute Mexican immigrants, of course.
Freedom and justice for all, so long as all are white and Christian.
Science curriculum (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Science curriculum (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Science curriculum (Score:4, Insightful)
In effect, they are both talking past each others heads. The only way to attack the IDers and creationists is to question their central axiom. Of course, that is unquestionable. They in return can hammer at the scientific evidence and pick at gaps and make misinterpretations as long as they want. As far as a creationist is concerned they are solving a math problem when they already have the answer book--the method that they use to get to the conclusion isn't really that important.
But, say that you do fill in all the gaps and correct their misinterpretations--will you convince them?
Of course not. They will then turn to David Hume's classic argument that there is no reason whatsoever that anybody should trust the results of inductive reasoning (i.e. they will say that evolution can never really be proved).
At this time, both parties will leave exasperated that the other doesn't understand their argument.
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The Church of Filet Mignon (Score:4, Interesting)
Intelligent Design is a contrived scientific theory crafted for nonscientific purposes. It's the scientific equivalent of the Church of Filet Mignon.
But where to draw the line? (Score:3, Insightful)
That said, say I believe there are 3 gods, and to honor those gods I must sing melodic song in their praise every morning at sunrise. Not too far-fetched, I hope.. however, I can't identify with any of the major religions out there. So if I were to end up in such a prison, they'd go over the list of 'recognized' religions, say mine's not on it, and tell me to stfu when I do my singing.
Remember the 'Jedi' religion an
Re:But where to draw the line? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Her position needs her to be impartial on scientific matters, and religion is NOT a scientific matter.
Sounds like she did an excellent job, they only didn't fire her because she could have rightly sued for unfair "creative" dismissal.
What the!?!?!?! (Score:3, Interesting)
It's nice how they call it "design" implying that there is actually some science behind the whole thing.
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Re:What the!?!?!?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Same with everything else incl. evolution. Evolution HAS been proven. Sure, it IS possible (and likely) that other ideas are found in areas where theory of evolution is weak right now, but that won't invalidate already existing experiments and data!
So yes, you always find something new, but if you successfully used a theory to predict something and it reliably works all the time those experiments continue to work even after new stuff is found. It's just that new theories may be better at explaining MORE, but once proven to work - and that means that predictions made using the theory reliably turn out right each time, whoever does the experiment - continue to do so. Even though Newton is "wrong" he's still right, it only depends on if you want to try to explain more stuff with it than originally intended, which is when it fails and relativity and quantum theories may be better suited. When the airplane was invented the arguments of the nay-sayers who said it's impossible were NOT proven wrong. They simply found another way AROUND the issues they had raised. That doesn't invalidate the physics of the scepticts, it merely extends it!
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That is actually not true. The church admitted few years ago that Sun is the center of our solar system, not Earth as it was bulieved. Also few years ago in my country, women could operate as priests, which had been long forbidden.
So the theism also evolves. Religion is changed when they notice that people won't tolerate or bulieve the old story any more. First the stories in Bible are literal. After sciense proves them wrong,
Re:What the!?!?!?! (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't require any faith at all, nobody asks for faith that biology or the rules it follows is constant. That's why we run actual experiments and take actual measurements, to see if they are constant or not. For several thousand years biology has proven remarkably consistent, but if you were to come up with evidence tomorrow that showed biology was different at some point in the past, you'd win the Nobel Prize. No faith required.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
This is exactly what happened with radiocarbon dating, for example. When Willard Libby developed the technique, his hypothesis was that 12C/14C isotope ratios in Earth's atmosphere had been constant over time. That turned out not to be the case, as was proven by dating of items (histori
A scientific opinion on a religious myth? (Score:5, Funny)
What a stupid bunch of primitives...l
Intelligent Design is an important theory... (Score:5, Funny)
Beginning of End (Score:5, Insightful)
Opinions are irrelevant? (Score:3, Insightful)
I mean, someone at some point had to assert an opinion to put (un)intelligent design at the top of the chain. Was that person fired?
This whole country is going right down the shitter because of policies like this. I also believe that draconian enforcement of this ilk is what causes people to be even louder and more obnoxious about their perspectives. This is a one-upmanship power struggle.
What was Leia's comment to Tarkin?
There's compelling proof against evolution (Score:5, Funny)
Timmy! I told you to stop petting that dinosaur!
summary wrong, as usual (Score:5, Insightful)
Not according to TFA.
Now one might certainly deduce that she wasn't enamoured with ID, but she did not "apparently" criticise ID. She announced a talk by someone who probably does, though. Which is not the same thing as stating it was her opinion.How anyone can argue with a straight face that ID is anything but "Creationism in a new suit" is beyond me. Every single ID proponent was, and I'm sure still is, a Creationist. Their literature has been shown to be creationist tracts with a search-and-replace applied.
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OK, I just came across a copy of the email at scienceblog [scienceblogs.com]:
Please explain (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Can somebody please explain what the heck is going on?
What happened is she walked off the job to attend a presentation not directly related to her job duties. She badmouthed the boss. She used state resources and time to work on her own stuff rather than duties directly related to her job. She got suspended for 30 days. She used "I got fired because of ID politics" to cover her own ass. The story got posted to Slashdot by editor Zonk because fundies are his own pet peeve, with a couple of sentences that fails to tell both sides of the coin. Since nobody RTFA
Re:Please explain (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a very active, vocal, influential and dedicated group of people who honestly, truly, 100% believe that the word of the Bible and faith in the Christian God will solve ALL of society's problems. In their view, society as a whole is morally corrupt and the only way to fix it is to push their own "superior" morals onto society and "save" them. Nothing is sacred in their pursuit of their agendas.
These people are called Neo-Conservatives.
Anything that gets in their way must be discredited, marginalized or outright destroyed. Science poses the single greatest threat to their core agenda (enforcing Christianity) because it erodes the ignorance required to maintain such strong convictions. Evolution is a direct threat to what makes God so influential - it explains life itself, something only God is "qualified" to deal with. Other hot-button issues include drugs, sex education and abortion... all of these have perfectly sensible, empirical solutions that the "Moral Right" refuse to entertain purely on principle. (And anyone who says otherwise gets labeled a "Liberal" - the Neocon's personal swear-word)
This is not to say it's some big huge conspiracy. Some, even most, of the ID proponents are otherwise good people who just believe in ID more out of ignorance than deliberately attempting to squash science. They are stuck in a "us verses them" mentality, so they side with the people who align more closely to their own beliefs rather than find a middle ground. However, it's no accident that there's a lot of politics behind what should otherwise be a purely science vs. superstition issue.
To be perfectly blunt, Neo-conservatism is the all American version of Islamic fascism. The only real difference is Neocons use immense political and economic influence to push their agenda while the Islamic fascists use direct violence. Neocons have also been a lot more successful at it.
=Smidge=
USA is going the wrong way ? (Score:3, Interesting)
Might be a good time to drag this out again... (Score:5, Funny)
To the citizens of the United States of America,
In the light of your failure to distinguish between the scientific method and imaginary invisible friends in the sky, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today.
Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories. Except Utah, which she does not fancy. Your new prime minister (The rt. hon. Gordon Brown, MP for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders) will appoint a minister for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire will be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.
To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:
1. You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up "aluminium". Check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it.
Generally, you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels.
Look up "vocabulary". Using the same twenty seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. Look up "interspersed".
2. There is no such thing as "US English". We will let Microsoft know on your behalf.
3. You should learn to distinguish the English and Australian accents. It really isn't that hard.
4. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as the good guys.
5. You should relearn your original national anthem, "God Save The Queen", but only after fully carrying out task 1. We would not want you to get confused and give up half way through.
6. You should stop playing American "football". There is only one kind of football. What you refer to as American "football" is not a very good game.
The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your borders may have noticed that no one else plays "American" football. You will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper football.
Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls. It is a difficult game. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which is similar to American "football", but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like nancies). We are hoping to get together at least a US rugby sevens side by 2011.
7. You should declare war on Quebec and France, using nuclear weapons if they give you any merde. The 98.85% of you who were not aware that there is a world outside your borders should count yourselves lucky. The Russians have never been the bad guys. "Merde" is French for "sh*t".
8. July 4th is no longer a public holiday. December 1st will be a new national holiday, but only in England. It will be called "Indecisive Day".
9. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and it is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean.
10. Please tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us crazy.
Thank you for your cooperation.
Religeon and Science should be seperate. (Score:5, Interesting)
I myself was educated by an order of Catholic Brothers"(a bit like monks) in Scotland. There were an impressive list of eccentrics, as one would expect, and some eccentric beliefs to match (anyone for a procession of angels?). These were people who had sacrificed a lot for their beliefs, you know vows of poverty and chastity and obedience.
However when it came to Science they were bang on. The closest they ever came to ID was Brother Francis (The Biology Teacher) when if pressed on evolution would say that he would like to think that perhaps there was room for a little Divine nudge, but that this was not in the curriculum, and not in the Science of Biology and would never be included in the classroom. In fact I remember in the morning religious knowledge period the Biblical creationist theorem being taken apart, and really discarded.
It is of course a great irony that Charles Darwin himself was a theology student, but he arrived at the theory of evolution via Scientific method. Religion and Science are not incompatible, they just dont deal with the same areas.
To sum up, the creationists are an embarrassment to both religion and Science and should get some education.
From a Texas student (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:From a Texas student (Score:5, Funny)
But don't worry, the Flying Spaghetti Monster will soon caress that state with His Noodly Appendage also. RAmen.
Ambivalence (Score:5, Insightful)
This is both funny and scary at the same time. If it happened anywhere except in the most powerful nation in the world it would only be funny.
I don't see how anyone who thinks it's a good idea to treat christianity as "science" and make policy based on it could complain about states that make policy from other religions, such as sharia law.
schools exist to educate, not to brainwash (Score:4, Insightful)
No it must not, the agency has a moral obligation to support what is true ie science. Science (hard science at least) is not opinion, it's proven fact. When you land a spacecraft on the Moon you prove that there are rocks in space, you don't just opine on their existence. Neutrality does not imply that one is expected to give equal status to unfalsifiable claims. ID and creationism should never reach the brains of students through taxpayer's money.
If governments start using the school bureaucratic apparatus to teach what I believe are byproducts of malfunctioning brains then this will mean that our societies will have entered a new dark age. The last dark age existed for more than 1500 years, so if you allow this to happen again then you will share responsibility for causing your children and future descendants to suffer in a mad society.
Double standards rule! (Score:3, Insightful)
Fear of Forrest (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, ID/creationists are terrified of Barbara Forrest, because she has meticulously documented how "intelligent design" is merely a rebranding of "creationism." She has become even more dangerous to them since the Dover trial, since discovery gave her access to early drafts of the key "intelligent design" textbook "Of Pandas and People," which revealed how it started life as a creationist textbook, and became an "intelligent design" book by a simple search & replace. Hilariously, at one point, they botched the replace, and "creationists" became "cdesign proponentists."
I had dinner with devout Christians last night... (Score:4, Interesting)
At some point they were talking about a new testament biblical passage that dated from around 1900 years ago. The writings referred to the society of the day, which was fairly advanced. And then one of the guys said, "And when I went to school, they taught me that was the caveman days! Ha ha! Jerks!" He then shook his head and rolled his eyes. Everyone at the table save me nodded and laughed about how ridiculous secular teaching is.
This is something I see so often with Christians: they have a lack of knowledge, spend very little time thinking about a topic, and yet have absolute conviction that they're right. Sure, that's a common human flaw, but it seems most pronounced in the Christians I know. Even if you're a young-earth creationist certainly you should know that "cavemen" are not generally claimed to have been around 1900 years ago, but much earlier. I don't think anyone ever taught that the Romans were cavemen. Even if you think the earliest people were from 6000 years ago, you should be able to understand that society changed a lot from the time of Adam to the time of Jesus.
And even if someone did tell him there were cavemen in 100 AD -- I don't know -- wasn't there a whole world beyond the Mediterranean on which the Bible says nothing? Even if there was a developed society in that area, isn't it conceivable that there were people living a sort of "caveman" life elsewhere at that time? It just bugs me how little thinking goes into the average Christian's position, and how it's usually driven by a desire to support their belief than by a desire for understanding.
Of course this is just one small group of people with wacky misunderstandings of the world and secular education. Most Christians aren't this confused. But most people who lack critical thinking abilities are drawn to fundamental Christianity for some reason.
Anyways.
Re:Probably Justified (Score:4, Insightful)
But by my definition, a majority of US citizens aren't rational people!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
9/11 is a perfect example.
Its in your bloody constitiution that ID is illegal in schools.
Yet there is a review to see if they should ignore it or not.
If you feel your a rational person then my advice is to get the hell out of there asap.
Australia is a nice place.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I actually do plan on leaving the US and relocating permanently to New Zealand as soon as
Re:Probably Justified (Score:4, Insightful)
That assumes a false equivalence between religion and science. Those rational people should recognize that pushing a particular religious belief into policy is a violation of church-state separation in a way that simply promulgating a scientific curriculum never was. The fact that some religion has a doctrinal problem with a scientific finding is neither here nor there as far as science and education policy is concerned. A faith that cannot survive a collision with the truth is not worth many regrets. But when we start withholding information from students because of someone's goofy interpretation of his religion's mythology, then we have a problem. And "teaching the controversy" like Texas does, with a neutral presentation of both the truth and crap without saying which is which, is withholding information from students.
The email in question: (Score:5, Informative)
From: Glenn Branch
Subject: Barbara Forrest in Austin 11/2
Cc:
Bcc: [redacted]
Dear Austin-area friends of NCSE,
I thought that you might like to know that Barbara Forrest will be speaking on "Inside Creationism's Trojan Horse" in Austin on November 2, 2007. Her talk, sponsored by the Center for Inquiry Austin, begins at 7:00 p.m. in the Monarch Event Center, Suite 3100, 6406 North IH-35 in Austin. The cost is $6; free to friends of the Center.
In her talk, Forrest will provide a detailed report on her expert testimony in the Kitzmiller v. Dover School Board trial as well as an overview of the history of the "intelligent design" movement. Forrest is a Professor of Philosophy in the Department of History and Political Science at Southeastern Louisiana University; she is also a member of NCSE's board of directors.
For further details, visit: http://www.centerforinquiry.net/austin/events/barbara_forrest_inside_creationisms_trojan_horse_lecture/ [centerforinquiry.net]
Sincerely,
Glenn Branch
Deputy Director
National Center for Science Education, Inc.
420 40th Street, Suite 2
Oakland, CA 94609-2509
Re:Intolerance (Score:5, Informative)
If you wanted to rail on slashdot posters about this story you could have nit picked and pointed out she was fired for not following policy and that said firing is not really about her favoring evolution over ID, at least at the outermost level.
Re:Intolerance (Score:5, Insightful)
Any person not believing in the basic scientific principles which are the underpinnings of evolution is simply NOT QUALIFIED to hold any position which is in charge of establishing the curriculum to teach said principles.
In your example, the person in question most certainly should be fired as they are not qualified to hold the position -- just as you would fire a salesman for disparaging the product he's been hired to sell. If you believe science is a bunch of hooey, you shouldn't be in charge of how children are taught science. That's just common sense.
In the REAL situation, however,someone is being fired who is perfectly fired -- even suited -- to the job in question.
In short, your comparison is stupid.
Theory vs Hypothesis (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
IF the court rules that ID is NOT worthy of consideration in any Science Curriculum, then it's NOT something she would have to remain neutral on, as the Board shouldn't have ever been considering it.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It is no arrogance to mention it. They require religion to manipulate them, and they become enraged at anything different. Their betters understand this.
The ruling classes don't hold to that superstitious nonsense, and realists like Karl Rove understand how to use it.