Alabama Will Require Students To Learn About Evolution, Climate Change 591
An anonymous reader writes: For the first time, public school students in Alabama will be required to understand evolution, thanks to new curriculum rules behind implemented next year. Teachers in the state will also be required to discuss climate change. Not only did the 40-person, Republican-controlled Board of Education pass the standards unanimously, but nobody even spoke out against them at a board meeting. The new rules say, "The theory of evolution has a role in explaining unity and diversity of life on earth. This theory is substantiated with much direct and indirect evidence. Therefore, this course of study requires our students to understand the principles of the theory of evolution from the perspective of established scientific knowledge. The committee recognizes and appreciates the diverse views associated with the theory of evolution."
Theory (Score:4, Funny)
So long as they're aware that it is only a theory.
Re: (Score:3)
That's not what TFS says.
Re:Theory (Score:5, Funny)
That's not what TFS says.
And you came to this conclusion due to the fact the word "theory" was used no less than four times in reference to evolution in TFS.
I have a theory about that conclusion...
Re:Theory (Score:5, Insightful)
Like evolution, science itself is subject to survival of the fittest. The best theories ultimately pass peer review and gain mainstream acceptance. Presently, when it comes to the origin of species, evolution is the fittest. And do remember, that even though we have a general understanding of mutations and natural selection, the precise explanation of how we got from mere amino acids to multi-celled organisms still remains a mystery for the most part, and our understanding of it continues to change as we make more discoveries.
So until we've gotten it 100% figured out, I'm fine with somebody saying that it's "just a theory", even if they say so multiple times. Besides, this action here is leagues better than saying some invisible man did it.
Disclaimer: I'm an atheist libertarian.
Re:Theory (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not. Evolution is a fact. In so far that science can say anything is a fact, evolution is a fact.
When science uses that word to describe a process, it's not saying that description is a "best guess". It's not a guess. It's a complex description of how things work, which, to the best of our understanding, is a fact.
Can certain parts of that understanding change? Of course. But the general statement "Species evolved from previous species over time" is not a guess. It's a fact.
Re:Theory (Score:5, Insightful)
It is both a theory and a fact.
We see species change over time in the real world. That observed phenomenon is called evolution, and it is a fact.
There is a theory in biology to explain the phenomenon that is observed in nature. That is called the theory of evolution. Over time, the theory has changed as it is modified to be in compliance with all observed facts (this is not the theory 'evolving'). As more factual evidence is uncovered the theory is checked against the evidence. The theory is either found to be in compliance with the evidence, or changed to be in compliance with the observed facts. Often, the observed facts must also be tested to be found factual as well.
As an example, think of the moon. The moon exists. It is observed in nature. Theory A) states that the moon formed from cheese after a cow jumped into space. Theory B) states that the moon is a rocky body formed in the same way as other rocky bodies in the solar system. The theory that is kept is the one that is in best compliance with the observed facts.
Evolution is both a theory and a fact. It is the name of a phenomenon observed in nature, and the name of the theory of how that phenomenon functions. Does this help?
Re:Theory (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Theory (Score:5, Interesting)
Darwin's biggest contribution to evolution was the scientific evidence he produced. Though he was ridiculed (and continues to be) by clergy it wasn't his theory that made the biggest history, it was the meticulous documentation he did that eventually won. In other words it was the facts he discovered, not his supposition of the cause that has had the biggest effect. One item of note, Alfred Russel Wallace had collected an equal amount of data using completely different methods and species (based more on fossils than living creatures) and Darwin beat him to publication. The collected data between the two works was so compelling that it laid the foundation for entire branches of science. The evidence they both collected was voluminous and irrefutable. This data laid the foundation and other scientists quickly built on that foundation, we have a dozen branches of biological science that wouldn't exist without the discovery of the fact of evolution. One of those is molecular biology.
At this point in time the amount of data backing the fact of evolution is essentially irrefutable at this point, it would be like trying to prove thermodynamics wrong. The theory of how it works is still being fought over but not the fact that it exists.
Re:Theory (Score:5, Insightful)
Evolution is a conclusion based on facts.
It is not a fact in and of itself.
We can use evolutionary theory to make testable predictions. Animal breeders, regardless of their religious feelings use evolutionary theory to breed their animals (because money is at stake and any breeder that was too religious would go bankrupt and be selected out of the animal breeder population).
The development of new species has been observed in the real world among insects including specifically some mosquitoes in britain.
The theory of Evolution does not cover bio-genesis (the first living thing). Partially by definition.
The word theory is used today where the word "Law" used to be used. So the Theory of Gravity and the Law of Gravity are synonymous.
If we still used the word "Law", the "Law" of Evolution would be how we referred to it. The Theory of Evolution is a very strong construct.
Personally, I find the long term bacteria experiment the most interesting. It shows that multiple random mutations separated by thousands of generations which had no effect for thousands of generations were required to develop the ability to consume "Citrate" as a food. Very cool stuff.
Every generation has mutations. The average rate of 60 mutations among surviving humans compared to their parents has been observed. Most of those mutations have no immediate bad or good effect. But thousands of years later, they might result in higher or lower reproduction rates when a selective pressure is applied to the population.
Re: (Score:3)
The theory of Evolution does not cover bio-genesis (the first living thing). Partially by definition.
This is one of the big hang-ups for religious people........I've found if I explain natural selection to people, they readily accept it, as long as I clarify that "I'm not here trying to prove God doesn't exist, I'm only trying to show you something cool."
Re:Theory (Score:4, Insightful)
Besides, we cannot positively exclude the possibility that we are all power units in The Matrix, and everything we think we know is false. There is no good reason to think that this is true, but that is not sufficient (especially under the circumstances) to prove it false. The same is true for the religious explanations -- there is no evidence worthy of the term to support them, but provided you are willing to believe in an insane deity who built a deliberately deceptive Universe and who runs it strangely like a reality simulation for absurd purposes, you can't rule them out logically or empirically, you can only state that they are very unlikely to be true, in a very precise statistical sense. Evolution, on the other hand is very likely to be true in general even as almost any given particular theory of evolution is likely to be false, or at least incomplete. Not as likely as it is that gravitation is a true theory to a much, much higher degree of approximation, but still enough to be casually referred to as "fact", part of the self-consistent network of mutually supported scientific beliefs that represent a system that is at least nearly completely consistent with observational data across the board.
Solipsism cannot be logically or empirically ruled out. Magnetic monopoles cannot be ruled out. Absence of evidence is not sufficient evidence of absence, but it can be used to set probability bounds, and when there is no empirical support for a hypothesis that stands in the company of a near-infinity of alternative equally unsupported hypotheses, the comparatively small family of hypotheses that have reproducible empirical support and that are consistent with other observationally verified and mutually consistent hypotheses have a huge, huge edge in the probable truth game.
rgb
Re:Theory (Score:4, Insightful)
Straw man. Evolution does not purport to explain the creation of life, only how it changes.
Re:Theory (Score:4, Informative)
Untrue: evolution certainly purports to explain the creation of life. The evidence there is quite lacking, unlike the evidence for "how it changes", but still it's a consistent explanation for life arising that doesn't require the invention of additional entities.
No, you're conflating evolution and abiogenesis. Most scientists would agree that a natural process exists for the origin of life, but that process is not strictly evolution. There are various theories being worked on, but it's not as well understood and proven as evolution is. Evolution is what happens once you have slightly imperfect replicators and environmental pressure on those replicators. How the replicators came to be is a different matter.
Re:Theory (Score:5, Informative)
No, you're thinking of Abiogenesis - a hypothesis built upon evolutionary theory, and widely accepted as "probable, but as yet sorely lacking in detail" among the scientific community, but it is in no way integral to evolution.
Evolutionary Theory is specifically concerned with the manner and mechanism by which living organisms adapt and change over time. It's not directly applicable to non-living systems, and thus can't address the initial formation of life, only what happened from that moment onward. Perhaps God waved her magic wand and created the first organism(s) - evolutionary theory has nothing to say about that. It only explains how those simple organisms adapted to become the vast array of life that now populates the Earth.
Abiogenesis is the result of extrapolating Evolutionary theory backward from the earliest living organisms, and assuming that similar processes were at work among the non-living complex chemistry that eventually "evolved" into something we'd recognize as "life" through purely natural phenomena without resorting to any supernatural agency. It is a complementary theory, explaining how life began in a manner consistent with how it has adapted since then, and it does depend on Evolutionary Theory to give it plausibility, but that dependency is unilateral. Evolutionary theory is perfectly capable of standing on it's own, it simply completely ignores the subject of how life originally began as outside it's scope. Just as, say, Database Theory completely ignores the subjects of vacuum tubes and mechanical computation engines - they're simply not relevant to the subject at hand, despite the fact that modern computer science would not exist without them.
Re:Theory (Score:5, Informative)
No, it doesn't. Again, with a minimum of words:
Evolutionary Theory has nothing to say about the origins of life
Abiogenesis purports to explain the origin of life
Abiogenesis uses the principles of evolution as a starting point, but pushes them well beyond the limit of the claims stated within Evolutionary Theory. You can be 100% confident in Evolutionary Theory, and still believe that Abiogenesis is complete hogwash.
Re:Theory (Score:4, Interesting)
Too many stupid people walking this planet.
Re: (Score:3)
Do you even know what a "theory" means? A theory means a proven hypothesis.
Too many stupid people walking this planet.
Oh the irony... you are thinking of a theorem...
Re:Theory (Score:4, Interesting)
I am a Christian Socialist and I am perfectly comfortable with evolution being taught in school as the one theory which best fits all of the evidence. My copy of scripture does not say G-d did not use evolution to create Life. My copy of scripture is completely silent on the "How?" portion of the origin of Life, as well it should be since religion is often an attempt instead to answer "Why?".
Re:Theory (Score:4, Insightful)
if the christian or jewish bible had any real meat to it, it would have told us things that could not possibly be known 'way back then' but are found to be true, today.
is there any single thing in any of those bibles that indicates there was true knowlege communicated to man that man could not have known on his own (or just made shit up)?
sure, there is no vocabulary for atoms and black holes and such, but there is also no real attempt - that I'm aware of - to say anything other than 'it was magic!' in any of those bibles. in fact, any of the world's bibles or religious papers.
grammar (Score:2, Insightful)
You're an idiot. Evolution has been proven if you would only read a little)
FTFY
Also, that could be considered a dangling modifer. What little thing should be read? A little rock? A little prince?
Re: Theory (Score:5, Insightful)
Your an idiot. Evolution has been proved if you would only read a little
Be more precise, please.
Evolution has been observed to occur, in nature, within our observational timescales. There's absolutely no question that evolution happens.
In addition, evolution provides the best available explanation for vast numbers of detailed observations of what we see in the fossil record, the relationships between current living species and many, many other aspects of the living world around us. Further, the explanatory power of evolution has been used countless times to make predictions about ancient and modern life forms, and has never been contradicted. The scientific support for evolution as an explanation for the development of life is extraordinarily broad and deep.
That said, no scientific theory is every "proved" in the sense that, say, a mathematical theorem is proved. Evolution is one of the most powerful and compelling theories in modern science; it's right up there with Newtonian mechanics in terms of the level of evidence... but there are still corners we don't understand and there may well be ways in which it's wrong. I strongly suspect that if it is wrong, it's wrong in the same way that Newtonian mechanics is wrong: it doesn't account for the extreme cases where we need to add in relativity or quantum mechanics, or both. But it's not totally inconceivable that some dramatically better explanation could arise that replaces evolution entirely (though said explanation would have to predict outcomes that look pretty much exactly like evolution).
Re: (Score:3)
Yes, but as others have pointed out there's a considerable difference between the facts of evolution (which have, indeed, been observed) and the Theory of Evolution, which has been modified several times within my lifetime. E.g., the 1940's Theory could not encompass epigenetic modifications. And the current version of the Theory cannot account for the origin of life on Earth. It can't even rule out Panspermia.
That said, it seems fairly clear that the successor theory to the current Theory of Evolution w
Re: Theory (Score:4, Insightful)
It very much does. Evolution as a whole deals with how species change from one to the next. You're just picking an arbitrary cutoff point of where nonliving matter becomes nonliving matter and saying "ok this isn't evolution", even though there's an evolutionary process to get there.
There's an utterly obvious cutoff point, and it's not at all arbitrary. When you first get a self-replicating molecular structure that is sufficiently stable that some modifications don't destroy either its stability or its ability to replicate, that's where evolution begins. Until that point, you cannot have any evolution. Abiogenesis is the question of how that first self-replicating structure arose and what it looked like.
Re: Theory (Score:5, Informative)
What does abiogenesis have to do with evolution? Those are 2 different questions. One is how life came from non-life, the other is how living things formed different species.
Re: Theory (Score:5, Informative)
You seem to think abiogenesis is somehow part of evolution. They are two separate things. This is my point.
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You seem to think abiogenesis is somehow part of evolution. They are two separate things. This is my point.
Of course it is, you're just splitting hairs over which time period we're referring to (and/or you're splitting hairs over micro vs macro evolution.) Abiogenesis itself is where we get from individual amino acid molecules to prokaryotes (we already know where the amino acids themselves came from.) The process of abiogenesis is without a doubt evolution, just the early early stages of it, or rather just one of many processes (for example, horizontal gene transffer, viral gene transfer, natural selection, sel
Re: Theory (Score:4, Insightful)
Most evolutionists seem to think they have the answers to everything as well.
Calling some one an "evolutionists" in an attempt to reframe it as a mere belief rather than a theory that's stood the test of time is silly.
I always enjoyed asking questions in school that I knew were bedeviling scientists about evolution. Watching a know it all snobby professor dance around and then get pissed off about it was amusing.
Sounds like you had bad professors, or equally likely, you asking stupid questions that you thought were smart. Probably a combination of both.
I'm happy to admit I really don't know how God created the Universe I'm also happy to pick at know everything jerks who don't know how evolution created it either.
But you pretend to know that a God created everything. You probably pretend to know the exact nature of that God. But "evolutionist" are the know it all jerks.
Final thought. Not knowing everything is not the same as not knowing anything.
Re: Theory (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
--
Re:Theory (Score:5, Informative)
Even better, in English, would be to describe it as the the survival of the species that fit best in their environment.
In English the word 'fit' can also be used to describe a level of strength, as in 'I work out to stay fit.'. Darwinian 'fitness' has to do with fitting into the environment better than others you compete with. Sometimes you can be fittest by being weaker, slower and less aggressive than others.
Re:Theory (Score:5, Informative)
You make great points about some of the missing pieces in our understanding of evolution. You should consider applying your own approach to the alleged merits of Libertarianism which has far less empirical evidence backing it up than evolution.
The missing pieces are the exact reason why I'm a libertarian. I personally am not even 100% sure what is best for myself, let alone everybody else. Hence I believe that not myself, nor anybody else, should be allowed to dictate how everybody else lives. That ranges in all subjects, from gay marriage to owning firearms.
I do believe in the rule of law, but mainly for the purposes of making sure that people don't interfere with other people's right to life, liberty, and the pursuit.
Do tell me however, why you're so sure that being authoritarian on certain matters is the best approach? Because if you don't identify as libertarian, then surely you have a lot of beliefs in that how you live your life surely should work best for everybody, and therefore they must obey your rules.
Sure, I'll take you up on that (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a close family member who's a cancer survivor. She is a child. She received treatment and she is fine now (more or less).
There are sizable numbers of people who would have not treated her and instead prayed to God. She would have died. That is a fact. What ever else you believe or don't believe that is a fact.
This is not hypothetical. There have been cases where folks with strong religion had their children taken away from them because they choose to "Trust in the Lord".
I know you've got a dozen things to say to my story above about how/why it was OK to be authoritarian in the cases above. But the fact is you're being authoritarian. There is such a thing as an authority. It's possible to be right and it's possible to be wrong.
Then again you might just wash your hands. Sorting out right and wrong is _hard_. It requires real work and real compromises. It's much, much easier to just wash your hands and say "Oh fuck it, I don't want to impose my beliefs". It's especially seductive because it lets you ignore all the real world suffering by telling yourself you'd only make things worse. But that's a half assed cop out that doesn't save any lives.
Re:Theory (Score:5, Insightful)
Good, because if you were a Christian libertarian you'd be a complete fucking moron.
Well a true Christian libertarian differs from me only in terms of their viewpoint of the world around them. If somebody is a Christian libertarian, then they believe in their god, the bible, and Jesus, but doesn't believe that their beliefs should be law.
Re: (Score:3)
Evolution as mere change, although
Re:Theory (Score:5, Informative)
That's not what TFS says.
And you came to this conclusion due to the fact the word "theory" was used no less than four times in reference to evolution in TFS.
I have a theory about that conclusion...
No, you have a hypothesis about that conclusion.
If you don't understand what a scientific theory is, you need to learn before you criticize it too deeply.
Let's tak an example that even fundies are likely to accept.
Gravity
Gravity is real. Hard to deny that if you jump off the Golden gate bridge, you'll fall.
But we don't understand every single thing about gravity, so we have a theory for it. The theory is a framework to work within, not some wild-ass guess, not some thought of "Maybe the world just sucks". The theory is the body of work - and if testing proves the theory wrong, changes need to be made.
Re: (Score:3)
Where are the mod points when you need them...
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Technically, falling is real. Gravity is the theory we have for why things fall.
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So long as it is substantiated with much direct and indirect evidence.
Nobody likes to touch that little tidbit... Maybe the church should get on board
Re:Theory (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe the church should get on board
Many churches have done so, or at least have asserted that religion and evolution are not in conflict. [wikipedia.org]
Re:Theory (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe the church should get on board
Many churches have done so, or at least have asserted that religion and evolution are not in conflict. [wikipedia.org]
It depends on the enemy they need. Many fundamentalist versions of religion need enemies that they can rail against. Hatred is a integral part of humanity, and in some it is more needed than in others. They become fundamentalists, and have successfully created their god in their own image. So there ya go.
But the problem is people who need to reject and apply hatred, cannot stop. If for some reason, we were to reject the science behind Evolution - bearing in mind that means a rejection of all biology and most of physics - a new target will have to be found. Basically, a return to the dark ages after their success.
So Good on Alabama! I'm hoping so much that the Republican party can extricate itself from the iron grip of the social conservatives and their batshit insane ideas. Then we can get back to a proper conservative/liberal mix of governance.And yes, we do need both. Although I do have to confess, I was a 80 percent Republican voting until GWB and his Trotskyist crew came around. Sweet Jeebuz, where is Barry Goldwater when you need him?
When an otherwise intelligent Republican is forced to answer questions about evolution and global warming with "Well, I'm not a scientist", or "there are controversies", because he or she is worried about offending the kookwing segment of the party, but doesn't want to outright lie, its just indicative of where the kooks are going to take you.
Because the normal Republicans can see that in a state where the religious can reject physics and force their views on others, makes for a workforce that simply isn't worth shit for anything other than menial jobs.
And in many respects, already has.
Re: (Score:3)
Neurosurgeon is as close as any candidates come to scientist this round.
Certainly closer than any shyster.
Re:Theory (Score:5, Informative)
Neurosurgeon is as close as any candidates come to scientist this round.
Certainly closer than any shyster.
No, he's not. Here is what Ben Carson believes:
“Carbon dating, all these things,” he said “really doesn’t mean anything to a God who has the ability to create anything at any point in time. “Dealing with the complexity of the human brain,” Carson continued, “and somebody says that came from a slime pit full of promiscuous biochemicals? I don’t think so.” Curiously, Carson did not reject natural selection – the engine that drives evolution – saying he “totally believe[s]” that useful genetic traits are more often passed on than less useful traits. But he could not draw the connection between that process acting over millennia and the human eye: “Give me a break. According to their scheme – boom, it had to occur overnight.”
So he doesn't believe evolution nor does he even know enough about it to understand that the evolution of the eye happened over time and does not have to happen overnight. The fact that he can be a doctor and hold these views just shows how extreme cognitive dissonance can be.
Re:Theory (Score:5, Insightful)
Curiously, Carson did not reject natural selection – the engine that drives evolution – saying he “totally believe[s]” that useful genetic traits are more often passed on than less useful traits. But he could not draw the connection between that process acting over millennia and the human eye: “Give me a break. According to their scheme – boom, it had to occur overnight.”
So he doesn't believe evolution nor does he even know enough about it to understand that the evolution of the eye happened over time and does not have to happen overnight. The fact that he can be a doctor and hold these views just shows how extreme cognitive dissonance can be.
Aint that da truth!
Ugh - the human eye isn't even close to perfection. You want the raptors for that.
But the weird thing about fundies bringing up they eye, again, and again, and again, is that the irreducible complexity argument has been debunked, again and again, and again. But just like Chucky, it refuses to die.
For the uninitiated, an eye like ours would definitely not spring up overnight. But it didn't have to.
Light is electromagnetic energy. And since energy always has some sort of effect on the thing the energy strikes, wherther warming for IR, sensing the energy is a pretty normal thing to happen.
A lot of chemicals, fully natural, will undergo changes when hit by light. If an organism happens to have these chemicals within it, it might end up reacting in some way to light.
Sound far fetched? Well, it has happened, and still does.
There are bacteria and tiny little critters in the ocean that have day/night feeding cycles based on sensing light. No "eyes" as such, but a chemical reaction
There are relatively primitive critters like bivalves that have primitive eyes. Not focusing, but many have multiple eyes that sense light, and can determine the direction of the light, or more important, the direction where the light goes away, as in a predator.
Then from there, we run an entire gamut of eyes, all leading up to where we are today. In the end, although an amazing organ, it is anything but magic, and needs no divine intervention to exist.
Hey creationists - any other examples of irreduceable complexity you need skewered - again?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
All but the most ludicrous churches will get on board as they are increasingly ridiculed for their untenable position on this. Many churches have moved on already (or not fallen for this ruse in the first place). I wonder what their next victim will be, some other thing to make their followers the in-crowd and everything else outsiders no doubt.
It would have been good to see the Repubs show some spine and discount this baloney in the past, at least they now recognize the will of the voters is shifting and t
Re: (Score:3)
Push polls prove nothing. It's all in how you phrase the question.
Re: (Score:3)
Blind to your own sides BS?
Taxing the rich (Score:3)
The problem with this is that when you break it down, there are many possible positions on taxation.
For example, I consider myself mostly conservative when it comes to taxation - I believe that the budget needs to be balanced(on average), taxes simplified, etc... I support a 'flat' tax with a large deductible. As such, I found the long-term capital gains tax reduction without limits to be horrible - amounting to a regressive tax system. I feel better now that it's 20%, but it's still half of what it shou
Re: (Score:3)
You don't understand why cap gains are lower in the first place. Money can cross borders a lot easier than workers. Nations compete for capital investment.
The truth of the matter is that (1-CapGainsRate)*(1-CorpTaxRate) is very close to the same in developed nations. Just a question of how you arrange the deck chairs.
You also don't understand cap gains taxes. Speculation is not charged a cap gains rate. IIRC you need to leave INVESTMENTS parked for 2 years to get cap gains rates. Speculators are too ac
Re: (Score:3)
Sanders would lose to any moderate R.
Same as Paul would lose to any moderate D.
Getting them to run fringe candidates against each other is unlikely.
And there we stand. Carrier weasels on both sides.
Re:Theory (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
Posit a practical test that would disprove god.
If you can't, it's not even a scientific hypothesis.
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Gravity is 'only a theory', as well. Is it ok with you if I push you off a cliff, because it's 'only a theory'?
Hint: The word 'theory' is a term of art in science, it does not have the same meaning in that venue as it does in conversational English.
It's nice to see Alabama enter modernity after all (Score:5, Funny)
Oh my GOD, hell has finally frozen over.
Intelligent and far seeing Republicans. Wow they're going to torn to shreds by the Bible Belt Brigade.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Don't celebrate too much. The lessons will be titled "How Jebus used evolution to make humankind smart enough to vote Republican."
Re:It's nice to see Alabama enter modernity after (Score:5, Funny)
Did something just happen? (Score:4, Funny)
Did Hell freeze over?
So... (Score:5, Funny)
To be clear... (Score:5, Funny)
This is about the town of Alabama, Massachusetts.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
This is about the town of Alabama, Massachusetts.
Did you even look at TFA?
.
From the About al.com section:
Alabama Media Group is a digitally-focused news and information company that combines the quality journalism from The Birmingham News, The Huntsville Times, Mobile’s Press-Register and The Mississippi Press with the up-to-the-minute access of AL.com and gulflive.com.
Re: (Score:3)
An Engineer's joke is no laughing matter?
whoosh.
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Yeah, the correctly collectively funny moderation would have been '+5 Informative'.
So much patting on the back (Score:5, Insightful)
...for something that not only should have been in place already, but is tepid in comparison to how science is taught almost everywhere else around the world.
That's how much the religious zealots have been able to twist the narrative in their favor, to the point where every civilized person breathes a sigh a relief when they AREN'T shoving their creationist mythologies in students' faces and indoctrinating them with dogma. Are we supposed to congratulate Alabama for not being backwards fundamentalists? That's the intellectual equivalent of giving them a medal for promising not to lynch any more black people.
Re:So much patting on the back (Score:5, Insightful)
Regardless, we should encourage good behavior even if it was preceded by a temper tantrum. Same with your dog, treat him nicely when he finally comes back rather than punishing him for being bad and running away in the first place.
Yes, we should treat the right as spoiled children and bad dogs, since that is how they act.
Re:So much patting on the back (Score:5, Funny)
So much idiocy (Score:3, Informative)
Nobody is talking about "kill all the zygotes" except you, you logic-impaired . The same chain of so-called "logic" you use there could equally be applied to men's sperm or women's ova; destroy all of them and you won't have any more children either. Yet, mysteriously enough, nobody seems to be calling denunciations down on every girl who ever has her period (wasting an ovum, unfertilized) or every boy who ever has a nocturnal emission (or "wet dream").
Yeah, try again. This time, consider actually thinking
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You have to teach them some smattering of the over arching themes in Science. If for no other reason than they are going to hear about it on TV or the Internet. You don't teach detailed issues and it is going to be at a 'religious' level if you will - it is taught as doctrine, not reasoned learning. But that is true of pretty much everything at an elementary school level. Hopefully you teach enough of the foundational basics that they can learn to think later on when their brains are fully developed (af
Some faith in humanity restored (Score:2)
Good to hear on a Monday morning. Bonus points: Alabama! Can we get the rest of the southern states on board next?
Drop origin of life (Score:2, Flamebait)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't believe the origin of life is part of public education anywhere, since we have no real idea how life got started. It's what came after that creationists latched on to and let's face it - even they must know the science is solid. This whole episode has been an extended period of trolling on the part of these religious factions, hoping to raise their profiles and gain membership.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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You are aware that the origin of life and the evolution of life are two seperate topics?
Re:Drop origin of life (Score:4, Interesting)
And since your educators did not teach you these topics, it very clearly shows through your failure to understand the distinction between "the origin of life" (as you put it) and "the origin of species" (as Darwin put it). The origin of life is, to a large extent, still a scientific unknown, in the sense that science has not yet been able to determine how life on Earth originated. That is not to say that we can never know how life on Earth originated, or that we cannot eventually discover and execute a plausible mechanism for the origin of life. We simply don't know YET.
But the origin of species--that is to say, the theory that explains how living organisms on this planet have adapted and changed in response to changes in their environment, thus leading to the differentiation and EVOLUTION of different forms of life--is by contrast to the former, very much a scientific known. The evidence is so abundant as to be utterly compelling to anyone who has not been blinded by religious dogma. The entire field of genetics was not known before evolution as a theory was proposed, yet those findings have reinforced evolutionary theory countless times.
And then, for your science teach to have said such a thing: "I will teach what can be reproduced in a lab or examined first-hand"--betrays her ignorance of scientific thought and discourse. First-hand examination or reproducible experiments are of course a foundation of good science, but these are not the only means by which science can be done. We cannot, for example, obtain first-hand evidence of the temperature of the core of the Sun. We cannot at this time create an experiment to directly measure the temperature of a coronal mass ejection. Yet we can, through indirect means, infer these things from other information we know about nuclear physics and thermodynamics. That does not mean we know with great precision what those temperatures are, but we can obtain useful models based on scientific reasoning. Insistence on directly observable phenomena as the only form of scientific evidence is such an egregious ignorance of science that I wouldn't consider your "science" teacher worthy of her credential.
Re:Drop origin of life (Score:4, Insightful)
I say drop the origin of life topic all together from public education.
Evolution is about the diversity of life, not it's origin. Evolution is what happens after you have life (which I think of as almost, but not quite, perfect replicators.) Abiogenesis is the term used for the process of life arising from non-living matter. Last I checked, there are some nascent theories regarding abiogenesis, but nothing solid yet. I'm not sure why you would want to drop mentioning that in public education.
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Abiogenesis is very difficult to study. It left no evidence, and all early forms of life have long since been consumed by their more-adapted descendants. There are hints here and there in the biochemistry, like ribosomes being composed largely of RNA, but not enough to reach any firm conclusions.
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Abiogenesis is very difficult to study. It left no evidence, and all early forms of life have long since been consumed by their more-adapted descendants. There are hints here and there in the biochemistry, like ribosomes being composed largely of RNA, but not enough to reach any firm conclusions.
I wouldn't say "not enough to reach any firm conclusions", though it is difficult. The problem is that there may be a lot of clues in biochemistry that we don't yet know enough to recognize as clues, and won't know until we have some thoroughly-detailed and workable hypotheses for the process. It's possible that there really isn't enough evidence, but we just can't know yet.
It has to be said... (Score:2)
THANK GOD!
Alternate universe! (Score:5, Funny)
I knew stepping though that portal was risky but I kind of like this Alabama filled with science education and NASA engineers.
Back in my dimension, we are mainly focused on where to put our 10 commandment monument and the evils of an education lottery.
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I knew stepping though that portal was risky but I kind of like this Alabama filled with science education and NASA engineers.
Back in my dimension, we are mainly focused on where to put our 10 commandment monument and the evils of an education lottery.
It's not all Bibles and Chitlins. Marshall Space Flight Center [wikipedia.org] is in Huntsville.
Re:Alternate universe! (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, but to be fair, the Marshall Space Flight Center is working on developing a rocket to get them the fuck out of Alabama.
Thanks, Corps (Score:2)
If I had to guess, some mega business threatened to leave the state unless they started producing a workforce with some semblance of education. But that's just a guess - some monied interest was twisting arms, almost certainly.
Welcome to the 20th century, Alabama. (Score:4, Informative)
.
Of course, there's still this from TFA:
...Textbooks used in Alabama science classes have carried a disclaimer sticker for years stating that evolution is a "controversial theory," not fact, and the new course of study doesn't change the warnings, which were advocated by Christian conservatives....
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It's just a theory!! (Score:2)
It's just a theory....like the Theory of Gravity or Electronic Theory. And we all know how unreliable and far-fetched those kooky theories are!
I'd like to welcome... (Score:2)
I'd like to be the first to welcome Alabama to the 20th Century.
Re:Theory... (Score:5, Informative)
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Agenda? To catch up with the rest of civilization.
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Indeed. Let's make sure to encourage people to think that the Earth is flat and at the center of the universe, and about the theory of phlogiston as a viable physical theory. For diversity of ideas' sake.
Re:Theory... (Score:5, Interesting)
I grew up in the South, and I don't think I ever heard "evolution" or "natural selection" ever even mentioned in school by a teacher. The closest thing I remember to it was another student asking my middle school biology teacher about evolution once. She basically told us she wouldn't talk about it because she didn't want to lose her job. And that was that. I had no idea how these process even worked until I read about them later and started to understand their importance and implications.
Re:Theory... (Score:5, Interesting)
FWIW, I went to public school in Alabama and learned about evolution. It wasn't taught as in "but remember kids, this is only a theory" nor did they say "and evolution is fact and I'm failing you if you don't admit that God doesn't exist".
It was just taught. Like things of this nature should be.
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I grew up in the South, and I don't think I ever heard "evolution" or "natural selection" ever even mentioned in school by a teacher. The closest thing I remember to it was another student asking my middle school biology teacher about evolution once. She basically told us she wouldn't talk about it because she didn't want to lose her job. And that was that. I had no idea how these process even worked until I read about them later and started to understand their importance and implications.
I've spent time in the South as well, and I never heard the phrase "natural selection" uttered either. I DID see it play out, however...usually preceded by a "Hey, y'all...WATCH THIS!"
But all kidding aside, you make an excellent point by illustrating exactly how the various forces at work come into play here. This law is a good move, and a step in the right direction for a state that consistently ends up being the butt of jokes because of a stereotypically uneducated (outside of Huntsville) populace. As
Re:Theory... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Some comments (Score:5, Insightful)
The topic of whether it's human-caused or not is so controversial that even mentioning this will probably get my post modded down.
It's controversial to those with an agenda. The rest of us can still maintain a rational discussion about it.
Re: Some comments (Score:5, Informative)
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This is what [slashdot.org] an agenda looks like [latimes.com]. I don't know why, but whenever countries meet over AGW, the topic always turns to giving [ictsd.org] billions of dollars from one group to another.
The fact that you don't like some of the proposed solutions does not mean there is not a problem. Go look at the list of the top 100 companies, the largest political donors, etc. and then try to make a cogent argument as to how big bad environmental and/or poverty lobby has some how convinced 1000s of scientists to participate in whatever strange and huge conspiracy you appear to be proposing.
We are releasing millions of years of sequestered carbon into the atmosphere and we are doing it on the time scale
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Why should a child be allowed to be excluded from basic education? That is tantamount to keeping your child at home and not educating them, which is child abuse.
There is basic science practice and scientific theories that evolve out of it. You teach science, not as a fact but as a process and from that process there is very little variation on a subject like evolution or climate change. You take into account that not all change is human-made and subtract the things we have seen from the things we see now.
Su
Re:Only in America (Score:5, Insightful)
I went to public school in the northeast and not once was the bible used in school. Nor did any religious topics come up in any of my classes, beyond your standard Greek and Roman mythology. I wish they had dug deeper into other mythologies from around the world. I don't recall prayers in school, but at events it definitely came up which is inevitable given that the Hispanics comprised the majority of the student body.
If you don't think these topics aren't debated overseas then you clearly haven't traveled enough. I've seen both Europeans and Asians question evolution and not necessarily on religious grounds. While living in Asia one guy went on a tirade about it and how dissenting views should be taught in schools; similar to the crap we see here in the US. I disagree completely, but it's just not worth arguing with some people. I take it you've never met a born again Buddhist, because they're not all that different than your average fundamentalist Christian.
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2) The ID argument: Life was created by a superintelligent supernatural uncreated designer with supreme powers who, for legal reasons, we can neither confirm nor deny as the Christian God.
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