Posted on 11/14/2005 8:06:26 AM PST by Exigence
A column about Kansas Science Standards
Monday, November 14, 2005
By Steve Abrams, chairman, Kansas State Board of Education
Evolution. Creation. Intelligent Design. Is there any truth or facts that can come out of what has been bandied about in the media in the last few days?
Let me first comment a little about what my critics claim. Some of my critics claim it is nothing short of trying to insert the supernatural into the Science classroom. Others claim I am trying to insert creation into the Science classroom via the backdoor. A few claim that I know nothing about science and that my Doctorate must have come from a mail order catalog.
The critics also claim that in the scientific community, there is no controversy about evolution. They then proceed to explain that I ought to understand something about this, because surely I can see that over a period of time, over many generations, a pair of dogs will “evolve”. There is a high likelihood that the progeny several generations down the line will not look like the original pair of dogs. And then some of the critics will claim that this proves that all living creatures came from some original set of cells.
Obviously, that is one of the reasons that we tried to further define evolution. We want to differentiate between the genetic capacity in each species genome that permits it to change with the environment as being different from changing to some other creature. We want to provide more clarity to this inflamed issue and we ask that the evolutionists reveal what they are doggedly hiding, but they prefer to misinform the media and assassinate the character of qualified scientists who are willing to shed some light. In our Science Curriculum Standards, we called this micro-evolution and macro-evolution… changes within kinds and changing from one kind to another. Again, as previously stated, evolutionists want nothing to do with trying to clarify terms and meanings.
Most of the critics that send me email send 4 basic comments: they claim that we are sending Kansas back to the Dark Ages, or that we are making a mockery of science, or that we are morons for putting Intelligent Design into the Science Standards or that they also are Christian and believe in evolution.
There are a few critics that want to present an intellectual argument about why Intelligent Design should not be included in the Science Curriculum Standards. They claim that ID is not good science. From the aspect that Intelligent Design is not a full fledged developed discipline, I would agree. But, if one takes the time to read the Science Curriculum Standards, they would see that Intelligent Design is not included.
So, what are a couple of the main areas that our critics take issue?
It seems that instead of making it a “he said”, and then “she said”, and then “he said” and so on and on, it would make sense to go to the document about which everyone is supposedly commenting about: The Kansas Science Curriculum Standards.
The critics claim that we have redefined science to include a backdoor to Biblical creation or the super-natural.
From Science Curriculum Standards, page ix:
Science is a systematic method of continuing investigation that uses observations, hypothesis testing, measurement, experimentation, logical argument and theory building to lead to more adequate explanations of natural phenomena.
Where does that say the field of science is destroyed and the back door opened to bring Biblical creation into the science classroom?
Another claim that our critics promote through the media is that we are inserting Intelligent Design. Again, if we go to the Science Curriculum Standards, Standard 3 Benchmark 3 Indicators 1-7 (pg 75-77). This is the heart of the “evolution” area. Only 7 indicators…
1) understands biological evolution, descent with modification, is a scientific explanation for the history of the diversification of organisms from common ancestors.
2) understands populations of organisms may adapt to environmental challenges and changes as a result of natural selection, genetic drift, and various mechanisms of genetic change.
3) understands biological evolution is used to explain the earth’s present day biodiversity: the number, variety and variability of organisms.
4) understands organisms vary widely within and between populations. Variation allows for natural selection to occur.
5) understands that the primary mechanism of evolutionary change (acting on variation) is natural selection.
6) understands biological evolution is used as a broad, unifying theoretical framework for biology.
7) explains proposed scientific explanations of the origin of life as well as scientific criticisms of those explanations.
As anyone can see, Intelligent Design is not included. But many of our critics already know this. This is not about Biblical creation or Intelligent Design… it is about the last 5 words of indicator 7… “scientific criticisms of those explanations.”
Evolutionists do not want students to know about or in any way to think about scientific criticisms of evolution. Evolutionists are the ones minimizing open scientific inquiry from their explanation of the origin of life. They do not want students to know that peer reviewed journals, articles and books have scientific criticisms of evolution.
So instead of participating in the Science hearings before the State Board Sub-Committee and presenting testimony about evolution, they stand out in the hall and talk to the media about how the PhD scientists that are presenting testimony about the criticisms “aren’t really scientists”… “they really don’t know anything”… “they obviously are in the minority and any real scientist knows there is not a controversy about evolution.”
Instead of discussing the issues of evolution, noisy critics go into attack mode and do a character assassination of anyone that happens to believe that evolution should actually be subject critical analysis.
In spite of the fact that the State Board approved Science Curriculum Standards that endorses critical analysis of evolution (supported by unrefuted testimony from many credentialed scientists at the Science Hearings) and does NOT include Intelligent Design, and add to that, the fact that scientific polls indicate that a large percentage of parents do not want evolution taught as dogma in the science classroom… what is the response from some of the Superintendents around Kansas? They seem to indicate that, “We don’t care what the State Board does, and we don’t care what parents want, we are going to continue teaching evolution just as we have been doing.”
But I guess we shouldn’t be surprised, because Superintendents and local boards of education in some districts continue to promulgate pornography as “literature”, even though many parents have petitioned the local boards to remove the porn. Obviously that is a different issue than the Science Standards, but it still points out the lack of commitment on the part of administration in some districts to allow parents to control the education for their own children.
I have repeatedly stated this is not about Biblical creation or Intelligent Design… this is about what constitutes good science standards for the students of the state of Kansas. I would encourage those who believe we are promoting a back door to creation or Intelligent Design to actually do your homework… READ and investigate the Science Curriculum Standards (www.ksde.org) and base your comments on them and not on the misinformation critics have been plastering the print and clogging the airways with… unless of course, your only defense really is baseless character assassination.
You're mixing my replies. I never said it was evolution... and would appreciate not being misquoted. Let's leave that for the professionals, (ie, the liberal press). Fair enough?
Now, that's better, isn't it? A grown up approach to debate. Or, what passes for grown up debate 'round these parts. *vbg*
I'd be delighted. Please give me the change you'd like me to discuss... one with hard evidence behind it. If there is no prevention, as you allude, you should be able to supply dozens of examples with a clear record of progression from species to species.
Also, looking at the Big Bang model, the entropy of the universe at the moment of the Big Bang was very low (possibly almost zero), giving a universe very consistent with the 2nd Law.
Using the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics to attack evolution and cosmology is just plain silly - it doesn't have any useful application in this arena except for irritating physicists.
This was copied from GarySpFc post #117. How is it you comment that "the Earth is absolutely positively NOT a closed system." as if you are bringing new information that was left out of the post #117?
Ever notice when the sun shines down on cockroaches, they scatter?
Remind you of anyone?
This is the post I was replying to:
"To: The_Reader_David
Origin of life theories are so far from being settled science that any teaching of them without criticisms would be an erosion of science education.
Precisely.
75 posted on 11/14/2005 9:13:52 AM PST by Exigence
The_Reader_David had, in post 73 had said:
>>"To: Exigence
Okay, is that what this row was all about? A clause in science standards mandating criticism of origin-of-life theories? Any of the Kansans are yahoos (in Swift's sense, not subscribers to a certain on-line company) crowd have some missing quotations from the Kansas BOR standards to show otherwise?
Origin of life theories are so far from being settled science that any teaching of them without criticisms would be an erosion of science education."
73 posted on 11/14/2005 9:11:43 AM PST by The_Reader_David<<
And -that- referred to item 7 in the standards which included origin of life as a part of the evolution standards.
Speaking of omissions, when Adam left the Garden, God cursed all his senses --- except smell.
Which is interesting, in that smell has a profound memory-response-triggering ability, unlike any other sense.
Smell certain kind of mildew and you're back in Grandma's garage, getting down the hammock.
The entropic hash equivalence is ¡Ý 0 (¡®dQ¡¯) ¡®dS¡, where ¡®T¡¯ represents heat, ¡®QR¡¯ represents either potatoes or corned beef, and a refrigerator-dripping-water-down-a mountain-peak-onto-a-small-animal-stuck-in-a-tailpipe-without-a-food-source represents a can opener.
How could I have been so blind?
Further inspiration to keep my current tagline for a while.
OK, where is it?
Because the author of the piece forgot to consider that the Earth is not a closed system at the specific point when he argued the water can't get out of the bottom of the valley ever again without Intelligent Design. Unless, that is, you're saying the Sun and all the other stars in the universe can't operate except by continuous intelligent intervention.
People with sun-sensitivity? ;)
You might want to start with one of these, courtesy of PatrickHenry's links. Smooth transitions from species to species. We also see such processes in progress today, among ring species, et.al.
The inevitable rebuttal is that these are "only microevolutionary changes", which is untrue, because there is clearly an emergence of a different related species in the cited cases. If you wish to push back the envelope further, and demand interfamily transitions, interorder transitions, etc., there are examples also, but due to the length of time and paucity of the fossil record, and the "branching" of peripheral species, the wider the relation, the more "gaps" there will be in the fossil record. However, there are numerous examples of clear transitions between these wider groupings as well. Fortunately, also, there are other lines of inquiry to confirm broader relations in addition to the fossil record, including biogeographical and genetic/morphological evidence.
I wouldn't even know what to debate. The excerpt you quoted doesn't make any comment about the validity of thermodynamics as it relates to evolution at all. It is just an obvious attempt to obfuscate the issue. Could you point where, specifically, in that long rambling, where it is proven that thermodynamics makes evolution impossible? I didn't see it, and I don't think anyone else did either. It would certainly be news to the worldwide scientific community if this was indeed the case.
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