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.
heat death placemarker
That's OK.
Russell Yates is and was a "rocket scientist" for NASA who let his wife have massive depresive episodes by knowingly allowing her to wean herself off of medications so they could have more children, and got mixed up with a freaky preacher who lived in a bus and dressed in devil costumes.
Oh, yeah and she was so crazy she killed all their children.
"Rocket scientist" means nothing about lucidity.
Here, this man is either crazy or intentionally trying to deceive people with mumbo jumbo --- which is not Christian in the least.
The Sun heats the Earth; ergo, the 2nd law does not apply to anything going on in Earth until the Sun runs out of hydrogen and we all die in a super-nova.
Period.
Anyone who says the 2nd Law applies to the Earth in this context is a liar or an idiot spouting bad science.
Indeed, I would venture as far as saying that they are willing or unknowing agents of Satan, in that they are making Christians look dishonest or stupid or both.
Festival of the Spilled Water
We have to be a little careful of this kind of statement because the Second Law does have effects on Earth. It keeps us from ever making a certain class of perpetual motion machines, for instance.
The latter frustration led Maxwell to postulate a very hypothetical demon to thwart the second law and reset a heat engine to its initial condition for free. (It was eventually shown that even a hypothetical demon isn't enough unless it operates by pure and utter magic.) The second law operates here and everywhere, but it doesn't frustrate processes which operate in systems far from thermodynamic equilibrium.
That path has to be paved with teflon. I do not personally enjoy pointing this out. I wish educated Christians would stand up and point out this kind of dishonesty.
Answers in Genesis, a purely creationist site, lists the Second Law as an argument creationists should not use. Why aren't there any FReeper creationists with the integrity to stand against this nonsense.
Hence, "in this context"
Right. Just anticipating the ambush from the Twist and Shout crowd.
I have a reverse of that; not sure if it supports your statement or refutes it, but it exists nonetheless...
About 15-20 years ago I was sent to a micro-miniature circuit repair course in the Marines. We spent 10 hours a day, for six straight weeks, basically soldering SMT circuit boards nonstop under microscopes. To keep from going totally insane we had a radio on, playing the only station in the area. It played the same handful of songs OVER and OVER. To this day, if I hear one of those songs, I smell the strong odor of burning flux. Not just the memory of it; I really smell it!
Fair warning received and acknowledged.
I am very much a Christian --- a covert from Judaism, no less.
I take my faith very seriously and do accept the entire Bible as the Word of God.
The "Christians" who twist and modify the Word to fit their pre-conceived agenda and notions of the world sadden me greatly. They remind me of the pharasees (my ancestors) who rejected Christ because they read the prophecies with an agenda that did not fit the God's reality.
No, memories trigger smell and smell triggers memories.
I imagine you can call up a memory of grandma's kitchen and smell cookies (or something), too, if you tried.
The second strongest triggers are songs, BTW.
So you have both going in this example.
> Based on the response to these few words, as outlined in the article, it appears that evolution is not open to criticism.
Sure it is. It's when you lie, as this feller has done, that people tend to get snippy.
Read the literature: evolutionary biologists and paleontologists are forever sniping at each others theories. But while there's considerable debate, discussion and criticism over various aspects of evolutionary theory and evidence, there is as yet no scientific criticism of evolution as a whole. Just as planetary scientists snipe at each other regarding this aspect of Martian geology or that, they don't debate that Mars is *there*.
All I know is it drives me batty at times. I didn't much care for those songs to begin with. :-p
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.
I hope he somewhere someplace sometime clarifies his meaning of his scientific definition of kind.
We want to provide more clarity to this inflamed issue and we ask that the evolutionists reveal what they are doggedly hiding...
Hmmm. I guess I know where this guy stands on evolution and 'evolutionists'. I guess he thinks hundreds of thousands of 'evolutionist' scientists have been 'hiding' something the past 150 years. Is it just me or does this sound paranoid?
Yet curiously and fantastically enough, here's an article from Answer in Genesis explaining how evolution violates the 2nd law.
I've come to expect little, though, from a website that claims T. Rex was created as a vegetarian and that all known species of wild cats evolved from a common ancestor on Noah's Ark within the last 5000 years.
The effect is called a "Proustian Memory" and can be quite dramatic, bringing back whole floods of emotion.
There are actually therapies to make it stop (say adults that were abused who can't stand the touch of a wooden spoon or somesuch), if it really gets on your nerves.
You could probably do it yourself by listening to the music for 10 days straight while doing something entirely different.
Nope! Never! The Creationist/IDers have all the best seats on that bus.
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