Posted on 11/14/2005 8:06:26 AM PST by Exigence
Way to go, Steve Abrams and KS Board of Education!
"unless of course, your only defense really is baseless character assassination."
Now we all know evos would never stoop to something like this, don't we?
Why they never would! Every one of them are fine upstanding PhD holding sincere christians who would never insult anybody who disagrees with there point of view! /sarcasm off
Hmmm I wonder where the evos are on this one, they attack everything about the KBOE standards, they cant show up and refute him?
> I wonder where the evos are on this one
What, you can't wait six posts? Sheesh.
pigning PH
Oh, they are alive and working hard and places like the Kansas City Star, (smaller rags such as the Johnson County Sun Newspapers) each and every local television station manager, the KS Governor's Office, the KS House of Represenataives and Senate, the Kansas National Education Association and many umbrella sham organizations run under them, the University of Kansas, Kansas State University, etc.
Wait a minute, that's not fair. You actually expect people to read something before they criticize it? </sarc>
"Evolutionists do not want students to know about or in any way to think about scientific criticisms of evolution."
This is the most damning thing Abrams could ahve possibly said. However, it damns *himself,* as it is an astonishingly blatant LIE.
"Evolutionists" are *constantly* publicizing scientific criticisms of various aspects of evolution. And if some good science came along that criticised evolution itself, that would get openly debated as well.
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You are exactly correct. That is how science is suppose to be and is practiced unlike what a few on this board seem to think.
I'm curious, what are the uppoer/lower bounds of permitted gentic change in a species? What happens when it reaches the maximum allowed changes in that species? Does some flag get set off that says, "Woah there! You can't have any less body hair than that!" Or, "You can't have teeth any sharper than that ... no meat-eating scavenging for you!" At what point do non-harmful mutations somehow get edited out as being too far beyond a (man-made) "species" delimiter?
I mean this to be a legitimate question ... I'm curious as to the answers ...
Translation: We wanted to insert into science class a bogus distinction made only in creationist talking points and not by real scientists in the peer-reviewed literature.
Really? Then why did you post that no such criticisms existed here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1511195/posts?q=1&&page=251?
I quote:
There are no scientific criticisms of evolution at this point, just ID and similar religious beliefs.
Methinks you may be tripping in your own rhetoric...
Not that we're creationists or anything...
From: http://www.wheaton.edu/ACG/essays/miller1.html
"In the last turn of events, 3 members of the Board rewrote the standards to produce a "compromise" document. While not including the more objectionable parts of the alternate proposal, it still eliminated the theory of evolution as a model for understanding the history and diversity of life. Furthermore it does not mention cosmology (Big Bang) or the Age of the Earth. It also includes errors of fact and misrepresentations of scientific methodology and content. This version passed the Board on August 12th by a 6 to 4 vote. The original standards document written and unanimously endorsed by the appointed committee was not even brought to a vote. This decision was made in opposition to the recommendations of virtually every scientific and educational body in the state. The Governor of Kansas and all of the presidents of the regents institutions (state universities) appealed to the Board to reject the alternate document. The academic and educational communities are very irritated by the current situation.
"The new science standards do not require or mandate teachers to teach anything. They certainly do not mandate the inclusion of creationism. What they do is establish the content of statewide assessment tests, and thus serve as recommendations for which topics and principles should be emphasized at each grade level from K-12. Teachers and local school boards are free to establish their own curricula. However the exclusion of evolutionary theory as an explanatory framework for the history of life and as a unifying concept in the biological sciences, the exclusion of theories of the origin of the universe (Big Bang model of cosmology), and the removal of references to a very ancient Earth history from the standards have significant implications. These omissions are critical, and remove the core unifying concepts from the sciences of biology, geology, and astronomy. Since they will not be subject to state assessment tests, these concepts are much less likely to be taught in districts where there is vocal opposition. By throwing the issue to "local control" the state board leaves teachers much more vulnerable to complaints by parents or administrators eager to avoid controversy. Furthermore, the decision is already having an impact on textbook publishers. Since the decision, one publisher has removed an introductory chapter on the geologic history of Kansas from a history textbook for fear that it would limit sales."
Keith B. Miller
Department of Geology
Kansas State University
Except in Kansas... or at least, except in Kansas until the Board wisely amended our standards to allow such criticism. The old standards forbade it... which one should know before launching criticism at the new standards.
> Methinks you may be tripping in your own rhetoric...
Actually, it appears more likely that you are suffering from some reading comprehension troubles. Read the two sentences of mine again: "Evolutionists" are *constantly* publicizing scientific criticisms of various aspects of evolution. And if some good science came along that criticised evolution itself, that would get openly debated as well."
Can you figure out the distinction?
Come back to us when you've figured it out.
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