Posted on 03/10/2006 8:09:38 AM PST by LouAvul
South Carolina (AP) -- The state Board of Education on Wednesday rejected a state panel's proposal to change high school standards on evolution by calling on students to "critically analyze" the theory.
Science teachers had complained that although critical analysis is part of all science, the wording was really a backdoor attempt to force educators to teach religious-based alternatives. In a 10-6 vote, board members agreed.
The Education Oversight Committee, a school reform panel made up of lawmakers, teachers, parents and other community members, recommended the change last month. Panel member Senator Mike Fair, R-Greenville, has said it was intended to introduce students to challenges to evolutionary theory.
Education Superintendent Inez Tenenbaum, a Democrat, has called the effort "a ploy to confuse the issue of evolution so that ultimately evolution won't be taught."
Officials disagreed over the effect of the vote.
Education department officials say the vote leaves previous science standards adopted in 2002 in place. But Representative Bob Walker, R-Landrum, said both the Education Oversight Committee and the Board of Education must agree on new standards.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
It is an admittedly broad statement describing a reasonable conclusion. If humans are simply the chance outcome of some sort of natural selection process that started with a puddle of soup and a few bolts of lightening, then this life is all we have. If that is the case then the rules, at least for individuals, change quite a bit. It’s every man for himself and the primary rule is - don't get caught. Have all the fun you can, any way you can because when you check out there is nothing left but the big dirt nap.
Anyone who is watching what is happening in our society would be hard pressed not to concede that we continue further in that direction daily. A few days ago the news was describing the dangers of binge drinking on spring break. In the last ten years or so we have a new problem on our highways; road rage. Pressure from gays for acceptance as normal is as never before in America, and I suspect it is only a matter of time before the age of consent gets pushed lower. How is the divorce rate these days? How are kids doing with that? Does anyone really believe there were as many female teachers chasing students twenty years ago, but it just "wasn't reported"? As many pedophiles? Child kidnappings?
Is all of this sickness new? No, I don’t think so. There is nothing new under the sun. America will go the way of many other great societies, destroyed from inside by its own debauchery. One is free to deny the existence of God; that is everyone’s God given right. But even if one concludes that God is a myth, the restraint on individuals, and therefore, society by Christianity is very real. That sword is double edged; one shouldn’t pretend there is no damage to its user.
I wish I could be compared to a mooselimb. I need to loose a few pounds; riding season is upon us.
That's not what Orthodox Jewish Rabbis say.
As opposed us uneducated and unenlightened, that is. Well, thank you! Cud ya send me sum instructons on howe tuh male a letter? Ahh shuud sens bak muh dee-gree.
I think I can expect that you are at least as educated and enlightened as they are. Would you do me the favor of describing the biblical reasons that these ignorant masses have remained in this camp? It is only reasonable to expect you have examined their claims and found them faulty.
Thanks, and welcome to free republic - you sure picked a doozy of a place to start!
Your conclusions don't follow from your premises.
If that is the case then the rules, at least for individuals, change quite a bit. It’s every man for himself and the primary rule is - don't get caught. Have all the fun you can, any way you can because when you check out there is nothing left but the big dirt nap.
Again, doesn't follow.
Anyone who is watching what is happening in our society would be hard pressed not to concede that we continue further in that direction daily.
True, but it has nothing to do with the theory of evolution.
A few days ago the news was describing the dangers of binge drinking on spring break. In the last ten years or so we have a new problem on our highways; road rage. Pressure from gays for acceptance as normal is as never before in America, and I suspect it is only a matter of time before the age of consent gets pushed lower.
All very interesting, but what does this have to do with the theory of evolution?
One is free to deny the existence of God; that is everyone’s God given right.
Evolution has nothing to do with the existence of God. Plenty of very devout people, like the pope, believe in God and have no objection to evolution.
But even if one concludes that God is a myth, the restraint on individuals, and therefore, society by Christianity is very real. That sword is double edged; one shouldn’t pretend there is no damage to its user.
True, but has nothing to do with evolution.
Evolution doesn't say a child is a mistake.
tell a child he came from a monkey and it will effect the way he thinks of himself.
Why? Just because we came from lower beings doesn't make us lower beings.
The best example of this is the teenage premarital sex rate. since the kids believe that they are nothing but high order animals, then they should give into their urges instead of controlling them.
Let's see. The theory of evolution was introduced in the 1870's. Premarital sex rates started going up in the 1970's. Oh yeah, I definitely see a link there! What's a hundred year lag time? /sarcasm.
The problem with answering your question is that the Bible stands alone. It is not subject to review and many considered it to be without error. Science on the other hand relies on evidence that is obtained independently and assembled to give a larger picture. There difference is that the broad interpretations of the Bible are divergent while the major theories of science are convergent.
No so.
The IDers want the research and debate conducted at the universities. Not the local secondary schools.
But evolutionists have escaped to the tall grass.
---snip---
Eugenie Scott argues that intelligent design proponents don’t have a scholarly position because they never submit their work for peer review. But each time she brings up the kind of scholarly evaluation that’s lacking -- the reviewed publications or academic conferences -- she stops short when she comes to the work of William Dembski.
Regarding conferences, Scott remembers Dembski’s “The Nature of Nature” conference (April 12-15 at Baylor) and grudgingly admits: “They actually did invite some scientists there.” In fact, the slate of speakers included two Nobel Prize-winning scientists and several members from the National Academy of Sciences. The list was weighted toward prominent biologists, physicists, and philosophers who were critical of intelligent design.
And when Scott ticks off a list of non-peer-reviewed design literature, she hesitates when she recalls that Dembski’s book, The Design Inference, was written as part of a Cambridge University philosophy of science series. Published as Dembski’s doctoral dissertation in philosophy, it became Cambridge’s best-selling philosophical monograph in recent years. After surviving a review of 70 scholars, and then the standard dissertation defense at the University of Illinois, The Design Inference finally underwent corrections and refereed scrutiny for two years at Cambridge University Press.
The great irony is that just as Dembski is proposing to test his theory with the help of molecular biologists, the very scientists who are challenging intelligent design to pass scientific tests are using every means possible to ensure those tests never take place.
---un snip----
The entire article is linked below
The Lynching of Bill Dembski: Scientists say the jury is out--so let the hanging begin.
He's using "animal" in the religious sense, not the biological sense.
And that's perfectly legitimate. We are not animals in the religious sense because unlike animals, we have moral obligations.
His logic is faulty because it implies there is an intrinsic conflict between being an animal in the biological sense and not being one in the religious sense. But this is obviously false; both can, and are true.
I wasn't arguing the theory of evolution. That should have been more than obvious in my last paragraph. You sure did a lot of typing to contest an imagined point.
And the Taliban. ...see post 21.
But so what? Does anyone, upon learning our history, decide to be a savage, or a criminal? Or a pagan? Even in these days of endless excuses, does any criminal defend his actions on the grounds that some of his long-ago ancestors were criminals too? Such a defense is too absurd, even for the OJ jury.
We can certainly be influenced by our parents, but the primitive behavior of our distant ancestors is meaningless regarding the kind of people we choose to be. So what difference could it make if, millions of years ago, our ancestors weren't even human?
But what you fail to see is that this is how science works. All new ideas are fought against very hard. If the idea has merit then it survives and begins to gain ground. Sometimes it will even overturn the old way of thinking and become the new foundation upon which future progress is made.
But most new ideas are less than complete, many times outright wrong, and these ideas don't make it very far. This is why ID hasn't gotten anywhere in the past 100 years. It has major flaws. But instead trying to overcome these flaws, it just changes it name and comes back with the same old tired stuff.
For the most part IDers don't do research and have no plans to do research. They just look at the research other people have done and say "wow that is too complex for me to figure out, an intelligent designer must of have done it."
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