Posted on 03/27/2009 6:23:20 AM PDT by laotzu
AUSTIN — The State Board of Education gave a nearly-final nod to new science curriculum standards Thursday that would change a long-standing Texas tradition over how schoolchildren learn about evolution.
The tentative vote — a final one is expected today — will mean teachers and students no longer will be expected to discuss the “strengths and weaknesses” of evolution and the theory about the origin of life developed by Charles Darwin 150 years ago.
The move is a setback for critics of evolution, who argued that teachers and students should have to analyze the “strengths and weaknesses” of evolution — a standard that has been a part of Texas school science standards for 20 years.
But the argument over how to teach evolution continues, with final votes today on several amendments that some scientists say seek to cast doubt on evolution.
One asks students to evaluate fossil types, as some contend gaps in fossil records create scientific evidence against universal common descent. Another questions “natural selection.”
Scientists are working on Rick Agosto, D-San Antonio, in an effort to switch his votes on the amendments. He voted with the social conservatives on the amendments, though he ultimately sided with scientists on the “strengths and weaknesses” issue. The vote was 7-7; eight votes were needed to restore it.
Mary Helen Berlanga, D-Corpus Christi, who missed Thursday's hearing, is expected to participate in the final vote.
“If you can't attack evolution through strengths and weaknesses, talk about the insufficiency of natural selection. We see this in other states. This is what creationists are doing — is attacking evolution,” said Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education.
Scientists and more than 50 national and state science organizations urged the 15-member board Thursday not to include references “to creationist-fabricated ‘weaknesses' or other attempts to undermine instruction on evolution.”
Many scientists contend basic evolutionary theory at the high school level has no weaknesses, and to suggest it does would confuse students.
However, Ken Mercer, R-San Antonio, fought to restore the “strengths and weaknesses” clause, which board-appointed science experts removed from the proposed standards. The board's seven social conservative members supported that effort but fell one vote short.
Not all scientists agree about evolution, Mercer argued.
“There are questions about evolution. ... There are weaknesses,” he said.
Darwin's theory of evolution posits that all life is descended from a common ancestor.
The theory is not without its critics. Darwinists try to conceal some of the weaknesses and fallacies of evolution theory, said Barbara Cargill, R-The Woodlands.
“They are not the sole possessors of truth. Our schoolchildren belong to the parents, and they want their children educated,” she said. “They don't want them indoctrinated with one side. They know that evolution has weaknesses.”
The new science curriculum standards will take effect in the 2010-2011 school year and last a decade.
The standards will influence new science textbooks, not only for Texas but also for most other states. Publishers, considering the volume, typically duplicate textbooks used by Texas schools. About 4.6 million students attend K-12 grades in Texas public schools.
And a made up story that would do MARVEL COMICS proud is.
IIRC, the Texas standards apportion only 3 days to evolution. That sounds about right; when I took biology in high school, it was a very, very broad survey course. We didn't have time to debunk every proto- or pseudoscientific "theory" from history or modern fringe groups. If we did, we never would have gotten through the first chapter!
Same thing in every other class. We didn't do celestial spheres in Earth science, the Fomenko chronology in history, or homeopathy in health. There are only so many days in the school year, and only so many tax dollars available for education, and school boards must be good stewards of those resources. High schools should present students with the current state-of-the-art of science, not bog them down with earlier, rejected theories and outright junk science. There are college-level courses that specialize in that.
But in the end they are still explained by scientific theories, as is Evolution. And there are a great many actual scientists would would disagree with you that they cannot observe the results of evolution, or test it, or identify how it was done. How do you test or predict the intelligent designer, much less identify it?
Agreed. And if we’re going to discuss “strengths and weaknesses” of evolution, clearly we must discuss, in school classrooms, the issues with every other scientific theory as well.
Because it's a foundation of modern biology?
I don't think too many people are calling for a discussion of the Miasma theory of disease in schools -- so there's no much need to bother with that. Or the flat earth. Or the Fomenko chronology.
But there are a great many people (scientist and non-scientist) who would like criticisms of evolution discussed at least somewhat in schools. To shut them out of the marketplace of ideas -- when they are a large and vocal group -- is to show signs of fear.
Actually, funny little story here.
I sometimes hang around on Peter David’s message board. (For non-comic fans, he’s a writer who often works for Marvel.) At the time, he had recently written an issue of Spider-Man in which Spidey and Reed Richards were debating intelligent design. Of course, ID was dismissed as totally ridiculous, nonscientific, religious claptrap. Then I piped in with what I thought was a very interesting point -
In the Marvel Universe, we know that ID is true. Marvel has published stories about the origins of their fictional universe. Space aliens appeared on the scene and seeded the development of human beings. They also guided the gradual development of man into his modern form.
So, while I pointed out that I had no problem with the portrayal (since it had the “scientific” approach favoring a patently false notion), I suggested that it might be more in line with his viewpoint to have Spidey and Reed talking about how scientific Intelligent Design is while dismissing Evolution as total claptrap.
Needless to say, my opinion was not greeted very enthusiatically by Pete’s other fans.
The shape, and movement of heavenly bodies is constantly studied and theorized. Often by much smarter folks than us.
Nuts?!! Einstein, Neuton, Hawking, Morrison, Hubble. Nuts? Really?
In gradeschool science, I remember discussing (and rejecting) theories of “spontaneous generation”, which is life from non-life (you know, like molecules to man).
Yeah but.....the creationists really blow it for us with everything being created 6000 years ago. Dinosaurs, (which the material evidence proves existed) walked around with the newly created humans. I guess they went extinct because Noah couldn’t fit them on the ark.
ID is rational. It is the extremists that ruin the scenario.
How so? Is botany a religious belief? How about geology? How about astronomy? How about physics? Seems to me that at some point or other all these have "gone against" writing found in the Good Book.
“Agreed. And if we’re going to discuss “strengths and weaknesses” of evolution, clearly we must discuss, in school classrooms, the issues with every other scientific theory as well.”
As long as we limit it to valid scientific theories (which evolution is not), I agree.
No problem, remove that part of our property taxes.
“Because it’s a foundation of modern biology?”
Ridiculous. Another dodge by the evolutionists. There’s nothing in Modern Biology that REQUIRES the acceptance of Darwinian Evolution.
SUUUUUUUUUUURE they do. "They" just want "their" side.....Creationism poorly veiled as ID.....to be the indoctrination in the SCIENCE room. ...but hey, it'd be a much shorter class "their way", so the teachers could go on to teaching all about Global Warm....errr Climate Change. Afterall, "God did it" doesn't take very long to say.
Only a fool says that the ToE has no weaknesses, but only a different fool says that a "weakness" disproves the broad theory.
I especially like the debates about whether the Earth is flat.
It’s no setback to homeschoolers.
1 Corinthians 1:25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
Science, properly speaking, refers to observations in the present about the operation of nature. There is no conflict between science (thus defined) and the Bible, unless someone wants to argue against biblical statements like Gen. 8:22 ("While the earth remains, Seedtime and harvest,And cold and heat,And summer and winter,And day and night Shall not cease").
If you look at the atheistic Galileo myth, for example, you find that the church teaching of the time was founded on Greek astronomy, not the Bible. They cited a few passages in support, out of context, but it is an obvious historical fact that the belief in geocentrism came from Ptolemy and other Greek writers, not theologians deriving a cosmology from Scripture independent of the Greeks.
The conflict is entirely between historical interpretations and models, which are not directly testable. On the one hand we have observations/documentation in the form of the Bible, on the other we have naturalistic models based on uniformitarian naturalism (which presumes from the outset that God has not intervened in nature).
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