New legal threat to teaching evolution in the US
Posted on: July 10, 2008 - 10:40am
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New legal threat to teaching evolution in the US
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The strategy being employed in Louisiana by proponents of ID - including the Seattle-based Discovery Institute - is more subtle and potentially more difficult to challenge. Instead of trying to prove that ID is science, they have sought to bestow on teachers the right to introduce non-scientific alternatives to evolution under the banner of "academic freedom".
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19926643.300
"I am an atheist, thank God." -Oriana Fallaci
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ID proponents grow steadily more ridiculous. Surely something like this would only hurt them. The fact that they are attempting this tactic is tantamount to openly declaring with a huge bullhorn that they don't care about science (a notion that they had previously been trying to dissuade people of). This is a pretty desperate tactic to be employing. If they are willing to sink this low, why do they care so much?
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
-Me
Books about atheism
This is totally fucked up. Why not teach the "non-scientific alternative to human rproduction" that storks bring babies? Or the one to gravity that we are held to earth by the Flying Spaghetti Monster's noodly appendage. If they pass this they are retarded.
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Having grown up in the American South at a time when sex education still contained the mention of condoms, I can say that it remained a taboo to teach, discuss and believe in evolution, and I don't see this changing. The only kids who will ever learn about evolution are the ones who will see how reasonable it is from an early age--and I mean around 10 years of age--what you learn in high school has very little to do with it. The Discovery Institute's battle is halfway won in the United States, no matter how many court cases they lose.
"The whole conception of God is a conception derived from ancient Oriental despotisms. It is a conception quite unworthy of free men."
--Bertrand Russell
The war is going strong with people like Thunderf00t, Aronra, DonExodus2, Potholer54, CDK007 and many others. They are destoying the invalid arguements of such as "the creation guys" and "venomfangx" on youtube. ID's want the dark ages back.
Clever comment here
thats just great... Just what they need a backdoor in. I want to know what will happen when a student or two speaks up about how the creatists or ID is just a theory by real world terms and that evolution is a theory by scientific terms, or if they even just question everything their teacher says bout the stuff the teacher deciedes to bring in thru that back door...
...perhaps it is time to bring in the Flying Spaghetti Monster as a serious proposal? After all, there is just as much "alternative viewpoint" validity to the FSM as there is to ID in general. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't that the whole point of the FSM from the beginning?
Conor
The obvious solution to this is for a teacher who understands and accepts evolution to teach that aliens from the planet Glarb made all the life on earth by showering the world with faerie dust distilled from unicorn tears. After about two weeks of forgoing any actual learning whatsoever, someone will sue the school, and the concept of "academic freedom" will have to be reexamined.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
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That was the whole point of the FSM concept. I'd like to see a teacher come in and teach the FSM creationism story for a couple weekes (dressed completely as a pirate while doing so, of course.)
Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team
Yes, and they want their precious Jesus back too.
Alright, who the hell here had him last ????
Cough it up.)
So if a math class teaches that one plus one is two, then Ogar (Revenge of the Nerds part 2) says, "What if C-A-T actually spelled D-O-G?" Ogar could sue for discrimination?
There is a difference between promoting free thought, and turning reality into an acid trip.
These dipshits mistake their right to believe which is NOT in dispute, which is a separate issue than what children should be taught in an unbias manor.
Would these same whiners want Muslim based sex ed? Would they want Muslims teaching that Allah that congealed blood determines the sex of the baby? Would they want Tom Cruise teaching chemistry based on Scientology?
Spare me this persecution complex. One plus one equals two no matter what you believe, and it is perfectly acceptable to keep politics out of the classroom.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
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Welcome back!
It's like they said in the article, Academic freedom is freedom to research and explore new areas.
E.g. I think it's fine that people should research into ID.
(Even though I think the resources could be better applied elsewhere)
When teaching at a school though, you need to teach scientific fact.
Not speculative opinion.
Agree with the Ape. Even in schools where evolution is officially on the curriculum, there are many (spineless and intellectually dishonest) teachers who skip over the subject to avoid controversy, and generally even really bright kids who have been indoctrinated from an early age have trouble grasping the concept. I've seen this up close and personal and it's ugly. I'm just glad my third grade teacher read my entire class a picture book on evolution that had me drawing generation after generation of made-up alien creatures with accumulated changes just to illustrate the phenomenon at age nine.
“It is true that in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. It is equally true that in the land of the blind, the two-eyed man is an enemy of the state, the people, and domestic tranquility… and necessarily so. Someone has to rearrange the furniture.”
I think ID is a backlash against the people that say evolution proves there is no God. It is not a proof, but it is evidence against the God of the bible. If a concept is "broken" lets fix it, not throw it out. The concept of the God of the bible has serious issues that I am willing to fix.
ID is not science. It is philosphy of science. I think philosophy of science is important enough to start learning earlier than college if only to explain what good science is. Also, people don't distinguish evolution, the fact, and evolution the theory. It is just not something most people are aware of. By lumping them together it causes confusion of knowing what we are talking about. People can try to dispute that natural selection alone is causing evolution but they cant dispute the fact of evolution. I think this is the majority of christian belief. Even if ID is allowed, so what? The first question is what does "design" mean? Spend 90% on getting people to answer that and 10% on fighting the movement instead of vice-versa. People will be stuck. They can only talk about entropy/information and then you can tell them that entropy can get smaller in one part of the system and get larger in another. Argument's over. Explain that evolution is the intelligent designer. People are really still stuck on the whole "how can randomness bring forth order" thing. Explain how evolution isnt random. Use all this to redefine God, instead of throwing the concept out. The more I read, the bigger God gets to me (while the same arguments show him getting smaller to the atheist). God is so big as to be effectively meaningless. God was already meaningless to the atheist. So we actually agree on lot more than we disagree. If we could all get to that point, then we could probably learn something about God. Maybe we could actually agree on a definition for God that wasnt meaningless.
If one wants to teach the history of Star Wars as a film, knowing it is fiction, not sold as fact, that would be fine. Just like we read ancient greek plays and epics.
ID is none of those things. It is a political movement to make public schoolrooms recrutment centers for Christianity. I have no problem with freedom of religion, but it must remain in Sunday school and out of the classrooms that ALL people of all beliefs use.
Research into ID, is like researching how Harry Potter flies around on a Broomstick.
I have always read you as being compassionate about people being different. But the issue has never been for me about human rights, which we should all have. My issue is selling false information to students through government institutions. Education needs to be focused and neutral, any personal beliefs a parent or student might have can be expressed outside the school campus and partisipated in on their own time.
ID is not neutral and in no way reflects any credible science. It is a personal agenda put forth by Christians. If they want to believe that, they have every right to, but they do not have the right to hijack neutral science and twist it to sell their religion.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
ID is make believe, just like religion. ID is a concentrated effort by theists to teach christian creation myths in public schools. They are being sneaky and dishonest about what they're doing but since it's all for the lord I suppose that makes it ok to lie and deceive. christian tards are already able to teach their nonsense in their private schools. If it's so important that your little tards in training be taught your silliness then send them to your private schools. Public schools are paid for by everyone and therefore have a duty to teach only facts where facts are called for and to clearly label fiction as fiction.
I live in the greatest country ever but its slowly rotting because of religion.
god is make believe also so in the spirit of fiction use whatever definition you'd like.
Respectfully,
Lenny
"The righteous rise, With burning eyes, Of hatred and ill-will
Madmen fed on fear and lies, To beat and burn and kill"
Witch Hunt from the album Moving Pictures. Neal Pert, Rush