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TexasMadness Profile
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Education and Evolution


Whew. Texas dodged a bullet today (in my opinion). Up for vote (AGAIN!) was a bill to allow for the discussion of the "strengths and weaknesses" of all scientific theories. Sounds kinda harmless huh? Well, turns out, that's code for giving equal classroom time to evolution and Intelligent Design (aka creationism). The school board was deadlocked for several votes. Finally today, they voted it down and the schools will continue to omit religion from science classes. I was interested to read the bill's author's comments when it was voted down:


“Science loses. Texas loses and the kids lose because of this,” he said. Earlier, McLeroy, a creationist, argued that many aspects of Darwin’s theory are not supported by fossil records – though he pointed out he does not oppose teaching evolution in the public schools.



I personally don't think science lost. I'm all for allowing religious ideas to be taught in the proper setting...which precludes the science classroom. It's fine to point out that evolution is still not entirely understood, but I don't think that gives you the leeway to say "therefore, it MUST have been intelligently designed and evolution is completely wrong." Most people don't know how clocks are made but that doesn't mean that a supernatural force HAD to make them.

I think the spiritual aspect of the creation of life is very private - there is no way to cover everyone's beliefs on it in a classroom (remember the Flying Spaghetti Monster!) - plus we have a little thing called separation of church and state. The parents and spiritual leaders of a community should be responsible for education in that area.

What do you think about the teaching of evolution and other theories in the classroom?

3/27/2009, 9:36 pm Link to this post Send Email to TexasMadness   Send PM to TexasMadness
 
de Corbin Profile
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Re: Education and Evolution


Well, let me tell you American education's dirty little secret...

Every textbook used in every public (and almost every private) school in America has to be approved by religious and political censorship organizations before it is adopted for use.

This isn't something which is required by the law, it isn't something which is required by the school districts, it is something required by the publishers themselves.

Here's how it works -

Publishing textbooks is enormously expensive, enormously risky - but, if it pays off, pays off hugely.

The books can't be adopted by a district until they are written (cost of production), and they can't be shown to the committees that might adopt them until they are printed (when the English department was looking for new textbooks, the publisher's representative gave us thousands of dollars worth of "free" samples and took the entire English department out to very nice dinners. Multiply that by every district the company tries to sell their books to, and add it to the cost of production).

The only way the publisher can make that money back, and make a profit, is by selling to an enormous number of school districts.

However, if one large state - say, for example, Texas, says a book can't be used there, the publisher takes a big, big loss.

So the publishers run every book past every group that might have a beef with it for official approval before they even print examination copies. See this link for an example: http://atheism.about.com/b/2007/08/03/norma-gabler-textbook-censor-1923-2007.htm

The end result is that every textbook is heavily censored before anybody ever sees it.

Personally, I think the whole issue of evolution vs. intelligent design is over played. If evolution is taught, and the flaws or holes in evolution are also taught (as they should be), you can insert the whole of intelligent design simply by saying, at the end of the unit or year or whatever - "Some people believe that there is a guiding power behind all this, but science can't prove or disprove this because there is no physical evidence, and science can't function in the absence of physical evidence."

So what's the big deal? emoticon

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3/27/2009, 11:46 pm Link to this post Send Email to de Corbin   Send PM to de Corbin
 
TexasMadness Profile
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Re: Education and Evolution


Now that sort of statement I'm completely fine with. It's the "equal air time" part that I have an issue with. The proponents of the bill want to actually have the exact aspects of ID taught in the school - i.e. the earth is only 6,000 years old, dinosaurs are bones from Noah's flood, woman was created from man's rib, etc. Granted, these things might not actually be in a textbook so it might be somewhat up to a teacher to write a lesson plan. I'm not really sure how it would play out.

But the Texas law was changed years ago so that evolution could be taught in the first place. This seemed like a step backward.

And I thought about the textbook part too. I looked into it and apparently this was such a huge deal here because Texas IS a big market. If Texas started demanding ID to be in books, it would probably get it's way in there.

All in all, I have less of an issue with religious things being said/mentioned/talked about in school. But MANDATORY religious topics are going a bit too far for me!
3/28/2009, 12:46 am Link to this post Send Email to TexasMadness   Send PM to TexasMadness
 
Saijen SilverWolf Profile
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Re: Education and Evolution


I think religion, in any form, should be a chosen class or topic in school. When I was in high school, there was an English class that taught only the Bible. It was an elective English class that carried the same credits as any other English class, even though it was an Elective. I think that is fine.....but if that class were made to be a mandatory class, that would totally piss me off. Just as if a class on Wicca were made mandatory...that also would piss me off, simply due to the fact that religion in any form shouldn't be MADE to be studied or taught. Religion is a private thing, and not something that should be pushed, regardless of the means.

This view holds with evolution or any other type of ideal when it comes to how we came to be as well.

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de Corbin Profile
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Re: Education and Evolution


I sure wish people could get a grasp on the diffence between science and metaphysics - it would sure save a lot of energy, and it's easy to understand -

Science deals with material evidence, and metaphysics deals with unprovable (or undisprovable) speculation...

Intellignet Design is only science if one can prove that there is an intelligence behind it all, otherwise, its metaphysics...

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Re: Education and Evolution


de Corbin: That is a very nice definition.

As such, it really should end discussions, but the "controversy between evolution and intelligent design" is also political - and this will be exploited by the side which thinks it can profit from it.

*sigh*

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TexasMadness Profile
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Re: Education and Evolution


This is all very odd. I've been trying to figure out just what the Board of Education voted on. Some articles say that it's a "blow to evolution" and others claim that it's a "loss for religious groups". Arg! It appears the wording is so vague that they will probably have to rewrite the whole thing. My neighbor is running for the Board next election and I'm going to be campaigning for her actually.

Corbin, you've summed up the whole fight in such a way that it boggles the mind why people still argue over what should and shouldn't be taught in a science classroom. Other classrooms (especially those provided by religious organizations, etc) are perfectly free to teach what they want.

I'm suddenly reminded of my own middle and high school experience. Remember that I attended a Christian school - my grandmother's attempt to "save" her grandkids since my parents were raising us "questionably". Our science classes taught evolution and there was no debate about it. The only time there was any mention of it was that one student (one of my very best friends at the time) was excused for the unit on evolution. His parents had requested such. I always wondered if the school readily, or begrudgingly, excused him. Anyway, he is now a minister and VERY fundamentalist. Kinda strange...seemed like a normal kid. emoticon
4/2/2009, 2:47 pm Link to this post Send Email to TexasMadness   Send PM to TexasMadness
 
TexasMadness Profile
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Re: Education and Evolution


Finally got it figured out. Yep, creationism is back in the classroom in Texas. There is much talk about textbooks already being written to accommodate this. I'm sure that's a huge exaggeration, but this is obviously a big feather ruffling decision.

Steven Weinberg, a local celebrity at the University of Texas (professor there - won the Nobel Prize in physics in 1979) has spoken about this matter several times in the past when it has come up. The problem with this issue is that creationists are demanding that the weakness of evolution be examined. The fact is, there are not huge glaring weaknesses of the theory. Here's Weinberg on the matter:


My Nobel prize is not in biology, but is in physics. But I have been a physicist for a long time. And I think I have a good sense of how science works. It doesn't deal with certainties. We don't register things as facts that we have to swear allegiance to.

But as mathematics and experiment progress, certain bodies of understanding become as sure as anything reasonably can be. They attract an overwhelming consensus of acceptance within the scientific community. They are what we teach our students.


We know that there is such a thing as inheritable variations in animals and plants. And we know that these change through mutations. And it's mathematically certain that as given inheritable variations, that you will have evolution toward greater adaptation. So that evolution through natural selection occurs can't be in doubt.

As I understand it, many who want to put alternative theories into our textbooks argue that, although that may be true, we don't know that that's all that happens, that there is not some intelligent design that also assists the process of evolution. But that's the wrong question. We can never know that there isn't something beyond our theories. And that's not just true with regard to evolution. That's true with regard to everything.

We don't know that the theory of physics, as it's currently understood, correctly accounts for everything in the solar system. How could we? It's to complicated. We don't understand the motion of every asteroid in the asteroid belts. Some of them really are doing very complicated things. Do we know that no angel tips the scales toward one astroid moving a little but further than it otherwise would have in a certain time? No, we can never know.

What we have to do is keep comparing what we observe with our theories and keep verifying that the theories work, trying to explain more and more. That's what's happened with evolution and it continues to be successful. There is not one thing that is known to be inexplicable through evolution by natural selection, which is not the same as saying that everything has been explained, because it never will be. The same applies to the weather or the solar system or what have you.


And why this particular issue of evolution? Why not the round Earth or Newton's theory or Copernicus' [theory], the Earth goes around the sun? Well, I think it's rather disingenuous to say that this is simply because there's a real scientific conflict here, because there is no more of a scientific conflict than with those issues.

I think it's clear that the reason why the issue was raised with regard to evolution is because of an attempt to preserve religious beliefs against the possible impact of the Theory of Evolution. I don't think teachers have any business either preserving religious beliefs or attacking religious beliefs. I think they should teach science.

4/3/2009, 8:28 pm Link to this post Send Email to TexasMadness   Send PM to TexasMadness
 
de Corbin Profile
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Re: Education and Evolution



TexasMadness wrote:

Corbin, you've summed up the whole fight in such a way that it boggles the mind why people still argue over what should and shouldn't be taught in a science classroom. Other classrooms (especially those provided by religious organizations, etc) are perfectly free to teach what they want.



It's exactly what Firlefanz said - an issue used for a political goal.

What the anti-evolutionsits see as "glaring flaws" is generally that there is not a complete, unbroken line of fossils leading from one creature to another. Considering the vagaries of fossil making, that's hardly surprising.

There are also a few odd anomalies regarding dates that seem to be way off which really do need to be addressed, though, but the overwhelming evidence favors evolution - and how could somebody possibly prove that it is either random or driven? Complex events always can be traced through cause/effect relationships AFTER the event, but not predicted prior to the event, so, afterward, it always looks like there is some kind of purpose.

May be there is, maybe there isn't. But without proof, scientists go with the explanation that requires the least extravagant theory (Occam's Razor).

If it wasn't such a political hot button issue, it'd be so easy to explain emoticon .

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4/6/2009, 12:13 pm Link to this post Send Email to de Corbin   Send PM to de Corbin
 
KaliMorgan76 Profile
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Re: Education and Evolution


Well if we are going to have Creation in class - lets parade them all - lets force the Fundies to put into ALL emoticon Creation stories - Sumarians have an interesting one - The head God jerked off on a rock and up sprang life. Apparently you don't go blind or sterile - in fact you gotta watch that sperm hitting rocks because you can create life just like that in a just a moment of pleasure. Then there is the American Indians, there is the Hindu Indians (feathered and dotted kind both), then you have all the "pagan" creation stories in addition to the sumerian, then you have to go back and pull in the original Hebrew creation story - where there were angels running around having sex with humans and animals (Dead Sea Scrolls and other ancient texts used to compile the bible stories) then you toss in Buddhist and other such stories and there you go - Science class has a whole new meaning of "interesting".

Creation is not just the Sunday School version and we need to "educate" kids on that if we are going to educate kids about Creation. I want to open a Creation Museum to put the Fundie one to shame - I want the original Hebrew/Jewish Creation and Flood story out there and I want to add all the other Creation stories - to truly broaden minds if we are that needy to have it Taught. emoticon

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To attain total freedom, learn how to undo the web of illusion that has convinced you that you are not free…”
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