In a day that will live in infamy, Idoicy has struck a terrific blow of ignorance to Reason and Intellect. The Kansas State Board of Education voted 6-4 to allow science students in public schools to hear materials critical of evolution in biology classes.
That’s bad enough. Hemmoraging these poor kids’ futures for some dumbass doctrinal viewpoint is one thing. No one in their right mind is going to be putting a technologically advanced business in Kansas now, they’re laughingstocks the world over (as they SHOULD be!), and the state is likely to enter a spiraling economic decay in the future.
But there is one point of their decision which is simply jaw-droppingly horrifying. No, that’s not it… it’s more than jaw-dropping. It’s… Lovecraftian in stupidity. It’s so stupid as to be mind-shatteringly moronic; no one sane could peer into the face of this incalcuable abyssal horror of stupidity and remain unchanged. It’s so idiotic as to be completely alien to any reasonable, sensible mind and no such mind could possibly look upon the visage without going insane, at least temporarily.
As part of the decision the Kansas Board of Ed has changed the definition of science!
Think about that for a moment. One might say ‘what’s the big deal?’ Well, it’s similar to suddenly changing the name of an airplane to, say, wallet. Wallets are not airplanes, even if by some measure of schizophrenic insanity you redefine airplanes to be wallets. The word ‘airplane’ has a very specific meaning that can’t simply be changed on a whim! Likewise with science. But here the Kansas school board has done just that!
The school district has tried that before, actually. During the trial, the school board member was, under crossexamination, forced to admit that the new definition of science allowed Astrology to be catergorized as one. Astrology might even be better catergorized as science than Intelligent Design; astrology at least provides testable predictions, something ID lacks in the extreme.
In George Orwell’s 1984 this type of thing was known as Newspeak. If you change the meaning of words, you change what people talk about and so can control their thoughts. This is absolutely frightening that they’re able to get away with this. I fear it’s only a matter of time before bible-thumpers the world over do the same thing and we’ll be right back to burning heretics at the stake to get the heresy out of ’em. What a wonderful world we live in.
Soon, I have no doubt, the Wizard of Oz will be taught as a historical text in Kansas, but will be “revised” so that Dorothy conquers Oz with prayer. My God have mercy on their souls.
[EDIT] Heh. It looks as if not all of Kansas is full of idiots all the Intelligent Designers got their asses handed to them in elections. Screwing with kids’ minds… what a lovely parting gift!
References:
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9967813/
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dover/day11pm.html
Counterpoint:
I think Evolution is one of the most amazing and sensible things to come out of science; I definitely believe it should be part of the high school curriculum. However, I think there is something to be said for giving kids the ability to make up their own minds on what’s fact and what’s fiction. Wouldn’t it be just as bad to exclusively teach Evolution as to exclusively teach Intelligent Design?
A Witch! Witch! BURN HER! BURN THE WITCH!
And why do witches burn?
Because they’re made out of…wood?
Yes!
I’d say the main point against teaching them concurrently is that if you believe in biology, you don’t believe in Intelligent Design the way it is presented. Evolution is the foundation of not only the entire discipline of biology, but as a result, genetics and medicine. With evolution, we can say that we have these organs because of X, and here’s what they do as a result. The Intelligent Design “theory” doesn’t allow this kind of conjecture. And of course there’s the fact that Intelligent Design doesn’t pass any standard of scientific method. Like Josh is pointing out, they’ve gone as far as to redesign science to pretty much give the word no meaning.
To me, it’s not an issue of choice. You can believe that a Creator made everything including the capacity to evolve (like the last Pope did.) But it doesn’t make sense to try to pass something off in science class that doesn’t play by science’s rules and doesn’t explain the same things.
For a student that is a very strict Christian, being taught evolution in school is the same as teaching an aetheist about Creationism.
The redefinition of Science, however, is obscenely ridiculous and intrusive. It is also entirely unnecessary, as Science and Religion cover much different territory.
But why should the devout Christian be taught things against their beliefs in school when the Aetheist is not? Is not a part of science the arguments against that which it postulates?
Dave is correct. The issue here is not that Intelligent Design is being taught, it’s that it’s being taught in a SCIENCE class! If anything, it should be taught in a theology or philosophy class… and, if you’ve taken any philosophy classes, you can see why the entire thing is chock-full of philosophical holes.
If ID is allowed in science classrooms, why not any hairbrained “theory”? Why not allow the teaching of Pastafarianism? It’s just as much this new “science” as Intelligent Design is.
A big part of this problem is that people seem to misunderstand what is meant by a scientific theory. In order for something to be considered a scientific theory, it must do three things:
1) It must explain all known phenomenon.
2) It must be falsifiable (ie, you can experimentally prove it wrong)
3) It must make predictions as to future phenomenon.
ID does NONE of these t hings. It explains NOTHING; “God Did It” is not an explaination, that’s an excuse to not investigate. It’s not falsifiable, either… there’s no experiment you can run which can unequively say that everything WASN’T created by some ultrapowerful intelligent being. That’s a classic example of trying to prove a negitive. And it makes absolutely no predictions as to future phenomenon.
This means that ID is simply not science.
Evolution, on the other hand, does. It explains why things are the way they are and why the fossil record is the way it is. It’s falsifiable; in fact, it’s so testable that no one, not even religious loonies, say it doesn’t happen. They just handwave and say that only ‘microevolution’ exists and that speciation doesn’t (which is also bullpies, since speciation has been experimentally observed in yeast). And it makes predictions as to future phenomenon. As Dave said, all modern biology comes from our knowledge of evolution. None of the things we take for granted should work if evolution is complete bunk; no immunization, no genetics, no organ transplants, no nothing.
Is evolution perfect? No, that’s part of the scientific process. It continually (heh) evolves as more and better observations in nature are collected. Evolution today is very different from what Darwin originally proposed, but it’s still evolution. Evolution is, in fact, the only serious scientific theory in it’s realm of influence; all others have been falsified.
It’s also important to note that evolution says nothing about how life _began_, either, only how the first lifeforms managed to become the breadth and depth of life we see today. For beginning of life, one turns to abiogenesis which isn’t as strong as evolution in the evidence department, but getting continually stronger.
This isn’t to say that religion is useless; far from it! Science deals ONLY with the natural world and phenomona (there’s that definition again). Science does not and cannot say anything about the spiritual or supernatural world.
To put it another way, when a scientist and a religious dude ask ‘Why does the sun shine?’, they are asking two entirely different questions. The scientist is asking ‘By what method does the sun shine’ while the priest or shaman or whatever is asking, ‘For what purpose does the sun shine’.
The scientist takes measurements, tests hypothesises, and finally comes to the conclusion that the sun shines because it’s a mass of incandescant gas, a gigantic nuclear furnace.
The priest on the other hand, prays, makes sacrificies, talks to angels or whatever and comes to the conclusion that the sun shines because God loves us and it’s a manifestation of his love for us all.
The two are very seperate.
It’s amazing that we can all agree in such lengthy and seemingly argumentative ways.
To discuss the change in the definition of science, it seems we need to see those changes. Definitions CAN change without it being Orwellain… I would tend to think that this change would be as sadly pathetic as Josh indicates… but even so, the specifics are really needed before anyone else can weigh in.
Secondly, in school evolution was presented to me as fact, which is not actually true. It is a theory, a good one, but a theory nonetheless. Sadly, these finer points seem lost in high school science. There are people, evolution proponents, that are equally blinded by their ‘faith’ in evolution as knee-jerk religious yahoos. Just because someone is agruing on the behest of science and logic does not give them innate superiority of logic. I think we all know people that so dogmatically believe in science, or a political idea, or even their own personal righteousness that it may as well be relgion. This is just another case of the hysterical fringes ruining things for the sensible majority.
This is hardly a setback for Kansas. They did not get it all right (such as where to teach it and under what circumstances) but this is step in the correct direction.
Where does that lead us? Why not to the possibility that evolution and creation both occurred. Sensible religious folks are willing to accept that as plausable. Now, I’m not saying that creation should be taught in schools, but the theory of evolution is still just that… a theory.
Part of learning about theories is learning about the critical side and/or counterpoints based on evidence. There may still be only marginal disagreement in the science field (things called “theories” by scientists are more or less accepted as fact), but there’s no reason not to present it to a class. ESPECIALLY if they are talking about Darwinian evolution. There are HUGE problems with that concept – as our earth would have to be 100x as old as it actually is in order for that type of evolution to occur. So are the likely estimates based on what scientists know now.
So it’s not idiocy or ignorance… in fact to be close minded about the subject sugests the same about the folks who aren’t willing to hear multiple theories about the same occurance.
>For a student that is a very strict Christian, being taught evolution in >school is the same as teaching an aetheist about Creationism.
>
>But why should the devout Christian be taught things against their beliefs >in school when the Aetheist is not? Is not a part of science the arguments >against that which it postulates?
Seperation of Church and State issues being put aside for the moment… if a student is such a strict Christian, he shouldn’t be attending public schools, he should be going to a religious school. Because again, if you reject Evolution, you’re rejecting Biology and Health class. And by including something that doesn’t pass Scientific Method and presenting it as science, you might as well stop teaching everything else that uses scientific method: physics, chemistry, even history to an extent.
It also makes an open door for any other theory that doesn’t pass Scientific Method: space is filled with Ether, environmental changes are passed on via genetics, the popular Flying Spagetthi Monster, or that a 20th level Psion manifested Genesis.
If you don’t want to play in Science’s sandbox, you don’t get to use Science’s shovels to dig.
(Here’s another good tidbit: a number of strongly religious nuclear physicists in Middle-Eastern countries like Iran believe that nuclear power is caused by Fire Djinns.)
> Now, I’m not saying that creation should be taught in schools, but the >theory of evolution is still just that… a theory.
Again, you are misunderstanding what a scientific theory is. I have already explained what something needs to do in order to be called a scientific theory. You’re using the layman’s version of theory, which in science is called a hypothesis… an educated guess.
>ESPECIALLY if they are talking about Darwinian evolution. There are HUGE >problems with that concept – as our earth would have to be 100x as old as it >actually is in order for that type of evolution to occur.
Who are these claimaints? Where are their peer reviewed works? The above is nonsense; the earth would not have to be 100x as old as it is in order for evolution to occur. Indeed, evidence points to evolution happening extremely rapidly, much more so than Dawin originally believed. See the research on resistant bacteria, Darwin’s Finches, and alife.
>So it’s not idiocy or ignorance… in fact to be close minded about the >subject sugests the same about the folks who aren’t willing to hear >multiple theories about the same occurance.
No one is refusing to hear opposing theories, as long as they are scientific theories. ID is not science in any way, shape, or form, therefore cannot be considered.
The fact is that, currently, there is ONLY evolution as the remaining scientific theory. All others have either been falsified or failed Occam’s Razor. If you have an alternative scientific theory — one that explains all known phenomenon, one that is falsifiable, and one that makes predictions about the future — then, sure, put it out with all your evidence. One of the great benefits of science is that it’s self-correcting. If your theory is truly better than evolution, then the preponderance of the evidence will show it.So far, no one has presented anything of the sort.
Good. So how do you tell whether she is made of wood?
Build a bridge out of her.
But can you not also build bridges out of stone?
Oh yeah.
Does wood sink in water?
No, no, it floats!… It floats! Throw her into the pond!
No, no. What else floats in water? Bread.
Apples.
Very small rocks.
Cider.
Gravy.
Cherries.
Mud.
Churches.
Lead! Lead!
A Duck.
Surely you aren’t actually saying Darwinian evolution did occur. Based on how long people evolved from Cromganan to Homoerectus, it would have taken 100 times as long to come from monkeys and before that fishies. I don’t feel like looking it up, but I’m pretty sure that’s why most scientists that don’t believe evolution happened as strictly as it is presented give as one of their reasons.
Also, I’m not using the term theory just like a layman. I’ve had the science classes that force feed the term down your throat. According to a scientist a theory is essentially a fact. I admitted to such in my first post. That’s not really at the heart of my point, and nitpicking how I first used the word theory is not at the heart of the issue here.
I would say that this is theoretically (in laymens terms) a great idea, but that is not what you folks are taking issue with. You are simply realizing that Kanas will use this to push a religious agenda upon its students. THAT is what is wrong about this idea, NOT the concept of producing criticisms and objective thought in a science class. You guys would not even be upset if the class were presenting, oh, say, evidence that questioned the validity of darwin evolution over the short life of our planet and things of that nature. In fact, you would respect that and be able to move on with your lives. Please let me know if I am wrong about that.
Most people who object to this change in Kanas are people who are staunch supporters of evolution. Well, forgive me folks, but it is hypocritical to get so bent out of shape about this without acknowledging your own desire to make sure evolution is taught to your liking and opinion. Likewise, I can not be in support of what Kansas is doing without admitting that they are going to promote a religious agenda and I am NOT in favor of that particularly. But there IS science type evidence that could be presented to challenge evolution in a science class. Here is some that I found relatively quickly:
http://www.s8int.com/dna8.html (from an interresting DNA article)
http://www.pathlights.com/ce_encyclopedia/01-evol2.htm
http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&page=460
There’s nothing wrong with this kind of criticism folks. The issue you should be taking is on these lines. What are they ACTUALLY going to teach in class now vs. what type of critical evidence SHOULD they teach?
Man, I sure like videogames. And comics!
🙂
Here’s a difference between arguing that and presenting critical evidence of evolution.
There is GOOD evidence that contradicts Darwin’s 150 + year old theory of evolution. NO THEORY ever holds up for that long in the scientific community. Good scientists know that. Not unless it’s 1. made up or 2. used to explain the unexplainable. The debate here in the scientific community is NOT over whether or not evolution happened, but over the mechanics of how, how fast, etc. This should be part of the discussion in science classes.
My point is that you people who are mad at Kansas should not be mad at what they have passed, but you should be taking the stand on what they are going to teach in their class. Teaching critical responses to evolution based on scientific fact IS a good idea, but using this as a way to promote religion is a BAD idea. To disagree with that would be pretty hypocritical of you guys. I for one admit that Kansas will probably use this state of affairs as a way to promote religion, and that is something they just should not do. But, schools SHOULD teach criticisms of evolution, just as they are taught to be skeptical of all claims in science until accessing all available information.
(moved from main page –Ed.)
http://www.cafepress.com/landoverbaptist/849733