Do I Hear Big Guffaw's Coming From the Rest of the World?
11.09.05 - The rest of the world is having a huge laugh at our expense, well Kansas' anyway. They are now realizing that we as a nation will fall even further behind in education, with the new ruling coming from Kansas (it's flat there right?) that will allow "Intelligent Design" to be "taught" in "Science" class.
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Statement from Dr. Alan I. Leshner, CEO of AAAS, on the Kansas State Board of Education Vote A statement from Dr. Alan I. Leshner, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and executive publisher of the journal Science, regarding the 8 November 2005 vote by the Kansas State Board of Education: "Along with thousands of Kansas scientists, educators and other residents, we are deeply disturbed by the vote taken today by the Kansas State Board of Education. No matter how the board's majority tries to cast its action, the meaning is clear: This is a vote to mix science and faith in public school science classrooms, at great risk to the economy, to the educational institutions and, most importantly, to the children of Kansas. "We do not believe that science and religion are inherently at odds. On the contrary, we believe they can co-exist harmoniously. Thousands of religious leaders nationwide share our view. We would not be troubled to see the issues about human origins discussed in social studies classes, however, we firmly believe that only science should be taught in science classrooms. By definition, scientific explanations are limited to rigorous, testable explanations of the natural world and cannot go beyond. "Our students, like all of our citizens, need a clear understanding of what science is-and what it isn't-if they're going to thrive in the 21st century. The Kansas science standards say that science education must "prepare the citizens of Kansas to meet the challenge of the 21st century." But by endorsing science standards that contain misleading information and literally change the definition of science in order to cast doubt on biological evolution, the Board of Education has taken a vote to confuse students, and to undermine science education." The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is the world's largest general scientific society, and publisher of the journal, Science (www.sciencemag.org). AAAS was founded in 1848, and serves some 10 million individuals through 262 affiliated societies and academies of science. Science has the largest paid circulation of any peer-reviewed general science journal in the world, with an estimated total readership of one million. |
"American children are consistently falling behind those of other nations in their knowledge and understanding of science," said Francisco Ayala, a biology professor at the University of California-Irvine. "We will not be able to close this gap if we substitute ideology for fact in our science classrooms."
The newly approved regulations not only question the theory that all life has a common origin, they also rewrite the definition of science, holding that it is no longer limited to searching for natural explanations for natural phenomena. The new standards will be used to develop student tests measuring how well schools teach science.
Rewriting the definition of science seems a rather presumptuous thing for a school board to do especially when their new definition is something contrary to what working scientists and major scientific organizations say is science.
The ID movement is an anti-science movement. Its goal is to end scientific inquiry by saying "God did it" whenever we can't yet explain something fully. It is not a coincidence that there is no academic research supporting ID, because the ID hypothesis actively prevents research. I repeat, ID is a movement to stop science.
Those opposing the new standards cast them as a backdoor effort by creationists to introduce religious expression into the public classroom, especially the doctrine of intelligent design.
The "skeptical opposition" to evolution is founded on lies and distortions. Biology class is the time to discuss issues in biology. Creationism and its variants, like ID, are far outside of the field of biology. They discuss biology, sure, but in such a flatly wrong way that working biologists dismiss what they say or pay no attention at all.
Supporters of the new standards insist that their effort has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with Darwin, saying that science classes present Darwin's theories as fact when plenty of questions exist about his findings. (But, if there is no answer for findings then it "must" be a supernatural intelligence that created it) Oh Boy! I don't have an answer for that, so it's gotta be a supernatural being!
"This is a great day for education. This is one of the best things that we can do," said board chairman Steve Abrams. Another board member who voted in favor of the standards, John Bacon, said the move "gets rid of a lot of dogma that's being taught in the classroom today."
John Calvert, a retired attorney who helped found the Intelligent Design Network, said changes probably would come to classrooms gradually, with some teachers feeling freer to discuss criticisms of evolution. "These changes are not targeted at changing the hearts and minds of the Darwin fundamentalists," Calvert said.
The Seattle-based Discovery Institute, which supports challenges to Darwinian evolutionary theory, praised the Kansas effort. "Students will learn more about evolution, not less as some Darwinists have falsely claimed," institute spokesman Casey Luskin said in a written statement.
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Statement
from Governor on Board of Education's Decision
The following is a statement
from Governor Kathleen Sebelius on the latest decision regarding evolution
by the Kansas Board of Education
Topeka, Kan. - infoZine
- "This is just the latest in a series of troubling decisions
by the Board of Education. If we're going to continue to bring high-tech
jobs to Kansas and move our state forward, we need to strengthen science
standards, not weaken them. Stronger public schools ought to be the
mission of the Board of Education, and it's time they got down to
the real business of strengthening Kansas schools."
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There are gaps in the evidence
for the theory.
True, we haven't managed to exhaustively document all evidence for evolution. That's the nature of science. There are always new things to be learned, but the new things are based upon the foundation of the old things.
Evolutionary biology has proved so useful a predictive model that it is appalling to think that colleges will be duty bound to reinvent the wheel by re-teaching students concepts that they should have learned accurately the first time. But that's what's going to happen by allowing creationism into biology class.
Creationism cannot succeed on the merits; creationists only make headway by lying about evolution. Therefore, it will be up to college professors to remedy the intellectual mess left by the Kansas BoE creationists.
This intelligent design doctrine maintains that those facets of natural science that remain unexplained by Darwin should be attributed to an anonymous intelligent agent.
Actually I think it is great! Since Kansas science curriculum no longer has to follow naturalistic or materialistic methods, I propose that a Kansas chemistry teacher incorporate the Arts of Black magic into his/her daily lesson plans.
Last week, the National Academy of Sciences, or NAS, joined with the National Science Teachers Association, or NSTA, to tell the Kansas State Board of Education that it would not grant the state copyright permission to incorporate its science education standards manuals into the state's public school science curriculum because Kansas plans to teach students that "intelligent design" is a viable alternative theory to evolution. Kansas is scrambling to rewrite its proposal to win over the NAS and NSTA.
Kansas isn't the only place where the Darwin debate is being waged. In Pennsylvania, the American Civil Liberties and 11 student parents sued the Dover Board of Education for requiring students be taught the intelligent design doctrine as an alternative to Darwinian theory.
Great Britian titles one of its stories with "Evolution suffers Kansas setback".
Canada pokes a stick at Kansas with a story titled "Kansas Devolves". The Globeandmail.com news site says:
Revisiting a topic that exposed Kansas to nationwide ridicule six years ago, the state Board of Education approved science standards for public schools Tuesday that cast doubt on the theory of evolution
The vote marked the third time in six years that the Kansas board has rewritten standards with evolution as the central issue.
In 1999, the board eliminated most references to evolution. Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould said that was akin to teaching “American history without Lincoln.” Bill Nye, the “Science Guy” of children's television, called it “harebrained” and “nutty.” And a Washington Post columnist imagined God saying to the Kansas board members: “Man, I gave you a brain. Use it, okay?”
No, the Kansas Board of Education went to far in redefining what science is: it's no longer just a search for natural explanations for natural phenomena. Now it's a search for... well, that's a bit hard to say. Any sort of explanation, apparently. Pixies, ghosts, telekinesis, auras, ancient astronauts, excesses of choleric humor, they all seem to be fair game in the interest of "academic freedom." Oh, and God, of course. The Board might not say that because it could get them into trouble with the Supreme Court, but can anyone say with a straight face that getting God into the science classes isn't the goal of the people who pushed for these changes?
...and finally, this story is not ALL my personal opinions many of these comments were taken from all over the world and mashed together into this story...sorry to all you who did not get credit for all your incredible comments.
Here is the last one (edited a bit to fit my theory of ID): Now me, I think all life on Earth was created from giant frogs laying eggs in ponds of black oil. (Exxon will love that, and perhaps suscribe to my theory of creation.) People were hatched from those eggs and raised by invisible fairys from the land of "Oz" driving oversized hummers deriving fuel from the oil in the ponds. When you die you go into a great beyond and are fed to the giant egg laying frogs so you can be recycled back into a world of shit where people believe there is no reincarnation and your spirit (thats you) dies and fertilizes the earth for future generations benefit. I haven't actually worked out all the details yet, but given time and teaching this to children, either they or I will come up with a viable working theory. I wouldn't exactly call it "intelligent" or "design" either for that matter, but at least I don't have to justify why an all-powerful, all-benevolent god made some people ...well....screwed up!! Or why a god would give us a brain and then cause it not to work with some people. Or why this god allows massive scale death and pandemics and tsunami's etc. etc. etc. It was all unintentional really. People weren't supposed to make it this far. See, doesn't that make sense? Only those egg-headed dogmatic scientists get hung up on "evidence". To paraphrase, Science is a one trick pony. It only has one trick; rational thinking. But when you're good and crazy, whoa! the sky's the limit!
This is a sad day. We're becoming a laughingstock of not only the nation, but of the world, and I hate that,” said board member Janet Waugh, a Kansas Democrat.