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Diploid
Cuban



Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 19,274
Loc: Rabbit Hole
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Florida Board of Education Debates Evolution
#8036634 - 02/18/08 04:43 AM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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In a Tennessee-esque demonstration of consummate ignorance, the Florida Board of Education is considering whether or not to call Evolution a "theory". The ignorance happens because the word 'theory' has a different meaning in science than it does in ordinary language.
When a preacher talks about a theory, he's talking about a hunch, but when science talks about a theory, it's talking about a statement that is well supported by a large body of evidence so much so that it is often the next best thing to a fact. This is because EVERYTHING in science is a 'theory'. Science has no facts.
The Atomic Theory, for example, was used to design the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It's also used daily to design and operate the MRI machines that diagnose diseases in hospitals. But it's "just a theory".
The Statistical Gas Theory is used to determine how much air to put in your car tires, and to design the size of the cylinders in your car's engine. But it's "just a theory"
Hell, even Optical Theory, without which your eyeglasses and contact lenses could not be designed, is "just a theory".
I see this same kind of lack of knowledge in this forum all the time. People who haven't bothered to at least gain a passing familiarity with the subject somehow feel qualified to argue it. It happens every time Evolution comes up here as a topic. It even happened in my recent thread wherein several pages of debate take place only for it to become clear near the end that most of those debating had no idea what they were debating in the first place. Then instead of correcting themselves when the error was revealed, they became defensive.
Or take the debate in the thread in my signature where people who, like George Bush and Mike Huckabee, do not seek out knowledge in light of which to make decisions, but rather come to conclusions based on inaccuracies: Iraq has WMD and Marijuana will kill you.
Why are humans like this? It's so depressing to see this behavior out in the real world but so much more depressing to see it happen here among the strata of the population presumably most like me.
If it happens here among those most like me, what hope is there to change this behavior in the general population? Is the battle against irrationality and deliberate ignorance hopeless? It sure feels that way sometimes.
-------------------- Republican Values: 1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you. 2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child. 3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer. 4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
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Diploid
Cuban



Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 19,274
Loc: Rabbit Hole
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Re: Florida Board of Education Debates Evolution [Re: Diploid]
#8036637 - 02/18/08 04:44 AM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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BY MARC CAPUTO mcaputo@MiamiHerald.com
TALLAHASSEE -- Nearly 150 years after Charles Darwin revolutionized biology, evolution will become required study in Florida classrooms if the state Board of Education approves new science standards Tuesday that explicitly names the ''E'' word for the first time.
The standards, which haven't been updated since 1996, were written by scientists and educators to modernize Florida's science education curriculum, which has been derided by mainstream science for years, in part for lacking explicit mention of evolution.
Now it's not just going to be mentioned. It's to be taught, from sixth grade on up, as ``the fundamental concept underlying all of biology [that] is supported by multiple forms of scientific evidence.''
The fact that evolution is absent from the current standards attests to the perceived weakness of science education as well as to the power of the religious right and other evolution opponents who have launched a full-scale assault on the proposed standards by tapping rank-and-file churchgoers, intelligent-design activists and a high-powered lawyer involved in the nationally watched Terri Schiavo euthanasia case.
Their refrain: The new standards need to call evolution a ''theory,'' so that evolution does not appear to be the fact that mainstream science says it is.
The outcry at so many public hearings led the Florida Department of Education to schedule an extra hour of public testimony and, late Friday, offer an alternate version of the standards that calls every theory a ''Scientific Theory'' -- whether it's about evolution or atoms -- and identifies every natural law as such.
Many want more. One expert who sat on the framers committee that formed the standards wants the board to consider his ''minority report'' to teach kids about scientific differences over evolution. Lori Muller, a mother from St. Augustine, said at a Monday public hearing in Orlando that she liked this idea.
''Just by tweaking some of the words in the standard, we can all win,'' Muller said. ``We are not supposed to be pushing any secret and biased agenda, but just making sure the children of Florida receive the best education possible.''
OPPOSING FORCES
Though science shouldn't be about politics and semantics, both forces will be more apparent Tuesday at the board of education. In North Florida, a dozen school boards have taken positions opposing evolution in the standards, while Monroe County has supported them.
Mainstream scientists are urging the board to pass the standards as drafted and reviewed by experts, including Nobel Prize laureate Harry Kroto. Kroto says the drive to call evolution just a ''theory'' or teach alternate ''theories'' is religiously -- not scientifically -- motivated by ''creationists,'' and it confuses the definition of the word theory. In common usage, a theory is a guess. In science a theory -- like relativity -- has the weight of fact because it's a well-tested concept.
While strong opinions on the issue dominate, a majority of the seven-member board of education won't say how it will vote. The board has received thousands of phone calls, e-mails, letters and even Christmas cards. The sheer volume spotlights that Florida is the latest nationally watched flash point in evolution's history, which stretches from the Galapagos Islands that inspired Darwin's 1859 On the Origin of Species to the 1925 Scopes Monkey trial in Tennessee to Pennsylvania's 2005 federal Kitzmiller case.
For years, evolution has been taught in many Florida schools, but it's not clearly required teaching and doesn't have grade-by-grade benchmarks. The current standards do, however, discuss ''genetic variation'' and ``natural selection.''
Roberto Martinez, a Miami-based board member, said he'll vote to keep the proposed standards as is because he trusts the National Academy of Science and the American Association of the Advancement of Science, which praised them.
Opposite him: Tallahassee board member Donna Callaway, who told the Florida Baptist Witness she wants ''other theories'' taught.
While mainstream science recognizes no other major alternative theories to evolution, the study of cells is leading to new alternatives and supplements to Darwinian thought. Intelligent Design scientists, like biochemist Michael Behe, see the machine-like functions of cells that show such a ''purposeful arrangement of parts'' that he's echoing concepts like William Paley's 18th century ''argument of the watchmaker,'' which posited a grand designer.
Behe, an expert witness in the landmark Kitzmiller case, said some organisms are so ''irreducibly complex'' that natural selection is left wanting, and more strongly suggests that an unnamed supernatural designer crafted them. And this, Behe calls God, though he said the concept doesn't concern itself with the designer's makeup.
Evolutionist and author Kenneth R. Miller testified that Intelligent Design discouraged scientific thinking and muddies the definition of ''theory'' so that astrology could be considered science.
''Ever since Darwin, his theories have been strengthened by science and scientific discovery, not weakened by them,'' Miller said, pointing to a ''mountain of evidence'' from discoveries in antibiotics to human Chromosome 2, which shows a clear genetic link with other primates. The judge banned intelligent design from the classroom, saying it was more religion than testable scientific theory.
One of the people who helped form the new Florida science standards, Fred Cutting, a rocket engineer and Intelligent Design adherent, sought advice from the movement's think tank, the Seattle-based Discovery Institute. Cutting wanted a benchmark added so students learn ``why some scientists give scientific critiques [of evolution] or models of the chemical origins of life.''
`MINORITY REPORT'
Cutting submitted the suggestions as a ''minority report'' to the education board. The framers' committee rejected it, leading Cutting -- who largely supports the proposed standards -- to say that some are such ''dogmatic'' evolution believers that ''atheism is like a religion.'' That sentiment was echoed in a letter to the education board from Schiavo lawyer David C. Gibbs, who opposes what he calls the ''dangerous'' ideas of teaching evolution as fact.
Cutting notes that supplemental theories to natural selection are emerging in the field of evolutionary-developmental biology, commonly known as ``evo-devo.''
A pioneer in the field of evo-devo, New York Medical College Professor Stuart A. Newman, said experiments show that some creatures are susceptible to quick evolutionary changes.
Evo-devo proposes that multicellular organisms can dynamically change form under certain environmental conditions, producing major evolutionary jumps.
Newman took some issue with the science standards that say ''natural selection is a primary'' evolutionary force. He said it should just be listed as ''an important'' force. Of the standards overall, however, Newman said: ``I don't think they sound dogmatic. They're accurate.''
Miami Herald staff writer Phil Long contributed to this report.
miamiherald.com
-------------------- Republican Values: 1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you. 2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child. 3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer. 4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
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fireworks_god
Sexy.Butt.McDanger



Registered: 03/12/02
Posts: 24,855
Loc: Pandurn
Last seen: 1 year, 12 days
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Re: Florida Board of Education Debates Evolution [Re: Diploid]
#8036649 - 02/18/08 04:57 AM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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I wonder how many people deny the existence of evolution and own dogs.
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If I should die this very moment I wouldn't fear For I've never known completeness Like being here Wrapped in the warmth of you Loving every breath of you
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OrgoneConclusion
Blue Fish Group



Registered: 04/01/07
Posts: 45,414
Loc: Under the C
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Re: Florida Board of Education Debates Evolution [Re: fireworks_god]
#8036667 - 02/18/08 05:06 AM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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"And God said let their be light in the heavens and water upon the firmament. And the earth shall bring forth all manner of plants and chihuahuas shall roam the plains and dachshunds will rule the forests."
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elbisivni

Registered: 10/01/06
Posts: 2,839
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Re: Florida Board of Education Debates Evolution [Re: Diploid]
#8036810 - 02/18/08 06:54 AM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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Diploid: 1 Shroomerites: 0 Politicians: 0 Florida Board of Education: -1
-------------------- From dust you are made and to dust you shall return.
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
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Re: Florida Board of Education Debates Evolution [Re: Diploid]
#8037257 - 02/18/08 10:04 AM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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If it happens here among those most like me, what hope is there to change this behavior in the general population? Is the battle against irrationality and deliberate ignorance hopeless? It sure feels that way sometimes.
With age this understanding becomes more clear. There is no hope to change the general population. Quit all this hoping non-sense and focus on what change can occur in yourself and enjoy the few folk you will meet who think like you do. I was wondering when you would make a post like this.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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