For Texas Textbooks, a Victory For Evolution 626
An anonymous reader writes "The Texas Board of Education has unanimously come down on the side of evolution. In an 8-0 vote, the board today approved scientifically accurate high school biology textbook supplements from established mainstream publishers — and did not approve the creationist-backed supplements from International Databases, LLC."
Re:What the fsycke happened ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Not even remotely true. In the area I come from, the creationist strategy is simply changing.
When I was just a child there was a community not far from my home that had maybe ten houses and an ultra-fundamentalist church with 50 or so members. I went to school with some of the members' kids, and it led to some very interesting conversations (and I was raised in a liberal-ish Lutheran congregation, so its not as though I'm at all hostile to Christianity).. Anyway, that congregation has something like quadrupled in size, and is currently adding on a youth center and a gym to "keep the kids out of sin." Presumably there will eventually be an ultraconservative private school there, since the people that attend that church are fed up with not getting their way in our local school districts (although I vividly remember having to watch creationist propaganda in eighth grade science class, though at that time no one said anything.). A friend of mine growing up, from a different church (hes baptist), told me in college he learns the biology textbook to pass the tests, but refuses believe any of it. I imagine that will be the line the private religious school will take too.
I guess the point I'm making is that creationist teaching is just going underground. These people are segregating themselves and becoming more radical, which is providing the illusion that the creationist line of thought is in decline and the attack on science is relenting. It isn't. Segregated communities are indoctrinating kids from day one, then sending them to conservative colleges and law schools where they are trained to enter government and undermine it from within. Representative Bachmann is a prime example, she doesn't even deny that was the mission of the law school she attended.
I'll end with this tidbit: ever wonder why ultraconservatives were pushing so hard for a school voucher system? Could it be that such a system would make it frighteningly easy for this type of behavior to flourish, by essentially subsidizing extremist institutions? Just my take on things of course, but it disturbs me as someone inside the scientific community.
Comment removed (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:And let's include stories of drunken rape & (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh, and let's also explain exactly what a virgin is and what that's all about. Since they may ask what that is, and we mustn't lie.
Excuse me: I have a pretty good explanation of what all that's about. It seems to be nothing more [wikipedia.org] (or less) that a recurring mythos [wikipedia.org] in human culture.
Of course, when these myths were popularized, there wasn't the Gutenberg press, or the internet, or any sort of mass communication to raise people's awareness that "Hey! Isn't that the same as THIS story over here? What're you trying to sell us?!?" But now, people have to simply be Willfully Blind to not see the parallels in these myths.
And before the Thumpers start rationalizing "Those aren't myths. Those are simply different accounts of the same events.", keep in mind that the spread of these myths completely parallels the trade-routes of the day.
Nope. The FSM mythos is, and always has been, spread by those who have seen it as a way to bring power and wealth to themselves.
In short. A "con".
Re:What the fsycke happened ? (Score:5, Interesting)
A friend of mine growing up, from a different church (hes baptist), told me in college he learns the biology textbook to pass the tests, but refuses believe any of it. I imagine that will be the line the private religious school will take too.
You're right about their desire to set up their own schools, with the government picking up as much of the expense as they get get, but the curriculum in those schools simply don't include evolution, except perhaps for a cartoon form designed for easy refutation. That's the way they work today, according to people who've attended them.
Anyway, there's nothing wrong with refusing to believe what's in the books. A doctoral student of Stephen J Gould was a plant by the Moonies - they paid for his Harvard education so they could have a PhD biologist arguing against evolution. (It didn't work; his research has been in a non-evolutionary field, and he's been noticeably silent on the subject of evolution.) But when Gould was asked about this student, who had publically said that he doesn't believe in evolution, Gould responded that, in order to earn a doctorate, the student had to show mastery of the material. Science doesn't compel belief.
Re:What the fsycke happened ? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:What the fsycke happened ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe it's different in the USA, but that's what happened in my school. The textbooks didn't just present evolution as some magical theory with no context, they explained the context around the development of the theory, the evidence for it, and contrasted it with the divine creation idea that was popular at the time of Darwin. The physics textbooks did the same, for example discussing the luminiferous aether and the experiments that were done to disprove it. They started right in the first science lessons before we even split lessons into biology, physics, and chemistry, by explaining requirements for a scientific theory (such as falsifiability) and using some religious beliefs as counterexamples.
It sounds like the bigger problem in the USA is science being taught as religion, not religion being taught as science.
Re:What the fsycke happened ? (Score:2, Interesting)
Brett,
Allow me to quote a recent survey.
Researchers compared the results of past surveys of attitudes toward evolution taken in the U.S. since 1985 and similar surveys in Japan and 32 European countries.
In the U.S., only 14 percent of adults thought that evolution was "definitely true," while about a third firmly rejected the idea.
In European countries, including Denmark, Sweden, and France, more than 80 percent of adults surveyed said they accepted the concept of evolution.
--- National Geographic, August 10, 2006
On the eve of the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth, a new Gallup Poll shows that only 39% of Americans say they "believe in the theory of evolution," while a quarter say they do not believe in the theory, and another 36% don't have an opinion either way.
Younger Americans, who are less likely to be religious than those who are older, are also more likely to believe in evolution. Still, just about half of those aged 18 to 34 say they believe in evolution.
--- Gallup, February 11, 2009
Seriously, obsessed about a tiny minority? Or concerned that our country is the least accepting of evolution of any western countries, on par with Turkey, Pakistan and Iran in these numbers. I find that absolutely fucking disturbing and wrong. Tiny minority, my ass.
Re:Have to share this - holy crap! mod parent up (Score:2, Interesting)
The room gets positively chilly the moment the words "macro" or "micro" are brought up. Because guess what? Even if those terms were appropriated from actual biology, they have long since fallen out of use precisely because they have been appropriated.
I'm curious--how would you propose I differentiate this "chilliness" from abject awareness in the "other side" that their argument is erroneous, and psychologically preparing to equivocate and dissemble and misrepresent the (perhaps more reasonable) positions of -their own field-?
Apart from the wider discussion, I find this fascinating. You precisely describe -the very definition- of symptoms of evasion, and present that as your evidence they are comfortably correct.
I conclude "the way they act is obvious evidence of misrepresentation", you conclude "the way they act is obvious evidence of their truthfulness", with -the exact same- input. Is it possible we both can actually honestly believe these diametrically-opposed positions? An interesting sideline discussion, someday...
But anyway...
As for what I believe, though of course irrelevant to a -scientific- discussion of the questions at hand, it wouldn't matter at all to the viability of my overall worldview. To me, like a car factory, designing a system that produces an entity is equivalent to designing the particular end result. There's little conceptual difference between me saying "individual biological forms were designed" and saying "the process that produced individual biological forms, evolution, was designed". The questions of particular acts of design applying to particular biology would be fascinating from a -scientific- perspective, however--precisely as we see people trying to ensure we never investigate this, and thereby damage science, on the supposed behalf of science.
I have no need to find "gaps", because my worldview works equally well with or without "gaps". This was just something that Dawkins wanted to make up about theism to fit an argument he was prepared to type something about for some book-cash. Not actually true at all.
Re:Need better terminology (Score:4, Interesting)
We do not need better terminology. We need people to understand terminology. It is not terminology's fault if people like you do not understand common descent. I do suggest that you read about it. There is more to understand than just the two words in the name. But we can start with those, I suppose.
Common descent is the hypothesis that life arose once, and all life on Earth at this time is therefore a result of this. We call this "descended" meaning that we arose later in time as a result of the first. Those cats are descended from other cats. Period. Common descent is unbroken. They didn't appear out of the aether, they are the offspring of cats. They just had some viruses ram some extra genes in there. But viruses have been doing that forever. It's not new. What's new is humans picking which genes get shuffled about. I'm not sure what your problem is, and I certainly don't see how it relates in any way at all to intelligent design.
Design is the concept that life has been designed by something. But where is YOUR definition of your unqualified terminology? Obviously ever since sexual reproduction, life forms have been "designing" their species by selecting their mates. So is all life designed? Or does that count as part of the process? If it does, does genetic engineering count? Humans are alive, don't forget. But at any rate, design and common descent are not mutually exclusive. You can have common descent, but where space aliens came down and poked at some DNA to guide evolution. And you can have a completely evolution driven system, with no external design, but have multiple origins of life, and thus no common descent.
And so, to your absolute proof that common descent is impossible, and design is true, I raise you the real definition of common descent. There can be no absolute proof of common descent, but since every single life form on earth now has at least a handful of common genes, many of which don't do anything anymore, the case for common descent is a powerful one. You can try to falsify it with "A WIZZARD DID IT" (With an egg and watercress sandwich) but that's just silly. Now it's possible that life arose multiple times, but only one survived, but that's still common descent. And it's possible that it arose twice, and because form follows function, we just got the same genes twice...seems a big stretch, but possible. And it's also possible that it arose twice, and we got common genes because of those aforementioned viruses doing their best to muck up the works. Yeah, we can't know for sure. But all things being equal, common descent is the simplest explanation.
For whether or not we were designed, that's something that cannot be answered, and as such is pointless to discuss in terms of the science of it. Well, it could perhaps be answered. We could find preserved DNA and maybe observe inserted genes with such prevalence that it presents a very powerful case for some outside designer inserting those genes. But we haven't. And I doubt we will. You can go right on believing that Jesus or Aliens designed our DNA. But there's no evidence of that. An open minded scientist (which sadly is not all of them) would not care that you believe that, as long as you do not let it poison your mind against actual observations. And as I said, those observations very strongly indicate common descent. But certainly it can end up being wrong. All we have to do is find life that doesn't have any common genes with everything else we've seen on Earth, and there you have it. But at any rate, it's mostly philosophy. It would be absolutely fascinating if life arose twice on Earth. But it certainly wouldn't say a THING about evolution one way or the other.