Latest Challenges to the Teaching of Evolution

That's why I brought it up. I believe, if we are to get the textbook problem solved, the Feds will have to find a way to set standards for the publishers to follow. Texas politicians are too busy kissing the ass of ultra right wing voters to seriously work on it.

Good point, edgar. Sometimes, instead of passing a federal law, the federal government gets states to follow a national standard by tying it to federal money given to states. The Texas governor is willing to give up federal money in order to please his personal voter base.

You do not seem to understand that starting your posts with declarations that the person you are replying to does not understand things or is stupid, as you regularly do with me and with okie, is not only grossly impolite but is stupid because it is, first of all, meaningless and, secondly, it has no effect. If you praised me I would search my mind for what I was doing wrong.

I think everybody is stupid and I know nobody understands things. That is normal in my book. One only need imagine a Nobel Prize winning physicist taking off his trousers in the room of a prostitute in one of the cities he is visiting to expound upon his brilliance to know just how stupid even the best and the brightest are. Some gangs of prostitutes keep a close eye on where the conventions and symposia are taking place and arrange their travel plans accordingly and research how best to solicit the punter. Temporary room-service.

And taking his wife on a trip to Tibet being something he would think is a perfectly reasonable thing to do is stupidity on another level. My first example is to some extent understandable even though our Nobel Laureate would hush it up, but, on the other hand, proclaim the wonders of a fortnight in Tibet to anyone daft enough to listen or to look at the photographs of the best bits and, bearing in mind that a large majority of the population of Tibet would likely decamp to California at the slightest opportunity and might well have never even been to school, stand aghast at that level of stupidity. That's stupider than the normal stupidity which I believe I have been blessed with. I wouldn't tell my friends and neighbours with a gesture like that that I was prepared to undergo the pains and tribulations of a fortnight in Tibet to get them out of my sight. It's so expensive as well.

I would just hide in the library. It's so much more comfortable and cheaper than a fortnight in Tibet goosing off on a kick about seeing the world and being an internationally renowned intrepid traveller and how many new friends I was making in the circles slightly higher up the social scale. And one can lie in one's own bed after getting home from the pub and keeping up with one's friends on A2K. Isn't it a cliche that people getting into their own bed after a fortnight's holiday in some dump do so with an audible sigh of contentment similar to that of a person taking his first pull on a Marlboro after a fortnight of no smoking (Jan 1st--Jan 14th) broke his will and biology demanded its share.

Watching the ball-game in the library that confirmed my championship in the RJB PICK-UM League, to which I had applied some science, not being emotionally involved as some of the other players were, although I became emotionally involved in seeing the science coming good, tested, on a real battlefield, and the maid bringing in refreshments from time to time and getting ready to tell the bigots in the pub that NFC is better than they think it is is an experience Tibet doesn't have on offer. Nor anywhere else.

Watching those games for 17 weeks was a most interesting experience. They are a telescreen visual experience. Television created them. I imagine they were slogging matches in the sluch before being marketed.

I have a very good idea how much parents influence their children. It varies from one extreme to the other. And it varies regarding the type of influence.

You just lumping in all parents into your abstract concept "parents" and likewise with "children" is strong evidence that you can't know what you are talking about never mind that you don't know. A study of the broadcasting aimed at children and adolescents provides a good guide to the general influence of parents on their children.

I trust you are not implying that it is a bad thing that parents influence their children. You are just going around and around a circle of cliches which can be decoded as that only parental influences you approve of should be allowed.

There is a level of stupidity to which a Dante might have had confined to the top of the laughing barrel and it is that which thinks itself not stupid at all and in fact really rather knowing. It has acheived this marvellous feat simply by reducing irreducible complexity to a few quick brush strokes a bit like when Hitler sent a division towards Russia by pushing his hand across the map in the general direction of east of his lair.

Oliver Hardy portrayed the amusing side of it.

I think Italy and South Americans being predominantly Catholic, while Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, Japan and Korea are Buddhist and most of Europe being Christian, while the Middle East is Islam, can be explained in the same way that bears are different colours can be explained. They were all biologically derived evolutionary adaptations, as with bears, being formed by the environment. That's why I stressed the success. Which some say might not last. It's you who has to figure it out--you're the atheist.

That's the only position an atheist can take. The topography and cosmic events. That Christianity was a natural evolutionary development in the strictest Darwinian sense which took place at a certain time and in a certain topographical situation and which colonised other regions to which it might or might not be suited. It's aim was to improve the chances of self preservation synergistically by fair means or foul. It's no use sitting in palatial surroundings with Ghengis Khan banging on the door insisting you bring your daughters out.

One might think that a beneficiary of the process would concentrate more on the fair means that those not so fair. As the heirs to the Robber Barons likely do.

I believe ground was meant and that's grounded on fact. Pat Robertson's surly mouth opened again today to curse the Haitians for causing the earthquake -- this is an example of the benefit of religion.

Religion and politics both produce extremists, and I'm not sure which is worse.

A combination of both.

This is what you said fm--



To which I responded that Chap. 17 has only 24 verses.

I know Ezekial has 48 chapters. Where is Chap. 17 v 25? I am interested in the words in the Bible you are drawn to.

That is already the case surely? What you have now is the result of the Federal standards.

And that American exceptionalism side will want to keep the present standards, a form of subsidiarity, rather than taking on any Soviet or Nazi style tinkerings which could only be arrived at democratically by taking the same argument in the gig report wande quoted up to Washington.

The mind boggles.

Will every school then be forced to buy these centrally directed publications Ed? Or prove that they are using them.

My words were in plain English. Feds do not dictate what is in the books, except if the content violates the Constitution.

I think that "set the standards for the publishers to follow" means the same as "dictating" them.

You said--"I believe, if we are to get the textbook problem solved, the Feds will have to find a way to set standards for the publishers to follow. "

"Will have to" is for the future--"do not" is in the present.

Will you distinguish between "set the standards" and "dictate".

spendi, How many "do nots" do you know about government action on anything? What's the difference between "do not" and "set the standards for the publishers to follow?"

I am not arguing the point. If the states don't set adequate standards, it is for someone else to take a hand. Withholding federal dollars is to date the best leverage, particularly in a state such as Texas, where education is secondary to politicians getting votes. Texas voters keep the schools nearly broke. They badly need Fed money. I would love it if the Feds had more leverage, but so far they don't.

You are misunderstanding ci. As usual. Ed said "will have to set the standards".

That's future. "Do not" is present tense.

You are posited Ed on your own definition of "adequate". Which is a circular argument.

If you don't get your arses in gear a bit faster you might see evolutionary principles in action in Haiti shortly.

Religion and philosophy are the playthings of the uninvolved.

spendi, Did you really study English grammar? "Do not" can be future tense depending on the message.

TEXAS UPDATE

I assume the report has credibility which leads to the general conclusion that beyond a certain point spending on education is dysfunctional.

This will be because the extra spending tends, a bit like gravity, to be purloined by teachers, administrators and anybody else who can dip in for the purpose of uprating their offices, washrooms, car parking, title expansion and all round self aggrandisment and the kids get forgotten in the thrash over the division of the spoils. Contact with students becomes odious eventually.

And anyway-- a proportionate share of $700 million is chickenfeed to Texans isn't it?

With anti-IDers being unable to answer the question of whether Christianity is a biologically powered evolutionary adaptation, just as Islam and Buddhism are in their own territories, or the result of some other cause, one might understand the Texans digging in their high-heeled boots.

With anti-IDers being unable to answer the question of whether Christianity is a biologically powered evolutionary adaptation, just as Islam and Buddhism are in their own territories, or the result of some other cause, one might understand the Texans digging in their high-heeled boots.

Everything we do is a result of evolution. How we interpret it or use the knowledge is not the function of the study of evolution.

The study and interpretation of evolution is something we do and if everything we do is a result of evolution then the study and the interpretation of evolution is just as much a result of evolution as Christianity is and is therefore not to be argued with. It is merely a snarling match with the winner to be decided by the outcome in a long series of subtle and gradual developments which can't be seen, like the wood in the trees, if you get up too close and think of yourself as having anything other than the most extreme insignificance asymptoting with zero insignificance.

Like I have said from the beginning--it is a power struggle. On the Ovarian trolley.

What else could it be if we are on our own?