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Latest Challenges to the Teaching of Evolution

 
 
spendius
 
  1  
Reply Wed 26 Nov, 2008 12:30 pm
@Blickers,
Quote:
Well, in your post here you seem to say two things: that society needs God or some God substitute whether he exists or not, as a basis for all morality to exist. And that the media is engaged in some kind of cooperative effort to attack religion in an effort to remove morality from society.


Neat. On the first point it isn't me or even the many others who say the same. It is the logic of the case. Otherwise I wouldn't be saying it. Ethics are based on moralities. Science has none.

I have given many instances where weak, cop-out drivel is launched in local newspapers which turn out, on one click, to be owned and controlled by large conglomerates. I have experience of that sort of thing as I said earlier. I think they are engaged in the activities I mentioned. Removing morality is going further than I presume they want to go. Loosening it is better. That's why I see them as half-baked.

I agree that removing religion from America is highly unlikely. I think it impossible actually.

I see your other point as being an American problem in the main and caused by reasons specifically American. I answered to it once on the ID thread and that seems to have been sufficient to stop those of my protagonists from mentioning it again as they had been doing.

It is these threads I am debating on. I feel quite sure that the vast bulk of Americans agree with me. I probably am guilty of taking advantage of wande's selective cut and pastes. But- hey--all's fair in love and war ain't it? I just use them to get the case a proper airing which it didn't at Dover for obvious reasons.
0 Replies
 
spendius
 
  1  
Reply Wed 26 Nov, 2008 12:41 pm
@wandeljw,
Another bucket full of bullshit. Pop science. Cocktail party cliche.

I could tear it to shreds if they would put their one-way megaphone down and get round a table with a few spliffs, some nice wine and plenty of time to spare.

Student newspapers eh? That's a bit arse about face. Students are supposed to listen.
0 Replies
 
DontTreadOnMe
 
  1  
Reply Fri 28 Nov, 2008 03:35 pm
@dlowan,
dlowan wrote:

I demand the right to teach evolution during church services!


I demand that every preacher have a sceptic getting equal time in the pulpit!


I demand that an evolution-mobile follow the Pope-mobile on its every outing!


hahaha! me too.

except that perhaps the pope-mobile follow the evolution mobile. at least until it has been finally determined which came first; the chicken or the egg. Very Happy
spendius
 
  1  
Reply Fri 28 Nov, 2008 06:04 pm
@DontTreadOnMe,
Quote:
dlowan wrote:

I demand the right to teach evolution during church services!


I demand that every preacher have a sceptic getting equal time in the pulpit!


I demand that an evolution-mobile follow the Pope-mobile on its every outing!


Granted. Just don't call the cops to protect you. They would tell you to piss off.

Help yourself. Of course you have the right. Who said you didn't.

Don't blame us because you are a bit nervous. effemm (that's farmerman) once gatecrashed a revivalist meeting to give them the up-to-date scientific gen and they tossed him into the street.
0 Replies
 
wandeljw
 
  1  
Reply Sun 30 Nov, 2008 07:43 am
FLORIDA UPDATE
Quote:
State, Treasure Coast educators crafting guidelines to teach evolution
(By James Kirley, Vero Beach News, November 30, 2008)

Open a state-approved high school biology textbook on the Treasure Coast or elsewhere in Florida and you'll find references to evolution. But until recently, state rules also told teachers not to call it by the term popularized after Charles Darwin published "On the Origin of Species" almost 150 years ago.

"Our course description does not use 'evolution,'" said Wachera Ragland, science coordinator for Martin County Schools. "Our course description says, 'change over time.'"

The state Board of Education changed 12-year-old science standards Feb. 19 to require teaching the scientific theory of evolution in Florida for the first time. The standards passed against opposition, much of it faith-based, that contends evolution is just one way to explain the diversity of life on earth.

Teams of teachers currently are meeting all over the state to develop guidelines to teach evolution to students. Mary Gregory, St. Lucie County Schools curriculum specialist for teaching science to grades six through 12, is on one such team.

She jokingly refers to "the e-word." But Gregory is serious about drawing a line between teaching science without encroaching on religion.

"I think a lot of people are afraid that if they don't see a purpose in this existence that was predetermined by their creator, there may not be a reason to lead a moral life," Gregory said. "We have to make sure children understand that when we describe their animal existence, we are not denying their spiritual existence."

Florida legislators opposed to teaching evolution introduced bills last spring to mandate a "critical analysis" of evolution and to protect teachers who offer other explanations of biological diversity. Both failed to gain the support needed to become law.

But wording in a new education law passed last spring requires the Board of Education to adopt new academic standards by 2011. The Florida Department of Education won't say if this means revisiting the debate on teaching evolution.

"This is still being evaluated," department spokeswoman Cheryl Etters said.

The controversy is creationism as opposed to evolution, said Fran Adams, Indian River County assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction.

"It's pretty clear-cut in the textbooks," Adams said. "(Evolution) is presented as one of many theories, but they don't get into the other theories."

Public schools districts on the Treasure Coast and elsewhere in the state are starting the process of fulfilling a Florida Board of Education mandate to begin teaching the scientific theory of biological evolution. New Sunshine State Standards were passed in February to replace those in effect since 1996. The new standards require teaching evolution for the first time in Florida and knowledge of the subject is expected to be included in the spring 2012 Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test.

•The 1996 state benchmarks required students to understand that changes in the earth's climate, geology and life forms can be traced and compared. Students learned that, "earth's systems and organisms are the result of long, continuous change over time" and that mutation and natural selection are mechanisms of change. "Items (taught) will NOT refer to evolution," the benchmarks stated.

•New benchmarks adopted statewide in February state, "The theory of evolution is the fundamental concept underlying all of biology" and that "natural selection is a primary mechanism leading to evolutionary change."
gungasnake
 
  1  
Reply Sun 30 Nov, 2008 07:47 am
@wandeljw,
Quote:
•New benchmarks adopted statewide in February state, "The theory of evolution is the fundamental concept underlying all of biology" and that "natural selection is a primary mechanism leading to evolutionary change."


In real life, natural selection is the most major thing which PREVENTS change. It is an agency of stasis which weeds out anything an iota to the left or right of dead center for a particular species. You could no more generate a new species of animals via natural selection than you could construct a skyscraper with a wrecking ball.

http://www.veritas-ucsb.org/library/battson/stasis/4.html

rosborne979
 
  1  
Reply Sun 30 Nov, 2008 08:03 am
@gungasnake,
Quote:
In real life, natural selection is the most major thing which PREVENTS change. It is an agency of stasis which weeds out anything an iota to the left or right of dead center for a particular species. You could no more generate a new species of animals via natural selection than you could construct a skyscraper with a wrecking ball.

Variation is Change.
Natural Selection is Selection.
Together they result in evolution, as we can clearly see from the evidence.
Get your facts straight.

spendius
 
  1  
Reply Sun 30 Nov, 2008 09:56 am
@wandeljw,
Are ladies running the show entirely now?

There is no "reason to live a moral life" or any recognition of "spiritual existence" on the part of atheist materialists.

It is not a question of a "lot of people". It is a scientific fact.

It is, of course, on Ignore which saves Ignorers having to provide an answer.

All there is for atheist materialists is fear of the law which is not really an intellectual reason. Hence all the changes to the law regarding "controversial issues." Mainly in the sexual sphere.
spendius
 
  1  
Reply Sun 30 Nov, 2008 10:09 am
@spendius,
I think that when members have recourse to Ignore they should be automatically disbarred from any thread on which the poster ignored participates.

One simply cannot accept discussions in which opposing views are ignored. It is bad for the character of the ignorer. Everybody knows that team-game sport is character building for the precise reason that the opposition cannot be ignored.

How many touchdowns could these ignorers score with no opposition and then run home to Mom to boast of their prowess.

What a farce. Grown men too. Bottom lips a tremble like the petulant Fauntelroys they have all shown themselves to be.

They seek a one-way megaphone and the ultimate suppression of debate.

aidan
 
  1  
Reply Sun 30 Nov, 2008 11:06 am
@spendius,
and besides - it's VERY rude!
gungasnake
 
  1  
Reply Sun 30 Nov, 2008 11:12 am
@rosborne979,
Quote:
Variation is Change.
Natural Selection is Selection.
Together they result in evolution, as we can clearly see from the evidence.
Get your facts straight.


Change in allele frequencies (variartion) causes MICRO-EVOLUTION, which nobody disputes. MUTATIONS which could plausibly lead towards new KINDS of animals are the thing which natural selection kills off and weeds out.

One of the best examples in real life of the problems inherent in MACRO-evolution is flying birds.

A flying bird needs a baker's dozen unique kinds of things which its presumed ancestors never had: wings, flight feathers which are totally unlike down feathers or anything else ever used for insulationn, the system for turning flight feathers (they open and close on up and down strokes), ultra-high efficiency hearts and lungs, light bone structures, and balance parameters meant for flight..... there are several other kinds of things as well.

Consider the ordinary chicken and ask yourself why it can't fly any better than a hundred feet here and there or flitter-flap up onto a low branch. The reason is simple enough: the chicken started out existence as a 1-lb jungle fowl of some sort and then got bred into a six or seven pound domestic bird, but it still has the 1-lb bird's wings. Billions of chickens have to have escaped and gone wild over the millenia and you'd think if there was anything to Darwinism at all, some small group of them would have evolved wings big enough for them to fly decently, but it can't happen.

It's like cutting hair, easier to cut it off than to put it back on. In real life, once you lose the tiniest bit of any sort of a complex capability like that, it's gone forever.

Consider then that NO other animal has ever had arms big enough in proportion to its body that, if those arms had ever evolved into wings with flight feathers and the system to turn them, would have been big enough to allow it to fly the way normal flying birds do.

Certainly no velociraptor ever came remotely close. That says that if evolutionites really want to talk about a bird ancestor which is plausible even in some sort of an atheistic wet dream, they should probably be talking about birds evolving from spider monkeys.









edgarblythe
 
  1  
Reply Sun 30 Nov, 2008 11:35 am
@aidan,
Rude but sometimes necessary, when the object of the ignored is simple disruption, rather than to contribute constructively.
spendius
 
  1  
Reply Sun 30 Nov, 2008 12:32 pm
@edgarblythe,
Quote:
Rude but sometimes necessary, when the object of the ignored is simple disruption, rather than to contribute constructively.


What utter self-serving claptap Ed. There is nothing disruptive about challenging you lot to show how you can envisage a morality or a spiritual dimension both of which not only appeared in wande's cut and paste but are the very essence of the matter under debate. You are using Ignore to avoid the issue and asserting disruption on my part.

I'll say what I really think about it. It is dirty, lying yellow cowardice masquerading as fit and proper to decide what kids should be exposed to.

Mary Gregory of the St. Lucie County Schools curriculum team specialising in science raised the matter, as did wande by quoting her, in the post I was responding to and there is really no other aspect of this debate that is of the slightest relevance by the side of that issue.

You, stupidly, and seen to be, are attempting to justify your cowardice in running away from this matter, as you always have, and are not only trying to disrupt the only argument that matters but are contributing nothing to the debate by your exceedingly childish posts. There is nothing necessary about it. You're just a pompous softie who thinks that anything you say is true on the evidence of you having said it. You must be very, very tiresome at close quarters.

The Materialist Theory of Mind had no place for morality or for any sort of spiritual dimension and it is about time you took that into account otherwise we might think you are only a materialist when it is convenient to you. How very nice for you you silly sod.

And we should take notice of you in the matter of the education of future generations. Man--your brain has exploded.

And, as aidan said, you are VERY rude. And wimps with it.

0 Replies
 
spendius
 
  1  
Reply Sun 30 Nov, 2008 12:42 pm
Putting me on Ignore concedes that you can't answer the point without promoting a return to Paganism and Barbarism and general amorality which you are too soft to do even if you could which I know you can't.

And it is the ONLY point in the debate. And my use of capitals for emphasis is patronising I know but it seems you can't even read properly without the use of such devices.

And to try to justify the mom's apron of Ignore with nothing but blustering assertions suggests to me that you should go back to school.

0 Replies
 
rosborne979
 
  1  
Reply Sun 30 Nov, 2008 03:30 pm
@gungasnake,
http://www.ufonet.be/RESIMLER/dinozor/images/ms_Sinornithosaurus_jpg.jpg
http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/0701/0701_feature.html
spendius
 
  1  
Reply Sun 30 Nov, 2008 05:06 pm
@rosborne979,
It's a penalty gunga. You take it.
0 Replies
 
gungasnake
 
  1  
Reply Sun 30 Nov, 2008 05:12 pm
@rosborne979,
Appears to be a small pterosaur of some sort, more like a bat than a bird.
edgarblythe
 
  1  
Reply Sun 30 Nov, 2008 05:12 pm
@rosborne979,
Great link. I have it bookmarked.
spendius
 
  1  
Reply Sun 30 Nov, 2008 05:14 pm
@edgarblythe,
How lucky can one get.
0 Replies
 
rosborne979
 
  1  
Reply Sun 30 Nov, 2008 06:06 pm
@gungasnake,
Quote:
Appears to be a small pterosaur of some sort, more like a bat than a bird.

It's one of the many types of feathered Dromaeosaurs.

(Pterosaurs didn't have feathers)
0 Replies
 
 

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