Latest Challenges to the Teaching of Evolution

I see a nice clean thread with reasonable and thought-worthy posts, interspersed with tiny little "User Ignored" markers. Very satisfying

I see that Ive got Solve and Coagula on ignore too. I couldnt figger out where BillR was finding all these extra "Russian SPy" threads, seems theyre all S&C's. Hee Hee.

Yup, I've got that one on ignore too.

What a silly thing to say. You don't seriously think my compositions are written to influence those who are stuck in their bigoted ways. I know from long experience that such people not only cannot change their position having burned their boats long ago but are afraid of any logic which inescapeably demands that they do so.

There are 59,998 views on this thread and 276,802 views on the other one. A good few of whom may well still have open minds and value such things as critical thinking.

I understand and sympathise with those who bury their heads in the sand or in the folds of Mom's comforting apron but I'm at a loss to imagine how they can be so proud of it as to bring it to the attention of all these viewers.

I am also at a loss to comprehend the assertion concerning the "reasonable and though-worthy" posts when fm opined about the HuffPo quote and the education authorities in a State of the Union (the "Okies") when he had obviously not even bothered reading it if "to read" involves a modicum of comprehension. The HuffPo quote was hardly "reasonable and thought-worthy" itself. To my mind the Wiki quotes I gave about the organisation responsible for the quote qualified as "reasonable and thought-worthy".

I trust that those who do read the whole thread, rather than just the drivel which presents no difficulty to their self-esteem, will have profound reservations about allowing the education of millions of kids to fall into the hands of people who are displaying a prudery and bigotry which brooks no contributions from anyone outside the walls of their mini-Kremlin. If my trust is misplaced so much the worse for the kids.

I have had a good read of Wiki's entry on the Huffington Post and its co-owner and co-founder Arianna Stassinopoulos Huffington and I have to admit it is very "thought worthy".

You might well need a Weatherman to know which way that wind blows.

Spendius, you are so transparent.

when I asked .....



you replied....



You remarks show clearly that the only thing you care about is your social place in line. You mask your concern about your own personal comfort by talking about those poor little idiots who don't really need to have their lives confused by being exposed to information that contradicts the religious dogma that comforts them.

In reality, you fear scientific thought and the concomitant demand for intellectual rigor to the general population could supplant the basic tendencies of people to trust political and religious authority, and since you live in the cat bird seat currently you don't want anything to disturb your situation.

I have read all about fellows like you in the history books; teeth sucking Athenians who convicted Socrates for corrupting Greek youth by teaching them to question things, Dominican hypocrites who threatened Galileo and burned at the stake the likes of Giordano Bruno for having the gall to write about a heliocentric world and undermine the Aristotelian Cosmos of the Roman Catholic Church, or the stranglers of William Tyndale, who translated the Latin Bible into English and got murdered for his efforts, and all of them defended their atrocities by saying that exposure to the facts would undermine civilization...... just as you have.

So, don't despair you are following that long line of reactionaries.

btw, the quote, "If Evolution Is Outlawed Only Outlaws Will Evolve" is the fifth spoken-word album by Jello Biafra

I'll deal with that tomorrow kuvasz. It is ridiculous.

The guy knows the truth of evolution. He just doesn't want to admit it. You nailed it pretty good, kuvasz.

you're talking history, not science. It belongs neither in the science class, nor the religion class, but the history class, where I believe it should be debated vigorously.

Of course I know the truth of evolution. Why do you think I'm opposed to teaching it to kids?

You use the word "truth" is the abstract ed. Like a badge. As if you being in favour of truth is a mark of distinction. If you knew what the truth was you would **** yourself.

The kids are quite safe with your version of the truth. It's been sanitised, disinfected, purified, deodorised and deloused like your carpets have after a vacuum cleaner has been passed over them.

Don't take them down to the lab to have them studied is my advice.

Civilisations don't do truth.

UPDATE ON LAWSUIT AGAINST TEXAS EDUCATION AGENCY

Thanks. My intention is to be transparent. Do you think it a fault or something. What I've been saying has been obvious from the beginning to anybody with half an ounce of nonce. I hope you don't think you have made a discovery.



Show me where evolution theory recommends itself to an alternative. Not that I really know what my social place in line actually is at all times.



I certainly don't think of people as "poor little idiots". Which information do you have in mind? You might well think your statement means something but that has nothing to do with me. It's nothing but asserted platitudes.

It is so easy to assert that there should be no secret knowledge available only to elites because a counter argument is hamstrung by it having to reveal that knowledge to make its case and thus defeat its own position if it considers the knowledge to be harmful to society. You seem to think that because the knowledge you have seems harmless enough all knowledge is. The US Government burned Wilhelm Riech's books. The freedom of information legislation does not cover all information.

Such elites have to sit stone faced listening to you pandering to the ordinary person with cliches although they no doubt smirk in private at your naivety.

And what is wrong with people being comforted? A false belief can be justified by a useful conclusion. It is useful that you believe you own the money you have, your car, your house etc etc, the blood in your veins, but it is a false belief. It is simply useful. The draft would return if it becomes necessary. I don't suppose you've been drafted. Those privileges can be removed. Have been often enough. Go around living with evolutionary principles and you'll soon find yourself without those privileges. Everything about civilisation is a rebuttal of evolutionary priciples. There's no such thing as ownership in evolution although I don't doubt that Mr Darwin beieved that he owned the things he surrounded himself with. He seems to have believed he owned his wife, horses and his fields. He must have felt he owned the pigeons he murdered in such numbers.

What comforts have the anti-IDers to offer? Flesh coloured Christs that glow in the dark and a thousand telephones that nobody ever rings?

Have you not got the drift yet? Stop knocking and start selling the alternative. Knockers are ten a penny. There's one born every minute according to the evolution theory applied to sayings. Are not the sayings we all know the selected in ones much like birdsong. How did a blackbird evolve that gorgeous birdsong it sings when a thunderstorm is coming and the air goes still and oppressive? Any clunker can have a stab at a fin changing into a wing as long as nobody asks how. It just did.

Put the birdsong through an oscilloscope tuned to microscopic and see irreducible complexity. Anatomy is crude really. Especially when you're boiling the flesh off pigeons all afternoon, it takes a while, so you can measure the bones with a ruler. That's like studying the chassis of a Buick 6 and ignoring the accessories.



That is so awkwardly worded that I'm not absolutely sure what it means. I hope it doesn't mean that I fear scientific thought and the concomitant demand for intellectual rigor because I'm the only one who goes anywhere near those on this thread including the quotes wande puts up. If it means that I think that scientific thought and the concomitant demand for intellectual rigor is a good thing when applied to 301 million yanks you can be sure that I damned well don't. I'm not a fan of smoking ruins. What would you talk about if conversations were characterised by pure scientific thought and intellectual rigor? We leave that to nerds don't we?



What do I know about that lot. They were people getting under authority's skin and they strangled and burned people, and a lot worse, as casually as we put them on probation today. There's an opera where a police chief is torturing the hero to make the heroine submit to his lust.

Tyndale was a fundamentalist Protestant heretic. He was hounded out of London, fled from Cologne and captured at Worms. He said that he wanted to "cause a boy that driveth the plough" to have knowledge. I suppose you agree with that. As long as you're not pressed too hard on the matter. Or avoid being pressed.

It isn't an easy subject to discuss in the lands of the free.



What difference does it make who said it? It doesn't mean anything outside of its own definitions. It's circular.

You see kuvasz. Ms Comer would probably have kept her own counsel in the periods you referred to. Authority today has enough confidence in itself to allow her to go her way and make her protestations. One can hardly expect it to pay her wages and find her a nice desk in a nice office with all mod cons if she rocks their boat which I feel sure was what it was felt she was doing.

Your comparison between me and the "teeth sucking Athenians" and the "Dominican hypocrites" and the "stranglers of William Tyndale" is entirely inappropriate and assumes far to much stupidity in your readers than is justified. They all felt insecure as well they might given that the poor sods didn't know what would happen next and what usually did was pretty nasty.

http://my.auburnjournal.com/detail/153657.html
Thomas Jefferson, until this year, was revered in American history textbooks as the Founding Father who wrote the Declaration of Independence. His document is the reason we celebrate the fourth of July as this country's independence day. This is a holiday to remind Americans about the history and significance of that document.


But earlier this year, Christian conservative members of the Texas Board of Education decided to push for a revision of our history by downplaying Jefferson's influence in the founding of our nation. Why? Because the notion of the "separation of church and state" has been traced to him. These religious rightists believe this country was founded as a Christian nation and decided to make their point by revising public school text books. The effect of this kind of revision of American history would be to celebrate the founding of this country as a Christian event rather than the secular event it always has been.


As a Deist, Thomas Jefferson chose to employ his God-given reason in all situations including - and especially - in matters of religion. Here is what Mr. Jefferson wrote to William Short in a letter dated October 31, 1819 (published in Basic Writings of Thomas Jefferson, edited by Philip S. Foner, PH.D):


"The establishment of the innocent and genuine character of this benevolent moralist (Jesus), and the rescuing it from the imputation of imposture which has resulted from artificial systems [E.g., The immaculate conception of Jesus, his deification, his miraculous powers, his resurrection and visible ascension, his corporeal presence in the Eucharist and the Trinity, etc.] invented by ultra-Christian sects, unauthorized by a single word ever uttered by him..."


One does not have to be a theology professor or an American history scholar to understand that the American Revolution was not fought as a religious war against anti-Christian forces. It occurred as a reluctant and dangerous reaction by colonists against an imperial government. The leaders of the Revolution considered their rebellion a secular matter. Their goal was to establish the colonies as free and independent states concerned with matters of this world, rather than to establish a Christian nation.

The problem I see with that is that without the imputatations the character of the benevolent moralist would have died with Him and moral benevolence might not yet have appeared in the world. It turns on the question of whether a false statement is justified for a useful purpose. Or not.

TEXAs is really trying to take shots at history, PAD, Science, and culture. Please set your clocks back 150 years.

What a fatuous assertion that is.

you mean "FActual" , Thats ok. SInce you know nothing of either American Culture or Texas politics, Ill just conclude that your dumb statement is merely the result of ethylhydroxide

I've always felt that a truly LIBERAL approach to the teaching of evolution would be to let teachers decide what they want to teach and then let the theories fight it out in the field. If in fact the creationist account is flawed, as I am sure it is, then it won't survive. And if a society allows itself to be subordinated by religious dogma, then that society will suffer, and some other society, which has a more rational view, will supplant it.

If the principles of democratic liberalism obtain, the truth will always come out in the end. Trying to dictate what should or should not be taught in the classroom is against the principles of liberalism, whichever side you are on.