Latest Challenges to the Teaching of Evolution

I'll not say what anybody who gets pedantic about a typo is.

A thought on the impending Louisiana issue. It will be very kewl to have the entire issue of"Creation/ID/Controversynd "Critical thinking: be sewn up in one swooshbang case in Louisiana. After all, it was Louisianas Edwards v Aguillard that began the ID "movement" as a scientific discipline.
In the Edwards case, there were over 84 Nobel LAureates or scintific association diplomats tht signed an amicus brief that urged the USSC to act to reach the decision it did. The only reason that Dover never went to an appeal to the USSC to "Sew up" the ID issue was that the town of Dover suddenly realized that they had been snookered by their town govt and the school bpoard , and that all this acticvity was going to cost really, really big bucks if they chose to appeal. (They had no idea in hell that the entire "Operation ID" theory was totally unconstitutional because it promoted a limted religious belief and not an evidence based "methodological scientific" approach). The folks of Dover didnt get that point until after the trial and the decision (which hardly took an eyeblink to be handed down).

So, it will be so gratifying to me to see some pompous thumper like Bobbie Jindal get his uppance. I hope that Louisiana, once they lose in the district court, carries the appeals case to the USSC. I would then see the door be irrevocably wedged shut and no new "twists" of verbiage could come up with a suitable way around the laws (nd common sense_).

That would be the ideal outcome.

farmerman, That happens to be only one of many issues that those "southerners" must learn the hard way; they still believe Obama is not a US citizen. It's going to be a very slow, tedious, process to teach them facts, but somebody's got to do it!

And what is the "methodological scientific" approach to sexual relations. One casual glance at newspapers, TV programmes and advertising will demonstrate the significance of the matter. And almost the whole history of literature, music and the arts shows little concern with anything else.

The Founding Fathers who wrote the Constitution had no inkling of the forces let loose in vast, industrialised megalopolitan societies where feminism is running rampant and people have rapid communications, plenty of free time and privacy. Their womenfolk were completely under the cosh. They were called husbands using the agricultural mode of thinking.

What is your "methodological scientific" approach to sexual relations fm? You need one to avoid a return to general promiscuity.

Calling Mr Jindal a "pompous thumper" declares to the world your total intellectual bankruptcy. He is a Rhodes scholar an elected govenor and is said to be one of the few popular govenors in the USA.

spendi, You're diverting the topic of this forum to something that's 180 degrees off. Your usual strategy is to throw garbage into the discussion, but most of us know your tactic of diversion; it will not work.

This would be great. The twists of verbiage have been crazy. Louisiana attempted the "academic freedom" route. Local school board members recently stated publicly that the Louisiana Science Education Act gives them the right to introduce creationism into public school science. The Louisiana politicians had promised the act was not "religious". Now, the reckless proclamations of school board members have exposed the religious intent of the act.

It is you who are diverting the discussion by pretending that THE KEY ISSUE is non existent. And it is THE KEY ISSUE whether you like it or not or whether you understand it or not. What objections to Catholic teaching on social issues unrelated to sexual relations do you have? I think you will find that if you can apply some of your much vaunted critical analysis to the source of your objections to Christian teaching it will dawn on you that it was in the area of sexual inhibition.

Now--if you wish to discuss the removal of the Christian inhibitions on sex I am ready and fairly well qualified to meet you on that ground. But, alas, it is ground you and your fellow anti-IDers have shrunk away from on as many occasions as I have gently provided for you to engage me on. It has begun to look like a bogeyman.

If only media was full of stories about CO2 turning lime water milky or the best conditions to electrolyse water into its more obvious component parts then you might have a point.

I often think that the attraction of science fiction is precisely because it usually avoids such matters.

You may, if you dare try, suggest how the law can be used to regulate sexual relations. Or to envisage the situation without any regulation.

You only have the three alternatives I think. Religion, law or no regulation. I think you will find that those areas in which religious instruction is weakest are those were the absence of sexual restraint is most pronounced. We gentlemen of the world know very well what is meant by referring to an lady as a "free-thinker".

I suppose your post is by way of asserting that only discussion is permitted which meets with your approval. You have all been getting away with such neurotic and infantile strategies for far too long and it has lulled you into a false sense of security. It is difficult for an intelligent person to think of a more important aspect of religion that that of the control of sexual activity.

Why "reckless" wande? Is there not a possibility that it was carefully considered? One of them you reported as calling "bring it on" in regard to court hearings. "Reckless" proves you have no science.

It's another example of you anti-IDers complacently thinking that your own explanations are the only ones possible. An arrogance that beggars belief in someone going on a soap box about the matter. Especially as it concerns the very sinews of the state in an exclusively biological connection. What form do the sinews of an anti-ID state take? I have worked for a number of years in scientific establishments at the cutting edge of modern technology and I can tell you that the science was well down the field in the order of priorities. Young scientific methodologist were notorious.

I hope you don't think that all the scientists on the CERN project are unaccompanied by ladies in subservient roles just because they keep them out of sight when making the promo videos. The Council of Trent attracted every prositute in Europe fit enough and determined enough to undertake the journey. With powerful theologians and celibate ancillary staffs of note-takers and stiletto handlers, miles from home, at their mercy who can blame them. I think that was the one than ran for four years before they were all exhausted. And that was when Christian inhibitions were operative.

Rhodes Scholarships were specifically designed to make sure that at least a few Ameicans had a properly rounded off education. For example, and I like to give examples to back up my points, that a few would know why the photograph of Marilyn Monroe at the moment the blast of warm air caught her unawares, well acted to be caught unawares I think, but scripted and thought out at least, is such a famous photograph. It has bloody Icon status.

It's a Long Way from Eleusis/ And my heart's still there. Gee--I wrote a song right there. To the tune of Tipperary. Beautiful.

I wouldn't be surprised if Mr Jindal is licking his lips.

spendi, The "key" issue is the teaching of evolution; the clue is in the title of this forum.

That's what you think is the key issue ci. It suits you to. That's why you're all circular. And the simple fact that this row has been raging for many centuries, Darwin only turned the heat up, is flat out, slam dunk as I believe you say, evidence that you are wrong. If that's what the key issue is what's all the fuss about? Evolution is the key issue in the sense that it is thought to be, incorrectly as it happens, the key to unlock the door to a new sort of society.

If you are right then it makes no sense at all to discussing it. And what can you then say about those many centuries. This one too. As you know.

I dare say there are many scientific discoveries from Darwin's time which were entered straight into the curricla schools as soon as they could be explained. Why do you think there has been all this fuss over just that one?

Ridiculous if that is the "key" issue.

I knew a lad who read about some simple evolution in a comic and his parents were mildly amused for a short while with him acting like a monkey. It took them months to get him to go 24 hours without having a go. He can still do it. Just about.

You think it's circular, because you are unable to conceptualize what is being said. My statements are supported by the science community while your's is supported by the religious' community.

No religion has been able to prove that their god exists, but science continues to prove evolution.

That's all very well ci. but who gives a shite about evolution unless they are using it to push another cause. Usually self promotion without, as they think, taking any risks.

If we have 95% of our DNA in common with monkeys why is it that if you sit ten monkeys down to a Thanksgiving dinner they exhibit far more than a 95% difference to ten of us. And by some considerable margin.

Off topic, and not accurate. We have 98% common DNA with chimps. How ten monkeys socialize has no bearing on "ten of us."

I bet saying that makes you feel powerful doesnt it. You could spend your time saying how great you are, and you do to a large extent...but nothing beats running the other side down to feel truly successful because at the end of the day not everyone's genetics will survive.

You do understand that with science the more you know the less you know, right ? That for every knowledge that answers a question there are many more questions revealed....yet you talk about science as the only answer, but on other threads you talk about art as though you have a soul.

Which is it ? Is there a greater complexity in the machine or is it only the component parts ? Because if you pull the legs off, you can not get them to walk, even...and I want to make this perfectly clear...even if you are a "scientist".

You didnt read it did you. How many books have you written ? As many as you have read ?

You have to look at it from CI's point of view...there is no sex in evolution. It is magic.
Yes it is....It is an embarrasement to debate when they dont understand the topic.

I like the way that you propose that "Creationism" constitutes a valid alternative, and then, in order to back yourself up, you use a tenet of science. Youve been attending the spendi school of scientific scholarship.

Perhaps, even if I give you that, it still doesnt follow that the best critical thinker is one who knows NOTHING about a subject. That would follow along the school that "In ignorance there is bliss"



He didnt say that at all. Until you showed up the discussion had looked at the many ways that new genes are introduced into a species and the mere act of fertilization accounted for a laarge volume. It is you whose gotta be shown the connection that fertilization often implies sex. The only problem with you and shpendi is that you only wish to divert a decent conversation to focus on your own pitiful lives and you will use whatever asshole means at your disposal to attempt to gain attention.

I wonder if what fm means is that anybody who brings any other considerations into this discussion other than his own, as the Texas senator did, can simply be asserted to be leading a "pitiful life" and to be using " whatever asshole means at their disposal to attempt to gain attention" and that it follows logically that these despicable characteristics disqualify their considerations thus proving, again logically, that only his own considerations are worthy of being considered and therefore, which follows logically as well, there is no need for any discussion because all we need do is ask him to decide the issue and everything will fall neatly into place and once that is accepted as a scientific fact there will be no more pitiful lives nor any utilisation of asshole means to gain attention and the world will have arrived at perfection.