Latest Challenges to the Teaching of Evolution

I'd say the ID bullshit is the biggest battle in the culture wars. I'm glad that we have someone like Wandel who is willing to do the work necessary to keep us informed about this. Fanatical christians have a sense that they are fighting in the last ditch (somewhat, but not entirely true), and they have a desparate siege mentality. We need to be aware of them, and their tactics. The "stealth candidate" first showed up in California more than a decade ago--and Dover is an example of the kind of damage they can do if they succeed.

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@farmerman,

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I suppose that you are right. I just thought that several were just mildly ignorant of the issues at first. Ive since revised that view completely .

It's obviously been a lifelong habit of your's fm to assume others are ignorant.

I'm glad you have changed your view but it does admit that your previously held view was in error. The assumption that Christians are mildly (sic) ignorant, (an assertion of course) whilst being very convenient for a complacent mind, is self-evidently ridiculous in view of the fact that the mathematics of pure dynamic space, to which we owe so much, is a creation of the Christian culture and of no other. And so also is the body of western literature and the system of morals and ethics by which we organise our lives. And the language and concepts we use to communicate with each other.

Aheists are as ignorant as pigs wallowing in **** but whereas pigs can't help it atheists are deliberately and wilfully ignorant and even boast about being so and of having every intention of remaining in that state. I have read all the posts of anti-IDers on these threads and some anti-IDers are scared of reading mine. That's wilful ignorance and categorising my posts as "bullshit" is not an excuse. In fact to fondly believe it is a satisfactory excuse signifies ignorance in every subject life has to offer. It is Unable 2 Know. On purpose.

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@Setanta,

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-and Dover is an example of the kind of damage they can do if they succeed.

And that is an example of a one-track mind. A lot of people did very nicely indeed out of Dover and the farce that took place there. It wasn't "damage" to any of them. And they were legion. It was a transfer of wealth, in not insufferable amounts, not enough to go rioting over, from one section of the population to another. What else could it have been in a country so dedicated to the pursuit of business as the USA is and has always been.

Setanta is milking the poor downtrodden taxpayer udder. It's a popular and very easy thing to do. Half an hour's practicing hand-wringing in front of a mirror every morning is all that's needed to get the hang of it.

I won't attempt to review the phalanxes of those who were comforted by those long ago events, when the boom was in full swing, because it would take too long, ranging as it did from the streets of the small town in an arc all the way around the globe, with Japan a point on the circle, and from Anthony Comstock to the Empress Messalina, and with such velocity and changes of direction that it had the appearance of a shiny spherical object freely floating in space. Suffice to say that they were of sufficient a number that the law of the greatest good to the greatest number could well throw the balance in their favour, morally and intellectually although I will admit to not knowing the number of those "damaged" by Dover. "Victimised" would have been a better word.

But Setanta contributes to the controversy and it is that which draws the spherical object closer to earth and therefore, and it is an easy step is this one, Setanta is creating more "damage", or, from my point of view, more comfort. I'm up for teaching the controversy.

In a nation noted for its seriousness it is obvious that its circuses will have to be serious. And, if there is more comfort than damage in these bushfires in the Outlands, and it's plain they comfort the company assembled here, they do me anyway, there should be more of them. There probably would be if the boom was still booming.

Setanta's insults and bombastic nothingnesses are simply the chosen method of his milking on the teat of human kindness as he wrestles with what answer to give when asked what we get when we abolish religion. He is seeking to associate Mr Nice Guy with atheism and he hasn't the nerve to tell the "damaged" that he will lead them to the Promised Land.

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Thats why I now think that several correspondents are just defiantly ignorant but they consistently fail to recognize it. So why even try to discuss anything when all they want is to fulfill some pitiful need for attention.

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@farmerman,

Eggs-acktly . . .

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Creationism lives on in US public schools
(John Farrell, New Scientist Magazine, October 23, 2010 issue)

IN DOVER, Pennsylvania, five years ago, a group of parents were nearing the end of an epic legal battle: they were taking their school board to court to stop them teaching "intelligent design" to their children.

The plaintiffs eventually won their case, and on 16 October many of them came together for a private reunion. Yet intelligent design and the creationism for which it is a front are far from dead in the US, and the threat to the teaching of evolution remains.

Cyndi Sneath was one of the Dover plaintiffs who had a school-age son at the time of the trial. She has since become an active member of the American Civil Liberties Union and a member of the Dover Area School Board. "My interest in public education and civil liberties was certainly sparked by the trial," she says. "And that interest permeates our family discussions."

Chemistry teacher Robert Eschbach, who was also a plaintiff, says the trial has made teachers less afraid to step on people's toes when it comes to evolution. It "forced me to be a better educator", he says. "I went back and read more of the history around Darwin and how he came to his conclusions."

None of this means that the Discovery Institute, the Seattle-based think tank that promotes intelligent design, has been idle. The institute helped the conservative Louisiana Family Forum (LFF), headed by Christian minister Gene Mills, to pass a state education act in 2008 that allows local boards to teach intelligent design alongside evolution under the guise of "academic freedom".

Philosopher Barbara Forrest of Southeastern Louisiana University, another key witness for the Dover plaintiffs in 2005, testified against the Louisiana education act. "Louisiana is the only state to pass a state education bill based on the Discovery Institute's template," she says. Similar measures considered in 10 other states were all defeated.

Forrest heads the Louisiana Coalition for Science, and has been monitoring developments since the bill passed. In January 2009, the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) approved a policy that prevents Louisiana school boards from stopping schools using supplementary creationist texts hostile to evolution, such as books published by the Discovery Institute.

Mills has now made public his desire to change the process for selecting biology textbooks statewide. In one Louisiana township, Livingston Parish, creationist board members have proclaimed their desire to have creationism taught alongside evolution in the next academic year. "This is happening with no outcry from the media or from the scientific community in Louisiana," Forrest says.

Since Dover, states wanting to teach alternatives to established science have used deliberately vague language. In 2008, Louisiana passed a law requiring "open and objective discussion" of climate change, evolution and human cloning. Five years after the landmark case, the battle for science education continues. But for the plaintiffs and their representatives this does not detract from the achievement. Their lead attorney, Eric Rothschild, sums it up: "If we'd lost, intelligent design would be all over the place now".

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@farmerman,

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LAtely, several of these cultural issues have been sliced from the reginal press because most of our local /regional papers have slashed their reporter and editorial staffs.

Another bloody gross non sequitur. If fm knows the reason it is automatically assumed that it is the only reason. There could be other reasons.

For example, that "cultural issues" didn't shift product as well as it was thought they might do as viewers and readers got bored with the repetitive blatherings of each side engaged with them.

Or maybe a realisation that this issue was a bit of a hot-potato which they hadn't realised the complexity of in the first enthusiastic ejacultion of the fervour and are backing off.

But it's consistent with fm's unconscious arrogance that he identifies an issue which he is engaged with as "cultural" (admirable) as if whatever else the regional press put out is not cultural and to be looked down upon. Which demonstrates an ignorance of what Culture is. In reality. A place I am often advised on here that I should visit.

He's a flat out intellectual snob. Like Dawkins he thinks his opponents to be "earthworms". And he hasn't an intellectual bone in his body as his non-sequitur easily proves. Again. There have been a very large number.

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@wandeljw,

I t6hink that Bobby Jindall can kiss off any hopes of attaining a national office . I would imagine that they are watching the ID "resources" and how they are used in the classrooms. Isnt this ironic that, through the use of fuzzy logic and language, the very state that was the knife edge of the USSC decision on Creationism, is using deceit and fraudulent means to continue shilling for the Evangelical Christians..
Where does the La law come into conflict with the Edwards v Aguillard decision? It appears to me that the very bases of questioning evolutions conclusions are only drafted from Evangelical Dogma.

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Perhaps the yahoos in Louisiana think that with the current court, they can reverse their loss in the 1987 case. The Lemon test ain't gonna go away, and i doubt that even this court would seek to nullify that test.

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@wandeljw,

Quote:

Chemistry teacher Robert Eschbach, who was also a plaintiff, says the trial has made teachers less afraid to step on people's toes when it comes to evolution. It "forced me to be a better educator", he says. "I went back and read more of the history around Darwin and how he came to his conclusions."

I presume, wande, that that's a fancy way of admitting that at the time he was plaintiffing he knew nothing worth bothering with about evolution. Which suggests some other motive for his participation. I know that "I went back and read more" is a way of hinting that he was revisiting his past studies of the matter but with more depth, not that there is much depth in the subject, but it's not something I wouldn't assign much credibility to. They are the words of a man conscious of his own dignity rather too much.

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@Setanta,

They are not Yahoos, they are Blefuscoodians .Yahoos aint smart enough to be plotting

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@farmerman,

Yeah--and you lot are the D-stream cadre of the laziest phalanx in the vanguard of fellow-travelling, politically correct, leftie revolutionary control-freaks who we well know are very capable of plotting to lead us into the dictatorship of the proletariat and the strict and rigorous discipline of the scientific method.

Not that you are in on the plotting. You're just the the mugs.

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@farmerman,

This is the link to be posted every time Spendius starts with his admitted paranoid delusions involving "godless communists and fellow travelers" (such as Wandel, Setanta, and myself, for those who missed Spendius's admission) plotting a "dictatorship of the proletariat" in the United States:
http://able2know.org/topic/121621-349#post-4387342

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That boy is what Richard Brautigan would call a bull goose loony.

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@High Seas,

Post it as often as you want HS. You can't post it enough for me.

But who expects plotters to admit they are plotting? In fact the more vociferous the denials and accusations of paranoia directed at those who
think they might be when they are all posing as the saviours of science, the educational system and the prosperity of the-- tails off.....into a ........fit.......of.......tit............terin.......g an.......d........gig..............lin............g.

But I don't think it. I know it. I know the motives so well that I would be astonished if they weren't plotting. In fact evolutionary science predicts that there is no chance of them not plotting. They have no politically serious party so their dupes have been sent forth to ease the way for one.

And researching wande's quotes combined with the dictum "follow the money" brings the whole coalition into sharp focus.

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Ill bet spendi sees and hears all kinds of cosmic information in his Rice Krispies. These data give him all his fascinating insights that we mere mortals arent aware.Its either that or the Guiness.

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@farmerman,

I see it and hear it fm in the orchestrated campaign mounted by anti-IDers. Nowhere else.

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@spendius,

yes , but we only transmit the musical score through tiny transmitters that can only be received by Rice Krispies.

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@farmerman,

I don't need a score.

That article wande quoted from the New Scientist (aren't they all new) Magazine is first up on the NCSE website. No doubt it will have been printed out in all the right media centres.

Are they "New Improved Scientists" like New Improved Washing-up liquid.

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

yes , but we only transmit the musical score through tiny transmitters that can only be received by Rice Krispies.

We better face up to the fact we've been outed - our dastardly plot to impose "dictatorship of the proletariat" in the US has been exposed pursuant to the diligent 6-year long investigation by Spendius the Sleuth. I for one will confess to being a "godless communist and fellow traveler" if that will get Spendi to stop posting here. Furthermore, there's signal amplification going beyond Rice Crispies into Spendi's dental inplants Smile

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