Latest Challenges to the Teaching of Evolution

@spendius,

Don't have to be so obtuse, spendi. Your games are silly.

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

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One of the social consequences of education is that it produced you!

Perhaps, he was home schooled. That might explain his hostile argument style and his non-sensical diction.

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@cicerone imposter,

This is a silly journey that we are all on ci. Sometimes I think it is very, exceedingly silly. My last post was intended to be silly. I don't know about where you were at school but where I was there was no arguing about how or what we were taught. Learning to keep your head down took enough time up. Parents were kept at a safe distance by my headmaster. The very idea that parents should have any influence on classrooms is ridiculous. Anti-evolutionary really. They try to go too fast to prove that their genetic material is high-class stuff when they have been unable to prove it themselves.

When somebody's pants fall down in a top TV show there's millions of smirks light up faces, instantaneouly, from sea to shining sea. There's something silly going on there don't you think. All the best movies and books are about how ******* silly everything is.

Look at you sat on the squit-can in Tibet. That's pretty silly. Or in a deckchair on a cruise liner in the tropics sipping saspirella through a straw ($4.99 inc plastic umbrella) in between telling another idiot that your next cruise is to the feeyour's off Norway. No matter where anybody else has ever been, if it comes up in conversation, which such things are wont to do, you will have been there and you'll be able to spend the rest of the evening sharing your impressions of the dump.

I heard a conversation in the pub in which Perth in Australia was mentioned and a lady jumped in to say that she had never been there and I jumped in to say that Perth was not the only place I had never been to. Vic laughed anyway. I could see her when she got back to her table telling her companions what I had said and they were looking at me like I was soft in the head. Me and Vic and Mike then started on places beginning with A to which we had never been but we got interruped after Alaska and Alsace Lorraine when the barmaid reached to get a glass off the bottom shelf.

I know it's not the right way to think of things being silly because of all the tragic events but it's hard not to at times. The tragic events are accidents of one sort or another but the other stuff is planned.

The construction of a cruise ship, with its poshness hierarchy, is not something any sensible investor would undertake without there being a lot of silliness. And the cost is in money which the children might need if all the doomsayers are right. And the children have no responsibility for being here. They were not consulted.

1 Reply

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Proposed bill's intention is to push a religious agenda
(Hedy Weinberg, Opinion Essay, The Tennessean, March 11, 2011)

Eighty-six years ago, on March 13, 1925, the Tennessee General Assembly passed the Butler Act making it "unlawful … to teach any theory that denies the story of the divine creation of man as taught in the Bible and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.''

Although the Butler Act was repealed in 1967, the Tennessee General Assembly is now deliberating about legislation that would allow public school science teachers to teach religious doctrine about the origin of humankind. Contrary to the bill's sponsors, the sole purpose of HB368/SB893 is to thwart the teaching of the theory of evolution.

Tennessee has long been involved in a curriculum struggle about teaching science and religion in public schools. In the well known "Scopes Monkey Trial,'' American Civil Liberties Union volunteer attorney Clarence Darrow represented high school teacher John Scopes who had violated the Butler Act by teaching the theory of evolution. The anti-evolutionists won the case and the Butler Act remained in place for four decades.

Six years after the repeal of the Butler Act, the state legislature again tried to suppress the teaching of the theory of evolution in public schools; they passed a statute barring public school use of any textbook teaching the theory of evolution "unless it specifically stated that it is a theory as to the origin and creation of man and his world and is not represented to be scientific fact'' and unless equal time was devoted to creationism. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit flatly rejected the law, holding that it was "obviously in violation of the First Amendment.'' Since then, the federal courts have been unequivocally clear that efforts to inject religious beliefs regarding the origin of life into public school science curricula are unconstitutional.

HB368/SB893 is the latest line of attack against the theory of evolution. Under the pretext of fostering "academic freedom'' and "critical thinking,'' the legislation would authorize teachers to present lessons regarding so-called "scientific controversies,'' calling into question the validity of the scientific theory of evolution by examining its alleged "strengths'' and "weaknesses.''

No one doubts the value of critical thinking to any serious course of scientific study, but this legislation is not aimed at developing students' critical thinking skills. Rather, it seeks to subvert scientific principle to religious ideology by granting legal cover to teachers who wish to dress up religious beliefs regarding the origin of life as pseudo-science.

By allowing teachers to deviate from this science curriculum, we take the risk that our students will be unprepared for advanced college coursework in science, and we disadvantage them in our increasingly competitive global economy.

Passage of this legislation will have serious consequences for the future well-being of our children, our economy and our state overall.

As the Supreme Court explained in Edwards v. Aguillard, "(f)amilies entrust public schools with the education of their children, but condition their trust on the understanding that the classroom will not purposely be used to advance religious views that may conflict with the private beliefs of the student and his or her family.'' We also entrust the public schools to prepare our children for higher education and success in the job market. HB 368 and SB 893 represent a betrayal of that trust and must be rejected by our legislature.

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@wandeljw,

wandeljw wrote:

Quote:

... The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit flatly rejected the law, holding that it was "obviously in violation of the First Amendment.'' Since then, the federal courts have been unequivocally clear that efforts to inject religious beliefs regarding the origin of life into public school science curricula are unconstitutional....

Some of the strongest advocates against teaching religion on 1st Amendment grounds also disagree with the USSC's Westboro ruling; 2 irreconcilable positions! Btw, have you read James Gleick's new book "The Information" (a new take on Wheeler's "it for bit") and think it mystical? Quasi-religious?

1 Reply

@High Seas,

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Some of the strongest advocates against teaching religion on 1st Amendment grounds also disagree with the USSC's Westboro ruling; 2 irreconcilable positions!

The first Amendment has several severable clauses. You are aware of that?

1 Reply

@farmerman,

Severability as decided in subsequent USSC jurisprudence? Of course I'm aware of that. If you're referring to the original text - I don't know that it does.

1 Reply

@spendius,

spendi, One can make their life journey on earth a silly one - like yours where you spend a great deal of time at your local pub - probably repeating much of what you talk about in your small clique of fans, and their limited exposure to the outside world.

You can laugh all you wish about people going on cruises; many people go for different reasons, and are as varied as the patrons.

I go for the relaxation, good company, good food, stopping at different ports to see how people live, make new friends, and the need to pack and unpack only once. It's a luxury that I enjoy more as I age.

You spend your $$$ at the pub; the same one at that! How boring.

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@wandeljw,

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Since then, the federal courts have been unequivocally clear that efforts to inject religious beliefs regarding the origin of life into public school science curricula are unconstitutional.

They would wouldn't they? It's part of their agenda. When--

"The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit flatly rejected the law" what was the law before they did--constitutional?

Quote:

Under the pretext of fostering "academic freedom'' and "critical thinking,'' the legislation would authorize teachers to present lessons regarding so-called "scientific controversies,'' calling into question the validity of the scientific theory of evolution by examining its alleged "strengths'' and "weaknesses.''

What academic freedom? What critical thinking? Hedy is using buzzwords.
And they are not "so-called", they are real controversies or else they and us wouldn't be arguing. That's the sort of devious tactics you buggers employ. A challenge to the teaching of evolution, because it raises controversial issues, which Hedy being a sweet little innocent knows nothing about, is not the same as calling into question the validity of the theory. In fact the more valid it is the more reason for it being controversial. That is just another verbal dirty trick and anybody who doesn't know it is too stupid to be qualified to pronounce on educational matters because they are not educated themselves but have only been flattered into thinking they are.

I'm not questioning the theory. I never have been. What is there to question. It's too simple to spend more than five minutes on. We don't practice it though. Even the judges don't practice it. The theory goes against what they do practice.

The clear sub-text of Hedy's article shows it to be entirely circular. She ends where she set out to end at the beginning. The opposite of creativity. And you lot fall for it for a similar reason. You are eager to fall for it. And you are impervious to anything else. Like gateposts.

1 Reply

@spendius,

spendi, You can't use words such as "agenda" by ignoring your own.

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

I have no agenda. I'm waiting to hear what your side's is. As a policy for the future I mean. And how you get there. This is not a bubble enclosing pre-conceived ideas all circling around. It has direction. Teaching evolution is not an objective. It's a means to an objective.

1 Reply

@spendius,

You've been voicing your agenda all along; you just don't see it.

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@wandeljw,

Religion, if taught, belongs under the tab for humanities. I could support offering a truly secular history of world religions class in a high school, public or private.

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@plainoldme,

There isn't one to offer.

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@High Seas,

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Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

NOT THE SEVERABILITY as determined by asdjutication, but severability AS WRITTEN. To me its quite obvious that The severability is assumed by the separate clauses, each dealing with a separate compartment of thye 1st amendment. You were stating that if I was a supporter of the 1st amendment "establishment clause" my "Non support" of the Westboro Baptist Church decision was from the same cloth.
NO, the severability of the separate master clauses were cleverly so worded(and punctuated) by the framers because the 1st amendment covers a big kettle of different fish, none of freedoms need necessarily overlap.

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@plainoldme,

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I could support offering a truly secular history of world religions class

Secular--Middle English, from Old French seculer, from Late Latin saeculris, from Latin, of an age, from saeculum, generation, age.

Sort of like fashion or flavour of the month. Like Setanta does. Only he includes his place as well as his time.

You don't even know what words you use mean.

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@farmerman,

Would it not be an exercise of religion in a democracy to vote for religion in schools, not in science classes of course except for the unavoidable "tone" of teachers, and if enough vote for it in it goes. Could one man's objection using the EC prevent that if every other voter voted for it? Because that's what you are basically claiming.

1 Reply

According to the Oxford Universal English Dictionary on Historical Principles, which traces the historical uses of language, it already meant of the world, as opposed to religious, in Middle English. Nothing to do with generation or age. You are apparently about two thousand years wrong, Spendius.

1 Reply

@MontereyJack,

I'm more atavistic than that Jack. You're using a secular definition. Oxford is a bit like that.

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@spendius,

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Could one man's objection using the EC prevent that if every other voter voted for it? Because that's what you are basically claiming

ITs not open for a "vote". Its written in the US Constitution. The constitution is our societal Talmud. The courts "inyerpret it", we dont vote on it.

I do hope that one of these years , and soon, you will finally "get it"

2 Replies

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