Latest Challenges to the Teaching of Evolution

@spendius,

Oh no, nature worship...so the first settlers of America that had a desire to "see the world" were, by your definition, nature worshipers? The desire to understand our surroundings isn't the worship of nature. What an stupid thing to say, and you look even stupider for saying it (how low can you go?).

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It is all derived from a desire to merge and lose the ego in a higher power.

To bad you forgot to lose your ego to your mystical desire of a higher power, then you wouldn't be on this thread talking garbage.

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@Xenoche,

The first settlers in North America were looking for commercial exploitation opportunities, conquest and missionary activities. Information about it can be found in Jesuit Relations and in a host of rough accounts by semi-illiterate traders and soldiers.

A comprehensive account is available in The Exploration of North America 1630-1776 by Messrs WP Cumming, S Hillier, DB Quinn and G Williams. I'm sure your local library will provide you with a copy if you can be bothered.

I don't think you understood my post nor the context in which I wrote it.

But I do understand your obvious desire to rant and insult people. It is not uncommon so it is nothing for you to worry about. An inadequate education is not entirely your own fault.

The lonesome ego adrift in the universe, the only alternative to a merging with a higher power, be it God, Nature, Nation or football team, is not everyone's cup of tea.

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He that cometh to seek after knowledge with a mind to scorn and censure shall be sure to find matter for his humour, but no matter for his instruction.

Solomon.

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Costly Lessons
(by Stephen Maloney, New Orleans City Business, February 23, 2009)

What began as a hotly debated issue among educators throughout the state has spilled over into the business realm, costing New Orleans millions in potential tourism dollars.

Richard Satterlie, president of the McLean, Va.-based Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, announced in a Feb. 5 letter to Gov. Bobby Jindal the group’s intention to boycott Louisiana because of a recently adopted law it says opens the door to teach creationism in public school science classes.

The SCIB may not be the only group to steer clear of the state, with key figures in the scientific community now encouraging other groups to avoid meeting in Louisiana.

“We will not hold the Society’s 2011 annual meeting in New Orleans even though the city has been a popular venue for us in the past,” Satterlie wrote. “The Executive Committee voted to hold the 2011 meeting in Salt Lake City in large part because of the legislation ... which you signed into law in June 2008. It is the firm opinion of SICB’s leadership that this law undermines the integrity of science and science education in Louisiana.”

The convention would have brought 2,300 SICB members to the city, which New Orleans Metropolitan Convention and Visitors Bureau spokeswoman Kelly Schulz said would have translated to at least $2.7 million in economic impact.

Jindal spokesman Kyle Plotkin issued a brief comment on the city’s loss of the convention.

“That’s too bad. New Orleans is a first-class city for a convention,” Plotkin said.

The legislation in question, the Louisiana Science Education Act, allows local school boards to approve supplemental texts promoting alternatives to evolution, the origins of life, human cloning and global warming.

Critics, including many in the scientific community, claim the act undercuts the foundations of many disciplines, including biology.

SICB public affairs committee chairman Peter deFur said the society last visited New Orleans in 2004, bringing 1,800 members.

With more than 5,000 members nationwide, deFur said annual conventions are spread evenly throughout the country.

After Hurricane Katrina, deFur said there was a strong push to bring the convention back to New Orleans, but the Louisiana Science Education Act led to a change in heart.

“When the decision for this convention was coming down, we looked at both Utah and Louisiana,” deFur said. “Louisiana had just passed this legislation that we had opposed when it was before the Legislature and opposed in a letter to the governor along with other societies.

“In contrast, Utah has a resolution that says evolution is an integral part of any science education curriculum, and that was the turning point for our executive committee.”

Last year, the president of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, which is going to meet in New Orleans in April, issued a call to all scientific societies to stay out of every state that passes such legislation, said Barbara Forrest, co-founder of the Louisiana Coalition for Science and a nationally recognized expert on evolution.

The April meeting, part of the larger Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology conference, will draw 13,000 members to New Orleans with an estimated economic impact of $15.2 million, Schulz said.

While that convention has been in the planning stages for years and will take place, FASB meeting planner Andrea Pendlton said two things caused serious concerns about the meeting’s viability " Katrina and the Louisiana Science Education Act.

“We spent much time after Katrina deciding whether or not to move ahead with our 2009 commitment and ultimately decided to do so,” Pendlton said. “After passage of the LSEA, we again considered our options for 2009 and beyond. In the spirit of educating versus boycotting, we decided to sponsor a session on ‘The Evolution of Creationism’ and to invite New Orleans high school teachers as well as local members of the state legislature and the press.”

While the economic damage has so far been limited to one convention, deFur said the SICB is one of many scientific societies urging scientists nationwide to boycott Louisiana as long as the LSEA is on the books, creating a potential domino effect of cancelled conventions and meetings throughout the scientific community.

“Our membership is very principled, but they are very deliberative as well,” deFur said. “This is important. Somewhere you have to make a difference. You have to decide where you can and how you can make a stand.”

Forrest said she has never seen a scientific organization take such a definitive stance to defend evolution.

“I’ve been now writing about this issue for 10 years and I’ve been involved with it for longer than that, and this is the first time I’ve ever seen a scientific society really take concrete action against a state that is trying to do something like this,” she said. “I do know that they are not the first ones to talk about it.”

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@wandeljw,

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After Hurricane Katrina, deFur said there was a strong push to bring the convention back to New Orleans, but the Louisiana Science Education Act led to a change in heart.

“When the decision for this convention was coming down, we looked at both Utah and Louisiana,” deFur said. “Louisiana had just passed this legislation that we had opposed when it was before the Legislature and opposed in a letter to the governor along with other societies.

“In contrast, Utah has a resolution that says evolution is an integral part of any science education curriculum, and that was the turning point for our executive committee.”

Seems fair enough.

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@wandeljw,

Boycotts usually lead to retaliation. Polarisation of this sort lead to division and potential responses by the religious community and ultimately to strains in the Union itself. Some might ponder whether racial issues are in play.

Religious people might get more sniffy about Virginia's tourist temptations after that thrummingly self-important tripe.

"Fulfill your passion for the arts, outdoors, wine, history and more when you vacation in Virginia" their brochure says. The devout might think it best to avoid a state of Darwinian evolutionsist pompous twits and head south for tropical climes and the Latin Quarter. I certainly would.

The subtext is, of course, that Louisiana is being offered a bribe to alter its religious positions.

Whether the after hours activities are superior in Utah to those in New Orleans I will refrain from speculating upon as I only have hearsay evidence to rely upon which just happens to be all in favour of the latter.

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@spendius,

spendius wrote:

The subtext is, of course, that Louisiana is being offered a bribe to alter its religious positions.

Louisiana is not supposed to have a religious position. The constitutional prohibition against government endorsing a particular religion extends to individual state governments by virtue of the fourteenth amendment.

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@wandeljw,

What spendi fails to realize is that his religious position makes him immune to the knowledge of Constitutional laws similar to all those fundamental christians who continue to pursue the inclusion of ID into science. They can't see the harm being done to our children.

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@cicerone imposter,

Another reminder of why the forefathers wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

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@wandeljw,

What is even more silly is that it was Louisiana's "Creationism Act" that was struck down in the Supremes 1987 decision in Edwards versus Aguillard. Haven't learned anything in the last generation, apparently.

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@cicerone imposter,

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What spendi fails to realize is that his religious position makes him immune to the knowledge of Constitutional laws similar to all those fundamental christians who continue to pursue the inclusion of ID into science. They can't see the harm being done to our children.

The Constitution is the dead letter of a bygone, almost primitive, age written by Christian gentlemen to keep themselves in power. It has had to be ammended on a number of occasions and will no doubt be ammended again at some point. It has also been interpreted in a number of ways. Only pedants would hold by the letter of it and only then when it suits their purposes to do so.

I presume all those reading here who had something of religion in their education, which includes other things besides classrooms and incompetent teachers, have been "harmed" if you are to be believed. As also all the famous Christian scientists of the past.

You who are sitting still while your profilgacy is being bailed-out by debts laid on your progeny.

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@spendius,

Not much most people can do with the greed and gambling pursued by those in positions of responsibility. You probably haven't noticed it yet, but it also affects most developed countries - including yours'.

Fortunately for my wife and I, we're still running "positive" on our retirement funds; it's still worth more today than the amount of money we put into it. If we add back our major expenses such as the remodeling of our house and two new cars during the past couple of years, we're still way ahead.

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@wandeljw,

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The constitutional prohibition against government endorsing a particular religion extends to individual state governments by virtue of the fourteenth amendment.

Why does it not extend to the oath taking at the inauguration then? And why were cameras allowed into the church services on the morning of the ceremony and the day after when Mr and Mrs Clinton and the newly elected president and vice-president with their respective wives filled the front pew. And why were pictures of these events beamed all over the world? They were all endorsing the Christian religion as the president also did when he blessed the nation in the name of the Christian God.

None of that was necessary. It was deliberately chosen after much thought.

Quoting moth-eaten out of date texts written in a small, thinly populated world of sodbusters with no electricity, no running water, no electronic money, no annihilation of distance to speak of and a self confidence born of having found a goldmine undefended, is a pathetic refuge for a mature intellectual position on any subject. It is desperation indeed.

And evolution theory is classed as a religion in some places. A religion posited on those in power having the right by nature to it.

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@spendius,

spendi wrote:

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Quoting moth-eaten out of date texts written in a small, thinly populated world of sodbusters with no electricity, no running water, no electronic money, no annihilation of distance to speak of and a self confidence born of having found a goldmine undefended, is a pathetic refuge for a mature intellectual position on any subject. It is desperation indeed.

Perfect description of the bible.

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@cicerone imposter,

What on earth does you and your wife being "way ahead" with your domestic arrangements have to do with this topic? Are you claiming superiority over the rest of us? Have you an inferiority complex such that you need to continually reassure yourself what a big clever dick you are.

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@cicerone imposter,

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Perfect description of the bible.

I didn't say it wasn't. It is you who take the Bible as literally as you take the Constitution. Not me. You rubbish one moth-eaten old document and next minute you are swearing by another. That's a bit suspicious.

Science is not your strong point ci.

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@spendius,

spendi, If you believe the bible is outdated and worthless, how do you arrive at a god and ID?

Did your parents teach you Hinduism or sun gods?

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@cicerone imposter,

Who said I had arrived at any God or any form of ID? It wasn't me. The cause of you thinking otherwise is your woeful English comprehension skills.

You'll be telling us next that defence counsel is as guilty as the charged person being defended.

If everybody was like me the Dow would be in single figures. I'm defending other people's positions. I'm not coming off any itsy-bitsy self justifications. I don't know anything about God. I know a bit about mass psychology though and I think atheism en masse would be an unmitigated disaster.

I can't see how it wouldn't lead to segregation of the sexes, eugenics, strict classification of society with no social or geographical mobility, chemical and surgical brain manipulation, a police state, crap art, a sullen cowed population, mass angst and industrial paralysis.

You are just playing with infantile simplifications irresponsibly ignoring social consequences in order to come in on a solipsistic bender the original source of which remains unspoken and has been repressed from consciousness.

And I'm not talking about atheists either. I'm talking about the promotion of atheism as the way forward with propaganda, lies and half truths and startling incompetence coupled with a hubris it is staggering to contemplate.

And a lack of will for a fight. The articles wande quotes are not in a fight. They are one way communications. wande never pastes any letters to the editors in response to them. I'd bet the editors don't even publish most of them.

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@cicerone imposter,

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They can't see the harm being done to our children.

Do you really think ci. that tossing out a phrase like that will lead us all to think that you are the only one who is concerned about the welfare of children?

You must be off your ******* rocker goodstyle.

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@spendius,

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I know a bit about mass psychology though and I think atheism en masse would be an unmitigated disaster.

I can't see how it wouldn't lead to segregation of the sexes, eugenics, strict classification of society with no social or geographical mobility, chemical and surgical brain manipulation, a police state, crap art, a sullen cowed population, mass angst and industrial paralysis.

Actually, that was what we had when religion ruled, Spendi, and of course, some of those things are being repeated in the US of A, where real religious nutjobs find fertile ground.

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