Latest Challenges to the Teaching of Evolution

@spendius,

Hey, I agree with spendi about calling any one mentally retarded - even if they are! They have a mental disability through no fault of their own. I worked in management positions for two organizations that has services for the developmentally disabled and seniors.

What impressed me the most were the infant programs where the parents brought their children in for services; the early intervention helped their child advance to their potential to live a somewhat "normal" life.

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@cicerone imposter,

You see ci. You have a heart of gold underneath that severe scientific veneer.

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@spendius,

My veneer isn't scientific; it's humanitarian. That's the reason I have friends all around the world.

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@cicerone imposter,

I feel a humanitarian essay coming on.

The Humble Chicken by spendi. (I am a Chicken-Consciousnessist--it's an esoteric cult of Christianity based mainly in California).

A species is defined on a numerical basis. The most typical chicken is the one there is most of in the world. If one compares the typical chicken now to the typical chicken of 500 years ago there are some striking biological changes.

Today's typical chicken has no feathers on its neck and is evolving in the direction of having no feathers at all. In fact, as we speak, so to speak, scientists are working on having the chicken convert its nutrient intake into as much body mass suitable for human use that fiendish money-mad investors can goad them into doing. It can lay eggs faster than the average chicken of even early post Darwinian days.

Those are biological changes and I presume they are inheritable.

The point is that the biological changes are the result of the impact on the humble chicken of industrialisation and not of biological necessity.

Trees are now made to grown in such a way that the fruits can be harvested by mechanical devices. I have heard it said on a science programme, Tomorrow's World I think, that there will come a time when the bulk of organic life is designed by man. Cute little furry animals being safe from extinction. The buyer for Bird's Eye Frozen Peas tells the farmer the exact time to crop and freeze the peas by tasting them in the fields. Like a wine taster.

Where will the evolution theory be then? It will be laughed at from the position I tried to explain in my post about the moral objection to evolution. That it is both comical and contemptuous. A surrender.

Intelligent design theory will still be here because such a theory gave some men, us, the idea that nature can be designed. Would we have set about designing nature without the example? I don't think the assertion that we wouldn't is falsifiable but I am willing to consider arguments to that effect.

Nature seems to have been just "there" to most societies I have read about. They got their aspirin from willow bark and their stattins from foxgloves. Would cocoa trees have ever evolved to grow in straight lines in vast orchards without industrialisation which, as I have said, is itself contingent on our Intelligent Designer's germ idea. How can we not believe in Him and prefer instead a theory that will be as dead as the phlogiston theory is in a few hundred years? Science has to be true for all time and places and if evolution has the potential to not fulfil that condition then it isn't science and thus should not be taught in science classes.

The abject prostration before such a theory is bordering on treason to a proper scientific mind. It harks back to a time when nature was neither use nor ornament. Try a wild apple if you think that's OTT.

CLUCK! CLUCK!

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@spendius,

I'm a member of Overseas Adventure Travel/Grand Circle Travel, and when we travel with that company, they donate to charities all around the world.

Not only that, but when we travel with those two companies (sister companies), we visit schools and orphanages that receive donations from OAT/GCT. Many clients of OAT/GCT take it upon themselves to donate huge amounts or take up collections for many of those schools and charities. I like that concept, and have made modest donations of cash/supplies in some of the countries I have visited.

The one I remember is the village school we visited in Zimbabwe. We were informed that it costs only $10 a year for a student to attend their school, so I gave $20; enough to support two students for one year.

I also remember the school we visited in Karatu, Tanazania. The 500 children came out of their classroom to meet us, and when they sang to us, there was not a dry eye in our group. A lady from San Francisco who has traveled frequently to their school was in our group, and she has raised tens of thousands just for that school, and they were able to replace a badly damaged roof and other improvements.

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@cicerone imposter,

What did the 500 children sing to your group that caused them to become lachrymose?

Actually, I was being too polite earlier. Evolution theory is moribund now despite its splendid vision of an all-embracing, ever growing world and its meaning and justification contained within itself. The tasks, roles and duties of mankind do not correlate with it. It is, as I have shown, invalid morally, logically and scientifically. It is not relevant with the obvious facts of our contemporary world which schools are designed to socialise young people to cope with.

Its appeal, as I have continually stressed, is that it provides an escape from presumptuous moralities, all of them, which judge us from outside ourselves. From another world. Like a scientist judges his specimens. Evolution's proponents have to be amoral or talking out of both sides of their mouths. They are evolutionists when they want to be or are rather rare.

It is impossible to equate moral values with anything specific such as evolution theory or the direction of evolution if it has one. If it was possible then there could be no question of querying evolution. The moral circle would be complete.

So it ends up with no moral values at all because evolution has none. The individual cannot shift responsibility onto some "story of life" because he chooses to accept the story, which is a moral choice, and if he does accept it he has to accept the ethics it carries.

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@spendius,

You were not too polite; it actually made you sound human.

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@spendius,

Evolution is only one subject and ethics is another!
There are free college courses about ethics online if you are interested!

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@reasoning logic,

Will you explain what you mean by "free"? We can try to apply some reason, logic and critical analysis to your usage.

Quote:

Evolution is only one subject and ethics is another!

e-mail that to Prof. Dawkins. He obviously doesn't know.

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@spendius,

Why? If you think Dawkins need that info, why don't you send it to him?

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@spendius,

What I was meaning by free is that the professor is not asking you for a dime!

This is a very smart man and a good place to start if you have already studied some of the basics about Ethics that he shares as well!

http://www.scribd.com/doc/512288/ETHICS-A-College-Course

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@reasoning logic,

He will be asking somebody for a lot more than a dime. It won't be free. It will be a racket for professors who know the right people. That's a certainty.

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@spendius,

Please go into detail and see if you can get me or anyone else to agree that these details are a reality that are true to the subject of his info not being free.

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@reasoning logic,

You're obviously over 12 rl and if you need me to go into detail about such an obvious matter it is a bit late in the day.

There is no chance of the there being free college courses. Socrates provided such things in his day and was executed for "corrupting the youth" which is what I think you are at.

Not that I'm in favour of executing you but I would recommend a session in a quiet room with somebody who knows his arse from his left nostril.

Free!! In the USA?? Are you having us on?

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@spendius,

Is that what you think personally about Socrates, "That he corrupted the minds of the youth or do you think that he was sharing truth with them?

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@reasoning logic,

The truth is as corrupting as corruption gets you silly moo cow.

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@spendius,

Are you saying that truth is bad?

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@reasoning logic,

No. Telling somebody the time is okay or that they look really, really gorgeous.

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@spendius,

There a couple of threads on Relationships where two guys in the throes of love madness are being advised by amateur agony aunts and what not.

Now rl--get over there and put these guys in the picture from an evolutionist's perspective. I daren't.

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CREATIONISM CONTROVERSY IN BRUNSWICK COUNTY NORTH CAROLINA

Quote:

Commissioners push for creationism as curriculum
(By Kathryn Jacewicz, Brunswick Beacon, April 19, 2011)

Brunswick County Commissioners Chairman Bill Sue and commissioner Scott Phillips think creationism needs to be a part of Brunswick County Schools curriculum, taught right alongside the theory of evolution.

“Darwin started out it was a theory, and by the time he got to the sixth chapter, it was fact,” Sue said Monday at a meeting between county commissioners and school officials. “Every theory that has ever been the basis of evolution has been disproven.”

Phillips asked school officials, “What can we do to get creation taught in our schools along with the theory of evolution?”

Superintendent Edward Pruden said according to the Supreme Court, creationism cannot be taught as a part of the science curriculum in public schools. Where much confusion comes in regarding evolution is the word “theory,” he explained.

“To laypeople by ourselves, [it] sounds unproven. When scientists use it, it’s backed up by repeated observation and study,” he said, noting theories are kept open for future discoveries.

When it comes to the battle between evolution and creationism, Pruden said public schools “are caught in the middle.”

“Just about half the people believe in evolution and about half don’t,” he said. “But the entire scientific community, with very few exceptions, support the theory of evolution. And by the term theory, they mean the repeated observation by scientific method coming to the same result.”

Sue disagreed, and said the theory of evolution “is the biggest lie that’s ever been perpetrated on mankind.”

“And I know I’m not gonna convince you here, but I’m tired of my taxpayers’ dollars going to pay the price to teach our kids a lie in the schools,” he said. “And when you have a teacher who is in a position of authority standing before a class of fifth-, sixth-graders telling them they come from a monkey, it has a traumatic influence and effect on them. And I’m ready to go wherever we need to go to change that lie that’s being taught.”

Pruden said while he understood and respected the commissioners’ opinions, the decision to teach creationism as a science is not the school system’s decision.

“We can’t teach it is as religious truth in a public school classroom where everybody’s tax money—Jewish people’s tax money, Muslim people’s tax money, atheist’s tax money, agnostic, Methodist, Baptist, and all the rest,” Pruden said. “Everybody pays taxes and everybody’s children goes to the public school, and I don’t think you really want the public school teacher giving religious instruction to your children.”

Phillips said evolution and creationism need to be taught in public schools, as children who do not belong to a church community are not being exposed to both. Deanne Meadows, executive director of human resources for the school system, said an elective Bible course used to be offered, but it was cancelled due to a lack of interest.

Pruden said students are constitutionally allowed to conduct self-initiated prayer groups or clubs at school; however, school officials are not allowed to tell students who or what to pray for. He said students not being allowed to pray in school is a “myth that some people find profitable to promote but is not true.”

Sue said he understood Pruden could not allow creationism to be taught as a science, but he was going to “find somebody that can take it somewhere, because [evolution] is a lie.”

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