Latest Challenges to the Teaching of Evolution

@cicerone imposter,

Quote:

Nobody can make something plausible from a nothing like ID or gods.

Just you watch ci. The Cambridge Platonists did. But I don't suppose for a minute that you understood that post.

Being well off makes religion all the more attractive. The emptiness of materialism looms larger to people who don't have to struggle to survive. They have so much more time to think that old late night bar cliche--"what's it all about?"

Your answer is "about 80 years".

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@Lightwizard,

Hell has been phased out LW. You need a time machine to bring that up for discussion. Bosch and Joyce laughed the idea off the agenda.

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@cicerone imposter,

This is hilarious.

I write a post and in order to give it some spice I employ a couple of witticisms, not particulary good examples I'm the first to agree, and it is to those, rather than the real content of the post, that the responses are directed.

ci responded-

Quote:

Shoes has absolutely nothing to do with creationism/ID. You should try fitting one on your head.

and LW followed up that gem with one of his own: namely-

Quote:

China shops that handle crockery and try to sell it as porcelain should have a shoe kicking them in the butt before taking on the IDer's crock(ery) of baloney.

This phenomena exposes to view the mature American anti-IDer's mindset which I assume I am not alone in finding highly amusing if somewhat disconcerting bearing in mind that they are entitled to a vote.

Wit, which is what the big feet and china shop allusions were attempting, however crassly, consists of combining together, with vivacity and ingenuity, any ideas that appear to have an affinity with each other and thereby making up what John Locke, the father of the American Revolution, called "pleasant pictures and agreeable visions in the fancy". It is employed generally to try to amuse one's companions and often passes by the average po-faced gump. The energy source of the laughter.

The vivacity of the choices is evident in that both ci. and LW have been distracted from the main point of the post enough to have exercised themselves to offer their esteemed thoughts about them in their usual flat-ribbed, train station announcer, respective styles. I can't claim much ingenuity for them but I plead that I was writing about something else at the time and I didn't give my choices a great deal of thought.

But an atheist continually offering proof that he is an atheist for four years non-stop without amelioration does have an affinity with a bloke with big feet telling you for four years that he takes large sizes in shoes.

And a bull in a china shop does also have an affinity with anyone seeking to tear down existing structures without reference to the consequences.

So I am content to have passed the affinity and vivacity tests if not the ingenuity one. It is impertinent to attempt to improve on the folk-lore choices. But I ought to be given some credit for trying to produce the "pleasant pictures and agreeable visions in the fancy" Mr Locke spoke of.

If I failed to acheive that for any readers here, and it is a compliment to my readers to have tried to both enlighten them and amuse them at the same time, I assume it is because they are humourless, mumpish, dumpish, long in the face, woebegone wet blankets who should never be invited to social functions in case they cast a pall of gloom over the proceedings and in the event of them bothering one in the pub they should be told to **** off.

Inviting them to set the tone in the classrooms for 50 million kids really ought to be banned under about three or four dozen acts and other legislative instruments.

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@spendius,

Not by the American fundamentalist like the Baptists -- hell is alive and well. Well, not so well. Nor, for that matter, the devout Catholics I know who still believe it's a "place," despite the mid 90's reassignment of hell -- it's no longer a physical place but a state of mind in the modern Catholic church. This should have made Mel Gibson either give up drinking or drinking more. We all know where that ended up. Just as an aside, I've been to Duke's in Malibu when I had some lighting projects in Malibu Cove and saw Mel in person enebriated way past the point of driving anywhere. This was before he made "The Smashin' of the Christ."

From a 1999 NYC article regarding these changes and the Protestant's extended viewpoint:

While the catechism says that Jesus spoke of hell as an ''unquenchable fire,'' it says hell's primary punishment is ''eternal separation from God,'' which results from an individual's conscious decision.

''To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God's merciful love means remaining separated from him forever by our own free choice,'' the catechism says.

Who has died in that state? The catechism says nothing of hell's population. That is because, as La Civilta Cattolica stated in its editorial, the church ''has never truly declared that a person -- not even Judas -- has damned himself.'' (By contrast, the church has declared thousands of people to be saints and therefore in heaven.)

The statements about hell this summer brought dissent from evangelical Protestants, who have a long tradition of biblical literalism.

In August (1999) the Rev. R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., wrote a response distributed by Religion News Service. In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus said sinners are cast into a fiery hell, Mr. Mohler noted. ''Evidently, hell is a punishment imposed by God, and the dire warnings in Scripture to respond to Christ in faith -- while there is time -- make sense only if hell is a very real place of very real torment,'' he wrote.

End of quote.

More crockery disguised as porcelain, even more in your yadda, yadda, yadda last post -- you'd make a good used car salesman.

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@Lightwizard,

It seems god forgot about all those who lives on earth have already experienced "hell" first hand, and he wants to make them believe there's a place called heaven that will balance out the hell they've already lived.

Many will find "peace" when they die.

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@cicerone imposter,

Right and the Bush Administration managed to turn what they envisioned as a hell in Iraq to another form of hell and one that can't possibly be maintained. There are, of course, levels of hell on Earth. There's just not very many levels of Heaven on Earth if there are any at all -- perhaps in a brief time in a particular space it exists. We're all mostly in between and religion is a way to grasp at this entirely abstract existence. It just cannot quite make it and that happens to be zillions of miles and eons away. I think humankind will eventually figure out an imperfect utopia, but if we can make a perfect diamond in a machine as we have done, there's hope for our species yet. I was watching the Blu-Ray remastered edition of "2001: A Space Odyssey" last night and Arthur C. Clarke as far as looking at the Universe through a scientific eye has successfully made science more inspirational than anything in the Bible, visually with the help of Stanley Kubrick RIP.

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I've revisited my last post after a spread on the sofa watching the Test Match in Barbados and I have to say that I'm rather poud of it. It really is quite good considering it was straight off the bat.

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@spendius,

It was florid enough to cover a float in this year's Rose Parade.

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@Lightwizard,

Florid it wasn't. It was as incisive as a surgeon's scapel. Not one wasted word.

I recommend it with confidence to any young person reading here as a model from which he or she might derive any number of valuable lessons.

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@spendius,

Ok, so god made all things.

Where to from there? Religious subjugation of Mathmatics, Gematria anyone?

Meanwhile, in reality:
ID is an attack by creationists against what they perceive to be a threat to the way they want everyone to perceive the world, and because their ideas are so dubious, it is no surprise that people disagree with their views. Of course the perceived threat is overblown to the point of lunacy. Your call to young people is indicative of creation sciences' drive to indoctrinate younger people as they are prone to the mental abuses of religious ideas (including their fallacies), no matter how schismatic to a supposedly free thinking society. Evolution is a theory, not a sociological ideal, and anyone who sees it as more than a scientific theory has a religious agenda and contrarily, something against science, not because the science is wrong or right (though they will attempt to make you believe that wrong or right actually matters, but only within the social confines of the adherents to there specific* religious belief), just because it IS science.

That's what I call, Mountains out of Mole hills.

* I say specific because their are literally hundreds of religious beliefs spread across the globe, who's to say that anyone of them are any more or less based on reality, when all they really do is deduce conclusions on no evidential basis, which should have nothing to do with academia on any level.

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@spendius,

A dull surgeon's scapel, er, scalpel, and words wasted like fertilizer strewn onto a rock garden.

As far as playing with self-criticism and giving yourself an A, you might start with hiring an editor. On second thought, they'd go mad.

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@Xenoche,

Well stated and I might add again, the IDer's do not understand what comprises a scientific theory. It's not a postulation nor speculation once there are overwhelming facts to support the concept. It is a concrete theory. The IDer's not only come up with the half-assed concept that some inter-galactic designer just dropped all the species on Earth in a more primitive state (in some cases) and that's when the mechanism of evolution took over. In other words, natural selection was not natural before they say so. The don't want anyone to see Darwin's tree, just the cut off branches that never came from any trunk. As new evidence provides with the discovery of genetic drift, they also ignore the latest facts about Darwin's theory -- that the tree branches have webs between them interlocking species as they evolved.

The IDiots have abstracted the whole picture into a book aimed at adults, but reading and looking like a six-year-old's Dick and Jane drama.

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@Lightwizard,

Quote:

A dull surgeon's scapel, er, scalpel, and words wasted like fertilizer strewn onto a rock garden.

It is considered the very naffest of bad taste to draw attention to typos as if doing so in some mysterious way gives the pedantic prick who resorts to such low strategies the upper hand.

I do so agree about the rock garden though. A very apt metaphor.

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@spendius,

Quote:

It is considered the very naffest of bad taste to draw attention to typos as if doing so in some mysterious way gives the pedantic prick who resorts to such low strategies the upper hand.

Good on ya, Spendi.

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@Lightwizard,

Quote:

As far as playing with self-criticism and giving yourself an A, you might start with hiring an editor. On second thought, they'd go mad.

Actually LW, there is no need for second thoughts in written prose. One can easily edit out the rubbish first thoughts. In conversation it is understandable but never in a medium such as this is.

And editors need no help from me to go mad.

Perhaps you will edit the piece under consideration, which I consider a AA, and justify any alterations you make.

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@spendius,

It is considered the very naffest of bad taste to draw attention to posters who expose your typos, as if doing so in some mysterious way gives the pedantic prick who resorts to such low strategies the upper hand.

It is considered the very naffest of bad taste to draw attention to a poster who draws attention to another poster that exposes your typos, as if doing so in some mysterious way gives the pedantic prick who resorts to such low strategies the upper hand.

It is considered the very naffest of bad taste to draw attention to a poster who draws attention to another poster that draws attention to another poster that exposes your typos, as if doing so in some mysterious way gives the pedantic prick who resorts to such low strategies the upper hand...

TO INFINITY AND BEYOND!

Sorry for that minor brain fart.
There's my contribution to the rock garden.

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Quote:

Remembering Jindal as a good student in his genetics class, Prof Arthur Landy (Brown U )hoped that the governor would recall the scientific importance of evolution to biology and medicine. Joining Landy in his opposition to the bill were the American Institute of Biological Sciences, which warned that “Louisiana will undoubtedly be thrust into the national spotlight as a state that pursues politics over science and education,” and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which told Jindal that the law would “unleash an assault against scientific integrity.” Earlier, the National Association of Biology Teachers had urged the legislature to defeat the bill, pleading “that the state of Louisiana not allow its science curriculum to be weakened by encouraging the utilization of supplemental materials produced for the sole purpose of confusing students about the nature of science.”

But all these protests were of no avail. On June 26, 2008, the governor’s office announced that Jindal had signed the Louisiana Science Education Act into law. Why all the fuss? On its face, the law looks innocuous: it directs the state board of education to “allow and assist teachers, principals, and other school administrators to create and foster an environment within public elementary and secondary schools that promotes critical thinking skills, logical analysis, and open and objective discussion of scientific theories being studied,” which includes providing “support and guidance for teachers regarding effective ways to help students understand, analyze, critique, and objectively review scientific theories being studied.” What’s not to like? Aren’t critical thinking, logical analysis, and open and objective discussion exactly what science education aims to accomplish.
As always ,in the contentious history of evolution education in the U.S., the devil is in the details. The Louisiana law explicitly targets evolution, which is unsurprising"for lurking in the background of the law is creationism, the rejection of a scientific explanation of the history of life in favor of a supernatural account involving a personal creator. Indeed, to mutate Dobzhansky’s dictum, nothing about the Louisiana law makes sense except in the light of creationism

From Scientific Americans recent (Aug 2008)issue devoted to the subject of evolution.

1 Reply

@farmerman,

I don't know whether Mr Jindal will bother offering a response to that article in the interest of effective ways to help us all understand, analyze, critique, and objectively review scientific theories being studied but if he does at some future point we will have to hope effemm will bring it to this thread.

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@spendius,

HEs already outdone himself by making up some damn fake story about how he (Jindal) was at the side of some parish sherrif during Katrina. ALL made up Im afraid. This being the future of the GOP, youd think they would demand some accuracy and honesty from their rising stars .

As far as my post, its been the only post for about the last 6 pages that has been on topic.

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@spendius,

Let's see if Mr. Jindal can answer Scientific American with more aplomb than he answers Presidential addresses. Look, the Republicans can come up with racially diverse members who stumble over their own tongue! They also seem to be wanting in writing speeches or hire some conservative boob to do it for them.

The bill is still somewhat toothless as it doesn't make it a mandate on teachers that they will have to teach evolution outside of scientific fact in a lesson plan. But it has still put Louisiana under water again as any testing of the law beyond its parameters will eventually end up in the courts.

I don't believe that was a typo as I've seen too many misspellings of the atypical variety to forbid a grade with self-congratulatory A's. Grammar and spelling are not entirely protected from criticism when it's aimed at someone on a self-erected pedestal (as far as a prick, you're standing on your own except to be heard it should be more than 3" high).

1 Reply

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