Latest Challenges to the Teaching of Evolution

Hell, youre a Kallikak, everything else is up.

That's fm demonstrating his knowledge of eugenic research.

Seems that several colleges have now been de accredited for teaching biology at the BA and BS level. These colleges, primarily Fundamemtalist Bible Colleges still try to sneak through the Bible as science. SOmeone tell the AUstralian that his assertions that the Bible is only history is incorrect, especially among the Fundamentalist minorities. In fact, even the veracity of its history is greatly in debate by scholars.
Imagine trying to confer a degree in biology without recognizing that genetics is a key to evolution and that evolution is not even taught except as an aside to Biblical Creationism. How about comparitive Anatomy and Physiology? whats the purpose of teaching that animals are fundamentally drawn from very few templates and are mostly all derivative? Or how about ecology , The concept of niches leads to an understanding of development to fit those niches. How can you deny evolution with just a pat phrase that animals were created according to their "Kinds". Or Botany. why deby that protists came before algae and that lichens preceded gymnosperms which preceded angosperms.
Theres a lot in biology that hangs on evolutions evidence, yet heres a fuckin bunch of colleges that want to deny it.
No wonder Michelle BAchman is in overdrive

You might do better in your efforts against mixing religion and science by transposing one axis and identifying it - possibly more accurately and probably more effectively - as mixing political doctrine and science; we have 2 cases as recent evidence, genetics in Russia under Stalin and in China today.

Russian biology effectively went out of business for decades because of Stalin's support of the fraud Lysenko. Chinese genetic engineers have pulled ahead of Western ones by ignoring our restrictive laws - what can be taught, whose DNA can be tested, how, or why. John Stuart Mill foresaw the danger:

http://www.bartleby.com/130/3.html

I have no ideas about what the point was that you were getting at.My comment was for the deniers whove said that NOONE is interpreting the Bible as science. In the case of the TExas "college " and, I believe "Libertuy U", there was still some stealth accreditation that was recent;y removed for biological sciences specifically.

As far as Lysenko, he happened to be at the right place at the right time, Stalin was mortified by anything he considered bourgeios , and Darwin was at the top of the heap. However the findings of epigenetics are showing that some Lamarkian insite may not be all wrong. Epigenetics is hot again.

As far as Chinese genetics, remember that they still come here or UK or Russia for education (Ive taught seminars on mining geology at National Tsiehn Ghong U in Taiwan and was not impressed by their grad students).

What do Fundamemtalist Bible Colleges have to do with teaching evolution to schoolkids? fm is on his giant strawman again. It is that there being no Flood and no Virgin Birth is proof that it is safe to imbue young impressionable minds with the only message that can be read off evolutionary science. What a preposterous and arrogant non sequitur that is. One might do well to stagger back 300 miles on getting a blast from it.

He's just giddy with the power of the new machines, which he had no hand in inventing, to scientifically prove that the earth is older than it has been said to be, so he can go into company, after reading a copy of a print-out, hopefully not bespattered with typos, and give its constituent parties a piece of his mind in the confidence that the glow of the numinous scientific certainties will overpower their silly, little superstitious minds and they will all vote for him to be their future leader.

No wonder he ended up worming sheep in the serene, Sylvan setting of a rustic idyll. With his wife helping him. Holding the can of worming gunk while he lifts the tail, which must be mortifying for her, every time, running into the house to fetch cups of tea or iced drinks more like in that weather, and mopping his brow with a towel she has embroidered his initials into which was to make sure he didn't use her's.

How misogynistic is that?? Don't ask Joan Collins.

And a science programme is counter evolution. It can't mutate. Everything is fixed. What they do is "just another brick in the wall". It can only grow and never branch off. Who knows whether a student of the Fundamemtalist Bible Colleges won't one day be President and restore the nation to sanity. Plenty of American A2Kers have confirmed Thorstein Veblen's view on the nation's sanity.

I don't think fm knows that the "gene", as he labels it as he gladly accepted that the flagella, a harmless creature, might be labelled a mechanical pump, is a dynamic entity. The mingling of two genetic items is a conjunction in time as well as space. The moment of the mingling is a bit like winking at a lady on the up escalator during morning rush hour when going up as one might be if one was on nights. To make that comparison a bit more real let there be millions on the escalators and they are going very fast.

When the genetic result is studied it is the same. And whatever conclusions are drawn can only say what had happened at the moment of the mingling. What the result was. Thanks to the microscope engineers who never get any bloody credit because all the ones who just read it off want all the credit for themselves and take up all the room with their ignorant blather about genes which is a concept reduced to a state which they can get their heads around despite that being an illusion. Like they got their heads around flagella.

And they can't see the importance of the general mental state of a population to which they are going to hand their results over to.

After a passage quoting the Marquis de Sade's view of capital punishment his biographer, Maurice Lever, says-



And the great man was risking his life in doing so.

I hope the sotmeister got it off his chest.ter all, he sets the standard for the production and application of liquid manure here at A2K. He will have an opinion about just about anything, whether he knows anything about it or not.

Also, remember HS, the schools were DE_ACCREDITED, which means that somehow, they slipped it in and had been accredited for some pweriod of time.

Another meaningless post in a never ending series of them.

Well at least you're being honest. Admitting you've got a problem is the first step.

Living in southern USA has its challenges. We seem to be behind the rest of the world when it comes to being open minded!

I did not know tell recently that most Christians around the world say that evolution is a fact.

I have asked many Christians near to where I live to see what they think and the replies that I get is, "evolution is not a fact and if people believe that nonsense then they are not true Christians. One person said that he does not get into conversations like that.
I thought to myself, "that is one way to have blind faith. "Don't even consider anything other than you own understanding!


Evolution Is A Lie

Not as big a lie as the film version of the Scopes Monkey trial.

Which is quite sensible with this particular subject. There actually are, as the Texas senator wande quoted said, "controversial issues".

The regular pro-evolutionists on these threads self-evidently don't know what they are and naturally conclude that the senator was talking out of his arse. I know what they are of course. And they are controversial.

Just hinting about them gets me put on Ignore. Which means, obviously, that they don't "get into conversations like that". Which you translate, correctly into "not even considering anything other than their own understanding". Many have departed.

And if you allow yourself to get into having a private conversation with yourself and considering things other than your own understandings it will soon become very apparent that there are plainly arguments, and of a scientific nature, which are strong enough to set aside this one special area of science for careful scrutiny and that those who seek to do so are not ID-iots or IDjits or bullshitters at all. Such assertions, signifiers of complete self-validating stupidity, rest on there not being any controversial issues which is in turn a signifier of hung-up, lower-middle-class, tweeting puritanism. I'm assuming they are genuine, and really meant, and not cynical exploitations of the hung-up, lower-middle-class, tweeting puritan voter.

That teaching is not learning is only a minor controversial issue. Such an issue has been exercising the minds of intellectuals for a very long time. It has been seen recently in the Florida case. When teachers "help" students with their examinations it's a business proposition and it is a bad mistake when they hand you a diploma to imagine you are an expert in whatever 'ology you majored in and, as such, qualified to instruct everybody not only in the 'ology but in any other matter that comes up.

As has the notion that 308 million people with open minds might be too much of a problem for any political system yet invented.

But we can tell from the tenor of your post rl that you have an open mind, that you get into conversations of any nature and consider things even if they are beyond your understanding.

So congratulations are in order to add to those you have winged your own way in that fatuous post which I feel sure you enjoyed composing as it sets you above the common herd.

Spendius you should know by now that I am not an expert in this field but it is not hard to recognize that most people in this world speak about things they have only studied in a bias way.

Why do you think that most people have you on ignore? don't get me wrong because I do think you are crazy about many things you say but welcome to the club!

The point was a tactical one - how to get better results for the identical strategic effort you and so many other scientists are engaged in. It's easier to recast the discussion in terms of science v. political doctrine than science v. religion - most people don't get such an automatic defense up for political doctrines!

The mind of the idiot you're addressing is more open that a sieve - that much is certain; that he "considers things even if they are beyond (his) understanding" is equally certain, since nothing posted in any language beyond his native Tamil (if that - sadly I know no Tamil) can possibly be understood by him. I wouldn't bother posting this note were it not that the idiot in question has caused significant mental distress to a veteran afflicted by schizophrenia aggravated by terrible experiences during long engagements in Middle Eastern war theaters, that the idiot was warned to stay off those threads, and that he has steadfastedly refused to do so, with no good reason given or, indeed, available. I have the utmost contempt for him, and not only am I keeping him on perpetual ignore, I also wish on him the worst curses of the elephant god, only god he believes in. Well, that was clear enough, I hope, let's see if it works

Evolution is true, 'cause it's got a great beat and you can dance to it:

Peter Is not mentally distressed by the encouragements that I have given him. I gave him the advice to only trust professionals within the field of expertise that he is seeking help in. That means people like me or High Seas should be taken with a grain of salt and not believed to be absolute!


I also asked Peter if he would reply to this post of yours but I do not know if he will because he may have his own reasons not to.

Peter is a very smart man and I would think that if he thought that I caused significant mental distress he would not follow me.

You do seem to be very emotional toward me is it a belief issue?

Here is Peters thread if anyone would like to decide for themselves if High Seas is being intellectually honest!

http://able2know.org/topic/166104-15#post-4650206

I would be very careful believing anything I read from high seas!

How so? Invoking The political doctrine is just what they would want, that would put it right in the realms of where the spendis want it, as a democratic issue. As it stands , the Constitution provides protection of and FROM religion. SO bringing the discussion down to that level, merely makes it a popularity contest and , guaranteed, the Bible thumpwers are well schooled in the arts of rhetoric and stage presence.

You dont think that RAlph Reed was chosen for his position because he made so many cogent arguments do you?