Latest Challenges to the Teaching of Evolution

I spend a lot of time curbing my pragmatism in order to be acceptable in polite company.



That depends on what "teaching evolution" means. And how it is done.



Quote me the relevant passages. You can find them in a click and know where to look. As it is you've said nothing. All you have done is left impressions. A bit slippery really. That's my impression.

Now you know how I feel when you start spouting about what the US Constitution is or is not. AT least my opinions and imprpessions are based upon scholarly reading of several key documents, including the Constitution. I fear that you are free of any such enterprises.

Never mind the blather. Give us the quotes eh? There's a good chap.

Scholarly readings are like unrelated analogies. A load of crap.

Im not doing your homework dipshit. You made the silly comments about the US Constitution. Its not my task to find the quote. Go back to the bar and continue slugging the suds

There you go again. "Silly". It's pointless fm. You don't prove my comments "silly" by declaring them to be. Where's the beef??

Of course it is your task to provide the quotes. You brought them up as "evidence".

It's laughable really. Especially on a science thread.

NB: bold added. The word is Sisyphean - and perhaps y0u should learn if before trying to impress CI with your self-proclaimed erudition

As to the passage FM was alluding to, I'm not sure, but this is the famous (to us, at any rate) Federalist 10. James Madison, 1787: http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa10.htm

As an outsider I'm amazed at the way you Americans argue about the constitution. This is an 18th Century document dealing with 18th Century realities, we are living in the 21st Century. Why are you so concerned with what a bunch of 18th Century politicians thought? Like Spendi I see the way you discuss your founding fathers with hushed reverence, like Islamic scholars discussing the Koran. The only difference is the Koran is quite a bit older than the constitution, but they're both out of date documents.

I believe the U.S. constitution was constructed in a way to allow adaptations for new realities. The provision for amendment is an obvious example of this, but also the language in the constitution is flexible throughout. Moreover. it was the only democratic constitution of its time that did not invoke God.

It was a snidey jest HS.

"May"?? "Less apt"??

It sure does look like there a rage for the abolition of debt going on.

A religious sect is a political faction.

I don't think that can have been the passage fm meant. He just used those two names to give the impression that my argument had been undermined without the botheration of showing why.

Clutching at straws actually.

we have a process of Amendment.(if you wish to consider how the "living" tissue of the US Constitution presents itself). As far as being "out of date" what would you have, a document of the week? There are a host of foundation issues of our union that are unchangeing and several others that crop up with time (like our evolved civil rights and universal suffrage). Weve got a SUpreme Court to decide some other Constitutional Issues for our time. ALl in all, its not oerfect but it seems to work pretty good.
There is , now, a rising groundswell to overturn, (by Amendment) the recent USSC decision thats been called "Citiens United". If the AMendment ever reaches term and it goes through the entire process that includes ratification by the states, then wed have a new AMendment that states counter to what the USSC has decided.
In other areas, specifically germain to this discusssion, such as the USSC's decisions on the freedom-of-religion clauses in the 1st AMendment (there are several dozen decisions in areas other than evolution), IMHO, the USSC got it right. I think that our document withstnds scrutiny and outside doubt pretty well. Unlike you (and Australia, which has a "asort of" kind of freedom of state religion, we really like and defend our secularism thats written into the Constitutuion. It works and how could you change it to make everyone happy? The Fundamentalists would want a Sharia style Law and some of the militant atheists want none. Everytime a city decides to hang a plaque with the Ten Commandments on its courthouse, the State Supremes and often the USSC get involved to render the constitutionality of the act.
Im cool with that.
SO, I think there may be a little jealousy on your behalf the way we launder our Constitutional grevances in public. Youd probably love to do that .

As far as spendi, hes never really shown us that hes even read the Constitution based upon many of his ignorant outblurts. Id asked him to see what the Federalist Papers had to say about subjects that he knew nothing of. His issue with religion and state is a more global issue in my mind in that the Federalist Papers (written as a Constitution for Dummies) explain why a "Bill of Rights" IS NOT needed. Yet, as history has shown, we developed one, not at the point of a sword like you guys, but in a more deliberate fashion . I also like that because in the Bill of Rights (and subsequent Amendments) the US Constitution has been diced, sliced and reaffirmed by decisions of the 20th and 21st century.
Im very cool with that.

I'm not jealous of your constitution at all. I'm happy with the way our system works. I do find it bizarre the way you give such reverence to a political document that is so old. From what I've seen so far your constitution seems to get in the way of actually getting things done. We can argue politics very well indeed thank you very much, and we don't need to constantly refer to the Domesday book in order to do it.

Consider izzy a population of 4 million sod busters with no running water, no electricity, muzzle loaders, illiterate, employing muscles of man and horse and having an elite team of lawyers living in refined isolation creating a beanfeast for lawyers. Anything above the standard of the primitive savage was imported from Europe. Even the language of the document.

I have read it and it is considerably shorter than the rules of the cricket club I used to belong to.

It took those elected in the west a whole year of dangerous travel in order to make one speech in Washington. The distance a voice could travel was limited to the loudness of the shout.

We have wannabee mullahs on here.

Politics is what it is, and as is the tone of this thread, most of our politicians dont understand the Constitution at all or else they wouldnt keep up this Creationism/ID front.
Laws need a foundation in their codification.That works for every ordinance in a township up to issues oif interstate commerce. We happen to have our Constitution to serve as that foundation quite well. Welearned the lessons and shortcomings from several other documents including Magna Carta. Id hate to think that we would, Like the "Moaties" in a famous science fiction book, have to reinvent our culture every two years when some issue collapses it.

You call it "out of date" I call it "Foundational".

Stendhal reported that senators and congressmen went armed into deliberations. Is that true?

What's wrong with the Ten Commandments?

I suppose it makes a good story. But they werent called Senators then. SO I wonder whether STendhal (and you) havent gotten your calendars pushed ahead about 25 years.
Carrying guns openly was and is becoming, once again, an AMerican thing.
Back then we hd bandits and bears, now we have only bandits.

http://aclj.org/us-constitution/obama-appointments-shred-constitution

What that all about?

Why not summarize, or post the relevant section as a clip.Many times links have some malware in em so I really dont feel like opening it

The thing is we can have a debate about politics without the need to bang on about the Magna Carta every five minutes. I've not met anyone outside of the USA who's response to your constitution is anything other than disinterest. There may be people inside authoritarian regimes who envy your constitution, but you're not going to find anyone over here who feels that way. Your obsession with the constitution is seen as anachronistic at best. I'm glad we didn't have such a document to get in the way of things when we set up the NHS. I've seen the problems Obama has had trying to set up Universal Health Care over there, with idiots like H2OMan quoting the constitution and appealing to the Supreme Court at every opportunity. Jealous? Not a jot.

Your opinion is yours of course. The subject of this post is just a mean to explain how creeping Fundamentalism is kept out of our public institutions. As a secular state, we dont mind taking on the "hard issues" of separation. If wed have a state religion like UK then Id expect that court decisions would be meaningless. Fortunately they are not and, though the wheel grinds slowly, we try to get it finely ground all across the country.

As Lord North said "you cant conquer a Map" so we need to be a system of laws and the laws need the foundation. If you think that our foundations are anachronistic, Howcum you have guys in big fuzzy hats standing around in building fronts and please, tell France where they are having a "creeping Sharia" party, not to worry. That wouldnt happen here, Constitution you know old boy.




When you wish to not understand something its difficult to explain otherwise. This topic of discussion is about teaching evolution IN THE US and the challenges to same. It HAS to fall back to a constitutional discussion because the lame guys like spendi dont seem to want to understand that the law is quite specific. Now dont tell me you dont get it either? WHen the state legislatures try to sneak in a creeping Christian Sharia , then they need to be stopped. How do we stop them, by making them lose in court where our CONSTITUTION is defined within the decision. No gunfire or bloodshed needed.

This topic is not "beating on Magna Carta every five minuets" its a subject that NEEDS the benefit of a document like the Constitution to draw conclusions. Please try to follow along. This discussion has been going on for several years and its mostly spendi whove missed the issue. However , with him, its been said that its pure narcissism and a need to be the center of attention. Im just one of the docents

Why would anyone here care what the attitude of the English is toward our constitution? Your "constitution," such as it is, didn't prevent Thatcher from attempting to impose a poll tax, something which, by amendment, our constitution prohibits--no ambiguity, no political tricks possible. No parts of Mr. Obama's health care plan have been found unconstitutional, and were that so, it would only be necessary to draft legislation so that the objection is removed. Using Spurt (a.k.a. H20man) for a guide to the U. S. Constitution is rather like using the Spice Girls as a guide to the English cutlural heritage.

Who cares what the world thinks? The constitution is a viable document, subject to emendation, and sufficiently flexible to be a useful framework for government more than two hundred years after it was adopted. Two hundred years ago, you would not have been eligible to vote in England.