Kansas School Board Redefines Stupidity

"The view that living things in all the major kingdoms are modified descendants of a common ancestor (described in the pattern of a branching tree) has been challenged in recent years by (i) discrepancies in the molecular evidence, (ii) a fossil record that is not consistent with gradual increases in complexity, and (iii) studies that show that animals follow different rather than identical early stages of embryological development."

"New heritable traits may result from new combinations of genes and from random mutations or changes in the reproductive cells. Except in very rare cases, mutations that may be inherited are neutral, deleterious or fatal."

"Whether microevolution (change within a species) can be extrapolated to explain macroevolutionary changes (such as new complex organs or body plans and new biochemical systems which appear irreducibly complex) is controversial."

"The lack of adequate natural explanations for the genetic code, the sequences of genetic information necessary to specify life, the biochemical machinery needed to translate genetic information into functional biosystems, and the formation of proto-cells"

"The sudden rather than gradual emergence of organisms near the time that the Earth first became habitable"

If The Nation needs a laugingstock, it might as well be Kansas; ...

Kansas has actually been at the forefront of several important turning points in American history. Bleeding Kansas , just prior to the Civil War; women's suffrage in the 1860's , and Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education to desegregate schools are a few that come readily to mind.

In 1999, Kansas was out there almost by itself trying to open the science classroom to debate. In the few years since, several other states and local school districts have gathered the courage to address the issue and go against the downhill flow.

In separate posts, I quoted various parts of the new Kansas science standards. I am putting these quotes together to show how the "teach the controversy" tactic is being used.

(ii) a fossil record that is not consistent with gradual increases in complexity,

"The sudden rather than gradual emergence of organisms near the time that the Earth first became habitable"

Evolution's defenders are increasingly confident that Dover could mark the beginning of the end for ID as a creationist strategy. But if so, Kansas suggests what's likely to come next. Anti-evolutionists will once again evolve and will minimize what they're advocating even further. Thus in Kansas the attack on evolution is purely negative and definitional, but there is no explicit requirement to teach what everyone knows to be the desired alternative - some form of creationism.
The stripped-down Kansas approach still has its vulnerabilities; the Board of Education's negative attacks on evolution have a clear creationist lineage. But if this tactic also fails, we can only expect creationists to pare down their message still further. Eventually, perhaps, they will come up with something that does indeed withstand legal scrutiny. But it will be a shallow victory indeed, for over the long course of our national battle over Darwin, creationists have become the anti-evolutionary equivalent of Kafka's hunger artist: They have so shrunken the substance of their positive position that it has all but disappeared.

real life wrote:

Kansas has actually been at the forefront of several important turning points in American history. Bleeding Kansas , just prior to the Civil War; women's suffrage in the 1860's , and Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education to desegregate schools are a few that come readily to mind.

In 1999, Kansas was out there almost by itself trying to open the science classroom to debate. In the few years since, several other states and local school districts have gathered the courage to address the issue and go against the downhill flow.

You're trying desperately to make it sound as if ID is a valid scientific concept to debate about, which it isn't. I'm all open to having debate in science, yet that debate should be based on empirical, experimental evidence that the students find for themselves, not on something that cannot be proved or disproved with the scientific method.

"real life" keeps puking up some crap about women's suffrage in Kansas, but provides no source. Kansas gave the vote to women in 1912, and i've just found several sources to that effect. If "real life" contends differently, he needs to provide a reliable source.

The attempt to suggest that Oliver Brown's lawsuit against the Topeka Board of Education, with the support of the NAACP constitutes proof that the people of Kansas are in the forefront of social reform is typical of the warped way "real life" views the world. Were the people of Kansas at the forefront of social reform, Mr. Brown would not have needed to sue the Topeka Board of Education in order for his daughter to attend a "white" public school seven blocks from his home, rather than attending the "colored" school which was a mile away, on the other side of a railroad switchback. On the contrary, Brown versus Board of Education demonstrates that Kansas was firmly enmired in the traditional racism of the past. It is so typical of "real life" to attempt to make something mean what it patently does not mean.

When the nineteenth amendment was passed in 1920 giving women the right to vote, Kansas women had already gone to the polls. They were able to vote in school board elections beginning in 1861, in municipal elections from 1887, and in state and national elections as of 1912 eight years before women in most of the nation could vote. (emphasis added)

1777 Women lose the right to vote in New York.
1780 Women lose the right to vote in Massachusetts.
1784 Women lose the right to vote in New Hampshire.
1787 US Constitutional Convention places voting qualifications in the hands of the states. Women in all states except New Jersey lose the right to vote.
1792 Mary Wollstonecraft publishes Vindication of the Rights of Women in England.
1807 Women lose the right to vote in New Jersey, the last state to revoke the right.

1867 Fourteenth amendment passes Congress, defining citizens as "male;" this is the first use of the word male in the Constitution. Kansas campaign for black and woman suffrage: both lose. Susan B. Anthony forms Equal Rights Association, working for universal suffrage. (emphasis added)

1896 Idaho grants woman suffrage.

Far from refuting what i've written, the Kansas State Historical Society page which you've linked confirms it:

the Kansas State Historical Society wrote:

When the nineteenth amendment was passed in 1920 giving women the right to vote, Kansas women had already gone to the polls. They were able to vote in school board elections beginning in 1861, in municipal elections from 1887, and in state and national elections as of 1912 eight years before women in most of the nation could vote. (emphasis added)

But consider the following:

Quote:

1777 Women lose the right to vote in New York.
1780 Women lose the right to vote in Massachusetts.
1784 Women lose the right to vote in New Hampshire.
1787 US Constitutional Convention places voting qualifications in the hands of the states. Women in all states except New Jersey lose the right to vote.
1792 Mary Wollstonecraft publishes Vindication of the Rights of Women in England.
1807 Women lose the right to vote in New Jersey, the last state to revoke the right.

Source

It should be obvious to most people, but perhaps not to those who don't live in real life, so i'll make it clear. If these women lost the right to vote, they previously had that right. Your claim, which you have failed to support, is that Kansas is a leader in social reform.

Therefore, more to the point:

Quote:

1867 Fourteenth amendment passes Congress, defining citizens as "male;" this is the first use of the word male in the Constitution. Kansas campaign for black and woman suffrage: both lose. Susan B. Anthony forms Equal Rights Association, working for universal suffrage. (emphasis added)

And, finally:

Quote:

1896 Idaho grants woman suffrage.

The source for the last two quotes is the same as that which preceeded them.

Therefore, you have failed to support your specious claim that Kansas has been in the forefront of social change.

some Kansas elections were open to women as early as 1861