The state Board of Education approved science standards for public schools Tuesday that cast doubt on the theory of evolution.

What a wonderful example of projecting your prejudices and shortcomings onto other people and groups.

I can just see the new roadsigns at the borders:

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9/11 created a bad atmosphere for science. Things will turn around. Evolution is true and factual, backed by a fossil record with amazingly few gaps.

JIM COLYER http://www.jimcolyer.com

There is a question that pops up out of all of this.

Intelligent design is presented as a ligitimate scientific theory and an alternative to Darwinism, but a close look at the arguments show they dont pass scientific muster. So why are scientist worried? Some answers here:


http://www.livescience.com/othernews...D_science.html

I hope things will turn around... I have the fear that since there has been one win they are going to steamroller the rest.

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Scientists are worried because funding, legislation and the education of the next generation are in the hands of non-scientists. The results: an ignorant society, a return to hard core religion and the US as a second rate power will affect you whether you learned about evolution or had a 45 minute study period.

It is, IMHO a legitamite concern. The US is (fundamentally - pun intended) a religious country. Five hundred years from now it might be the 1960s that were the abberation and not the rule.

John

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http://threelittleboxes.com

If we had nothing to worry about this wouldn't have come this far. The fact is the general populace can be quite ignorant. The reason we need to teach and re-teach the same basic priniples of science to start class in every year from ~grade 7 up through first year college chemistry and biology, is because scientific theory and arguments can be hard for non-scientifically minded to understand. Putting the onus on the IDers to prove they are scientific hasn't worked yet, pointing out that there's no science in the idea hasn't worked either. In some ways it will be up to the scientific community to get scared, stay scared and speak out to keep this from going further.

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The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.
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hey Hugh...

I'd like to take the liberty of qualifying the word "ignorant". i presume you mean "uninformed" rather than "unintelligent". I only bring this up because colloquially, I've seen it used in both places.

But I agree - it's amazing that we have to go through the basics of science time after time after time and yet by the time they have a BA in whatever most people still don't get it. however, i feel that part of the problem (at least) falls on the educational system and the advantage that coorporate america derives from a clueless public. After all, these are the same people who can keep up with the minutiae of hollywood, the statistics of 700+ MLB players, every conspiracy theorey and the correct pronunciation and syntax of Imperial Klingoneese. We're not talking idiots here, just misguided people.

And part of the blame needs to fall squarely in science's lap for its presentation of the sciences as something impossibly hard instead of something we can all understand. It's not rocket science (except when it is).

John

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"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel."

--Ambrose Bierce

http://threelittleboxes.com

I just blogged about this.

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Phil Plait
The Bad Astronomer
http://www.badastronomy.com
badastro@badastronomy.com

Great word - minutiae

Minutiae refers to any small or otherwise incidental detail. (Wikipedia)

For those of us not so learned.

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This is nothing less than an attack upon us all by the American Taliban.

It is a Newton thing: Once an ignorance is in place, it remains in place unless acted upon by an external education.

Anyone who hasn't heard about the nylonase enzyme should really take a look at this link, the last bit is quite illuminating.

Ignorance is bliss, and there is no more blissfull place than Kansas.


Ahhh ahhh Kansas, Kansas! (past state promotional add, if you lived here, you'd know.)

The Dover school board ID crowd is gone at least. All of them were defeated in yesterday's elections.

Dave Mitsky

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Ironically, a major Vatican representative says "the Genesis description of how God created the universe and Darwin's theory of evolution were "perfectly compatible".

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You'll all have to forgive me that I lay the blame for this travesty squarely at the feet of religion itself. The ongoing, persistant belief in supreme, transcendental or otherworldly influences on the world around us, Christian, Muslim, or whatever, is the very cancer that allows this kind of symptom to continue coming back. Intelligent Design and Creationism are the sores on the body of a humanity inflicted with religious herpes. You keep healing the wounds, but the disease persists, and cannot truly be cured.

I'm sorry, but I willingly say this knowing I'm going to offend, but you won't be rid of this kind of backwards and barbaric thinking until you purge humanity of its neolithic spiritual baggage.

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The last time I felt a warm fuzzy feeling, I was informed by my doctor that it was just gas.

This is an issue and now a decision that disturbs a great number of us here at BAUT. Since we are taking the time to express our feelings here on the board, we should also *each* take some time soon to compose and send a letter to the Kansas board of education. I'm sure they are already getting many letters, but they need to get more. Please think about sending a letter, and asking your friends to do so too. I'll be taking some time to do so myself today.

Jim, just out of curiosity, why do you think there is a connection with 9/11? In my opinion, this started way before then and I have not noticed any change in the public attitude to science, either for better or worse.

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One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009
All moderation in purple

Swift, I'd actually tend to agree with Jim Colyer's assessment. I agree that the anti-science crowd have always been there, but until 9/11, they were relatively powerless.

Since 9/11, they've opportunistically wrapped themselves in the US flag. "Not a patriot" was a very hard accusation to politically counter. Thankfully, folks are starting to see this accusation for the bovine waste matter it is.

But make no mistake, science has lost ground since 9/11.

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With smiling [faces] lyin' to ye' everywhere ye' go
Turn to, and put out all your strength of arm and heart and brain
And like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again.

This Kansas school board "redefined science?" This seems like a pretty incredible step to take, given their lack of any connection to the scientific community. Defining scientific terms seems to me to be a pretty exacting science in itself. However, I'd guess that if they think evolution is iffy since it's "only a theory," they might not understand what the term "science" means either.

My bold...
Might? MIGHT? I don't think there is any question about it.

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009
All moderation in purple

I posted this over in the ATM discussion about creation versus evolution.

The CNN.com QuickVote poll this morning is
As of 8:51 EST, the vote was Yes: 29% (23391 votes), No: 71% (56347 votes).

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One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009
All moderation in purple

I thought the sarcasm was appropriate here.

Call it a blasé attitude, but in the long term I’m not too worried (somewhat yes, don't get me wrong). I see it as circular, kind of like fashion; or more like a pendulum. Right now it’s swinging over to the conservative side of the line. The big question for me is: is it a sine wave that’ll continue to swing equally to each side, or is there a dampening force acting upon it so that each swing from conservative to liberal and back is less pronounced and we eventually end up in the middle?

Of course the question then is, is that middle acceptable to both sides? If so, maybe we’ll end up with a fairly even society. If not, then the pendulum will likely continue to swing forever or until something breaks.

As one reporter said this morning, in 1999 Kansas tried this, the voters booted them out the following election, installed a more moderate board, and the decisions were reversed. Let’s see what happens next year. That’ll give a good feel for how the Kansasans… (Kansasians?) really feel about it.

A few weeks ago I saw a poll with the opposite results. If I weren't such a pessimist I'd start to wonder if all the recent publicity about Kansas and Dover has started to worry the average American a bit about the corruption of the scientific method by local school boards.
But I am a pessimist, so it's probably not happening.

I fail to see how ID explains anything. The designer must obviously be very complex if he/she/it is to design all the complexity of life, so where did the complexity of the designer come from? Did the designer evolve? Was the designer designed by a super-designer? Is it designers all the way up? Any suggestions?

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Do you remember who did that poll? My impression from other polls is that the readers of CNN.com tend to be more liberal, and so may not reflect a meaningful average for all of the US. Doesn't stop me from being happy with the result, I just know to take it with a grain of salt.

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009
All moderation in purple

Not offhand, but I'll try to find it.
O.K. I think the poll I remember is the one discussed here. Although now that I look at it, that poll apparently didn't address the teaching of ID in schools, only the beliefs of the respondents. I should note that the website I've linked appears to be associated with some religious group.

Ah yes, the infamous CNN QuickVote poll. Vote early, vote often.

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The last time I felt a warm fuzzy feeling, I was informed by my doctor that it was just gas.

You're not wrong. "It's turtles all the way down".

No suggestions to offer, though. The house of cards that is ID collapes if you look at it funny. Or if you look at it at all.

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And you, to whom adversity has dealt the final blow
With smiling [faces] lyin' to ye' everywhere ye' go
Turn to, and put out all your strength of arm and heart and brain
And like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again.

A recent thread discussed a poll of attitudes towards evolution and creationism in school curricula. Here it is.

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