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Author Topic:   Another anti-evolution bill, Missouri 2012
Taq
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Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.7


Message 12 of 283 (648154)
01-13-2012 12:47 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Trixie
01-13-2012 4:42 AM


While it's relatively easy to pick this Bill apart, it's more difficult to understand why this continues to happen after the Dover trial, after all you'd think the ID crowd would want to hide their performance in court under a bushel.
After the Dover trial the ID movement has changed their language. They want teachers to "teach the controversy" and/or "teach students about the weaknesses of evolution". They are once again pushing a false dichotomy. For them, bringing down evolution is enough.
I wonder what would happen if a science teacher did introduce ID/creationism and then proceeded to tear it apart. If I were a high school science teacher I would be very, very tempted to do just that. I would making it glaringly obvious that the controversy only exists amongst the lay public, that amongst biologists there is no debate. I could go step by step and demonstrate to the students that ID is not science and that evolution is. I could spend several weeks just on this subject.
I wonder how long I would keep my job?

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Replies to this message:
 Message 13 by NoNukes, posted 01-13-2012 1:11 PM Taq has replied
 Message 21 by marc9000, posted 01-15-2012 8:57 PM Taq has replied

  
Taq
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Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.7


Message 14 of 283 (648158)
01-13-2012 1:27 PM
Reply to: Message 13 by NoNukes
01-13-2012 1:11 PM


If your teaching did aggressively target creationism, such that it at least arguably infringed the Free Exercise Clause of the first amendment, you might well lose your job.
Then I would only attack ID which is stated to be non-religious. It would be pretty funny if a pro-ID group sued on the grounds that attacking ID infringed on free exersize.

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 Message 15 by NoNukes, posted 01-13-2012 2:03 PM Taq has replied

  
Taq
Member
Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.7


Message 16 of 283 (648176)
01-13-2012 3:27 PM
Reply to: Message 15 by NoNukes
01-13-2012 2:03 PM


It would be an inconsistent position, but there might be some room to do so if you weren't pretty careful about your attack. The truth of the matter is that ID is a thin veil over creationism.
Very true. As long as you kept any mention of the supernatural out of the discussion and only referred to a "designer" I think it would pass muster with the requirements that ID proponents are pushing.
Another thing to consider is that IDers wouldn't have to sue you to get rid of you. You might be in the position of suing the district in order to get your job back.
The real obstacle to passing these kinds of bills is that implementing them has the potential to expose the school systems to very expensive legislation. Even if a biology teacher loses a lawsuit, the teacher is not going to have to pay damages or the school district's legal fees, while the school system faces the risk of having to do both.
I agree on both accounts. I am thinking that the ACLU would be very interested in a test case if this bill does pass, and I would hope that there is a teacher with enough moxy and knowledge to do what I have suggested above. Imagine if PZ Myers was a high school science teacher in Missouri . . .
Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

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Taq
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Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.7


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Message 39 of 283 (648698)
01-17-2012 4:47 PM
Reply to: Message 21 by marc9000
01-15-2012 8:57 PM


You don’t think that ever happens now?
Frankly, no. Biology teachers are spooked enough just teaching what little evolution they do teach. They, like anyone else, do not want to risk their job.
If science/biology was clearly considered by everyone to be a far more important subject than other subjects like Math, history, government, languages etc., or if the U.S. constitution read differently, then the scientific community could make all the decisions about what is taught in science classes. But it’s not considered more important, the Constitution doesn’t give the scientific community special political rights, so therefore what is taught in science classes will continue to largely be a political matter.
The only thing the Constitution has to say with regard to public classrooms is that religious indoctrination can not be a part of the curriculum. This was spelled out in Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971) which is now called the Lemon test. It has 3 simple rules:
1. The government's action must have a secular legislative purpose;
2. The government's action must not have the primary effect of either advancing or inhibiting religion;
3. The government's action must not result in an "excessive government entanglement" with religion.
Judge after judge has found that teaching creationism and ID in the science classroom fails the Lemon test.
As to science curriculums being political, why does it need to be? Just teach the scientific consensus. Period. Why does it need to be more complicated than that?
And new bills intended to challenge atheism in science classes . . .
This is about evolution, not atheism. What next? Are we not allowed to teach meteorology because it does not include Thor in the description of how lightning is produced? Is meteorology atheistic as well?
Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

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Taq
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Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.7


(3)
Message 40 of 283 (648699)
01-17-2012 4:56 PM
Reply to: Message 28 by Dawn Bertot
01-15-2012 11:49 PM


You couldnt let the chips fall from any rational standpoint, because if you did, the design principle and the ToLO&P, would have already been established as science from any rational standpoint.
Then you had better start citing peer reviewed papers where this is demonstrated. Perhaps this cartoon will help people understand what is really going on:

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Taq
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Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.7


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Message 79 of 283 (648956)
01-19-2012 2:22 PM
Reply to: Message 42 by marc9000
01-17-2012 8:00 PM


"Anti evolution" terminology, cartoons, arrogance, condescension. The scientific community's most effective tools to win in the courts.
If you read the court transcripts from the Dover trial you will see that it was the evidence that was the most effective tool for the scientific community. The evidence was so overwhelming that even ID "luminaries" like Dembski refused to testify so that they could avoid cross examination.
Your only response to a very obvious lack of scientific production on the part of ID proponents is to accuse others of being arrogant. How sad. You have once again shown how empty the ID movement really is.

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Taq
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Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.7


(1)
Message 80 of 283 (648961)
01-19-2012 2:33 PM
Reply to: Message 57 by marc9000
01-18-2012 9:31 PM


You immediately group all ID proponents in with religious fanatics, . . .
"Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions."--The Wedge Strategy, founding document for the Discovery Institute.
Good books have been written about it by Behe and Dembski.
Good books have been written about humans fighting aliens in a struggle for galactic dominance. What we are asking for is peer reviewed scientific research papers, not books. You do understand the difference, don't you?

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Replies to this message:
 Message 94 by marc9000, posted 01-20-2012 8:47 PM Taq has replied

  
Taq
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Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.7


(3)
Message 146 of 283 (649452)
01-23-2012 1:44 PM
Reply to: Message 94 by marc9000
01-20-2012 8:47 PM


How many peer reviewed scientific research papers would it take?
Why don't we start with one and see where it goes? Mind you, I am asking for a paper that proposes ID hypotheses and then tests them. I am not asking for papers that "challenge evolution". I am hoping that you can discern between these two.
ID proponents claim that they are being discriminated against, but how can anyone discriminate against something that doesn't exist? What experiments has Behe run that directly test ID? What experiments could anyone run that would test ID?
ID proponents want to be Rosa Parks without actually stepping on the bus. Before you play the persecution card you actually have to have some ID science. At the moment, ID is nothing more than a religiously motivated political movement. It is not an active field of scientific research, nor does it hold any promise of being one.
Perhaps you could answer a very simple question. Why should we teach ID to a single student given the fact that no scientist is using ID in an active research program? What is the educational goal of teaching ID in science class? The only purpose I can find is to inappropriately inject theistic beliefs into science class.
There are a ton of experiments I could suggest that will illustrate how evolution works in the high school laboratory setting. The two classic experiments would be the Luria-Delbruck fluctuation experiment and the Lederberg plate replica experiment. You could even adjust these experiments to look for the appearance of bacteriophage resistant colonies in plaques for a much simpler experiment. In these experiments you can observe both the appearance of beneficial mutations and selection of those mutations. So what similar ID experiments can we run for ID? How do we directly test ID? What scientists have actually tested ID, and how have they used it in their research?
If the scientific community claims to have a criteria for something to become science, shouldn’t that criteria be precisely defined?
That's like finding a definition for guilt or innocence that fits each and every murder trial. Not going to happen. Each and every theory is different, so the experiments and evidence needed will differ. Percy did an excellent job of describing some of those theories in a previous post.
Why is evolution so overwhelmingly accepted amongst biologists? I think Ernst Mayr summed it up best:
quote:
By the end of the 1940s the work of the evolutionists was considered to be largely completed, as indicated by the robustness of the Evolutionary Synthesis. But in the ensuing decades, all sorts of things happened that might have had a major impact on the Darwinian paradigm. First came Avery's demonstration that nucleic acids and not proteins are the genetic material. Then in 1953, the discovery of the double helix by Watson and Crick increased the analytical capacity of the geneticists by at least an order of magnitude. Unexpectedly, however, none of these molecular findings necessitated a revision of the Darwinian paradigmnor did the even more drastic genomic revolution that has permitted the analysis of genes down to the last base pair.
Ernst Mayr, "80 Years of Watching the Evolutionary Scenery"
Just a moment...
Geneticists, paleontologists, developmental biologists, biogeographers, and other biologists worked hard to put the framework of the theory together in a way that tied together all of the observations in the field of biology together. Then came the BIG discover: DNA. This was the big test for the theory. If the theory was correct then we should observe very specific things in the DNA of different species. Those predictions turned out to be extremely accurate.
ID can not explain these observations in a scientifically meaningful manner. ID can't explain the pattern of shared homology and divergence seen in metazoans, both at the level of morphology and DNA. This is the one driving observation that ID just can not address, and it is where evolution excels. That is why evolution is taught and ID is not. ID is not science and can not explain the observations made in biology in a way that is scientifically testable and demonstrable. Evolution can.

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Replies to this message:
 Message 147 by Trixie, posted 01-23-2012 2:48 PM Taq has replied

  
Taq
Member
Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.7


Message 148 of 283 (649464)
01-23-2012 3:12 PM
Reply to: Message 147 by Trixie
01-23-2012 2:48 PM


Re: ID research papers.
Try this one for size.
Behe & Snoke (2004) Simulating evolution by gene duplication of protein features that require multiple amino acid residues Protein Sci. 2004 Oct;13(10):2651-64.
You really don't have to go further than the title of the paper. It is a research paper on evolution, not ID. The rather glaring mistakes that Behe and Snoke make in the paper only make it a bad paper on evolution.
You also did a great job of highlighting some of the problems with their conclusions. One of the criticisms I have of the paper is that it commits the Sharpshooter falacy. Behe and Snoke are calculating the odds of something occuring after it has already occurred. This is painting the target around the bullet hole. For any given beneficial two-residue conversion there are literally billions that did not occur.
Of course, nowhere in that paper is intelligent design mentioned nor is the ID model presented and tested. It is another attempt to play the false dichotomy card where the downfall of evolution means that ID is true by default.

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 Message 149 by bluegenes, posted 01-23-2012 4:16 PM Taq has replied

  
Taq
Member
Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.7


(2)
Message 150 of 283 (649480)
01-23-2012 5:19 PM
Reply to: Message 149 by bluegenes
01-23-2012 4:16 PM


Re: ID research papers and imaginary targets.
Exactly. Behe makes that mistake all the time, and the entire I.D. movement is riddled with that kind of thinking. I think that the psychological factor underlying it is their belief that things were intended to be as they are. When they talk about improbability in relation to biological features, the origin of life, and the fine tuning of the universe, it appears improbable to them that things could have arrived at the exact point that God wanted them to be "just by chance".
The only way I can think of explaining their obvious mistakes is the firm religious belief they have that we humans are the sharpshooter's ultimate target.
Besides, everyone already knows that E. coli are the supreme beings. Just look at how the universe had to be fine tuned just for them. It required a universe with specific laws that could give rise to perfectly adapted host organisms like H. sapiens. Without the specific features of the H. sapiens gastrointestinal tract the E. coli species could not exist. I think this is very obvious evidence that H. sapiens were designed just for E. coli.

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Taq
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Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.7


(1)
Message 155 of 283 (649623)
01-24-2012 4:12 PM
Reply to: Message 153 by Artemis Entreri
01-24-2012 3:52 PM


Re: SHOW ME
It is Missouri, and it is their business not ours.
Violation of an American's constitutional rights is my business as an American citizen.
maybe they don't have the time or the space to write down all the controversies, and just picked evolution due to its popularity, and how well known it is.
There is no controversy where it concerns evolution and science. The theory is accepted by >99.9% of biologists. The only place where any controversy exists is in religious circles.
I think you are being overtly suspicious, and a tad paranoid.
We are working from precedent, starting with the Scopes trial.

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 Message 153 by Artemis Entreri, posted 01-24-2012 3:52 PM Artemis Entreri has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 158 by Artemis Entreri, posted 01-24-2012 4:19 PM Taq has replied

  
Taq
Member
Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.7


(2)
Message 160 of 283 (649631)
01-24-2012 4:27 PM
Reply to: Message 156 by Artemis Entreri
01-24-2012 4:15 PM


Re: That didn't take long!
no court case was needed there was this thing called evidence ALL OVER the place, that lead people from many different fields of study to similar and even the same conclusions.
This is why >99.9% of biologists accept the theory of evolution. It is not a controversial theory. It is the foundational theory of modern biological research.
if ID had any of that one stuff what did i call it...oh yeah evidence, then we would not have a debate here.
If ID supporters were arguing from evidence instead of religious dogma then there would be no debate since they would have no argument. If ID supporters had evidence they would be publishing ID research papers. They are not. If ID supporters had evidence they could show us the research they are doing based on ID. They are not.
The debate over ID is really about a larger debate, that between secular and religious influence on society. Some people see science as a secular tool for inserting secularism into society. They see it as a threat. It doesn't take long before an ID supporter starts using phrases like "scientific materialism" or the "evils of naturalistic this-or-that". This same language is littered throughout the Wedge Strategy, the internal memo from the Discovery Institute.
IOW, the real controversy is about society's movement away from religion and towards a more secular worldview.

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Taq
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Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.7


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Message 162 of 283 (649633)
01-24-2012 4:30 PM
Reply to: Message 158 by Artemis Entreri
01-24-2012 4:19 PM


Re: SHOW ME
SHOW ME
Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971)
Lemon v. Kurtzman - Wikipedia
The more recent decision in the Dover case clearly indicated that teaching of ID in public science classrooms violates the Lemon test as spelled out in Lemon v. Kurtzman. It is a violation of the Establishment clause as found in the US Constitution. You can not use religious motivations to screw around with science education in public schools. It's a big no-no.
oh I wasn't aware that took place in Missouri?
You are aware that it took place in the United States.

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Taq
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Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.7


(1)
Message 164 of 283 (649638)
01-24-2012 4:46 PM


Other cases that are important for this discussion:
McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education (1982): Arkansas passed a bill calling for the equal treatment of evolution creation science. It was found to be unconstitutional.
"The application and content of First Amendment principles are not determined by public opinion polls or by a majority vote. Whether the proponents of Act 590 constitute the majority or the minority is quite irrelevant under a constitutional system of government. No group, no matter how large or small, may use the organs of government, of which the public schools are the most conspicuous and influential, to foist its religious beliefs on others."
McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education
Edwards v. Aguillard (1987): Louisianna law forbids the teaching of evolution unless it is accompanied by equal time for creation science. Again, this is found to be unconstitutional.
"The Louisiana Creationism Act advances a religious doctrine by requiring either the banishment of the theory of evolution from public school classrooms or the presentation of a religious viewpoint that rejects evolution in its entirety. The Act violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment because it seeks to employ the symbolic and financial support of government to achieve a religious purpose."
Edwards v. Aguillard
I could keep going, Artemis. Just tell me when to stop.

Replies to this message:
 Message 170 by Artemis Entreri, posted 01-31-2012 2:43 PM Taq has replied

  
Taq
Member
Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.7


Message 174 of 283 (650466)
01-31-2012 3:38 PM
Reply to: Message 170 by Artemis Entreri
01-31-2012 2:43 PM


Re: slow down
I asked you to show me how this bill was a violation, not bring a basket full of apples to this orange debate.
It is apples to apples.
"The Louisiana Creationism Act advances a religious doctrine by requiring either the banishment of the theory of evolution from public school classrooms or the presentation of a religious viewpoint that rejects evolution in its entirety."
Here is a section from the Missouri bill:
"Neither the state board of education, nor any public elementary or secondary school governing authority, superintendent of schools, or school system administrator, nor any public elementary or secondary school principal or administrator shall prohibit any teacher in a public school system of this state from helping students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of biological or chemical evolution whenever these subjects are taught within the course curriculum schedule."
We already know what these critiques are. They are religiously motivated arguments that seek to throw evolution out of science for sectarian purposes.
ABE: We also have this wonderful excerpt from the decision in the Dover trial:
"Although as noted Defendants have consistently asserted that the ID Policy was enacted for the secular purposes of improving science education and encouraging students to exercise critical thinking skills, the Board took none of the steps that school officials would take if these stated goals had truly been their objective. The Board consulted no scientific materials. The Board contacted no scientists or scientific organizations. The Board failed to consider the views of the District's science teachers. The Board relied solely on legal advice from two organizations with demonstrably religious, cultural, and legal missions, the Discovery Institute and the TMLC. Moreover, Defendants' asserted secular purpose of improving science education is belied by the fact that most if not all of the Board members who voted in favor of the biology curriculum change conceded that they still do not know, nor have they ever known, precisely what ID is. To assert a secular purpose against this backdrop is ludicrous."
Kitzmiller v. Dover: Decision of the Court
This is EXACTLY what is happening in Missouri.
Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

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