Reading this story just in from Texas:
“We don’t want to send our children into the information and technology age with a science education from the dark ages,” said Kathy Miller, president of the Texas Freedom Network, a progressive watchdog group.
Nearby, Mark Cadwallader, a 56-year-old chemical engineer from The Woodlands who testified against the proposed books, shook his head, saying: “The old evidence that used to be held up as proof of evolution, the ape man for instance, has been debunked.”
my immediate reaction was, why not just ban discussion of “evolution” in textbooks?
Imagine. What if all theories about changes in life forms over time advanced in textbooks had to go by content-based names like genetic drift, horizontal gene transfer, symbiosis, and natural selection? The explanations would have to make way more sense, thus be open to evidence-based objections in given cases. Presumably, that is what nobody wants.
Because the fact is, one can demonstrate some forms of evolution, but not typically via Darwinian natural selection. So neither the people who doubt that any evolution ever happens nor Darwin’s followers will be satisfied.
Texas Freedom Network? A trip through the files turns up this encomium to rationality, provided by the group. Hope those picket signs don’t self-combust in a public place.
The ape man? If Cadwallader means Neanderthal man, we all better read the latest gen. Or does he mean someone else? Who? Or what?
See what I mean about specifics? Specific objections require specific responses. But then, it’s quite likely that Darwin’s followers are not interested in anything like that just now, as real findings about evolution are moving on without them and their picket signs.
– O’Leary for News