From Catherine Offord at The Scientist:
Arizona’s Department of Education is considering new school science standards that would replace or alter references to evolution. School officials behind the change have argued that the wording of the standards, which are available in draft form for public comment until May 28, should be adjusted to reflect uncertainty in the theory.
…
Although [state superintendent of Education Diane] Douglas has publicly expressed her support for creationism and intelligent design in the past, she emphasizes that there are no moves to include any reference to them in the new standards. “My personal belief and my professional opinion are two very different things,” she tells 3TV/CBS 5.
The draft standards have not been well received by many school officials, teachers, and parents in Arizona. “Parents like me should be concerned because our kids need to be prepared to compete in a scientifically-sound world,” Tory Roberg, director of government affairs for the Secular Coalition for Arizona, tells The Arizona Republic. “Colleges and universities use evolutionary basics and build on this in advanced science classes. We can’t give our kids a second-rate education. We must demand the best.” More.
As a matter of fact, there is considerable ferment around many areas of evolution, as anyone who reads Uncommon Descent will know. Why does Mr. Roberg think that kids will be better “prepared to compete in a scientifically-sound world” if they are encouraged to treat science as a set of dogmatic truths as opposed to its usual state – especially today? As one minor instance, just think what genome mapping has done for hallowed truths about various species? What epigenetics is doing to genetic fundamentalism? Anyone heard from junk DNA or Dollo’s Law lately?
No supporters of the changes were interviewed for the Scientist article.
Draft for public comment until May 28.
See also: Phylogenetic of plants is a mess
Epigenetics: “[n]ew ideas closely related to Lamarck’s eighteenth-century views have become central to our understanding of genetics”
and
Grand evolution theory for complex animals in ruins; fossil is, in fact, a jellyfish
“Not proven”?!?
The only proven fact about “evolution” is that it’s a nonsensical theory:
1. “Design by multiple choice” is full retard
2. “Multiple choice from ALL random answers” is full retard
3. “Designing without trying” is full retard
4. “Self design” is full retard
5. “Design by incremental optimization” is full retard
Sensitive ones should replace ‘full retard’ with ‘ridiculous’.
As far as mathematics and experimental science are concerned, both natural selection and random mutations are shown to be grossly inadequate as a explanation for ANY of the amazing integrated complexity being found in life..
Moreover, since Darwinian evolution is not based on any known law of the universe, as all other major scientific theories are based on known laws, Darwinian evolution does not even really qualify, at least for how science is usually practiced, as a testable/falsifiable scientific theory, but is more realistically classified as a unfalsifiable pseudoscience, (again, at least how science is usually practiced).
By any reasonable measure one may choose to use to determine whether a theory is scientific of not, Darwinism fails all of those reasonable measures:
Shoot, with advances in quantum biology, it is now found that Darwinian evolution, since it is based on reductive materialism, is not even on the correct theoretical foundation in order properly understand biology in the first place:
etc.. etc.. etc.. As Dr. Jonathan Wells stated the other day, (paraphrase) “Darwinism is believed to be true, not because of the evidence, but IN SPITE of the evidence.”
The Simplest Possible Falsification of the Evolution Theory – https://evofalse.wordpress.com/
“Considering” the change and “asking for public input” are grave mistakes. If you want something good to happen, you need to make it happen FAST without any warning. Fait accompli.
And you need to pre-stage the defense against the NGOs and black-robed demons who will instantly squash it. You need to have nasty lawyers and sleazy private investigators doing oppo-research on the NGOs and demons, so that you can block their actions with implied blackmail before they even start to block your action.
It is also very important to note that, in grade school textbooks, Darwinists use misleading evidence, and/or straight out deceptive evidence, to try to indoctrinate children into believing Darwinian evolution is true.
Must reading for anyone concerned about children being taught deceptive information about evolution in grade school textbooks is Jonathan Wells’s book ‘Icons Of Evolution’
Here are two articles defending Wells’s criticism against the Ten Icons of Evolution in detail here:
Dr. Wells has recently wrote a subsequent book, “Zombie Scince”, showing how Darwinists constantly recycle, or try to recycle, fraudulent evidence into grade school textbooks:
The deceptive Ape transitioning to Man Icon has recently been dealt with, in detail, by John Sanford in his new book “Contested Bones”
Not surprisingly, the indoctrination into Darwinian evolution with deceptive evidence continues after grade school. In the following interview, Dr. Cornelius Hunter discusses some of the misrepresentations and fallacies that are presented in the typical undergraduate evolutionary biology course
It is fairly easy to see why Darwinists don’t want any criticism of their theory to be taught in grade schools, and why they basically just want to indoctrinate children instead of truly educate children, the whole theory is basically a house of cards that comes tumbling down when it is scrutinized and criticized in a fair manner.
One final note, Darwinists will often falsely claim that to teach Intelligent Design in school is to teach religion in school. What they don’t mention is the fact that Darwinian evolution, since it has no real time scientific evidence supporting its sweeping claims, is itself crucially dependent on faulty Theological presuppositions. That is to say, to teach Darwinism is schools is, ironically, to teach (a false) religion to your children in public school.
It appears the NCSE is fighting this one hard. They are trying to demonize Dianne Douglas and have the local media behind them. I agree with BA that this is blatant indoctrination that has been working in the class rooms for the last 50 years.
bornagain77 at 6: You write, “One final note, Darwinists will often falsely claim that to teach Intelligent Design in school is to teach religion in school. What they don’t mention is the fact that Darwinian evolution, since it has no real time scientific evidence supporting its sweeping claims, is itself crucially dependent on faulty Theological presuppositions. That is to say, to teach Darwinism is schools is, ironically, to teach (a false) religion to your children in public school.”
If facts mattered, it would be helpful to recognize that no one is asking for intelligent design to be taught in schools. What is sought is some acknowledgment that schoolbook Darwinism is out of date due to serious disputes within the discipline about the talking points taught to kids.
Darwin-in-the-schools lobbies avoid the implications of that fact by working with media, including big science media, to portray every attempt to correct the record as a win for ID and/or religion in the schools. It’s another reason to take charter schools and vouchers seriously and to do as much private education as possible, for those who want to know what is really going on.
forexhr(3):
That’s an interesting article you linked to.
Thanks.
forexhr(3):
In the interesting webpage you pointed to, this paragraph is not very clear to me. Can you explain?
“After about 31,000 generations, in a large population of bacteria, there was a single genetic mutation in a bacterium that ended up moving the citT gene and placing it under the control of a promoter (rnk) that is active under oxic conditions.”
Thanks.
forexhr:
Never mind. You may disregard my comment #10.
Now I understand that paragraph.
Thanks.
Folks, in truth students should be taught the inherent strengths and weaknesses of reasoning by deductive and inductive logic. The compounding issue of trying to figure out an unobservable actual past of origins should be faced. My guess is, most teachers, curriculum developers and nearly all journalists know very little of logic, epistemology and phil of sci. The curriculum debates turn on assumed credibility of authorities and the evolutionary materialistic ideologues are wearing lab coats and are backed by the scientific and general establishment. They try to smear questioning as imposition of religion, when in fact this is a turnabout accusation. While enough needs to be said to address the methods question, a major fight has to be made to show the ideological agenda and its bankruptcy. That, BTW, is why they fight so hard when Lewontin’s cat out of the bag comment is cited. It is also why they so commonly resort to slandering Dr Gish and his track record of 300+:0 in public debates pivoting on the systematic gaps in the fossil record and use that to pretend that when we cite evidence and key admissions, we are lying by half truth and are setting up and knocking over strawman arguments. Their point is to dismiss rather than address inconvenient truths and concerns, backed by the media steamroller. The pop genetics issue, interwoven codes and origin of FSCO/I challenges at OOL and OO body plans up to our own issues are serious matters but we are dealing with weight of fire and who controls the media and institutional high ground. The issue has to be broadened and the evolutionary materialism self-falsification and amorality inviting nihilism have to be exposed. But it is a long slow uphill fight here. The lie that people told a more accurate and balanced story on the nature and limits of scientific methods and knowledge claims will be ill suited for a sci tech world has to be hammered hard, too. KF
PS: It is no accident that major science and scientism in society issues go untaught in school: eugenics, the impact of undermining the moral government of mind, the impact of undermining the value of life, the impact of the track record of ideologies that promoted atheism and social darwinism, the impact of undermining understanding of and respect for the Judaeo-Christian, Biblical, Theistic tradition are all suppressed. The ongoing abortion holocaust and its ties to the devaluing of life — including the impact of the notorious embryological recap notion are all suppressed.
Here is where I would start, and I would raw out the connexions:
Challenge them to honestly answer to this on substance.
PPS: And no, it is not just one idiosyncratic crank (never mind Lewontin’s actual eminence). Here is the NSTA, the US National Science Teachers Association inadvertently letting the cat out of the bag:
We may note the US National Science Teachers’ Association [NSTA] in a notorious July 2000 Board declaration:
That is what we are not being told. Demand for natural-ISTIC explanations is censoring, ideological imposition tantamount to establishment of the anti-church of atheistical materialism.
It is naive to deny that moves to remove references to evolution from science standards and curricula are being driven either by a perceived need to appease religious opponents of the theory or, more directly, by the opponents themselves.
This excerpt from this article on the azcentral.com website exemplifies the kind of attitudes that underpin opposition to evolution.
What is alarming is that this man believes that theories are not a part of science and that Christian creationism should be taught in public schools and I suspect he is far from alone in those beliefs in Arizona.
What is alarming is that science standards and curricula could be influenced by people who are so ignorant of science as to believe that theories are not central to the process and so ignorant of the constitution they claim to uphold that they believe that the government may mandate the teaching of Christian creationism in public schools.
There is a clear need to resist these changes every time there is an attempt to implement them, especially in the current political climate.
Earth to Seversky, Darwinian evolution does not qualify as a testable science but is more properly classified as a pseudoscience. See post 2
Seversky @ 15:
I find it alarming, too; and it’s the association with materialistic sophistry like “evolutionary theory” that has separated science from fact for those who smell the corpse but can’t figure out where in the stack it’s hidden.
Remove useless, counter-religious metaphysics from the curriculum, and the science proper that developing minds need will become far harder to assail (and won’t have to share learning time and effort with bad pop-sci trivia).
bornagain77 @ 16
Evolution has Lenski’s LTEE, antibiotic resistance, nylon-eating bacteria, the finches beaks and the peppered moth to name but a few but which are way more than the Paleyist presumption of ID has to offer.
See 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: The Scientific Case for Common Descent.
as to:
Really??? Your list is such a sad joke!,,, In fact, all your examples support Intelligent Design not Darwinian evolution.