Anti-Science School Boards in Florida

Axcess

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Well - firstly we are not evolved from primates, we are primates. We are evolved from a proto-primate species - have a common ancestory with the apes, monkeys and lemurs (and other 'homo' species who have (it appears) become extinct).

I don't see how this is contradictory with the idea of one branch of the family having a soul and the others not. I mean we are straying wildly off topic here - we'd have to start discussing what a soul is - Is it part of the physical? Is it purely spiritual? A combination? Was a step on the ladder of human evolution the development of a soul? And there are many who argue against the existence of a soul at all.
Ok let's talk of the soul like many religions stated it . As inmortal energy that survived our deaths. Why we should have souls and not gorrillas , chimpanzees and all others animals of our evolutionary family ? The soul topic isn't off topic . That humans have souls and that humans aren't animals is a very important idea to fundamentalist christians. Evolution contradicts that ideas and they don't like that. That's the reason of their opposition to teach evolution in schools.
 

ManlyBanisters

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Ok let's talk of the soul like many religions stated it . As inmortal energy that survived our deaths. Why we should have souls and not gorrillas , chimpanzees and all others animals of our evolutionary family ? The soul topic isn't off topic . That humans have souls and that humans aren't animals is a very important idea to fundamentalist christians. Evolution contradicts that ideas and they don't like that. That's is the reason of their opposition to teach evolution in schools.

It is not the same argument at all. Please refer back to the very succinct post JA made about evolution as a scientific theory and as a fact. We can see evolution - the evolutionary process is tangible. It is completely insane to ignore that when teaching biology (or at least zoology at any rate) to children (or adults for that matter).

The soul is not tangible - certainly not in the same way - and any discussion of it in relation to evolution is going to be completely theoretical and almost certainly theological.

And it is not just fundamentalists who look on the soul as an important difference - many mainstream religions / churches who accept evolution see it that way too (which is why I brought it up in the first place).
 

Axcess

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It is not the same argument at all. Please refer back to the very succinct post JA made about evolution as a scientific theory and as a fact. We can see evolution - the evolutionary process is tangible. It is completely insane to ignore that when teaching biology (or at least zoology at any rate) to children (or adults for that matter).

The soul is not tangible - certainly not in the same way - and any discussion of it in relation to evolution is going to be completely theoretical and almost certainly theological.

And it is not just fundamentalists who look on the soul as an important difference - many mainstream religions / churches who accept evolution see it that way too (which is why I brought it up in the first place).
JustAsking is a bright Christian . He accepts evolution as a fact and he thinks that is very ignorant and stupid to not teach that in shools but my point was explaining the reason behind fundamentalist christians that want to ban the evolution teaching in schools . They have some theological reasons for that.
 

ManlyBanisters

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JustAsking is a bright Christian . He accepts evolution as a fact and he thinks that is very ignorant and stupid to not teach that in shools but my point was explaining the reason behind fundamentalist christians that want to ban the evolution teaching in schools . The have some theological reasons for that.

Yes - but not to do with the soul or animal human differences. They believe in 'Creationism' - pretty much that God pulled us out of his 'hat' intact. They fanny around with 'Intelligent Design' - sorry to cut a paste from Wiki - but it's so easy:

Intelligent design is presented as an alternative to natural explanations for the origin and diversity of life. It stands in opposition to conventional biological science, which relies on the scientific method to explain life through observable processes such as mutation and natural selection. The stated purpose of intelligent design is to investigate whether or not existing empirical evidence implies that life on Earth must have been designed by an intelligent agent or agents. William A. Dembski, one of intelligent design's leading proponents, has said that the fundamental claim of intelligent design is that "there are natural systems that cannot be adequately explained in terms of undirected natural forces and that exhibit features which in any other circumstance we would attribute to intelligence."

That's the (as you refer to them) fundamentalists' way of getting around a supreme court ruling that Creationism (Adam and Eve / Genesis) can not be taught as fact because of the separation of Church and State.

Their 'theological' reasons for rejecting a curriculum with evolution on it is simply that they believe evolution undermines their beliefs. Which it does. They need to chill the fuck out on the whole fundamentalist 'Bible is to be taken literally' stance, IMO.
 

JustAsking

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JustAsking is a bright Christian . He accepts evolution as a fact and he thinks that is very ignorant and stupid to not teach that in shools but my point was explaining the reason behind fundamentalist christians that want to ban the evolution teaching in schools . They have some theological reasons for that.
David,
I am fully aware of the reason why fundamentalists have a problem with ToE. But as a very devout believing Christian, I also believe in all kind of irrational things about the Resurrection of Christ, and many other things that would contradict modern science. This is nothing new to religion and in fact one of the first RCC Doctors of The Church, St Augustine wrote about this some 1600 years ago in his On The Literal Meaning of Genesis treatise:


“It not infrequently happens that something about the earth, about the sky, about other elements of this world, about the motion and rotation or even the magnitude and distances of the stars, about definite eclipses of the sun and moon, about the passage of years and seasons, about the nature of animals, of fruits, of stones, and of other such things, may be known with the greatest certainty by reasoning or by experience, even by one who is not a Christian. It is too disgraceful and ruinous, though, and greatly to be avoided, that he [the non-Christian] should hear a Christian speaking so idiotically on these matters, and as if in accord with Christian writings, that he might say that he could scarcely keep from laughing when he saw how totally in error they are. In view of this and in keeping it in mind constantly while dealing with the book of Genesis, I have, insofar as I was able, explained in detail and set forth for consideration the meanings of obscure passages, taking care not to affirm rashly some one meaning to the prejudice of another and perhaps better explanation.” - St Augustine (~400 AD)


The point is that any theological notions about the natural world are going to be wrong, when those notions are subjected to empirical tests. In that this is true, no Christians, fundamentalists or not, have any right to impose their irrational beliefs about the natural world on any part of society, especially when it means corrupting the objectivity of scientific inquiry.

Being this is America, I am free to believe any irrational thing I want about the soul or anything else. But that gives me no right to demand that everyone else believe what I do, or that everyone ignore the facts and evidence gathered about the natural world.

Finally, I would like to add that this war on science is not really religious at all. It is a culture war between the modern world and very right wing social conservatives who feel that their values are under attack.



...Their 'theological' reasons for rejecting a curriculum with evolution on it is simply that they believe evolution undermines their beliefs. Which it does. They need to chill the fuck out on the whole fundamentalist 'Bible is to be taken literally' stance, IMO.
Yes!
 

Calboner

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Ironically, Creationism (in its form as Scientific Creationaism) is better formulated as a scientific theory, but it is not supported by evidence. It is falsifiable, but unfortunately has been falsified endlessly.

JA, I am not sure what this "scientific creationism" is to which you are referring. It was my impression that if you present to a creationist any consideration to show that the universe has existed for more than a few thousand years, such as the fact that we can receive light that has been traveling across the universe for millions of years, he or she will say that all such appearances are the work of Satan, designed to tempt us into error. (The use of that strategy is, of course, what makes this version of creationism immune to falsification.)

There was a time when the State of Georgia's legislature wanted to legislate the value of PI to be exactly equal to 3. Naturally, this is ridiculous since the value of PI is not a matter of opinion, it is a property of nature.

Can you cite some support for this? I remember reading such an item in a science fiction novel by Robert Heinlein when I was a lad, so I assumed that it never actually happened.
 

SpeedoGuy

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Finally, I would like to add that this war on science is not really religious at all. It is a culture war between the modern world and very right wing social conservatives who feel that their values are under attack.

JA, are you saying that, at its very base, opposition to science education (and Darwinism in particular) stems not from religious conservatives but from some other branch of conservatism?
 

JustAsking

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JA, I am not sure what this "scientific creationism" is to which you are referring. ...

Calboner,
Yes, there is a body of pseudoscience called Flood Geology. It was an attempt to prove Young Earth Creationism (YEC) in a couple of famous popular books. There is an institute called the Institute for Creationism Research that puts them out.

Along with this goes the pseudoscience called Baraminology, which classifies animals into "created kinds" according to the account of creation in Genesis.

Then there is the pseudoscience called Intelligent Design, which is a modern form of creationism.

All of these are attempts to skirt the Establishment Clause by cloaking creationism in what looks like science so they can be taught in the public school classroom.


Can you cite some support for this[The pi = 3 legislation comment]? I remember reading such an item in a science fiction novel by Robert Heinlein when I was a lad, so I assumed that it never actually happened.

Now that you mention it, I cannot find a reference to Georgia legislating PI = 3. I did find an unsourced mention of the Indiana lower house passing a bill for pi = 3.2, which failed the upper house. Finding no other references to this, I withdraw it as an ugly rumor.


JA, are you saying that, at its very base, opposition to science education (and Darwinism in particular) stems not from religious conservatives but from some other branch of conservatism?
Speedo,
Yes, actually there are no denominations that endorse Intelligent Design, for example. It is a notion made popular by a PR firm called The Discovery Institute which is funded by a wealthy Christian Dominionist. But even the conservative denominations think it conflicts with their theology. The Discovery Institute was founded and is run by a lawyer, not a cleric and it is a lobbying firm, not a research institute. Since their devastating loss in Dover, PA, the Disco has taken to also lobbying for legislation in about 22 states for public school curriculum to "Teach The Controversy" about not only Evolution, but Global Warming and Stem Cell Research.

Once you start dragging in Global Warming, you can be sure that this is a cultural/political attack on science, not a religous one. Naturally, just like the Bush administration, the proponents of these things know that this stuff plays very well with individual Christians. So as they are making their claims about how scientific these things are, they publish their mission statements with lots of language about bringing the country back to Jesus.
These are not called The Culture wars for nothing.

Unfortunately, the plan always backfires because by pandering to the religious right, they lose control of their carefully orchestrated "ID is science" program, because Jesus-crazed school board members don't get the ruse. Instead of sticking to the science, they can't help themselves to start talking about Jesus and Creationism. Once that happens, they fail the Lemon test and the courts send them packing. This is what happened in Dover and is also happening in Florida as we speak.
 

SpeedoGuy

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The Discovery Institute was founded and is run by a lawyer, not a cleric and it is a lobbying firm, not a research institute.

Once you start dragging in Global Warming, you can be sure that this is a cultural/political attack on science, not a religous one.

I can understand why religious conservatives would oppose science education that contradicts their interpretation of scripture. I can even, at a stretch, understand why religious conservatives might be tempted to extrapolate their antipathy for ToE into skepticism and hostility toward science in general.

So, are you suggesting that religious conservatives are being duped by organizations like The Discovery Institute into supporting a general attack on science that actually serves the broader goals of the economic and PNAC foreign policy types of conservatives? One branch of conservatism callously using another to achieve its ends?

It makes sense. Perhaps I've answered my own question.
 

JustAsking

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I can understand why religious conservatives would oppose science education that contradicts their interpretation of scripture. I can even, at a stretch, understand why religious conservatives might be tempted to extrapolate their antipathy for ToE into skepticism and hostility toward science in general.

So, are you suggesting that religious conservatives are being duped by organizations like The Discovery Institute into supporting a general attack on science that actually serves the broader goals of the economic and PNAC foreign policy types of conservatives? One branch of conservatism callously using another to achieve its ends?

It makes sense. Perhaps I've answered my own question.
Yes, that's about right. Plus many of the anti-Evolution crowd are engineers and doctors who also spend a lot of time denying the HIV/AIDS connection and support the idea that vaccinations cause autism.

In fact, here is Ben Stein (yes, that Ben Stein) being interviewed about being in an anti-evolution movie. Ben Stein is not an evangelical Christian.
 

nintynyne

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As a biology student, I'd like to put a few points on the table:

1) Natural selection, many people seem to ignore this part of evolution, it doesn't surprise me that people who do ignore it think evolution is wrong, because the whole thing fails without natural selection.

2) "The theory of Evolution is just a theory" Well, actually, it doesn't work like that. The word "Theory" means something different in scientific launguage than it does in everyday talk. Most people use the word "Theory" to describe an idea that hasn't been proven. However, scientists use the word "Hypothesis" for an idea that hasn't been proven. The word "Theory" in science is used when someone discovers something, but it's not physical, like gravity, it's called "The theory of gravity" you can't hold gravity in your hand, you can hold evolution in your hand, it's a concept, that has been seen to work in nature.

3) souls. Do we have souls? It seems odd. The idea that when we die, then there is a part of us that goes into the afterlife, and sees all or already dead loved one's is quite a difficult idea indeed.

Why? because of brain damage, throughout recent history, we've had excellent medical records made.
Some people, have, sadly, recived massive brain damage, but still survived, only to find that they have almost no memories, and can't recognise their friends and reletives.
So, is a soul really possible? Death involves the complete destruction of the brain though lack of oxygen, so how do we go on to recognise our loved ones on the other side? Surely if there was a soul that kept our thoughts and memories, it would correct any effects of brain damage?
 

ManlyBanisters

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As a biology student, I'd like to put a few points on the table:

1) Natural selection, many people seem to ignore this part of evolution, it doesn't surprise me that people who do ignore it think evolution is wrong, because the whole thing fails without natural selection.

2) "The theory of Evolution is just a theory" Well, actually, it doesn't work like that. The word "Theory" means something different in scientific launguage than it does in everyday talk. Most people use the word "Theory" to describe an idea that hasn't been proven. However, scientists use the word "Hypothesis" for an idea that hasn't been proven. The word "Theory" in science is used when someone discovers something, but it's not physical, like gravity, it's called "The theory of gravity" you can't hold gravity in your hand, you can hold evolution in your hand, it's a concept, that has been seen to work in nature.

3) souls. Do we have souls? It seems odd. The idea that when we die, then there is a part of us that goes into the afterlife, and sees all or already dead loved one's is quite a difficult idea indeed.

Why? because of brain damage, throughout recent history, we've had excellent medical records made.
Some people, have, sadly, recived massive brain damage, but still survived, only to find that they have almost no memories, and can't recognise their friends and reletives.
So, is a soul really possible? Death involves the complete destruction of the brain though lack of oxygen, so how do we go on to recognise our loved ones on the other side? Surely if there was a soul that kept our thoughts and memories, it would correct any effects of brain damage?

Points one and two are perfectly reasonable.

Point three is an opinion based on personal belief which you are entitled to of course - let me throw this out there though; why does the soul have to be about memories and recognising loved ones? A lot of people do choose to see heaven as a place where all the things and people we love are for us to be blissfully happy - but that is just people taking what makes them happy in this life and superimposing it on an afterlife. We have no understanding of the afterlife - many theologists and spiritualists postulate that it is such a different existence that nothing we know think or feel can be applied or used as a frame of reference.

Due to lack of empirical evidence all hypotheses on the soul and/or the afterlife remain just that - hypothetical.
 

nintynyne

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Point three is an opinion based on personal belief which you are entitled to of course - let me throw this out there though; why does the soul have to be about memories and recognising loved ones?

I apologise. I was under the impression that was what a soul was.

Originally Posted by JustAsking

There was a time when the State of Georgia's legislature wanted to legislate the value of PI to be exactly equal to 3. Naturally, this is ridiculous since the value of PI is not a matter of opinion, it is a property of nature.

Can you cite some support for this? I remember reading such an item in a science fiction novel by Robert Heinlein when I was a lad, so I assumed that it never actually happened.

Well 1 Kings 7:23 in the bible states:
"The sea was then cast; it was made with a circular rim, and measured ten cubits across, five in height, and thirty in circumference."

Pi is the circumfrance divided by the diameter of the circle, and so this passage would imply Pi was exactly three. I however, have always assumed they were aproximating the number.

In regarding people trying to have Pi legally changed to 3, according to snopes.com, it was a rumour, you can find their article here: Urban Legends Reference Pages: Redefinition of Pi
 

Calboner

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So, are you suggesting that religious conservatives are being duped by organizations like The Discovery Institute into supporting a general attack on science that actually serves the broader goals of the economic and PNAC foreign policy types of conservatives? One branch of conservatism callously using another to achieve its ends?
Hasn't that been Republican strategy since 1980? Consider the panic among conservative commentators a few weeks ago when Mike Huckabee showed signs of leading the race for the Republican presidential nomination. Here is a passage from an article on the subject by Michelle Goldberg entitled "Mike Huckabee, Conservative Golem," which appeared in The Guardian on 20 December 2007:

It’s nice that prominent conservatives are finally becoming concerned about America’s lurch into faith-based irrationality. It’s also a bit rich, since the GOP has spent the last three decades assiduously courting the religious right, showering them with contracts, grants and access to the heights of power. Republicans have rained contempt on science and secular expertise, pushing a kind of yahoo postmodernism in which truth is always assumed to be a function of politics, making facts - about, say, global warming, or the failure of abstinence-only education, or evolution - immediately suspect.

Rather than wringing their hands about the decline of reason in our civic life, right-wing opinion-mongers have, until now, heartily celebrated the volkish virtues of an archetypal Nascar-loving, megachurch-attending, Darwin-denying Ordinary American.
As Goldberg notes later in the article, however, not all Republicans who welcomed religious conservatives into their party have operated on pure cynical calculation:

But there there’s also a certain species of urbane Republican who live in liberal bastions and, feeling terribly oppressed by the mild contempt they face at cocktail parties, imagine a profound sympathy with the simple folk of the heartland. They’re like alienated suburban kids in Che Guevara t-shirts who fantasize kinship with the authentic revolutionary souls in Chiapas or Cuba or Venezuela. Confronted with the actual individuals onto whom they’ve projected their political hallucinations, disillusionment is inevitable.
She concludes, however:

Whatever their nostalgie de la boue, the privileged classes never really want to be ruled by the rabble. They want the rabble to help them rule.
 

rob_just_rob

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Most people use the word "Theory" to describe an idea that hasn't been proven. However, scientists use the word "Hypothesis" for an idea that hasn't been proven. The word "Theory" in science is used when someone discovers something, but it's not physical, like gravity, it's called "The theory of gravity" you can't hold gravity in your hand, you can hold evolution in your hand, it's a concept, that has been seen to work in nature.

Longtime pet peeve of mine - leading to people making statements and not actually understanding what they have said.
 

Calboner

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Yes, there is a body of pseudoscience called Flood Geology. It was an attempt to prove Young Earth Creationism (YEC) in a couple of famous popular books. There is an institute called the Institute for Creationism Research that puts them out.

Thanks for the reference. I looked up the web site of the Institute for Creationism Research and found quite a list of publications, including a two-volume work on the technique of dating by radioisotopes in which six "leading scientists in the fields of geology, geochemistry and physics" expound the "plaguing problems" of that technique and argue for the hypothesis of "accelerated nuclear decay." Clearly, this is much worse than plain old know-nothing creationism.
 

D_Terry_Misue

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Too lazy to type.
Hoping the pic is worth the thousand words.

That is classic! Thanks for posting...

There has been a few mentions of 'no evidence' for evolution posted here.

In my observation there is a large body of evidence to support the concept of evolution as a change in the frequency of alleles (alternative forms of genes) in a population: 1. drug resistant bacteria 2. the fossil record. 3. comparative embrology....the old favorite of Ernst Haeckel "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" 4. compartative anatomy (one of my favorites) and homologous structures.

Of course, this is emperical evidence. If one prefers the concept of subjective opinion to objective fact, then this is a completly irrational line of reasoning!