Creationists get no certification in Texas

Rocas511
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Creationists get no certification in Texas

On the plus side, the "instiute for creation research" will not get it's higher education credentials...

ICR fails to obtain certification in Texas

At its April 24, 2008, meeting, the Texas Higher Education Coordination Board unanimously voted to deny the Institute for Creation Research's request for a state certificate of authority to offer a master's degree in science education through its graduate school.

http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/news/2008/TX/928_icr_fails_to_obtain_certificat_4_25_2008.asp

 

On the down side...

Louisiana antievolution bill passes Senate
Senate Bill 733 (PDF), the so-called Louisiana Science Education Act, was unanimously passed by the Louisiana Senate on April 28, 2008. If enacted, the bill would call upon the state board of elementary and secondary education to "allow and assist" teachers and administrators to "create and foster an environment within public elementary and secondary schools that promotes critical thinking skills, logical analysis, and open and objective discussion of scientific theories being studied including, but not limited to, evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning."

http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/news/2008/LA/396_louisiana_antievolution_bill_p_4_29_2008.asp

It looks like Louisiana could be the site of the next Dover trial.

 

 

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MattShizzle
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If they really use logic and

If they really use logic and critical thinking skills, the IDiots will get pwned.


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Rocas511 wrote:ICR fails to

Rocas511 wrote:

ICR fails to obtain certification in Texas

Link.

Rocas511 wrote:
Louisiana antievolution bill passes Senate
Senate Bill 733

Link.

Now to quote from the second article ...

Quote:
Included would be "support and guidance for teachers regarding effective ways to help students understand, analyze, critique, and objectively review [the] scientific theories being studied"; teachers would be permitted to use "supplemental textbooks and other instructional materials to help students understand, analyze, critique, and review scientific theories in an objective manner, as permitted by the city, parish, or other local public school board."

So let me guess, they'll critique and objectively review the scientific theories but not any alternates.

Quote:
Previously, in the Senate's Education Committee, the bill was renumbered (from SB 561), renamed, and revised, with the removal of "strengths and weaknesses" language and a list of specific scientific topics, "biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming, and human cloning.

So now we have the subjects they're going to cover whether it's in the bill or not.  Lets look at them individually.

Evolution: The only critiquing they can realistically give is on creationist evolution, not biological evolution as they state in the (original) bill.  Even if they do only do biological evolution they'll only be critiquing the layman's explanations in which criticisms are all more than adequately answered by going beyond the layman's explanation which I doubt will happen.

Chemical Origins of Life: Once again, layman's explanation or creationist evolution is all they'll critique here.

Global Warming: I'm not in 100% convinced about global warming myself, but majority of the solutions put forward I agree with whole heartedly if not simply for the sake of minimising how quickly we chew up the finite resources of this planet.  I agree with what they want, just not why they want it. 

Human cloning: Shouldn't that be cloning in general?  How is human cloning any different to sheep or dog cloning scientifically?  The only thing they can really critique in human cloning is the moral side of things which, to be perfectly honest, has fuck all to do with science.  Science doesn't say one way or the other on the moral side.  It doesn't say it's right or wrong, just that it can be done (or soon will be).  Are they actually going to critique whether it can possibly be done?

 

This bill is ludicrous.  Did they actually have someone who was against it arguing against it, or just someone who knew more about being P.C.  I suspect the latter.

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deludedgod
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Quote: (PDF), the so-called

Quote:

(PDF), the so-called Louisiana Science Education Act, was unanimously passed by the Louisiana Senate on April 28, 2008. If enacted, the bill would call upon the state board of elementary and secondary education to "allow and assist" teachers and administrators to "create and foster an environment within public elementary and secondary schools that promotes critical thinking skills, logical analysis, and open and objective discussion of scientific theories being studied including, but not limited to, evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning."

This is what so irritates me about the ID lobby, more so than the YEC lobby. Firstly, they have spent a large amount of time arguing that they are a suppressed minority and often turn to bizarre conspiratology often involving phrases like "liberal media" and "godless", "Darwinist" etc. . But, if you want your views respected in the relevant discipline to which that particular notion belongs what do you do? Well, if you think you have a good idea, you buckle down and demonstrate it. There have been times throughout history that scientific theories now widely accepted were once ridiculed (Germ theory, dark matter, the existence of atoms). However, we cannot simply reverse that statement to say that what is now ridiculed will become widely accepted, because there have also been times throughout history that bad ideas were detected by the majority of the scientific community, and relegated to the dumpster of bad ideas (N-rays, polywater, cold fusion). Those who were on the emerging side of a brand new theory provided overwhelming evidence for their theories and ignored ridicule. That makes the ID lobby suspect. If you want respect among biologists, why would your target audience be a high school? Why spend so much in the court of law, when what really matters is the court of scientific opinion? During the later years of his life, Boltzmann was suicidally depressed partly because his theory of atoms was being ridiculed. Could you imagine if Boltzmann had decided, "well, I suppose the best thing to do would be to start an entire conspiratology branch and, travel the country handing out pamphlets to random people instead of trying to convince physicists". Boltzmann killed himself, but a short while later, Albert Einstein wrote a paper which proved once and for all that atoms existed and shamed Boltzmann's detractors. But seeing ID proponents believe that the entire scientific community is involved in this massive, evil, conspiracy, they largely avoid interaction with the disciplines of biology they are attempting to critique! So of course they are going to be ignored, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy!

I'd like to think I speak for many scientists when I say that our principle reason for looking on ID with largely contempt is not because it "dares to challenge a mainstream view", but rather because a) of the aforementioned tactic and b) because it is not criticism we are opposed to, it is ignorant criticism. With epistemic rights come epistemic responsibilities. The process of "questioning" is a rigorous process which has certain prerequisites. It is troubling that I eliminate most of my creationist opponents by asking them to give a one-line scientific definition of evolution. This is why most biologists look at the anti-evolution lobby with contempt. Most of them are so unfamiliar with basic biology they wouldn't know evolution if it kicked them in the balls. To exercise one's epistemic rights, one must fulfill their epistemic responsibilities, and very few anti-evolutionists have fulfilled their epistemic responsibility to know at least something about basic evolutionary biology.

Let me state that I am unopposed to the notion of "critical thinking and logical analysis" in science. What I am opposed to is to tell students that evolution is epistemologically worse off than, say, heliocentricity or atomic theory. The position of virtually all biologists on the matter of evolution is very much the same as the position of astronomers about the fact that the earth revolves around the sun. In the astronomy community, the reason heliocentricity is not debated is not because of some dogma or religious order, but because there would be no point. There happens to be an excellent reason why there is a concensus about heliocentricity in the astronomer community. From an epistemological standpoint, evolution has a similar status among the biologist community. In academic debates, we don't debate because it's fun, or because we have nothing else to do. We do it because it helps to clarify issues. We desire a concensus. Concensus can be a good thing! There is a debate among evolutionary and molecular biologists called the "introns early/introns late" debate about the origin of the non-coding sequences that break apart the conding sequences in Eukaryotic genomes with respect to the origin of Eukaryota. The reason there is no concensus is because it is very hard to ascertain the answer to this question, but the more evidence that comes in on one side, we will move towards a concensus one way or the other. That's what we want.

What disturbs me about the bill is that they don't seem to be interested in "logical analysis and critical thinking skills". The easiest way to promote that is to introduce a scientific methodology class. Too often students are taught science as a sete of disjointed facts as opposed to the underlying methods and practices. Yet knowledge of method is perhaps more important then merely knowledge of bodies of scientific literature and concepts, although that is important too. However, the bill seems to be highly selective. It appears to only be "promoting logical and critical thinking skills" with respect to several ideas, those ideas the legislators evidently did not really like. This is not acceptable.

"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.

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MattShizzle
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That's a big problem I have

That's a big problem I have with Science classes in the US - the focus on rote memorization and use of formulas. Flying Spaghetti Monster forbid these kids have to actually learn the scientific method (and understand it, not memorize steps that it uses without getting into them) or especially critical thinking - they might realize their suprstitions are bolognia and upset the parents! Thus we constantly hear that evolution is just a theory. Like scientists come out and say "well, we're really just guessing, but that's what's going to be taught to everyone." That shit pisses me off. I don't even haveto much of a scientific education but I have a feeling the extreme scientific ignorance is going to come back and bite us in the ass here in the US.

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