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Gatekeeper
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United States of America
Feb 2000
time: 23:36
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Everyone:
I found this article while perusing the news wires. I'm sure it's bound to generate a fair amount of discussion and maybe, just maybe, a bit of ridicule for, you guessed it, Kansas.
With no further ado:
quote:
By Carey Gillam
TOPEKA, Kan (Reuters) — Evolution is going on trial in Kansas.
Eighty years after a famed courtroom battle in Tennessee pitted religious beliefs about the origins of life against the theories of British scientist Charles Darwin, Kansas is holding its own hearings on what school children should be taught about how life on Earth began.
The Kansas Board of Education has scheduled six days of courtroom-style hearings to begin on Thursday in the capitol Topeka. More than two dozen witnesses will give testimony and be subject to cross-examination, with the majority expected to argue against teaching evolution.
Many prominent U.S. scientific groups have denounced the debate as founded on fallacy and have promised to boycott the hearings, which opponents say are part of a larger nationwide effort by religious interests to gain control over government.
"I feel like I'm in a time warp here," said Topeka attorney Pedro Irigonegaray who has agreed to defend evolution as valid science. "To debate evolution is similar to debating whether the Earth is round. It is an absurd proposition."
WIDESPREAD DEBATE
Irigonegaray's opponent will be attorney John Calvert, managing director of the Intelligent Design Network, a Kansas organization that argues the Earth was created through intentional design rather than random organism evolution.
The group is one of many that have been formed over the last several years to challenge the validity of evolutionary concepts and seek to open the schoolroom door to ideas that humans and other living creatures are too intricately designed to have come about randomly.
While many call themselves creationists, who believe that God was the ultimate designer of all life, they are stopping short of saying creationism should be taught in schools.
"We're not against evolution," said Calvert. "But there is a lot of evidence that suggests that life is the product of intelligence. I think it is inappropriate for the state to prejudge the question whether we are the product of design or just an occurrence."
Debates over evolution are currently being waged in more than a dozen states, including Texas where one bill would allowing for creationism to be taught alongside evolution.
Kansas has been grappling with the issue for years, garnering worldwide attention in 1999 when the state school board voted to downplay evolution in science classes.
Subsequent elections altered the membership of the school board and led to renewed backing for evolution instruction in 2001. But elections last year gave religious conservatives a 6-4 majority and the board is now finalizing new science standards, which will guide teachers about how and what to teach students.
The current proposal pushed by conservatives would not eliminate evolution entirely from instruction, nor would it require creationism be taught, but it would encourage teachers to discuss various viewpoints and eliminate core evolution claims as required curriculum.
School board member Sue Gamble, who describes herself as a moderate, said she will not attend the hearings, which she calls "a farce." She said the argument over evolution is part of a larger agenda by Christian conservatives to gradually alter the legal and social landscape in the United States.
"I think it is a desire by a minority ... to establish a theocracy, both within Kansas and growing to a national level," Gamble said.
OLD TESTAMENT TEACHINGS
Some evolution detractors say that the belief that humans, animals and organisms evolved over long spans of time is inconsistent with Biblical teachings that life was created by God. The Bible's Old Testament says that God created life on Earth including the first humans, Adam and Eve, in six days.
Detractors also argue that evolution is invalid science because it cannot be tested or verified and say it is inappropriately being indoctrinated into education and discouraging consideration of alternatives.
But defenders say that evolution is not totally inconsistent with Biblical beliefs, and it provides a foundational concept for understanding many areas of science, including genetics and molecular biology.
The theory of evolution came to prominence in 1859 when Darwin published "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection," and it was the subject of a 1925 trial in Tennessee in which teacher John Thomas Scopes was accused of violating a ban against teaching evolution.
Kansas School Board chairman Steve Abrams said the hearings are less about religion than they are about seeking the best possible education for the state's children.
"If students ... do not understand the weaknesses of evolutionary theory as well as the strengths, a grave injustice is being done to them," Abrams said. |
Hmpfh. I have faith that the religious nutcases will be defeated, because if they aren't, there's going to (literally) be hell to pay for Earth. Lest my true feelings aren't yet obvious, the following quote sums things up nicely:
quote:
"I think it is a desire by a minority ... to establish a theocracy, both within Kansas and growing to a national level," Sue Gamble said. |
Woo-hoo, boys and girls! We're living in the End Times! Once these so-called Christians get done putting their damnable theocracy in place, all that's left is to somehow get the Anti-Christ to power in a Middle Eastern nation, have him conquer Israel and then the "God-fearing" Christians in America and elsewhere can form their crusade and "liberate" the Holy Lands from the unholy conqueror.
And, hey, my Jewish acquaintances, there's something in it for you, too! Convert or die! After all, isn't that what Revelations is all about?!
**sigh**
Y'know, there's days when I just want to say, "F*ck you, humanity. You deserve whatever you get. I only pray you wipe yourselves out before you spread your sickness beyond Earth."
I'll be frank: I consider myself a man of faith. Traditional? No. But faith shouldn't require having to kowtow to customs just because "that's the way we've always done it" or because "might makes right." I believe in my heart that science *and* faith are seeking the same thing in the end — namely, what does it all mean? And that is one of the most admirable qualities the human soul possesses, that desire to seek new experiences and to gain knowledge and wisdom.
But, damnit, why the hell are some folks so hellbent on *controlling* others in the process? You want to learn about God in the traditional sense? Fine! Great! Really. That's what Sunday school, going to church and any other number of religion-linked activities are for. You want to learn about science and evolution and how it came about? Great! Fine! Really. That's what labs and classrooms are for. Both seek the same answer, IMO, but one right now — the religious nutcases — seem to have control issues. How would they like it if secularists and folks of "non-traditional" faith rammed through laws that forced "traditional" religion to teach evolution in Sunday school, or to force the pastor to bring up "equal time" for concepts s/he may find offensive in the context of his/her religion? They wouldn't, and rightly so! So why in God's name are they doing to others what they themselves would scream, hiss and bawl about (and, perhaps, kill) if it were done to them?!
Live and let live. Pick and choose your battles. The "little sayings" go on and on, but they're there for a reason. They come from lessons that were learned the hard way by our predecessors, lessons a frightening number of people — religious nutcases being predominant among them — seem to have no problem forgetting.
That is, until someone gets maimed or killed. And sometimes not just someone, but entire tribes, nations, ethnicities and minorities (be they political, social or faith).
Humanity has so much potential. It really does. I believe that with all my heart and, as such, it breaks it everytime extremists do their thing.
Gatekeeper
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Boris Godunov
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Portland, OR
Aug 2001
time: 00:36
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quote:
Originally posted by Spiffor
BTW, over here, a hypothesis is an expected causality ("if A then B" or "if A then probability of B"). A theory is a set of hypotheses. These words are not dependent on whether they have been backed by evidence or not.
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I'd be surprised if that were really true. I think you may be simplifying things, as what you described just sounds like a large hypothesis.
At any rate, the Creationist usage is still wrong, because they imply (or, often, just state) that evolution lacks factual support and is only a hypothesis. This is categorically not true, of course.
The Kansas situation is a kangaroo court at best. Gee, an elected school board who are known Creationist-leaning and don't know squat about science are going to fairly judge the issue? Yeah, right. Considering the legacy of Creationists stacking debates and using all sorts of snarky tricks to appear victorious in such venues, I don't have any hopes for this "trial" producing anything of value.
It's a waste of taxpayer's money, and if Kansans had any sense, they'd boot all these schoolboard losers ASAP.
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Provost Harrison
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The farce is strong with this one.
Feb 2000
time: 05:36
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Mastery of fire, the wheel, domestication of animals, agriculture, law, metal working, mass production, nuclear fission, erm, just look at the civ tech tree for Christ's sake. But the point still stands...yeah, we can destroy but we are capable of great things. Tell me, is the glass half empty or half full?
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02-05-2005 23:04
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