Creationists have lost a major battle after a federal court in Texas upheld a decision by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to deny the Institute for Creation Research Graduate School a certificate of authority to offer master’s degrees in science. We have previously discussed this new “science” degree.
A panel of science education experts found little evidence of science in the degree or its underlying curriculum. The panel concluded “much of the course content was outside the realm of science and lacked potential to help students understand the nature of science and the history and nature of the natural world.”
The school claimed violations of free speech, free exercise, equal protection and due process. However, under the rational basis test (which sets an extremely low standard for the government), the court granted summary judgment.
Under subchapter G of the state regulation, no “person” (defined as an individual, firm, partnership, association, or other private entity or association thereof,” may grant or award a degree on behalf of a “private postsecondary educational institution” unless the institution has been issued a “certificate of authority” to grant the degree by the Board.
It is a solid victory for science and education in the United States.
Source: Science Blogs
Slarti and Buddha, thank you both. I miss weighing in daily on something, but just haven’t been able to recently. I guess I’ll have to keep working for a living until the socialist takeover has been completed.
Copy that, Slarti.
Good to see you about, Mike A.
Mike A,
Well said. I especially like the comparison of creationists/Christians to Teabaggers/conservatives. It would be nice if the other Christians and conservatives would stand up once in a while and say that these wingnuts don’t speak for them…
George Clinton,
I’ve been pretty busy lately, but wanted to share some random thoughts on this thread.
1. The so-called “debate” between creationists and evolutionists is not, and never has been, a true debate. Were there in fact scientifically defensible alternative theories to evolution, they would be included in science curricula as a matter of course by science educators. The theory of continental drift, for example, was hotly debated for years and was not regarded as conclusively established until my college years back in the ’60s.
2. The impetus for changes in school curricula to include the teaching of “creation science” has not come from scientists, but from religious groups. That makes no more sense than would a demand by the ABA that physics courses devote less time to the discussion of string theory.
3. The constant assertion that the theory of evolution is an affront to Christians is utter nonsense. Creationists do not represent mainstream Christian theology and never have. I was taught the fundamentals of evolution by Jesuits, for Pete’s sake.
4. Creationists are biblical literalists, a growing, but still minority segment of the Christian population. They have attempted to proclaim themselves the voice of traditional Christianity in the same manner that teabaggers proclaim themselves the voice of traditional constitutional values. Each group represents a minority of Americans who purport to be the sole protectors of the “truth,” much like the Taliban. The biblical literalists have worked to take over school boards to impose their views. They have not (as yet) adopted the distinctly Talibanesque threat of the teabaggers to utilize “Second Amendment remedies” to “take back our country” should they fail at the ballot box.
I’m not from here. Just visiting.
Or at least that’s what I tell myself when I wake up sweating.
I think that George Clinton keeps intercepting my Mothership Connection and getting the pilots too high to find me.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnvvVsKCPLE&hl=en_US&fs=1]
I like that Buddha fellow. Where on Earth is he from, certainly amiss the lost creation has sprung a man called Buddha.
Buddha & Slarti–
Here’s a quote from Leo Tolstoy that I think may apply to the mindset of creationists.
“The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him.”
Elaine,
Maybe I can find Tootie a nice epicycle to use as a crutch…
Buddha,
Very cool. I still think Tootie will have problems claiming Plato as a Christian, though…
Tootie,
To quote Plato:
“Ignorance: the root of all evil.”
Since when was the Earth the center of the universe. Heresy, I say. Hearsay. Plain and simple.
Slarti,
Don’t forget the recently discovered encoded work of Plato. “Lost” knowledge that certainly helped lay the foundations of the modern scientific method.
http://www.manchester.ac.uk/aboutus/news/display/?id=5894
Slartibartfast–
Next, you’re probably going to tell Tootie that the sun doesn’t revolve around the Earth. That will really blow his/her mind.
You mean the format of quoting your entire comment and replying to it point-by-point? I just want to make sure that I address all of the misinformation, distortion and intolerance you spew…
As to your preference for “concepts provided by scientists [that I] wish to discredit because [I] think [I] rule the science universe” [that should be the ‘scientific universe’, by the way…], first, I don’t think I rule anything (with the exception of my own words and actions) and while I have quite thoroughly discredited some of the sources of concepts you have referenced on other threads, none of them have been scientists (to be a scientist is to investigate an aspect of the universe using the scientific method*). While a substantive debate on anything would be nice, all I’m trying to do is call attention to the ignorant misinformation you are posting.
*Buddha beat me to it, but I feel compelled to emphasize the point that the scientific method wasn’t a Christian discovery. The roots of the scientific method go back to Aristotle and its modern form was originally ‘discovered’ by Alhazen as Buddha indicated (and further developed by a number of islamic scholars. A quote from the ‘History of the scientific method’ entry of Wikipedia:
You and all of the other creationists, like those that persecuted Galileo, are the ones that see science as a threat to Christian orthodoxy. That just makes your attempt to credit the development of the scientific method to Christianity all the more odious and hypocritical.
If you aren’t God, quit speaking for Him.
And the “Christian discovery of the scientific method”?
Plain old bullshit there, Tootles.
The Scientific Method as it is known today was created by a Muslim, not a Christian. Namely Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥasan ibn al-Haytham, better known in the West simply as Alhazen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Hazen
Are your eyes brown?
Even one as dense as you can surely figure why I ask.