Submitted by Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Feigning that some controversy actually exists over the fact of evolution, the Rocky Toppers have decided to grant job protection to teachers who choose to criticize the scientific doctrine. To be quite proper, they have inserted language that stipulates that “this section only protects the teaching of scientific information, and shall not be construed to promote any religious or non-religious doctrine.” But Becky Ashe, the president of the Tennessee Science Teachers Association, is not fooled. She told a subcommittee of the Tennessee House that the Bill “is an anti-evolutionary attempt to allow non-scientific alternatives to evolution (such as creationism and intelligent design) to be introduced into our public schools.”
Seems the famous trial and the movie version (“Inherit The Wind”) are always on the minds of theocrats. Tennessee State Representative Richard Floyd (R) even alluded to them in the floor debate commenting that “since the late ’50s, early ’60s when we let the intellectual bullies hijack our education system, we’ve been on a slippery slope.” Aptly named Republican Sheila Butt even found a way to criticize environmentalists in the debate saying she was told in high school that Aqua Net hair spray hurts the environment. In a conclusion worthy of mention she added, “Since then scientists have said that maybe we shouldn’t have given up that aerosol can because that aerosol can was actually absorbing the Earth’s rays and keeping us from global warming.” Ah, the joys of anti-intellectualism.
The Bill passed the House 70-23 and now goes to the Senate. Hopefully, they reached a stage of high intellectual evolution.
Source: TPM
~Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Buddha, @April 10, 2011 at 2:16 pm
“…. But mostly I care about the fact that the Constitution was designed to act as a barrier preventing state sponsored churches and preventing religiously based laws to give one group advantage over another. And I know you won’t argue that point unless you are just feeling particularly contrary today because you know I’m right about the Separation of Church and State. ”
Bob,Esq. @April 10, 2011 at 2:42 pm
” … Per the Constitution and the Separation of Church and State, you’ll get no argument from me that the state run schools must refrain from supporting any particular CREED or RELIGION in their teachings; which means refraining from teaching intelligent design outside of a college level comparative religion/metaphysics/epistemology course. At that level, the analysis is sufficiently abstract as to preclude the possibility of endorsing any particular creed or religion.”
===============================================
Whew … I got worried there for a second
Blouise,
Thanks for the biology lesson!
“Monkey Trial II: Tenn. House Passes Bill Permitting Teachers To Teach The “Controversy” Over Evolution”
In one sense, HB893 is the exact opposite, having been acted to prevent just such cases from occurring.
But is it merely a repeat based on religious intent? From the Bill:
(e) This section only protects the teaching of scientific information, and shall not
be construed to promote any religious or non-religious doctrine, promote discrimination for or against a particular set of religious beliefs or non-beliefs, or promote discrimination for or against religion or non-religion.
While the hysteria foisting about claims that it opens the door to religious teaching, it does not, since another Dover trial would be the result.
Bdaman
1, April 10, 2011 at 2:11 pm
Here’s another pondering thought. Which came first the heart or the lungs?
=====================================================
It’s a party and everybody arrives together:
“The embryo is now made of three layers. The top layer — the ectoderm — will give rise to your baby’s outermost layer of skin, central and peripheral nervous systems, eyes, inner ear, and many connective tissues.
Your baby’s heart and a primitive circulatory system will form in the middle layer of cells — the mesoderm. This layer of cells will also serve as the foundation for your baby’s bones, muscles, kidneys and much of the reproductive system.
The inner layer of cells — the endoderm — will become a simple tube lined with mucous membranes. Your baby’s lungs, intestines and bladder will develop here.” (Mayo Clinic)
“and then reasonable”
Bob,
Don’t forget my take on certainty is heavily influenced by quantum mechanics. All certainty is relative to the frame of reference and absolute certainty is impossible. I don’t expect absolute certainty. I operate of of reasonably absolute certainty within a given context first and the reasonable certainty and down that chain of qualitatives until reasonable uncertainty is reached. That comports just fine with Kant to my reading.
Leave it to Tennessee to bring back the teaching of nonsense. If you want to learn this nonsense, go to a private school and you can learn this nonsense and any other nonsense that is currently in vogue with the Religious Wrong. The next scientific fact that the Scopes people will be paying next is gravity. Of course they will call it Intelligent Falling!
Great pst Mespo!
Kant was showing how a particular proof for the existence of God is an antinomy.
The cosmological proof deals with ‘the first cause’ and is the root argument for any ‘intelligent design’ argument.
I say “a man’s got to know his limitations” not only because empiricism can guarantee you neither certainty nor necessity, but to remind you of the limits of human reason itself. (ever notice the title of Kant’s critique?)
This debate is far more complex than ‘evolution’ v. ‘intelligent design.’ And to treat it as anything less, i.e. stating that the theory of evolution is categorically correct, is just an exercise in sheer ignorance as to the complexity of the topic.
Per the Constitution and the Separation of Church and State, you’ll get no argument from me that the state run schools must refrain from supporting any particular CREED or RELIGION in their teachings; which means refraining from teaching intelligent design outside of a college level comparative religion/metaphysics/epistemology course. At that level, the analysis is sufficiently abstract as to preclude the possibility of endorsing any particular creed or religion.
the heart, lungs were gills first
O.k. then what was the porpoise for the gills I mean blowhole 🙂
Bdaman:
cockroaches are the same as they were millions and millions of years ago.
Fruit flies as well, no substantial changes on thousands of generations studied with environmental stresses and radiation applied.
Something causes change, probably a virus or some sort of spontaneous damage to DNA/RNA in reproductive cells.
Bdaman,
Unless a species has reached what is called the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (which is impossible in nature but used as a baseline for geneticists to measure genetic drift by “taking a snapshot in time” of a given species), then a species is constantly evolving by nature of breeding/reproducing and interactions with the environment and changes in the environment.
Bob,
I don’t care one way or the other about proving or disproving the existence of a God. What I do care about is proof. All Kant did was demonstrate that the existence or non-existence of God is unprovable. What is provable is that organized religion – independent of the existence of God or not – operates on beliefs not based in facts but rather in superstition and ancient fairy tales that simply ask blind faith. Beliefs that are often contrary to the facts provable by empirical evidence and the application of the Scientific Method. But mostly I care about the fact that the Constitution was designed to act as a barrier preventing state sponsored churches and preventing religiously based laws to give one group advantage over another. And I know you won’t argue that point unless you are just feeling particularly contrary today because you know I’m right about the Separation of Church and State.
Bdaman:
the heart, lungs were gills first.
Buddha can you name one warm blooded animal that has been around thousands of years that looks different today than it did then or have we reached a final product. For insects, how have cockroaches evolved within this time frame 🙂
Here’s another pondering thought. Which came first the heart or the lungs?
Bdaman,
Evolution via natural selection also arises from isolation of populations to geographically distinct regions and mutations from both adaptive behaviors and random effects like radiation and chemical mutations. Asexual creatures still evolve. Diamorphic sex is an adaptation that simply allows for greater variation in genes by sharing material.
It’s an analysis of the cosmological argument.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kant%27s_antinomies#The_Fourth_Antinomy_.28of_God.29
Like I said, “a man’s got to know his limitations.”
Thesis: There belongs to the world, either as its part or as its cause, a being that is absolutely necessary.
Antithesis: An absolutely necessary being exists nowhere in the world, nor does it exist outside the world as its cause.
or you could just go with the 4th of July in Antinomy Utah.
What are the odds that, of the millions of species of animals, a male of each species developed around the same time and in the same place as a female of the same species, so that the species could propagate?
Why are there two sexes anyhow? This is not a given in the evolutionary process. If the first generation of mating species didn’t have parents, how did the mating pair get to that point? Isn’t evolution supposed to progress when an offspring of a mating pair has a beneficial mutation? Which came first the chicken or the egg 🙂
Bob,
If I recall correctly that the one about the existence and/or non-existence of God.
LG,
“Since people who believe in a Sky Daddy have rights too.”
But not the right to force others to believe their religiously based nonsense. The Separation of Church and State forbids any religion from using the law to gain advantage over another. Both Jefferson and Madison were quite clear on this issue. And the bottom line is you Sky Daddy worshipers seek exactly that: the imposition of your views on others who do not share them via tax funded public services. You want to teach creationism or ID? Knock yourself out. Just do it in church where faith based teaching belongs. To be for the greater benefit of all, public education must be fact based, not mythologically based.