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
“LOL?????? Where? Point to the words from the Constitution then recite them back to me. I need you to refer to the Constitution itself, not the opinions of others.” (Tootie)
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That’s easy … go to usconstitutionforrepublicans dot com and scroll down to Amendment 36 which is a clarification of Article 9 …
It is irrelevant whether or not creationism is science.
The question is: do the feds have the power to determine curricula in state schools?
Buddha has to drag in a red herring (i.e. creationism isn’t science) to distract simple folks from the real issue: who determines curricula.
Buddha:
It isn’t that difficult for you to find the words you claim forbid teaching about creation from the biblical point of view. And yet, you still cannot do it.
This is really fun. And funny.
Which words specifically give the feds any power to determine public school curricula?
Is it in Article 1 Section 8? Where? In your dreams and fantasies?
LOL?????? Where? Point to the words from the Constitution then recite them back to me. I need you to refer to the Constitution itself, not the opinions of others.
Tootles,
“Okay. Prove it. Where does it say that the feds can tell the states to not teach about creation. I need the EXACT words from the 1st amendment.”
The Separation of Church and State is in the 1st Amendment.
That the barrier between the two was designed by the Framers to both stop the creation of state sponsored churches and to prohibit any one sect using the law to gain advantage over another is well-established fact in case you forget the recent drubbing on the subject that I gave you here: http://jonathanturley.org/2011/04/08/oops-but-no-apology-nato-admits-it-killed-over-dozen-rebels-but-says-it-had-no-idea-they-had-tanks/#comment-219994
Why repeat myself when I’ve already proven you a fool once this week?
There is also the test provided by Lemon v. Kurtzman which I’ve pummeled you over the head with often enough even you should be able to remember it. Again, I’m not going to repeat myself because you wouldn’t know “secular purpose” or “excessive entanglement” if they bit you on the ass.
Creationism isn’t science.
It’s a religious belief.
Seeking to have it taught in public schools violates both the Lemon test and the 1st Amendment as envisioned by the Framers as evidenced by their copious writings on the subject.
Public schools – as they are tax payer funded government institutions – can’t Constitutionally teach creationism as a matter of law. It’s an attempt to use the government to spread your religion, i.e. gain advantage over other religions using the the government as your tool. Legislation saying you can will fail the Lemon test when challenged in Federal court. And they will be challenged. That’s a fact. If you want your children to be brainwashed ignoramuses such as yourself, that is your right. But you’ll have to teach them to be so in church, in private schools, or better yet to ensure they turn out to be complete morons: home school them.
Otteray:
My lack? You cannot even site the words which would prove your argument and I’m the one lacking?
You are hilarious.
I would think that, if you were correct, then you could prove it from the text of the Constitution. But you cannot do it. And I will tell you why you cannot. It is because what you say is in the first amendment isn’t there. You are just making up junk because of your own wishful thinking.
We are not ignorant (or, rather, we shouldn’t be) about what the words in the first amendment mean. Several states had state religions at the time of ratification and would NEVER have voted for the Constitution if it outlawed their state religion. This is a proof that what you think the first amendment means is incorrect.
American don’t know this part of history because evil and deceitful Christophobic bigots on the left have tried to erase this information from the historical record.
Tootie, your lack of understanding of the Constitution and case law based on the Constitution is exceeded only by your lack of understanding of science.
OS,
Stick to water late at night! 🙂
Otteray:
Great for a stuffy nose.
Where? Where does it say that the feds have the power to tell the public schools ANYTHING about what it may or may not teach regardless of whether or not it has anything to do with religion?
rafflaw:
Neither is separation of church and state, yet I’m sure you think it is there.
LOL
raff, don’t do that! Here I am having a glass of orange juice before bedtime and you have me snorting it out my nose. Bad raff!
Buddha:
You wrote:
“The 1st Amendment has everything to do with it.”
Okay. Prove it. Where does it say that the feds can tell the states to not teach about creation. I need the EXACT words from the 1st amendment.
Buddha,
There you go again. Tootie doesn’t want facts because the word evolution isn’t in the Constitution! 🙂
rafflaw
Ah. So you cannot find any such words in the Constitution which say or imply that “the federal government can forbid state schools from teaching about the biblical creation of the world and humankind” or “the federal government has the power to stop state schools from teaching about the biblical viewpoint of the meaning of life”?
Thank you, I didn’t think it was there either.
Tootie, the public schools can be anything we want them to be as long as we keep religion out of it. When the First Amendment speaks to freedom of religion, that includes freedom FROM religion as well. As for where it says it, there are any number of Federal court opinions saying exactly that. And in case you have not noticed, we depend on the Federal Court system to clarify and explain the Constitution for us.
I do not want my kids and grand-kids exposed to a particular branch of fundamentalist religion of any stripe. I am opposed to anything passed off as science that is based in mythology and superstition. Evolution is a fact. Evolutionary change follows the laws Gregor Mendel discovered a century and a half ago. And for what it is worth, Mendel was a monk.
As for clicking links, they go where? To creationist propaganda sites? How about reading the Scientific American or the journal Science instead. On second thought, never mind. Facts just confuse you and you are already confused enough.
Tootles,
The 1st Amendment has everything to do with it.
ID and Creationism aren’t science. They’re religion and wishful thinking. In the scientific community, there is no controversy about evolution. It’s accepted fact. The only controversy is from theocratic knuckleheads such as yourself who think the Bible is a factual and scientific document when it isn’t. It’s a collection of parables and stories. You cannot force your religion upon others via the law.
If you doubt that creationism isn’t science and that evolution is valid science, I cannot sum it up better than the late Stephen Jay Gould did:
“Kirtley Mather, who died last year at age 89, was a pillar of both science and the Christian religion in America and one of my dearest friends. The difference of half a century in our ages evaporated before our common interests. The most curious thing we shared was a battle we each fought at the same age. For Kirtley had gone to Tennessee with Clarence Darrow to testify for evolution at the Scopes trial of 1925. When I think that we are enmeshed again in the same struggle for one of the best documented, most compelling and exciting concepts in all of science, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
According to idealized principles of scientific discourse, the arousal of dormant issues should reflect fresh data that give renewed life to abandoned notions. Those outside the current debate may therefore be excused for suspecting that creationists have come up with something new, or that evolutionists have generated some serious internal trouble. But nothing has changed; the creationists have not a single new fact or argument. Darrow and Bryan were at least more entertaining than we lesser antagonists today. The rise of creationism is politics, pure and simple; it represents one issue (and by no means the major concern) of the resurgent evangelical right. Arguments that seemed kooky just a decade ago have reentered the mainstream.
Creationism Is Not Science
The basic attack of the creationists falls apart on two general counts before we even reach the supposed factual details of their complaints against evolution. First, they play upon a vernacular misunderstanding of the word “theory” to convey the false impression that we evolutionists are covering up the rotten core of our edifice. Second, they misuse a popular philosophy of science to argue that they are behaving scientifically in attacking evolution. Yet the same philosophy demonstrates that their own belief is not science, and that “scientific creationism” is therefore meaningless and self-contradictory, a superb example of what Orwell called “newspeak.”
In the American vernacular, “theory” often means “imperfect fact” —part of a hierarchy of confidence running downhill from fact to theory to hypothesis to guess. Thus the power of the creationist argument: evolution is”only” a theory, and intense debate now rages about many aspects of the theory. If evolution is less than a fact, and scientists can’t even make up their minds about the theory, then what confidence can we have in it? Indeed, President Reagan echoed this argument before an evangelical group in Dallas when he said (in what I devoutly hope was campaign rhetoric): “Well, it is a theory. It is a scientific theory only, and it has in recent years been challenged in the world of science—that is, not believed in the scientific community to be as infallible as it once was.”
Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world’s data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts do not go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein’s theory of gravitation replaced Newton’s, but apples did not suspend themselves in mid-air pending the outcome. And human beings evolved from apelike ancestors whether they did so by Darwin’s proposed mechanism or by some other, yet to be discovered.
Moreover, “fact” does not mean “absolute certainty.” The final proofs of logic and mathematics flow deductively from stated premises and achieve certainty only because they are not about the empirical world. Evolutionists make no claim for perpetual truth, though creationists often do (and then attack us for a style of argument that they themselves favor). In science, “fact” can only mean “confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.” I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.
Evolutionists have been clear about this distinction between fact and theory from the very beginning, if only because we have always acknowledged how far we are from completely understanding the mechanisms (theory) by which evolution (fact) occurred. Darwin continually emphasized the difference between his two great and separate accomplishments: establishing the fact of evolution, and proposing a theory—natural selection—to explain the mechanism of evolution. He wrote in The Descent of Man: ‘I had two distinct objects in view; firstly, to show that species had not been separately created, and secondly, that natural selection had been the chief agent of change . . . Hence if I have erred in . . . having exaggerated its | natural selection’s] power . . . I have at least, as I hope, done good service in aiding to overthrow the dogma of separate creations.’
Thus Darwin acknowledged the provisional nature of natural selection while affirming the fact of evolution. The fruitful theoretical debate that Darwin initiated has never ceased. From the 1940s through the 1960s, Darwin’s own theory of natural selection did achieve a temporary hegemony that it never enjoyed in his lifetime. But renewed debate characterizes our decade, and, while no biologist questions the importance of natural selection, many now doubt its ubiquity. In particular, many evolutionists argue that substantial amounts of genetic change may not be subject to natural selection and may spread through populations at random. Others are challenging Darwin’s linking of natural selection with gradual, imperceptible change through all intermediary degrees; they are arguing that most evolutionary events may occur far more rapidly than Darwin envisioned.
Scientists regard debates on fundamental issues of theory as a sign of intellectual health and a source of excitement. Science is—and how else can I say it?—most fun when it plays with interesting ideas, examines their implications, and recognizes that old information may be explained in surprisingly new ways. Evolutionary theory is now enjoying this uncommon vigor. Yet amidst all this turmoil no biologist has been led to doubt the fact that evolution occurred; we are debating how it happened. We are all trying to explain the same thing: the tree of evolutionary descent linking all organisms by ties of genealogy. Creationists pervert and caricature this debate by conveniently neglecting the common conviction that underlies it, and by falsely suggesting that we now doubt the very phenomenon we are struggling to understand.
Using another invalid argument, creationists claim that ‘the dogma of separate creations,’ as Darwin characterized it a century ago, is a scientific theory meriting equal time with evolution in high school biology curricula. But a prevailing viewpoint among philosophers of science belies this creationist argument. Philosopher Karl Popper has argued for decades that the primary criterion of science is the falsifiability of its theories. We can never prove absolutely, but we can falsify. A set of ideas that cannot, in principle, be falsified is not science.
The entire creationist argument involves little more than a rhetorical attempt to falsify evolution by presenting supposed contradictions among its supporters. Their brand of creationism, they claim, is ‘scientific’ because it follows the Popperian model in trying to demolish evolution. Yet Popper’s argument must apply in both directions. One does not become a scientist by the simple act of trying to falsify another scientific system; one has to present an alternative system that also meets Popper’s criterion—it too must be falsifiable in principle.
‘Scientific creationism’ is a self-contradictory, nonsense phrase precisely because it cannot be falsified.”
Science operates off of fact. Creationism operates off of beliefs. Creationism is not science in substance or in form.
Tootie,
The First Amendment is there to protect those of us who don’t believe in your particular religious beliefs. Private schools can tach that nonsense.
rafflaw:
The public schools can be anything a free people devoted and dedicated to liberty wish them to be.
You still haven’t told me what in the Constitution forbids the states from teaching about creationism. Perhaps it is because nothing does?
Too tie,
It is not a controversy. Religion does not belong in public schools and evolution is a scientific fact. Check out the First Amendment and the Separation of Church and State.
raff and Otteray:
click on the link
then click on the hyperlinks
shees