Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Weekend Contributor
(NOTE: Correction and Update Below)
A Missouri lawmaker has proposed legislation that would make learning about evolution in public schools “optional.” State Rep. Rick Brattin (R), the main sponsor of House Bill 291—also known as the “Missouri Standard Science Act”—introduced the bill in January. Brattin told KCTV, a local station, that teaching only evolution in school was “indoctrination.” He continued, “Our schools basically mandate that we teach one side. It is an indoctrination because it is not objective approach.”
The Kansas City Star reported that Brattin said, “…forcing students to study the natural selection theories developed by Charles Darwin a century and a half ago can violate their religious faith. It’s an absolute infringement on people’s beliefs.” Critics of Brattin’s bill say his legislation “would allow religious faith in biblical explanations to crowd out sound science.”
HB 291 would require schools to notify parents if “the theory of evolution by natural selection” was being taught at their child’s school—and give students the opportunity to “opt out of the class.” According to Dana Liebelson of Mother Jones, HB 291 “redefines a few things you thought you already knew about science.”
Liebelson:
For example, a “hypothesis” is redefined as something that reflects a “minority of scientific opinion and is “philosophically unpopular.” A scientific theory is “an inferred explanation…whose components are data, logic and faith-based philosophy.” And “destiny” is not something that $5 fortune tellers believe in; Instead, it’s “the events and processes that define the future of the universe, galaxies, stars, our solar system, earth, plant life, animal life, and the human race.”
Liebelson added that the “Missouri Standard Science Act” also requires that public elementary and secondary schools in the state—as well as introductory science classes at public universities—“give equal textbook space to both evolution and intelligent design.”
From the National Center for Science Education:
HB 291’s text is about 3000 words long, beginning with a declaration that the bill is to be known as the Missouri Standard Science Act, followed by a defectively alphabetized glossary providing idiosyncratic definitions of “analogous naturalistic processes,” “biological evolution,” “biological intelligent design,” “destiny,” “empirical data,” “equal treatment,” “hypothesis,” “origin,” “scientific theory,” “scientific law,” and “standard science.”
Among the substantive provisions of the bill, applying both to Missouri’s public elementary and secondary schools and to introductory science courses in public institutions of higher education in the state: “If scientific theory concerning biological origin is taught in a course of study, biological evolution and biological intelligent design shall be taught. Other scientific theory or theories of origin may be taught.”
For public elementary and secondary schools, HB 291 also provides, “If scientific theory concerning biological origin is taught in a textbook, the textbook shall give equal treatment to biological evolution and biological intelligent design.” After the bill is enacted, new textbooks purchased for the public schools will have to conform to the equal treatment requirement. A committee will develop supplementary material on “intelligent design” for optional interim use.
Eric Meikle, the education director at the National Center for Science Education, said that he couldn’t “imagine” that any mainstream textbook publisher would comply with the bill’s textbook requirement. Meikle said, “The material doesn’t exist.”
Brattin told The Riverfront Times that he was a “science enthusiast” and “a huge science buff.” He added. “This [bill] is about testable data in today’s world.” Meikle disagrees with Brattin. Meikle told Mother Jones, “This bill is very idiosyncratic and strange. And there is simply not scientific evidence for intelligence design.”
And people wonder why some of our students are falling behind international peers in science.
Creation Science 101 by Roy Zimmerman
Correction and Update
It has been called to my attention by Willy Kessler that HB291 was introduced in 2013 and “allowed to die.” Brattin was sponsor of another bill (HB 1472) this year which would require Missouri public schools to notify parents when evolution is being taught and to allow students to opt out of classes.
From the National Center for Science Education (January 17, 2014)
Antievolution legislation in Missouri
Missouri’s House Bill 1472, introduced in the House of Representatives on January 16, 2013, is the third antiscience bill of the year, following Virginia’s HB 207 and Oklahoma’s SB 1765. If enacted, the bill would require “[a]ny school district or charter school which provides instruction relating to the theory of evolution by natural selection” to have “a policy on parental notification and a mechanism where a parent can choose to remove the student from any part of the district’s or school’s instruction on evolution.” Parents and guardians would receive a notification containing “[t]he basic content of the district’s or school’s evolution instruction to be provided to the student” and “[t]he parent’s right to remove the student from any part of the district’s or school’s evolution instruction.”
NCSE’s deputy director Glenn Branch commented, “House Bill 1472 would eviscerate the teaching of biology in Missouri.” Quoting “The OOPSIE Compromise — A Big Mistake,” which Eugenie C. Scott and he wrote for Evolution: Education and Outreach in 2008, he added, “Evolution inextricably pervades the biological sciences; it therefore pervades, or at any rate ought to pervade, biology education at the K–12 level. There simply is no alternative to learning about it; there is no substitute activity. A teacher who tries to present biology without mentioning evolution is like a director trying to produce Hamlet without casting the prince.” Teachers, schools, and districts would suffer as well, Branch observed. “The value of a high school education in Missouri would be degraded.”
The sponsors of HB 1472 are Rick Brattin (R-District 55) and Andy Koenig (R-District 99). Both have a history of sponsoring antievolution legislation in Missouri. In 2012, Koenig sponsored and Brattin cosponsored House Bill 1276, a “strengths and weaknesses” bill, and Brattin sponsored and Koenig cosponsored House Bill 1227, which would have required equal time for “intelligent design” in public schools, including introductory courses at colleges and universities. In 2013, Koenig sponsored and Brattin cosponsored House Bill 179, a “strengths and weaknesses” bill, and Brattin sponsored and Koenig cosponsored House Bill 291, which would have required equal time for “intelligent design” in public schools, including introductory courses at colleges and universities. All died.
SOURCES
Missouri lawmaker wants to make evolution teaching optional (KCTV)
Unprecedented Attack On Evolution ‘Indoctrination’ Mounted In Missouri (Talking Points Memo)
Anti-Evolution Missouri Bill Requires College Students to Learn About Destiny (Mother Jones)
Rick Brattin, Who Wants Anti-Evolution Lessons In Missouri Schools: “I’m A Science Enthusiast” (Riverfront Times)
Missouri bill would let parents pull kids from evolution classes (Kansas City Star)
Missouri lawmaker introduces bill allowing familes to ‘opt out’ of learning evolution (Daily Kos)
“Intelligent design” bill in Missouri (National Center for Science Education)
Submitted by Elaine Magliaro
The views expressed in this posting are the author’s alone and not those of the blog, the host, or other weekend bloggers. As an open forum, weekend bloggers post independently without pre-approval or review. Content and any displays or art are solely their decision and responsibility.
The is a larger issue in Missura and most states regarding the prioritization of sports in the so called state universities. Went in dumb come out dumb too is the goal of the goalees. North Carolina just got embarrassed for a New York minute when one of their staff revealed the illiteracy rate of the athletes at UNC. This is not all South of the Mason Dixon. Take State Penn where they put up with a pedophile rapist as a coach. It was more important to beat Ohio State that to keep the anal entry intact. So, the evolution issue is indicative of the level of so called education in America but it is an appendage.
A religious argument is not a “side.” It’s an unhealthy obsession, and unwelcome in our shared public square.
Missouri bill to create ‘parental warning’ requirement to teach evolution debated
By George Chidi
Saturday, February 15, 2014
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/02/15/missouri-bill-to-create-parental-warning-requirement-to-teach-evolution-debated/
Excerpt:
The bill proposed by Republican State Rep. Rick Brattin had its first public hearing Thursday. Brattin has described teaching only evolution in school as “indoctrination” to local TV.
The language of the bill makes little provision separating discussion of the specifics of evolutionary biology from any other element of biology upon which evolutionary theory rests, like anthropology, examination of dinosaur fossils, genetic sciences, disease or modern medicine.
“My fear is that every mention of a fossil, every conversation about the development of organs and vital structures, every single mention about the genetic similarity that we share with other organisms could potentially be systematically whittled out of these student’s education,” wrote Maxton Thoman, a student columnist for the University of Alabama’s Crimson White. “In the end, a lack of an education in this field will put students behind the rest of their class, and the rest of the world for that matter, in a way that they will not be able to recover from – much like leaving out multiplication would severely hinder any further advancement in mathematics.”
The bill also provides for the right of parents to inspect all “curriculum materials used in the district’s or school’s evolution instruction” before they can be used in class.
The National Center for Science Education’s deputy director Glenn Branch said in letter online describing the bill that “House Bill 1472 would eviscerate the teaching of biology in Missouri. … Evolution inextricably pervades the biological sciences; it therefore pervades, or at any rate ought to pervade, biology education at the K–12 level. There simply is no alternative to learning about it; there is no substitute activity.” Branch added, “Teachers, schools, and districts would suffer as well. … The value of a high school education in Missouri would be degraded.”
Showdown Over Science in Texas
Creationists corrupted state education standards and may push evolution out of textbooks.
By Zack Kopplin
9/20/13
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/09/texas_science_textbooks_creationists_try_to_remove_evolution_from_classrooms.html
Excerpt:
The Texas state Board of Education is in the process of adopting new science textbooks that will be used in public schools for the next decade. On Tuesday, the board held its first hearing for public comment on which textbooks should be adopted. Creationists came out in full force and demanded that “biblical truth,” rather than evolution, be presented in the state’s biology textbooks.
These anti-science activists could compromise the teaching of evolution all across the country. They’ve been working toward this moment for years.
In 2009, the Texas state Board of Education adopted new science standards. The standards presented to the board had been written by a group of scientists and educators, and the proposal covered evolution fully. More than 50 science organizations endorsed the original standards, but creationists successfully amended them. Now the standards include loopholes that allow evolution to be attacked and creationism to be snuck into public school classrooms.
The standards call for students to “analyze and evaluate the fossil record and the complexity of the cell.” They also say that students should “analyze, evaluate, and critique” scientific theories and that students should be exposed to “all sides of scientific evidence of those scientific explanations so as to encourage critical thinking.”
These requirements sound reasonable; we all want students to think critically, analyze, and evaluate. But these standards are designed to bring non-science into the classroom under the cover of analyzing, evaluating, and critiquing evolution.
This is a longtime creationist strategy. Louisiana, where I was born, has its own creationism law that calls for “critiquing” evolution in order to promote “critical thinking.”
Gov. Rick Perry helped make it clear that the Texas curriculum standards are meant to allow creationism into the classroom. During the 2012 presidential election, Perry said, “In Texas we teach both creationism and evolution in our public schools.”
Texas Public Schools Are Teaching Creationism
An investigation into charter schools’ dishonest and unconstitutional science, history, and “values” lessons.
By Zack Kopplin
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2014/01/creationism_in_texas_public_schools_undermining_the_charter_movement.html
Excerpt:
When public-school students enrolled in Texas’ largest charter program open their biology workbooks, they will read that the fossil record is “sketchy.” That evolution is “dogma” and an “unproved theory” with no experimental basis. They will be told that leading scientists dispute the mechanisms of evolution and the age of the Earth. These are all lies.
The more than 17,000 students in the Responsive Education Solutions charter system will learn in their history classes that some residents of the Philippines were “pagans in various levels of civilization.” They’ll read in a history textbook that feminism forced women to turn to the government as a “surrogate husband.”
Responsive Ed has a secular veneer and is funded by public money, but it has been connected from its inception to the creationist movement and to far-right fundamentalists who seek to undermine the separation of church and state.
Infiltrating and subverting the charter-school movement has allowed Responsive Ed to carry out its religious agenda—and it is succeeding. Operating more than 65 campuses in Texas, Arkansas, and Indiana, Responsive Ed receives more than $82 million in taxpayer money annually, and it is expanding, with 20 more Texas campuses opening in 2014.
Charter schools may be run independently, but they are still public schools, and through an open records request, I was able to obtain a set of Responsive Ed’s biology “Knowledge Units,” workbooks that Responsive Ed students must complete to pass biology. These workbooks both overtly and underhandedly discredit evidence-based science and allow creationism into public-school classrooms.
A favorite creationist claim is that there is “uncertainty” in the fossil record, and Responsive Ed does not disappoint. The workbook cites the “lack of a single source for all the rock layers as an argument against evolution.”
I asked Ken Miller, a co-author of the Miller-Levine Biology textbook published by Pearson and one of the most widely used science textbooks on the market today, to respond to claims about the fossil record and other inaccuracies in the Responsive Ed curriculum. (It’s worth noting that creationists on the Texas State Board of Education recently tried, and failed, to block the approval of Miller’s textbook because it teaches evolution.)
“Of course there is no ‘single source’ for all rock layers,” Miller told me over email. “However, the pioneers of the geological sciences observed that the sequence of distinctive rock layers in one place (southern England, for example) could be correlated with identical layers in other places, and eventually merged into a single system of stratigraphy. All of this was established well before Darwin’s work on evolution.”
The indoctrination of evolutionism should be voluntary. Parents should have the option to opt out of this nonsense. The students will not be exposed to all the problems with the evolutionism theory and all the contradicting evidence, but instead will be indoctrinated into believing that evolutionism is science. Having the option to opt out of this blatant indoctrination and reckless abandonment of science, logic, and reason.
I noticed a reference to the Creation vs. evolutionism debate with Ken Ham and Bill Nye. Here’s a good video that illustrates how everything Bill Nye used in the debate was flawed…
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWLzj_dt1Jg&w=560&h=315%5D
Mizzou. Folks, think of the, name. Why did they go from the University of Missouri to Mizzou? They purposely dumbed down the name, the state, the so called university. Why? Dumb. Went in dumb, come out dumb too. Sports are more important than education.
I think the Missouri Bills are great. It’ll reduce the competition for admission at the prestigious universities.
Of course US dominance in science will continue to tank.
From The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy and Other Essays in Contemporary Thought, by John Dewey (New York: Hold, 1910):
From Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of our Ancestors, by Nicholas Wade (New York: Penguin Books, 2006):
Religion has simply become irrelevant in the modern world. Mankind has moved on from bronze-age dogma about invisible daddy/mommy “dieties” to explore the universe instead of living in fear and ignorance regarding it. The Republican party in the United States, however, still thinks it can cynically foment and exploit religious fear and ignorance by undermining science — especially biological science — in the public schools. No one who wishes for their children and fellow countrymen to enjoy an enlightening education should for one moment entertain any doubts about the reactionary political objectives lurking behind the pious religious platitudes. Lifelong — and currently lapsed — Republican party analyst Kevin Phillips calls this religious political program “a national Disenlightenment.” Not a good thing for the United States, either now or in the future.
Modern History Sourcebook:
The Crime of Galileo:
Indictment and Abjuration of 1633
Fordham University
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1630galileo.asp
Whereas you, Galileo, son of the late Vincenzio Galilei, of Florence, aged seventy years, were denounced in 1615, to this Holy Office, for holding as true a false doctrine taught by many, namely, that the sun is immovable in the center of the world, and that the earth moves, and also with a diurnal motion; also, for having pupils whom you instructed in the same opinions; also, for maintaining a correspondence on the same with some German mathematicians; also for publishing certain letters on the sun-spots, in which you developed the same doctrine as true; also, for answering the objections which were continually produced from the Holy Scriptures, by glozing the said Scriptures according to your own meaning; and whereas thereupon was produced the copy of a writing, in form of a letter professedly written by you to a person formerly your pupil, in which, following the hypothesis of Copernicus, you include several propositions contrary to the true sense and authority of the Holy Scriptures; therefore (this Holy Tribunal being desirous of providing against the disorder and mischief which were thence proceeding and increasing to the detriment of the Holy Faith) by the desire of his Holiness and the Most Emminent Lords, Cardinals of this supreme and universal Inquisition, the two propositions of the stability of the sun, and the motion of the earth, were qualified by the Theological Qualifiers as follows:
The proposition that the sun is in the center of the world and immovable from its place is absurd, philosophically false, and formally heretical; because it is expressly contrary to Holy Scriptures.
The proposition that the earth is not the center of the world, nor immovable, but that it moves, and also with a diurnal action, is also absurd, philosophically false, and, theologically considered, at least erroneous in faith.
Therefore . . . , invoking the most holy name of our Lord Jesus Christ and of His Most Glorious Mother Mary, We pronounce this Our final sentence: We pronounce, judge, and declare, that you, the said Galileo . . . have rendered yourself vehemently suspected by this Holy Office of heresy, that is, of having believed and held the doctrine (which is false and contrary to the Holy and Divine Scriptures) that the sun is the center of the world, and that it does not move from east to west, and that the earth does move, and is not the center of the world; also, that an opinion can be held and supported as probable, after it has been declared and finally decreed contrary to the Holy Scripture, and, consequently, that you have incurred all the censures and penalties enjoined and promulgated in the sacred canons and other general and particular constituents against delinquents of this description. From which it is Our pleasure that you be absolved, provided that with a sincere heart and unfeigned faith, in Our presence, you abjure, curse, and detest, the said error and heresies, and every other error and heresy contrary to the Catholic and Apostolic Church of Rome.
davidm,
Did anyone suggest that Copernicus and Galileo weren’t believers of the Catholic faith? Did anyone suggest that these two men thought there needed to be conflict between science and religion? It was religious officials who found Galileo guilty of heresy for his book “Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems.” After he was found guilty, he was confined to his home in Florence where he lived under house arrest for the rest of his life.
I might also add that Galileo was educated by the Catholic Church and after graduating became employed by the Catholic Church as a professor. The antagonism between Galileo and the church is often mischaracterized.
There is a lot of scientific mythology surrounding the story of Galileo, and historians of all stripes have spun it many different ways. Many people do not realize that both Copernicus and Galileo were Bible believing Christians who saw no conflict between science and religion. The work of Copernicus written a hundred years before Galileo was dedicated to the Pope and not put on the list of books in need of correction until Galileo’s time. Galileo attempted to prove the Copernican theory with a false understanding of tides that he believed was due to the earth’s movement and not the gravity of the moon as proposed by Kepler. Galileo even referred to Kepler’s theory as relying upon occult properties. Galileo put the burden of proof upon those who disbelieved his theory, to prove it false. Many tried to show how Galileo was wrong about the tides, but he would not see it. Galileo continued to believe that his understanding of the tides was the smoking gun to prove heliocentrism. Being friends with the Pope, he was asked by the Pope to prove his case, but a book he wrote ended up offending the pope in that it named the advocate for his theory a simpleton or fool. Many conjecture that the Pope didn’t want to be viewed as the fool. Ultimately, the ideas came to trial, which was not so much a conflict between science and religion, but just the arguments of an arrogant religious man who was also a scientist. Galileo was attempting to provide a scientific demonstration that would force a reinterpretation of Scripture that he considered to be divinely inspired. When his demonstration failed, partly because of his reliance upon a false scientific notion of tides, he recanted his position on the matter. Later his theory of tides was shown to be wrong but the heliocentric theory of Copernicus came to be accepted as correct. And rather than maintain blind obstinence, the Catholic Church finally accepted that theory and reworked their misunderstanding of Scripture. In the end, truth prevails in both science and religion.
The Trial of Galileo
by Doug Linder (2002)
http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/galileo/galileoaccount.html
Excerpt:
The Admonition and False Injunction of 1616
In 1613, just as Galileo published his Letters on the Solar Spots, an openly Copernican writing, the first attack came from a Dominican friar and professor of ecclesiastical history in Florence, Father Lorini. Preaching on All Soul’s Day, Lorini said that Copernican doctrine violated Scripture, which clearly places Earth, and not the Sun at the center of the universe. What, if Copernicus were right, would be the sense of Joshua 10:13 which says “So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven” or Isaiah 40:22 that speaks of “the heavens stretched out as a curtain” above “the circle of the earth”? Pressured later to apologize for his attack, Lorini later said that he “said a couple of words to the effect that the doctrine of Ipernicus [sic], or whatever his name is, was against Holy Scripture.”
Galileo responded to criticism of his Copernican views in a December 1613 Letter to Castelli. In his letter, Galileo argued that the Scripture–although truth itself–must be understood sometimes in a figurative sense. A reference, for example, to “the hand of God” is not meant to be interpreted as referring to a five-fingered appendage, but rather to His presence in human lives. Given that the Bible should not be interpreted literally in every case, Galileo contended, it is senseless to see it as supporting one view of the physical universe over another. “Who,” Galileo asked, “would dare assert that we know all there is to be known?”
Galileo hoped that his Letter to Castelli might foster a reconciliation of faith and science, but it only served to increase the heat. His enemies accused him of attacking Scripture and meddling in theological affairs. One among them, Father Lorini, raised the stakes for the battle when, on February 7, 1615, he sent to the Roman Inquisition a modified copy of Galileo’s Letter to Castelli. He attached his own comments to his submission:
All our Fathers of this devout convent of St. Mark are of opinion that the letter contains many propositions which appear to be suspicious or presumptuous, as when it asserts that the language of Holy Scripture does not mean what it seems to mean; that in discussions about natural phenomena the last and lowest place ought to be given the authority of the sacred text; that its commentators have very often erred in their interpretation; that the Holy Scriptures should not be mixed up with anything except matters of religion….When, I say, I became aware of all of this, I made up my mind to acquaint your Lordship with the state of affairs, that you in your holy zeal for the Faith may, in conjunction with your illustrious colleagues, provide such remedies as may appear advisable….I, who hold that those who call themselves Galileists are orderly men and good Christians all, but a little overwise and conceited in their opinions, declare that I am actuated by nothing in this business but zeal for the sacred cause.
In fact, Lorini’s letter appears more charitable than he in fact was. He would stop at almost nothing to destroy the “Galileists,” as is shown from his alteration–in certain key places–of the text of Galileo’s Letter to Castelli. For example, where Galileo had written: “There are in Scripture words which, taken in the strict literal meaning, look as if they differed from the truth,” Lorini substituted: “which are false in their literal meaning.” However unscrupulous his methods, Lorini’s denunciation succeeded in setting the machinery of the Catholic Church in motion.
Lorini had allies, such as Father Tommaso Caccini. Caccini traveled to Rome to appear before the Holy Office and expose, as he saw it, “the errors of Galileo.” Called for examination on March 20, Caccini said that Florence was full of “Galileists” publicly declaring God to be an accident and doubting miracles. Caccini placed full blame for the sorry state of affairs on Galileo. Asked the basis for his report, Caccini credited Lorini and a Father Ximenes. Overall, the condemnation was hardly convincing. Giorgio de Santillana, author of The Crime of Galileo, wrote of Caccini’s testimony: “The whole deposition is such an interminable mass of twists and innuendoes and double talk that a summary does no justice to it.”
Matteo Caccini, Tommaso’s brother, fumed when he learned of his brother’s denunciation of Galileo. He described his brother as “lighter than a leaf and emptier than a pumpkin.” In an April letter he wrote of his Tommaso’s action: “As to F. T., I am so angry that I could not be more, but I don’t care to discuss it. He opened up with me in private the other day, and he revealed such dreadful plans that I could scarcely control myself. In any event, I wash my hands of him forever and ever.”
Aware of the move against him, Galileo wrote to a friend, Monsignor Dini, asking that his letters be forwarded to the influential Cardinal Bellarmine, the Church’s chief theologian, and–if it could be arranged–Pope Paul V. Unfortunately for Galileo, the seventy-four-year old Cardinal Bellarmine “was no friend of novelties” (although, unlike some of Galileo’s other detractors, he had at least looked through a telescope and given–in 1611–an audience to Galileo). In his innate conservatism he saw the Copernican universe as threatening to the social order. To Bellarmine and much of the Church’s upper echelon, the science of the matter was beyond their understanding–and in many cases their interest. They cared about administration and preserving the power of the papal superstate more than they did getting astronomical facts right.
Bellarmine stated his views on the Galileo controversy in an April 12, 1615 letter to Father Foscarini, a highly-respected monk from Naples. He indicated that Galileo could speak about the Copernican model “hypothetically, and not absolutely.” Bellarmine wrote that “to affirm that the Sun, in its very truth, is at the center of the universe…is a very dangerous attitude and one calculated not only to arouse all Scholastic philosophers and theologians but also to injure our faith by contradicting the Scriptures.”
With “nineteen centuries of organized thought piling up to smother him,” Galileo pleaded–in a powerful summary of thoughts on Scriptural interpretation and the evidence concerning the nature of the universe–his case in his Letter to the Grand Duchess. He asked that his idea not be condemned “without understanding it, without hearing it, without even having seen it.” Galileo’s eloquent Letter was forwarded to Rome where, in the words of one historian, “it sank out of sight as softly as a penny in a snowbank.”
When depositions in the Galileo matter concluded, the Commissary-General forwarded two propositions of Galileo to eleven theologians (called “Qualifiers”) for their evaluation: (1) The Sun is the center of the world and immovable of local motion, and (2) The Earth is not the center of the world, nor immovable, but moves according to the whole of itself, also with a diurnal motion. Four days later, on February 23, 1616, the Qualifiers unanimously declared both propositions to be “foolish and absurd” and “formally heretical.” Less than two weeks later, Pope Paul V–described by the Florentine ambassador as “so averse to anything intellectual that everyone has to play dense and ignorant to gain his favor”–endorsed the theologian’s conclusions. The Pope, according to the Inquisition file, “directed the Lord Cardinal Bellarmine to summon before him the said Galileo and admonish him to abandon the said opinion; and, in the case of his refusal to obey, the Commissary of the Holy Office is to enjoin him…to abstain altogether from teaching or defending this opinion and even from discussing it.”
MO medical schools should be allowed to teach surgeons bloodletting instead of surgical techniques.
http://screen.yahoo.com/medieval-barber-000000006.html
I think what is happening is a resurgence of Christian Reconstructionism and it’s various sects, who are very political, very conservative right wing ideologues, who are now seriously trying to do exactly what they feel they have a Divine Imperative to do. They intend to legislate their religious beliefs and mainstream them into our public institutions. It’s getting serious, one attempt after another to undermine the Constitutional principal of separation of church and state.
Speed of light…
… How does a creationist explain it?
The stars… BILLIONS of years old.
We’re just seeing their light.
Time travels forward… yet the visible light we see was generated eons ago.
Most certainly more than the 6000-9000 years the creationists hand us.
Must be another one of those fossil clues God put there to distract nonbelievers form the Truth, that little devil.
Max-1 wrote: “Speed of light… How does a creationist explain it? The stars… BILLIONS of years old. We’re just seeing their light.”
Because schools don’t allow any time for creationism, I guess you never examined the data of Trevor Norman and Barry Setterfield or heard about the concept of curved space (implicated by the work of both Einstein and Hawking) and Riemannian Geometry. If ignorance is bliss, we have to keep all this out of the classroom. We don’t want to confuse those students. 🙂
Some debates are flooded with wry, dry humour.
It is easy for me to observe how various notions of intelligent design have evolved during my lifetime.
As it is (ridiculously?) simple to demonstrate the ongoing evolution of the notions of intelligent design (through using simple historical and journalistic research tools?), surely intelligent designers are evolving, also?
If the evolution of intelligent design and the evolution of intelligent designers is blatantly obvious, why do intelligent designers promote the evolution of their designs while denying evolution itself?
What if actual intelligence has neither yet been created nor yet evolved?
Whenceforth solves that not the problem?
There’s a post to dig up for nick…