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R.I.P, Science in Kansas
In Dover Pennsylvania, the overwhelming vote was to remove every single school board member who had tried to substitute "Intelligent Design" for biological science. This is probably going to put a spoke in the plans to take the ID case all the way up to the Supreme Court.
But in Kansas, not just biology, but all sciences went down for the count: Most disturbing to many scientists is the redefinition of science in the new standards to allow what many consider supernatural causes. Previously, science was defined as "The human activity of seeking natural explanations for what we observe in the world around us. These explanations are based on observations, experiments, and logical arguments that adhere to strict empirical standards and a healthy skeptical perspective."
Under the new standards: "Science is a systematic method of continuing investigation, that uses observation, hypothesis testing, measurement, experimentation, logical argument and theory building to lead to more adequate explanations of natural phenomena."
Not only are natural explanations ruled out (opening the door wide for the supernatural, of course), notice also that skepticism and empirical standards are also gone. Not to mention, most dangerously of all, the ability to find answers. Read it again - "continuing investigation." "More adequate explanations."
My father once picked up a copy of Behe's Darwin's Black Box, a creationist biology text. (Why he was reading it in the first place, I don't know.) "The problem isn't that it challenges current thinking," said my father, the lifelong engineer and general tinkerer, "it's that it tells you that there is no answer, so stop looking. It shuts down all debate. It shuts down all hope of change."
And that's what the new Kansas standard does - tells you to hit "adequate" and stop. Oh, you can "continue investigation" but you're not going to get anywhere, because God Did It and it's so irreducibly complex that it's not worth our trouble to go past the "adequate explanation" already printed in the Bible.
This isn't just unscientific, it's irreligious. When creatinists point to deeply religious, great scientists in the past, they neglect to mention that Bacon, Kepler, Boyle, Newton, and the whole kickline were studying science because they believed that through rigorous, methodical, and yes, even skeptical empiricism they could understand the world around them. That the world itself was methodical and logical, because God had made it that way, and only through thoroughly understanding the world *exactly as it was* could they understand God. (We're not even going to go into the false witness in most of the statements about those scientists on that website. Why the world would be better if the people who want to wallpaper it with the 10 Commandments actually FOLLOWED the 10 Commandments is a different rant.)
As the song lyric goes, "Man wrote the Bible; God wrote the rocks." You cannot believe that God made the world and then turn away from it as not worthy of study.
But in Kansas, not just biology, but all sciences went down for the count: Most disturbing to many scientists is the redefinition of science in the new standards to allow what many consider supernatural causes. Previously, science was defined as "The human activity of seeking natural explanations for what we observe in the world around us. These explanations are based on observations, experiments, and logical arguments that adhere to strict empirical standards and a healthy skeptical perspective."
Under the new standards: "Science is a systematic method of continuing investigation, that uses observation, hypothesis testing, measurement, experimentation, logical argument and theory building to lead to more adequate explanations of natural phenomena."
Not only are natural explanations ruled out (opening the door wide for the supernatural, of course), notice also that skepticism and empirical standards are also gone. Not to mention, most dangerously of all, the ability to find answers. Read it again - "continuing investigation." "More adequate explanations."
My father once picked up a copy of Behe's Darwin's Black Box, a creationist biology text. (Why he was reading it in the first place, I don't know.) "The problem isn't that it challenges current thinking," said my father, the lifelong engineer and general tinkerer, "it's that it tells you that there is no answer, so stop looking. It shuts down all debate. It shuts down all hope of change."
And that's what the new Kansas standard does - tells you to hit "adequate" and stop. Oh, you can "continue investigation" but you're not going to get anywhere, because God Did It and it's so irreducibly complex that it's not worth our trouble to go past the "adequate explanation" already printed in the Bible.
This isn't just unscientific, it's irreligious. When creatinists point to deeply religious, great scientists in the past, they neglect to mention that Bacon, Kepler, Boyle, Newton, and the whole kickline were studying science because they believed that through rigorous, methodical, and yes, even skeptical empiricism they could understand the world around them. That the world itself was methodical and logical, because God had made it that way, and only through thoroughly understanding the world *exactly as it was* could they understand God. (We're not even going to go into the false witness in most of the statements about those scientists on that website. Why the world would be better if the people who want to wallpaper it with the 10 Commandments actually FOLLOWED the 10 Commandments is a different rant.)
As the song lyric goes, "Man wrote the Bible; God wrote the rocks." You cannot believe that God made the world and then turn away from it as not worthy of study.
no subject
And really scarey? Some of the same like minded loonies have started to infiltrate Australia from the US. Get the hell out of my country!!!!!!
no subject
When your religious mandate is to convert the world and your temporal drive is for as much power as you can grab - look at Dobson, Falwell, etc., then I'm not surprised we're exporting it. Particularly since it's starting to look like the pendulum is about to swing the other way here - it's hard to keep thinking that a vote for Bush is a vote for morality and safety when top members from every segment of the Administration are under indictment or investigation, prices are up and jobs are down, and American citizens are crushed to death or drowned on our soil while the social safety net fails.
no subject
We've also got some hysterical-sounding black gospelly style preacher coming to Sydney. Name escapes me. Tagged as the black Billy Grahame. Maybe he's a good man, I don't know. But I hear that brand of religion and I just lift my skirts and run like hell.
Never ceases to amaze me these Dobson/Falwwell etc types can condemn outfits like Taliban ... and yet they're the flip side of the coin. And so blind they can't see it.