From Wired Magazine, an example of how skeptical views on climate change have now become mainstream enough to earn a level of protection when educators want to explore both sides of the issue. It is unfortunate that Wired magazine chose to label the idea as “anti-science”.
They write:
House Bill 302, as it’s called, states that public school teachers who want to teach “scientific weaknesses” about “controversial scientific topics” including evolution, climate change, human cloning and — ambiguously — “other scientific topics” may do so without fear of reprimand. The legislation was introduced to the New Mexico House of Representatives on Feb. 1 by Republican Rep. Thomas A. Anderson.
Supporters of science education say this and other bills are designed to spook teachers who want to teach legitimate science and protect other teachers who may already be customizing their curricula with anti-science lesson plans.
“These bills say, ‘Oh we’re just protecting the rights of teachers,’ which on the face of it isn’t wrong. But they draw big red circles around topics like evolution and climate change as topics to be wary about,” said Joshua Rosenau, a policy and projects director at the National Center for Science Education. “It suggests this kind of science is controversial, and would protect teachers who want to teach anti-evolution and climate-change-denying lessons in classrooms.”
The bill is one of five already introduced to state legislatures this year. While more than 30 such bills have been introduced since 2004, only Louisiana adopted one as law in 2008.
full story here
I would certainly be willing to sign a treaty to abolish the totally corrupt UN! But then who wouldn’t.
Kristoffer Haldrup
There are many_ transitional fossils..
Go on then give it a go, I’ll be up for another couple of hours at least.
Let’s take it in bodyweight steps.
Your turn.
Kristoffer Haldrup says:
February 7, 2011 at 1:40 pm
“Phil M2, what the graph says is, that we Homo Sapiens share a common ancestor with the mouse and the rat, not that these furry little things are our nearest cousins in any sense. This common ancestor existed _many_ millions of years ago, and there are _many_ transitional fossils documenting the evolution of our respective lineages in the time since we diverged.”
Hmmmmmm….
Do you believe the Ipod and the Android had a common ancestor?
How about the Ford and Chevrolet?
Congratulations, creationists. You’ve come into this thread and given more than enough ammo to the catastrophists.
Anthony Huges
”Geeks would normally select each other as mates. ”
Now that is demonstrably untrue. Who would want to ‘shag’ someone as geeky as oneself. I chose the confident girl with the good athletic body (and larger than average breast size) but that’s just me. But she was a graduate when it actually meant something and certainly not geeky. My ‘subconscious’ genetic decisions have been proven correct by my annoyingly smart children who already have my measure.
Juice says:
February 7, 2011 at 1:55 pm
Congratulations, creationists. You’ve come into this thread and given more than enough ammo to the catastrophists.
Skepticism of the conventional wisdom is what it is, regardless of the subject.
And skepticism is the essence of the scientific method.
Hey ‘Juice’ I’m not a creationist or any other kind of ‘ist’.
I just like to look at the evidence and when it’s lacking, I file it as Bxllshit, hearsay, unproven, gossip or any other file tag you care to use. Let us not forget the wonderful levels of enlightenment that consensus science has given us such as, Flat Earth, Earth center of Universe, Glxxxl Wxxxxxg etc. etc. If you want me to go on I can find another 10-20 at least.
When I say that skepticism is the essence of the scientific method, why is that so?
It has always been so.
The primary responsibility of science is to free us of falsity, error, mass delusion.
If you automatically agree with the mass beliefs, can you really be free?
We are supposed to accept the warmists at their word because… because they are scientists, they are wise… we should defer to the opinions of our betters.
All we need to know is that “Science says…” and fill in the blanks.
The ability to disagree… is the ability to be free.
The only information passed on by Kristoffer Haldrup’s post at 1:25PM PST is anecdotal evidence of a smug attitude. As for his assertion of “cherry-picking and misrepresentation of opponents” – examples please.
As for his post 15 minutes later airily declaring there are “many transition fossils documenting evolution”, examples please.
The late Stephen Jay Gould, a prominent evolutionist, wrote this about the paucity of transitional fossils:
“The extreme rarity of transitional forms is the trade secret of paleontology… The history of most fossil species includes two features particularly inconsistent with gradualism: 1. Stasis. Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking much the same as when they disappear; morphological change is usually limited and directionless. 2. Sudden appearance. In any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and ‘fully formed.’”[S.J. Gould; Natural History 86:14 (1977)
Some biologists say that biology only makes sense within a Darwinist perspective.
Hmmmmmm…..
If I am studying the process of arboreal photosynthesis, that is, how chlorophyll converts sunlight and carbon dioxide into sugars and oxygen… what does that have to do with either Darwin or Intelligent Design? Well, chlorophyll either evolved over millions of years of evolution… or it originated in a laboratory staffed by little green men…
Either way, we have plants converting sunlight. What’s the difference? How does the obvious phenomenon favor one explanation over another?
Well, since it doesn’t, then both are equally absurd… or relevant.
Anthony Hughes,
Ok, I think I get your drift. You say “Should we consider the cell as an artifact of a highly advanced civilization that had practical, albeit unknown, purposes for assembling the cell in its particular configuration? Or should we consider it as a hodgepodge, unstructured, the result of random assembly.” I presume then that your answer to the last question would be in the negative?
To me, the biggest mystery (apart from the origin of living cells in the beginning) is that for something like 2 billion years before the cambrian, life consisted of the simplest single celled organisms. Nothing happened, nothing changed for 2 billion years. Then, almost miraculously, around 550 mybp there was the cambrian ‘explosion’. Suddenly, all these new body plans just came into existence in just a few tens of millions of years. This was followed by a rapid succession of increasing complexity leading to fish and insects within 100 million years. Within 300 million years you had just about everything up to and including dinosaurs. So what changed 550 million years ago to kick start this biological explosion, that lifted life out of that soup of bacteria?
Phil, I, unfortunately, must get some sleep soon, but here a few key points:)
Early hominid species, from a good handful of millions of years ago, such as Australopithecus stood 1-1.5 m tall and weighed 20-40 kg. (Johanson and Edey 1981; Johanson and Taieb 1976, Johanson and Edey 1981)
The somewhat older many-greats grandfather of us primates: Plesiadapis, that weighed in at about two kg and skitted about 50-60 million years ago (Gingerich, 1976)
-From here on back, fossil evidence of primates is scarce, but fortunately genetic analysis can tell us when the lineages that would eventually end up as rodents diverged from our line. This point is about 90 million years back in time, while the dinos were still roaming happily about. These little mammalian critters in the cretaceous were all about rat-sized, a size which, for the rodent species, was kept mostly unchanged through their subsequent evolution over the next 90 million years.
Here is a nice overview, I think, although I had to find the body weights from various sources: http://www.fossilrecord.net/dateaclade/clade-human-rat.html
-I am absolutely sure that this post will not convince you about anything much, but lines of evidence as those sketched here and repeated many times over for all kinds of animals constitutes very convincing evidence of common ancestry. When the fossil record is further coupled with massive amounts of supporting genetic evidence, the “case for evolution” becomes quite clear.
Good night:)
Trying to debate with a creationist (aka evolution “skeptic”) and with a so-called climate “skeptic”…
The result can be equally frustating, by refuting any straw man, insults, ad hominem attacks, etcetera that is presented as an “argument” (aka Gish Gallop)…
The earth is 4 500 000 000 years old, and for all this 4 500 000 000 years CO2 and CH4 had controlled Earth climate. That are established facts that anyone knowing a bit of science should recognize as that.
Peru says:
February 7, 2011 at 2:43 pm
“Trying to debate with a creationist (aka evolution “skeptic”) and with a so-called climate “skeptic”…”
“The result can be equally frustating, by refuting any straw man, insults, ad hominem attacks, etcetera that is presented as an “argument” (aka Gish Gallop)…”
“The earth is 4 500 000 000 years old, and for all this 4 500 000 000 years CO2 and CH4 had controlled Earth climate. That are established facts that anyone knowing a bit of science should recognize as that.”
Hello Peru,
We’ve had a lot of established “facts” in the last 3,000 years, and I don’t know how many, if any, have survived to the present day. It turns out that science, by its very nature, is imprecise, tentative, and very much subject to change when new evidence comes up.
Science seems to be a game of argument where the losers in any particular round just come back to the game with a new argument in the next round. The fun never stops. The current believers in Darwinism will argue to the bitter end, just as the believers in CAGW, then they will slink away and find a new hobby horse to ride. The fun is in the process, not the outcome.
Phil, I, unfortunately, must get some sleep soon, but here a few key points:)
Early hominid species, from a good handful of millions of years ago, such as Australopithecus stood 1-1.5 m tall and weighed 20-40 kg. (Johanson and Edey 1981; Johanson and Taieb 1976, Johanson and Edey 1981)
The somewhat older many-greats grandfather of us primates: Plesiadapis, that weighed in at about two kg and skitted about 50-60 million years ago (Gingerich, 1976)
It’s all good stuff Kristoffer and I’m keeping an open mind.
Australopithecus
This species is known from one major specimen, the Black Skull discovered by Alan Walker, and a few other minor specimens which ‘may’ belong to the same species.
Can’t you see why I’m remarkably unconvinced by this one skull? Anyhow, got to pop back to Piltdown for a pint.
Just having fun Kristoffer, don’t take it personally but just trying to illustrate that virtually all of our consensus science it flaky at best. The more that you look into any ‘accepted science’ the more shameful it becomes.
Bed time for me too.
From Peru says:
Trying to debate with a creationist (aka evolution “skeptic”) and with a so-called climate “skeptic”…
The result can be equally frustating, by refuting any straw man, insults, ad hominem attacks, etcetera that is presented as an “argument” (aka Gish Gallop)…
Personally, my experience has been that debating a creationist and debating a warmist generally result in the same sort of argumentation from either group.
Kristoffer Haldrup says:
February 7, 2011 at 2:29 pm
Phil, I, unfortunately, must get some sleep soon, but here a few key points:)
………………………………………………………………………………….
Kristoffer, thanks for fleshing out the Darwinist mythology. I am about as likely to encounter the Gods Zeus and Apollo as I am one of your mythological creatures, but the stories are entertaining, and like any mythology, they communicate some essential truths about the people who believe in them.
As far as I’m concerned, I’m invested in the here and now. Visions of 500 million years ago are as substantial to me as James Hansen predicting the year 2100. You think I might evolve a set of gills and flippers so I can swim around Manhattan?
The earth is 4 500 000 000 years old, and for all this 4 500 000 000 years CO2 and CH4 had controlled Earth climate. That are established facts that anyone knowing a bit of science should recognize as that.
Since the formation of the solar system the Sun’s output has increased by about 40%. That’s a fact taught in middle schools.
Want to try again?
You might argue about the science, but be thankful you now have the freedom to decide these educational matters locally and personally. There is no reason to take that freedom away from others, or otherwise give it up, even if you have disagreements about the particulars – ie science or educational philosophy of the citizens/parents.
SECTION 1
The liberty of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children is a
fundamental right.
SECTION 2
Neither the United States nor any state shall infringe upon this right without
demonstrating that its governmental interest as applied to the person is of the highest
order and not otherwise served.
SECTION 3
No treaty may be adopted nor shall any source of international law be employed to
supersede, modify, interpret, or apply to the rights guaranteed by this article.
Please support this amendment. Sign this petition. http://www.parentalrights.org/
Kristoffer Haldrup says:
“These little mammalian critters in the cretaceous were all about rat-sized, a size which, for the rodent species, was kept mostly unchanged through their subsequent evolution over the next 90 million years.”
And what is your explanation for the absence of evolution by natural selection for these 90 million years? Were these rodents perfect thru 90 million years of climate change?
Vince Causey says:
“So what changed 550 million years ago to kick start this biological explosion, that lifted life out of that soup of bacteria?”
Excellent question, Vince. There seems to be no reason that evolution was turned off for 500 million years, then inexplicably was turned on.
The natural conclusion is that evolution by natural selection is an insufficient answer to the question.
Tony says:
February 7, 2011 at 3:41 pm
Personally, my experience has been that debating a creationist and debating a warmist generally result in the same sort of argumentation from either group.
I can understand, Tony. Both movements are religious in nature. On the other hand, Intelligent Design is too close to common sense. Since we have tons of internet millionaires who made their fortunes designing software, ID is pretty unassailable.
I have no idea what this bill is really about (probably some awfully American thing), but it is certainly the duty of a teacher to explain not only what is known, but also reveal the gaping holes in our knowledge. She should be able to utter the magic words “we do not know” whenever appropriate. It is both liberating and instrumental in evoking curiosity.
So called “Young Earth Creationism” is plain silly and not only from a scientific but also from a theological point of view. Anyone who takes the Bible as the Word of God should be aware of the fact it is expressed in no uncertain terms that days of God are not measured with the same yardstick as days of men.
“For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.” (Psalm 90:4)
And confirmed again in the New Testament:
“But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Peter 3:8)
Therefore 13.75 ± 0.11 billion years, current estimated age of the universe based on observation and scientific theory is entirely consistent with six days of creation followed by rest.
And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. (Genesis 1:31)
If both scripture & science are taken seriously, these were simply looong days, especially the first one. That’s all.
This madness has no place in the classroom whatsoever. Beyond that it has nothing to do with evolution as such.
If you wish, neodarwinian theory simply tries to explain how certain steps of Creation were accomplished (which is not specified in the Bible). As for the false dichotomy of evolution vs. intelligent design, applying an evolutionary algorithm whenever practicable is in itself a pretty smart move (as we are starting to discover in AI research).
However, true theoretical foundations are still lacking. We still do not understand what are the necessary & sufficient conditions under which replication with some variability and subsequent selection due to limited resources leads to an ever increasing time-bounded Kolmogorov complexity of replicators. This uncertainty should be discussed in the classroom, as it may well be one of the most fruitful directions future research can take. And who else would do that work than our kids (when they grow up, of course)? So we’d better not deny them the knowledge regarding what is unknown right now.
We also have to emphasize that Darwinian theory only applies (even with some hand waving) if replicators of a certain type with pretty high time-bounded Kolmogorov complexity are already given. Smallest genome size found so far is 80 kbyte (about 40 printed pages). It is Carsonella ruddi, an endosymbiont bacterium living in insects. As most of the biochemical work is done by its host (providing a considerable part of complexity needed for successful replication), a replicator of this complexity is probably too simple to make it on its own.
As there is this unbelievably wide gap between life and inanimate matter, abiogenesis is still an enigma, a first class scientific enigma for that matter. Even kids should be aware of this fact.
To approach from a different direction let’s consider the problem of intelligent design. As we do not have the faintest idea if intelligence is unique or widespread in this universe, it is a perfectly legitimate field of research. If we are looking for signs of intelligence out there (and we do), at least we have to be able to tell apart objects that are designed from those that are not. As soon as we will have general and abstract rules to differentiate between the two kind, we’ll be in a position to ask if there’s any designer other than men out there, either inside or outside the universe, but not sooner.
The notion terrestrial life is unique in the universe is entirely consistent with observation so far. Therefore abiogenesis might have been a true miracle, occurring with arbitrarily small probability even under the most favorable conditions. From the fact we see life around here, no valid inference can be made to the probability of spontaneous development of this particular phenomenon. We only know the conditional probability of the event life appeared somehow provided we are discussing the question right now. That conditional probability is exactly 1. If we observed many biospheres with radically different structural traits, we could start doing statistical analysis, but it is not the case (yet?). As “consistent with” is not synonymous with “follows from”, we simply do not know the universe is full of life (as claimed by some) or empty.
There are signs of physical laws (or at least constants) being fine tuned to enable life. There is even speculation about some multiverse construct (claimed to be “scientific”) which would make it possible perhaps to apply evolution theory to development of physical laws. However, because all other universes in this multiverse are supposed to be unobservable in principle, this kind of reasoning violates the very foundations of the scientific method beside making a joke of Occam’s razor. The least one can say this myth surely belongs to metaphysics, not Natural Philosophy.
We don’t even know why some past events are remembered while no one can recall future events. The so called “arrow of time” is a mystery. If we try to connect it to the second law of thermodynamics, we just run into an even more opaque question about why initial entropy of the universe was so small (about 120 orders of magnitude smaller than a value based on educated guess)?
As for the connection between body & soul, of awareness and the like we don’t even know how the right questions would look like.
Then comes Heidegger’s famous question: “Why is there something rather than nothing?”
We-do-not-know. And it is highly advisable to tell about this ignorance to our kids, otherwise they’d be too easy prey to the wildest possible myths.
Religion, especially Christianity is not the enemy of science, rather it is the very foundation the marvelous building of Natural Philosophy (which permeates modern life down to its roots) was built on. Contrary to popular belief, there are metaphysical prerequisites of doing science. Both ancient Chinese and European Antiquity developed something resembling science. The Greeks also developed the concept (and practice) of mathematical proof, utterly unknown to other cultures while an indispensable ingredient of science. But neither one of them applied the intricate web of theoretical reasoning closely controlled by experimentation which proved to be so successful since its conception in the European middle ages.
In order to do science, one needs to believe in the existence of Natural Law (or at least some preexistent regularities), and needs to believe in it unconditionally, otherwise why bother to look for it? Only a madman would look for a pair of shoes under the bed if he believes it’s not there. The first occurrence of the concept ever is in the Corpus Juris Civilis, a compilation of Roman law, issued from 529 to 534 by order of Justinian I, Eastern Roman Emperor. It was used there in a slightly different sense we are familiar with, but was gradually transformed into its modern version by great medieval thinkers. And of course they reckoned the very concept of law does not make sense at all without a Legislator. Our present day concept is a bit more obscure than that, but it is still based on pure faith.
Then comes the concept of objectivity. It is a general requirement in science to be as objective as possible. For the medieval mind of course it made perfectly good sense. It was connected to the requirement of Imitatio Dei (imitating God). In that context to be objective was simply to try to see things through the eyes of God himself. We still try to do that, even if there are attempts to turn the reference point into some hive mind construct (a false god, so to speak). Such an idol is the root of groupthink so often replacing genuine objectivity.
Here comes the uniquely Christian ingredient.
“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14)
Now, in the Greek original the “Word” is λόγος (Logos), the same root “logic” comes from. Logic was implanted into the world. It may be hidden, but it is there for sure. It is the destiny of man to look for it in every nook and corner. It was a well known fact in medieval Europe and we still stick to it with all our might, even those for whom the memory of the true name is lost. That’s what elevates experimentation to an epistemological level where it can meet theory head on, nothing else. For the ancient Greeks it simply didn’t make any sense. The world beneath the skies used to be the realm of chaos and cruel fate, not logic. Shadows on the walls of a cave.
One should tell as much about these deep connections to kids as they are able to grasp and more. Otherwise the true spirit of science may get lost in the next few generations along with all its benefits enjoyed in our everyday life.
These state laws which protect freedom within the classroom to point out flaws in current scientific theories are good local initiatives.
The state laws, unfortunately, would be overridden by a ratification of a foreign treaty under the Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution. All domestic policy would then be determined not by parents, citizens, local governments or states, but by Congress and foreign-law citing judges, in order to enforce UN standards.
The UN Convention on the Rights of a Child does indeed adress the purpose of education. There is no mention of mathematics, writing, or reading in the listed object of education. But it does explicitly state that the education of the child shall be directed to “respect for the Charter of the United Nations,” and to “(e) The development of respect for the natural environment.”
What Fun!!!
Now I can teach my favorite subject anti-evolution subject!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spagetti_monster
gotta lovem.