… the freedom to redefine science!
Risking the kind of nationwide ridicule it faced six years ago, the Kansas Board of Education approved new public-school science standards Tuesday that cast doubt on the theory of evolution.
The 6-4 vote was a victory for “intelligent design” advocates who helped draft the standards. Intelligent design holds that the universe is so complex that it must have been created by a higher power.
Critics of the new language charged that it was an attempt to inject God and creationism into public schools in violation of the separation of church and state.
All six of those who voted for the new standards were Republicans. Two Republicans and two Democrats voted no.
“This is a sad day. We’re becoming a laughingstock of not only the nation, but of the world, and I hate that,” said board member Janet Waugh, a Kansas City Democrat.
Supporters of the new standards said they will promote academic freedom. “It gets rid of a lot of dogma that’s being taught in the classroom today,” said board member John Bacon, an Olathe Republican.
The new standards say high school students must understand major evolutionary concepts. But they also declare that the basic Darwinian theory that all life had a common origin and that natural chemical processes created the building blocks of life have been challenged in recent years by fossil evidence and molecular biology.
In addition, the board rewrote the definition of science, so that it is no longer limited to the search for natural explanations of phenomena.
I, for one, am delighted that my job has been made that much easier. I think I’m going to submit a paper to the Astrophysical Journal tomorrow, asserting that the accelerating expansion of the Universe is caused by Scott McLellan’s ever increasing excuses for the government’s need to torture people. Seems as good an explanation as any other.
November 8th, 2005 at 11:24 pm
We’ve discussed related topics at length and will do so in the future. For now, late at night, I will just weep for the thinking people of Kansas, whose children must face being educated in line with the standards of those who wiould replace more than a century of human scientific advances with fanciful dogma.
November 9th, 2005 at 12:07 am
The ACLU is doing a great job fighting intelligent design in Dover, Pennsylvania. I am optimistic about how this will affect Kansas. Despite the board’s decision, I think the law will prohibit ID in schools, and there will be even more embarassment. Though NOT teaching evolution is probably NOT against the law, so Kansas education may suffer nonetheless.
November 9th, 2005 at 12:09 am
Mark,
If you’re still up, you should stop weeping and contemplate the news that the Democratic slate swept the Dover school board elections, removing those responsible for the nonsense going on there. Sometimes democracy works, all too rarely these days, but still…
November 9th, 2005 at 12:10 am
Is it bad to challenge scientific theory? This may not be the correct answer to evolutions problems, but most people are treating evolution like law, and that is not really science.
November 9th, 2005 at 12:16 am
Hi Peter. I’m still up, winding down after our Cafe Scientifique this evening. I am taking great solace in the Dover results. This rare outbreak of reason does help a little – you’re right.
Ookami – this is a long story that we and many other sites have been through at length. Evolution is a remarkably well-tested and succesful scientific theory. ID is none of these things. It is never bad to challenge a scientific theory – to the contrary, it is a great thing to do. People have tried in many ways to challenge evolution and so far it hasn’t failed any tests. This is what makes it a great theory. Do you have a new idea of how to test it?
No scientists treat evolution like law. We treat is like a remarkably well-tested and successful scientific theory.
November 9th, 2005 at 12:23 am
If I remember correctly Peter, reports were that the ID movement has abandoned the Dover case and moved on, and now the district is in deep financial trouble, legal bills and the like. Maybe that is one reason for the election results.
And about Kansas, I am curious why is it always Kansas, there are plenty of other states with more conservative politics. Is there some unique local alliances there that makes it easier for creationists to have an impact?
In any event, I think the school board vote was expected, the issue is likely to be decided in court…again…
November 9th, 2005 at 12:39 am
Ookomi — It has been pointed out to me that scientists are not, as a general rule, impressed by dogma. Some of them have a weak spot for “trendy,” it’s true, but most of them are very independent, very ambitious, and very anti-establishment. They are always searching for The Next Big Thing: for a chance to be a maverick, for a chance to think of something original, to write their names indelibly into the history books by proving that the mainstream of scientific thought has been getting it all wrong for the last several thousand years.
If there was something really substantive behind Intelligent Design, somebody would have picked up on it by now. Some Young Turk would be making their name right now by running Intelligent Design through a supercomputer… and then several other Young Turks would figure it out and start their own ID research… and then the “trendy” thing would kick in, and before you know it, it would be the half of the scientific community pitted against the other half — the young, vibrant ID community against the old, institutionalized evolutionists.
THAT hasn’t happened. We’re not seeing factions amongst the scientific community — instead we’re seeing 97% of the scientific community battling with religious leaders, elected officials, community spokespersons, and public opinion. Yeah, there’s a couple of maverick scientists endorsing ID — some scientists really do love to be mavericks — but there’s no Young Turk movement catching on. If anything, old and young, scientists everywhere are starting to circle the wagon, starting to realize that the process of Science itself is under attack, and THEY DON’T KNOW HOW TO ARTICULATE THIS TO THE PUBLIC.
November 9th, 2005 at 10:08 am
If I remember correctly Peter, reports were that the ID movement has abandoned the Dover case and moved on, and now the district is in deep financial trouble, legal bills and the like. Maybe that is one reason for the election results.
I hope this is true. The brazen lying and dishonesty–not just of the Dover School Board yahoos, but the Discovery Institute is just breathtaking.
Anyway, here’s hoping Atty Rothschild is the guy the ACLU turns lose on Kansas. He just decimated Michael Behe on the stand, and as we know, Dembski and the other “expert” witnesses…er, “withdrew” at the last minute.
November 9th, 2005 at 10:52 am
ApJ will never go for that; but it’d make a great Journal of Irreproducible Results paper…
November 9th, 2005 at 8:54 pm
Scientists redefine Kansas: dumbfucks. So there.
November 10th, 2005 at 1:19 am
loonunit – I agree that science is “trendy”. But i think that also they ridicule and black ball to a high degree as well. Just look at string theory, it was laughed at for many many years and only recently has it become a trend.
It’s not to say that ID will ever catch on, a science based on; here is some stuff, and then there is that stuff that we can’t ever know, is not really gonna fly… but the problem i have is that people are sticking their fingers in their ears and not really listening to the other side of the argument.
November 12th, 2005 at 7:39 pm
What else do you expect if you indoctrinate small children with religion? They will grow up to become religious people who will send their children to religious schools and be in favour of teaching ID.
The only solution is outlawing teaching children things that can be proven to be nonsense. Teachings about the Bible would be ok, but teaching children that it’s a fact that Jesus rose from the death should be illegal.
How can it be that religious school boards can demand that evolution be questioned in biology class, while religion cannot be questioned at all?
November 16th, 2005 at 10:42 am
[...] But, amidst the bemoaning of this setback for Enlightenment values, we all had a little fun with the school board’s attempt to change the definition of science, as Risa has already pointed out. (See also John Rennie at the new Scientific American blog.) Seems that they have decided to open the door to explanations other than the purely natural — obviously, so that they can include religious (”supernatural”) explanations within a science curriculum. [...]