Cobb County - remove the stickers

[scotth]

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/01/13/evolution.textbooks.ruling/index.html

Cobb County gets to remove the evolution warning stickers.

Still can't believe this huge of an error was made in the article....

According to the AP, the schools placed the stickers after more than 2,000 parents complained the textbooks presented evolution as fact, without mentioning rival ideas about the beginnings of life.

Evolution is NOT a theory concerning the 'beginnings of life'.

[Khonshu]

I can believe it. How many reporters have any level of expertise in science?

But still, this is good news. Thanks for posting it.

[EdipisReks]

the whole situation is stupid. that reporter is even more stupid.

[kookbreaker]

Well, it happened, and for that I am happy. But it did not happen in the manner I would like it to have happened. It would have been better had the district come to its senses.

My second choice would have been for an enraged mob of parents who actually care about the realities of education taking the 'school officials' out behind a custodian's shed and putting bullets in their brainpans.

[kookbreaker]

Originally posted by Khonshu
I can believe it. How many reporters have any level of expertise in science?

But still, this is good news. Thanks for posting it.

He's just churning out the same mistake made by the judges:


"Due to the manner in which the sticker refers to evolution as a theory, the sticker also has the effect of undermining evolution education to the benefit of those Cobb County citizens who would prefer that students maintain their religious beliefs regarding the origin of life," Cooper wrote in his ruling.

[TheBoyPaj]

The judge's version is not too far off. Evolution, while not about origins itself, is at odds with the bible's depiction of the beginnings of life.

[Batman Jr.]

The funny thing about this topic is how so many of the popularly accepted scientific discoveries of the past have contradicted the Bible countless times before. We now know we don't live in a geocentric universe, the Earth is not flat, etc., yet religious people will still be so protective of anything else that threatens to make their silly book invalid. These people ought to know that science won out in the war against religion long before the theory of evolution came to prominence.

[jmercer]

You beat me to it again, Paj, dammit! ;) Good post.

The judges ruling and wording is correct if you think about it. He refers to the origins of life as the student's religious beliefs - he's not linking the theory of evolution to the origins of life.

BTW, Batman Jr. - AFAIK, the bible doesn't explicitely state anything about geocentricity or flat earth... does it? Maybe I've forgotten...

[patnray]

Originally posted by scotth
http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/01/13/evolution.textbooks.ruling/index.html

Cobb County gets to remove the evolution warning stickers.

Still can't believe this huge of an error was made in the article....

Evolution is NOT a theory concerning the 'beginnings of life'.
It is not surprising. There was a recent article in the San Jose newspaper that made the same mistake. The anti-evolutionists promote this confusion at every opportunity. Clearly the reporters are repeating what they hear from one side without any effort to get input from elsewhere...

[headscratcher4]

This decision is like winning a small battle, the war is still being lost...

[drkitten]

Originally posted by kookbreaker
He's just churning out the same mistake made by the judges:

Let's be fair. The judge is not ruling on the scientific controversy, but upon the legal controversy placed before him. Unless you've got access to the various submissions made by the parties, you don't really know what the dispute in the briefs was about.

You've seen how easy it is for a discussion on this forum to get sidetracked --- and if Cobb County chose to defend their decision to place the stickers on the textbooks on the grounds of parental complaints that "the textbooks presented evolution as fact, without mentioning rival ideas about the beginnings of life"...

Well, this is exactly the sort of thing that a good lawyer should be able to refute directly. There are no other legitimate rival ideas regarding the beginnings of life for which there is a shred of scientific evidence, and therefore it's appropriate not to mention those "rival ideas." In point of fact, the original sticker wording openly states (incorrectly) that evolution is a theory regarding "the origin of life." Of course, a good lawyer will also point out that the sticker itself is factually incorrect, and that evolution is not a theory of albiogenesis. But the judge is free to base his ruling on any of the points under dispute. To me, it looks like he got it right. The central LEGAL point isn't that the sticker is factually incorrect, but that it violates the first amendment.

[gnome]

In ruling that the stickers violate the constitutionally mandated separation between church and state, U.S. District Judge Clarence Cooper ruled that labeling evolution a "theory" played on the popular definition of the word as a "hunch" and could confuse students.


What a great opportunity to clear up this popular misconception...

Unfortunately no follow-through... they bring up that theory is commonly held to mean "hunch" and imply that's inaccurate...

But they don't say what it really means!!!! Arrrrgh so close to something very laudable.

[Batman Jr.]

Originally posted by jmercer
BTW, Batman Jr. - AFAIK, the bible doesn't explicitely state anything about geocentricity or flat earth... does it? Maybe I've forgotten...
1 Chronicles 16:30: "He has fixed the earth firm, immovable."

Matthew 4:8: "Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them"

Matthew 4:8 is a little more oblique in revealing its understanding of the universe, but it can be easily implied that it expresses a disbelief in a spherical Earth because there is no possible way to see every kingdom from one vantage point no matter how high you are. You'd only be able to see one side of the Earth at best.

[T'ai Chi]

Originally posted by Batman Jr.
yet religious people will still be so protective of anything else that threatens to make their silly book invalid. These people ought to know that science won out in the war against religion long before the theory of evolution came to prominence.

Well, you should be more fair in your comments. Many religious people embrace science and the discoveries of science quite readily.

[T'ai Chi]

Originally posted by Batman Jr.
1 Chronicles 16:30: "He has fixed the earth firm, immovable."

Matthew 4:8: "Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them"

Matthew 4:8 is a little more oblique in revealing its understanding of the universe, but it can be easily implied that it expresses a disbelief in a spherical Earth because there is no possible way to see every kingdom from one vantage point no matter how high you are. You'd only be able to see one side of the Earth at best.

Maybe the exceeding high mountain is another dimension?

[Batman Jr.]

Originally posted by jzs
Maybe the exceeding high mountain is another dimension?
If the Bible presents itself in anything less than a very incisive way, then contradictions between it and science shouldn't mean much, because there will always be ways to make its indeterminacies adhere to what is known to be true. In this kind of case, no information of real use will really be that salvageable from it, because everything in it will have to remain moot.
Originally posted by jzs
Well, you should be more fair in your comments. Many religious people embrace science and the discoveries of science quite readily.
Religion is something that values the unscientific in order to prolong its own existence. It's accurate to say that many religious people accept a great deal of the discoveries science has made, but the scientific process itself they reject by the very merits they find in their own religiosity.

[Brahe]

Originally posted by jzs
Maybe the exceeding high mountain is another dimension? Just read Abbott's Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, have you? :-)

[T'ai Chi]

Originally posted by Brahe
Just read Abbott's Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, have you? :-)

Yes.

I have it in here (http://www.martini.nu/justin/books.JPG), in the middle shelf, to the left of the probability book that says "Ross".

I actuall won it from getting a question in Frank Morgan's Math Chat column (see http://www.maa.org/features/mathchat/mathchat_12_2_99.html).

[T'ai Chi]

Originally posted by Batman Jr.
If the Bible presents itself in anything less than a very incisive way, then contradictions between it and science shouldn't mean much, because there will always be ways to make its indeterminacies adhere to what is known to be true. In this kind of case, no information of real use will really be that salvageable from it, because everything in it will have to remain moot.


Sorry, I didn't catch that.

If one doesn't interpret it as literal as possible, I don't see anything wrong with interpreting each passage.


Religion is something that values the unscientific in order to prolong its own existence. It's accurate to say that many religious people accept a great deal of the discoveries science has made, but the scientific process itself they reject by the very merits they find in their own religiosity.

Some people, sure. But not all. For example, there are some who believe that science helps to discover how god operates, etc.

And what about some scientists who are religous? Just what are they thinking?? ;)

[Questioninggeller]

That decision put me in a good mood all day.

Take that uneducated and ill-informed people seeking to force beliefs over science. Those people should send their kids to private schools so they can learn the teachings of L Ron Hubbard and Joseph Smith and other "profits" of "intelligent design."

[TheBoyPaj]

Originally posted by jzs
If one doesn't interpret it as literal as possible, I don't see anything wrong with interpreting each passage.


Because if that's the way it works, if each passage can be interpreted in whatever way you like, then there can be no consensus of opinion as to what it is supposed to mean.

You would have to accept the possibility that, when the bible talks about God, it might mean some sort of metaphorical god. Jesus might be just be intended to be an imaginary friend. The whole thing might just be the retelling of a dream someone once had.

Therefore, how can Christians say that their interpretation of the creation story is the right one?

[Stitch]

"Science and religion are related and they're not mutually exclusive," school district attorney Linwood Gunn said in an AP report. "This sticker was an effort to get past that conflict and to teach good science."

(My bold)

My science doesn't need religion, it seems to me that it is only religion that is trying to prevent a mutual exclusivity in an effort to try and protect itself by association with something that is a reality.

[gnome]

Originally posted by TheBoyPaj
Because if that's the way it works, if each passage can be interpreted in whatever way you like, then there can be no consensus of opinion as to what it is supposed to mean.

You would have to accept the possibility that, when the bible talks about God, it might mean some sort of metaphorical god. Jesus might be just be intended to be an imaginary friend. The whole thing might just be the retelling of a dream someone once had.

Therefore, how can Christians say that their interpretation of the creation story is the right one?

Hopefully someone that goes for the "broad interpretation" method of keeping their bible relevant to them, is open-minded enough to allow that some people may have a different opinion.

Actually going down this road is sort of what ended my exploration of Wicca. I liked it, because it was a beautiful idea, and generally had an equal treatment of men and women, and the moral standard was "harm" instead of someone's list of sins. I steered away from those that seemed as dogmatic about certain pagan specifics as some are about Christianity... there didn't seem to be any basis for such rigidity. So my favorite neo-pagans had their own ideas about how it all worked, and I began to come up with my own. Round about then it began occurring to me that we were just making sh*t up... borrowing gods from whatever pantheon we chose, and generally playing a big game of make believe. While it was great stuff there was no reason to believe it was cosmically true just because we liked it. In addition to that, I rejected Christianity early on as part of a rejection of superstitious beliefs in general... after being involved in Wicca for a while I noticed that lots (not all) of the people around me were quite superstitious in the classic sense, worried about bad luck, "Karma", malevolent spirits, and so forth. So eventually, though I still try to hold to some of the good ideas behind it, I stopped considering myself Wiccan. I still enjoy a good ritual now and then if I happen to stop by the old unitarian church on a moonlit weekend night... :)

[ShowMe]

"Science and religion are related and they're not mutually exclusive," school district attorney Linwood Gunn said. "This sticker was an effort to get past that conflict and to teach good science."

One must wonder, if the school is so concerned about its children, why they aren't also clamouring for science teachers toenter the Sunday school and teach the theory of evolution.

If they calim the kids need to be exposed to alternating theories, seems to me this would be fair.



A board spokesman said no decision had been made on when, or if, the stickers would be removed.

Actually, the decsion has been made:

A federal judge Thursday ordered a suburban Atlanta school system to remove stickers from its high school biology textbooks

Not a lot of grey area there. Whoever this mysterious spokesman is perhaps they should sit in on a few of those reading classes in the school......

[Ossai]

jmercer
BTW, Batman Jr. - AFAIK, the bible doesn't explicitely state anything about geocentricity or flat earth... does it? Maybe I've forgotten... It depends on how the bible is interpreted. Specifically it’s mentioned a number of times that the earth rests on pillars and that the sky is a dome holding back the waters and that the stars are hung from the dome – Genesis.

What is or isn’t specifically mentioned in the bible does not stop people from declaring what they believe holy writ, ie Israel being the center of the ‘flat’ world and depicted as such on medieval maps.


Ossai

[T'ai Chi]

Originally posted by TheBoyPaj
, if each passage can be interpreted in whatever way you like, then there can be no consensus of opinion as to what it is supposed to mean.


There is rarely concensus of opinion in any subject.


You would have to accept the possibility that, when the bible talks about God, it might mean some sort of metaphorical god. Jesus might be just be intended to be an imaginary friend. The whole thing might just be the retelling of a dream someone once had.


That's true.


Therefore, how can Christians say that their interpretation of the creation story is the right one?

Some do, some don't.

[Batman Jr.]

Originally posted by jzs
There is rarely concensus of opinion in any subject.

But our point is that there is no source of objective information to have an informed conversation about what the Bible actually means. Many subjects of scholarly interest will be shrouded in controversy, but the difference with the Bible is that it's really not possible for a consensus to ever be reached.

[Pixel42]

Originally posted by headscratcher4
This decision is like winning a small battle, the war is still being lost...

Too right.

The day before running this story, my newspaper reported this (http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1389146,00.html)

US school in eye of creationist storm

Julian Borger in Washington
Thursday January 13, 2005
The Guardian

The battle over attempts to introduce a version of creationism into the curriculum of American schools has become focused on a small town in Pennsylvania.
Biology teachers at a high school in Dover have rejected the instructions of local officials to read a statement in class today questioning the theory of evolution.

They had been ordered by the town's elected school board to preface their usual class on evolution with a statement, saying "Darwin's Theory is a theory ... not a fact. Gaps in the theory exist for which there is no evidence."

As an alternative, the statement mentions "intelligent design", an updated form of creationism which argues that life on earth is too complex to have developed at random.

The teachers asked to opt out of making the statement, and it will be read instead by a school administrator before a biology class early next week.

The Dover school board's actions make the town the first in the US to promote "intelligent design" in competition to evolution. It has become the subject of a lawsuit by a group of parents that has pitted the Christian right against the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The case is due to be heard in the next few months.

"Intelligent design is more than an attack on evolution. What these folks are proposing is to allow faith and miracles and supernatural creators to be considered as science," the ACLU's legal director in Pennsylvania, Witold Walczak, said.

A supreme court decision in 1987 banned the teaching of creationism on the grounds that it would violate the separation of church and state.

The Dover school board decision is one of a series of signs that the movement is making a comeback. Mr Walczak predicted that it would gather steam as Christian conservatives drew inspiration from President Bush's re-election.

A CBS/New York Times poll at the time of the election found 55% of Americans believed God created humans in their present form, 27% believed in evolution guided by God and only 13% believed God was not involved in human evolution. And 65% backed teaching creationism alongside evolution.

The Dover school board and its supporters argue that "intelligent design" is not covered by the 1987 supreme court decision because it is not inherently religious, but a scientific challenge to Darwinism.

"Religion has nothing to do with intelligent design," said Carl Jarboe, a former chemistry professor and school board supporter. "I am alleging there is not one piece of scientific evidence that supports evolution."

[scotth]

Woo hoo, Cob County is gonna appeal.

What a bunch of dill holes.

[Dr Adequate]

Gaps in the theory exist for which there is no evidence.
Now there's a meaningful sentence. Blimey, these people are geniuses, aren't they?

[Devious Dave UK]

Maybe we should have this pdf turned into a sticker and placed over the pages of Genesis in every Bible:

http://www.talkorigins.org/pdf/evolution-fact.pdf

[Dr Adequate]

Couldn't we cut a deal with these guys?

If they promise not to tell lies in schools, we'll promise not to tell the truth in churches.

Just a thought.

[RvLeshrac]

Living in Cobb County and having gone to elementary/middle/high school here, this whole thing has upset me greatly.

http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/0105/23isevolution.html

Fortunately, with articles like this, the local media has cemented itself on the side of education. A majority of teachers have also cemented themselves firmly on the side of education, and have opposed this thing from the beginning.

I've seen any number of articles from various individuals with science and education backgrounds that have decided to take a public stand against this, to paraphrase Penn, Male Bovine Excrement.

Unfortunately, there are also a number of creationists that have taken to the public forum and have been spreading lies and misinformation.

Please pass on a link to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution to any and all of your skeptical friends/associates, and urge them to send in letters or articles of support for the judge's decision.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

"Darwin's Theory is a theory ... not a fact. Gaps in the theory exist for which there is no evidence."
Dr. A has objected to the second sentence, but it simply says that there are gaps, and that there is no evidence for said gaps. Therefore they are hypothesized gaps. I wonder who hypothesized them?

Edited to add: Oh wait, never mind, it says that the gaps exist. Therefore they are not hypothesized. Yet there is no evidence for them.

:D

~~ Paul

[DangerousBeliefs]

The Onion - What do you think? (http://www.theonion.com/wdyt/index.php?issue=4103)

In case you're dead, The Onion is satire.