Texas School Board Set to Vote on Challenge to Evolution
Quote:
The Texas Board of Education will vote this week on a new science curriculum designed to challenge the guiding principle of evolution, a step that could influence what is taught in biology classes across the nation.
The proposed curriculum change would prompt teachers to raise doubts that all life on Earth is descended from common ancestry. Texas is such a huge textbook market that many publishers write to the state's standards, then market those books nationwide.
Texas school board chairman Don McLeroy also sees the curriculum as a landmark -- but a positive one.
Dr. McLeroy believes that God created the earth less than 10,000 years ago. If the new curriculum passes, he says he will insist that high-school biology textbooks point out specific aspects of the fossil record that, in his view, undermine the theory that all life on Earth is descended from primitive scraps of genetic material that first emerged in the primordial muck about 3.9 billion years ago.
The older I get, the more I dislike people who are hardcore anything.
This includes religious zealots who don't like science because it makes them feel like that they believe in is wrong, but then go on to tell everyone who doesn't believe their trash that those people are wrong.
edit: I should add something to the topic. I am a geoscientist, and I'd want kids taught alternative concepts (as long as they could be scientifically tested or explained in a scientific way). Maybe that's too much to ask for SCIENCE class?
Considering that science and technology are the drivers of the economy, and Republicans fear dying poor more than anything else in this universe, I will be shocked if a Republican board in a Republican state approves a measure which will fundamentally undermine the ability of the United States to continue to develop new technologies and lead in the sciences.
Which is what teaching non-science in the science class will do.
Wow, I would seriously quit teaching biology if i was in a place where this happened. Oh well, chem can be fun...
__________________
Everyone knows scientists insist on using complex terminology to make it harder for True Christians to refute their claims.
Deoxyribonucleic Acid, for example... sounds impressive, right? But have you ever seen what happens if you put something in acid? It dissolves! If we had all this acid in our cells, we'd all dissolve! So much for the Theory of Evolution, Check MATE!
Wow, I would seriously quit teaching biology if i was in a place where this happened. Oh well, chem can be fun...
So when you examine Wine the book has to footnote it might potentially be the blood of Christ?
__________________
So far, this is the oldest I've been.
"Furthermore, I'm only one man, I don't need to buy enough pasta to run an Italian restaurant for a week or purchase enough roast beef to build an effigy of John Candy out of it." - Locke
The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to Traditional_Ale For This Useful Post:
I dunno if I'D call Nickleback or Puddle of Mudd 'alternative' I don't think I'd call much today alternative anymore.
Thank god we have a cartoon to talk about. The topic (not dissing the OP, just the stupidity of Texans) is truly something to bang ones head against the wall about.
Sure enough, I just received confirmation today in a letter from the Open Records Office at the University of Oklahoma. The letter confirms that on the day of Dawkins' speech, Oklahoma State Representative Rebecca Hamilton requested substantial information relating to the speech from Vice President for Governmental Relations Danny Hilliard. Representative Hamilton's exhaustive request included demands for all e-mails and correspondence relating to the speech; a list of all money paid to Dawkins and the entities, public or private, responsible for this funding; and the total cost to the university, including, among other things, security fees, advertising, and even "faculty time spent promoting this event."
Chilling effect?
__________________ Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position.
But certainty is an absurd one.
Texas School Board Set to Vote on Challenge to Evolution
