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maelorin at 07:13pm on 21/12/2006 under church and state, education, evolution, schools, stupid design, usaWednesday, December 20, 2006
Kate Heneroty at 10:50 AM ET
[JURIST] The Cobb County School District [official website] on Tuesday agreed to remove anti-evolution stickers [ACLU press release] from its high school biology textbooks. In 2002, parents sued the suburban Atlanta school district claiming the stickers violated the separation between church and state by promoting religion in the classroom. In January 2005, a federal district court ordered the removal of the stickers [text; JURIST report]. The school board appealed the decision and in May the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit remanded the case [JURIST reports] to the district court on the issue of whether the school district's actions were "religiously neutral."
The settlement ends the legal battle which began when the district placed a sticker in 35,000 biology textbooks calling evolution "a theory, not a fact." To settle the case, the school district also agreed not to take any action which would undermine the teaching of evolution in high school classrooms.
The Atlanta Journal Constitution has more.
thirsty
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Thank GOD they did that. What a stupid, ignorant thing to put on a SCIENCE book anyway. Everything in a science textbook is a theory to some extent or another. It only contains hypotheses of varying certainty that haven't yet been disproven.
I don't see them putting disclaimers on the Bible:
The text contained herein has not been conclusively verified or disproven. As with all historical counts recorded by human beings, it may be subject to transcription error or colored by the beliefs or feelings of the author. The facts alleged in the Bible are nothing more than one recordation of a period in time, and are unverifiable in their ancient nature.
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My personal hypothesis is that most people 'feel' rather than 'think' ... they make decisions based upon what they feel rather than thinking about things. I'd go so far as to say that a large proportion of people are so averse to thinking they'll do anything to avoid it. [thinking is hard, and feels bad/difficult - besides they don't really know how, and fear of failure/mistakes is a powerful motivator. much easier to follow what you're told is the right thing to do ...]
Actually, in response to the textbook labelling, some atheists did pretty much exactly that ...
eg:
truthiness
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Linky no worky.
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Already, Grand Canyon park rangers are not allowed to state how old the canyon is according to modern geology.
The thing is, people completely ignorant of science are tryng their hand in setting science curriculum.
stupid design
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You know, I just read the so called "wedge document" regarding the plan for ID, and it makes me absolutely furious. These people (ID proponents) have a concerted plan to impose their ideology on everyone else, and bugger the consequences. Although, I must admit, the so called descent of mankind into immoral chaos because of "materialistic world views" is kind of funny. Because modern civilisation is so aweful compared to the good old days...
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to have written the strategy down was supreme arrogance ... in keeping with the rest of the group's behaviour, really.
this is a group that believes they are on top because they should be, and unfortunately deity:elohim:yaweh(theirs) ordained that lesser mortals are here to serve them just as they 'serve' deity:elohim:yahweh(theirs) ... [after all, anyone stupid enough to actually believe in stupid design™ really ought to get what's coming to them]...
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I shouldn't be surprised I know, but I think I had assumed they were all just willfully ignorant. Having now seen how elaborate and technical some of their arguments are, I don't see how they could generate them without realising that they were distorting science and sometimes outright lying about it.
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ID is Creationism.
ID is Creationism.
ID is Creationism.
ID is Creationism.
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They obviously believe that their god created the world, but I'm beginning to suspect that the "science" of ID exists solely for bamboozling the ignorant, and that they don't give a damn about the details of it.
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I had a very intelligent professor in college who taught evolutionary science and was also a Quaker from the northwestern US.
It was his sincere belief that evolution existed and that evolution was God's plan. Note that this was not what he taught - he taught only the scientific theory of evolution - but this was his personal belief shared with the class when asking the class to share their own beliefs (in an attempt to determine what our starting ground was on evolution, as I went to school in the deep southern US).
I think that his approach may be the one way to reconcile faith with reason for those torn between the two. In any event, it is certainly more open minded, thoughtful and nuanced than either the atheist camp (no way is there a god) or the fundamentalist camp (god will damn all you atheists to hell).
Personally, I think at best I am agnostic about both scientific principals and the existence of god. I have observed the fallibility of human reason and emotion, the limitations of knowledege and the variance of 'truth' when seen from different perspectives.
What I best know is that really I don't know anything at all. I only hope to understand a few things along the way.
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Quaker's are interesting. They have a curious world view. (Not that I claim to know their beliefs particularly well.) There have been many Christians who consider evolution to be part of (their) God's Plan - after all, why not - nothign in the Bible said that change was out (for example, Genesis merely says that living things were created complete, not unchanging).
Back when I was exploring Catholicism, I held a similar view regarding evolution and 'God's Plan'. I walked away when I realised that belief in deity had to be sustained, while evolution didn't require belief - but it did have to be understood. I guess Science as a way of understanding won out for me - once I untangled the two.
Science is not a search for the 'Truth' or a 'Truth', it is a process for understanding and exploring physical reality. It is not equipped, nor designed, nor directed towards any 'greater' understanding. Which is not to say that scientists don't make the mistake of confusing science with other forms of knowing/understanding/exploring.
Because science has challenged, and overthrown, so many long held beliefs over the past few centuries, it is not hard to understand why it is considered to be so threatening to those whose world views are founded upon beliefs (especially unquestioned/unquestionable beliefs). It is also worth recalling that our contemporary science is barely a few centuries old.
In the end, science is a process - a methodology or approach to answering questions - but only certain kinds of questions.
Socrates (and myself) would agree :)
True wisdom (understanding) is a neverending process. I requires you to be able question your own understanding, your own beliefs - without fear of where that might take you. That's pretty hard for us humans.
I enjoy the journey of learning far too much to want to stop at some arbitrary point of knowing everything. I like being challenged - to reconsider what I whought I knew (though I often don't realise it until afterwards - we're all fallible :) I suspect that has something to do with why I've not limited myself to a single intellectual 'domain', why I've not settled into the first job I landed.
And perhaps it's also why I can be so annoying to some of my academic collegaues (and perhaps why they also like to have me around?). I push boundaries ... and perhaps I expect others to do the same?
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