More on science and religion, the Kansas Board of Education has approved new public school science standards yesterday that cast doubt on the theory of evolution. Notes CNN:
The challenged concepts cited include the basic Darwinian theory that all life had a common origin and the theory that natural chemical processes created the building blocks of life.
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 just feel sorry for the students.
The BBC report on it here:
The new standards include several specific challenges, including statements that there is a lack of evidence or natural explanation for the genetic code, and charges that fossil records are inconsistent with evolutionary theory.
It also states that says certain evolutionary explanations “are not based on direct observations… and often reflect… inferences from indirect or circumstantial evidence”.
“This is a great day for education,” board chairman Steve Abrams told the Reuters news agency.
Comments
4 responses to “Kansas school board redefines science”
Why do you feel sorry for students, who are for once getting to hear both sides of an arguement so to be able to decide for themselves, instead of continung to be fed one of two major worldviews without exposure to any alternatives?
The issue is not whether intelligent design or evolution is correct. If evolution is a theory, with both evidence for and against it, and intelligent design is a theory with both evidence for and against it, how can they not be given equal consideration in teaching? The bias that exists today is that evolution is taught as fact, without any mention of an alternative solution. What would be stupid, blinkered and ignorant, in my opinion, would be to continue teaching only ONE of two major theories, and to continue to present that theory as sientific fact when it remains debatable.
Creationism is not thought as a science as “IT IS NOT ONE” ditto Intelligent design. Proff if god has had a direct hand in evolution he would not had let people to evolve into the people who would come up with that crap.
Wheather god exist or not is a scientific leason it is religion. Some people believe in Hindiusm and Buddism. Are kids in schools in Kanas going to be thought “an alternative solution” that involves Karma. No this is mearly christian fasism.
In science a theory is a well supported and well accepted (among the scientific community) explanation of a natural phenonema. It is NOT, as is the case for every day speech, one of more than 1 “equal” explanations.
The theory of evolution is a theory. It is very well supported and very well accepted among scientists. There is not a question about the validity of evolution in science, just in certain fundamentalist christian societies, mostly in the US.
Intelligent design is not a theory. It is at best a hypothesis (a untested and not well accepted explanation). But in reality it is not even science. It does not belong in a science classroom at all in any organized manner. Science must be testable. ID is not.
It’s not a matter of giving both sides of the question, there is no question. Are we going to tell students there is a conflict between a round world and a flat world next? Or chemistry and alchemy? Or physics and magic?
Intelligent design belongs in the church not in the science classroom.
What about the possibility of pulling out of Iraq, letting Iran invade and lose resources fighting their own kind,
and then come in and mop up the dregs?