by rain » Wed Dec 07, 2005 2:39 am
what frickin' century?<br>maybe a few all at the same time.<br>maybe it's just the air there.<br>but does the term 'false flag' ring a bell?<br><br><br>Goodbye, Kansas<br>info 09:44 PM <br>13 Trackbacks <br>Technorati links <br> Format for printing <br> Pirate mode <br>Tag: Creationism <br>PZ Myers • 307 Comments (last page) <br>It's a sad day for American science. We've lost Kansas.<br><br>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.<br><br>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.<br><br>Critics of the new language charged that it was an attempt to inject God and creationism into public schools, in violation of the constitutional ban on state establishment of religion.<br><br>All six of those who voted for the new standards were Republicans. Two Republicans and two Democrats voted no.<br>For the next few years, a lot of schoolkids are going to get taught slippery twaddle—instead of learning what scientists actually say about biology, they're going to get the phony pseudoscience of ideologues and dishonest hucksters. And that means the next generation of Kansans are going to be a little less well informed, even more prone to believing the prattlings of liars, and the cycle will keep on going, keep on getting worse.<br><br>This, for instance, is baloney.<br><br>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.<br>The proponents of these changes don't have any idea what the fossil and molecular evidence says, and they are misrepresenting it. There is no credible evidence against common descent and chemical evolution; those concepts are being strengthened, year by year. What does this school board think to gain by teaching students lies?<br><br>In addition, the board rewrote the definition of science, so that it is no longer limited to the search for natural explanations of phenomena.<br>Rewriting the definition of science seems a rather presumptuous thing for a school board to do, I think, especially when their new definition is something contrary to what working scientists and major scientific organizations say is science. As for removing the limitation to natural phenomena, what do they propose to add? Ghosts, intuition, divine revelation, telepathic communications from Venusians? It's simply insane.<br><br>The clowns of Kansas don't think so, of course.<br><br>"This is a great day for education. This is one of the best things that we can do," said board chairman Steve Abrams. Another board member who voted in favor of the standards, John Bacon, said the move "gets rid of a lot of dogma that's being taught in the classroom today."<br><br>John Calvert, a retired attorney who helped found the Intelligent Design Network, said changes probably would come to classrooms gradually, with some teachers feeling freer to discuss criticisms of evolution. "These changes are not targeted at changing the hearts and minds of the Darwin fundamentalists," Calvert said.<br><br>The Seattle-based Discovery Institute, which supports challenges to Darwinian evolutionary theory, praised the Kansas effort. "Students will learn more about evolution, not less as some Darwinists have falsely claimed," institute spokesman Casey Luskin said in a written statement.<br>Casey Luskin is a toady for the DI, so what does he know? There is a straightforward body of evidence for evolution to which students should be introduced—evidence that high school curricula barely touch on as it is. Adding a collection of false and confusing claims about what scientists say is only going to diminish the legitimate science that can be taught. And teaching absurdities, such as that science deals with the supernatural, represents a load of garbage that instructors at the college level are going to have to scoop out of the brains of these poor students. At least, that is, out of the diminishing number of students who will pursue genuine science, rather than the dead-end vapor of Intelligent Design creationism.<br><br>Goodbye, Kansas. I don't expect to see many of your sons and daughters at my university in coming years, unless the teachers of your state refuse to support the outrageous crapola their school board has foisted on them. I hope the rest of the country moves on, refusing to join you in your stagnant backwater of 18th century hokum.<br><br><br>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br><br>Since I got a useful list of the pro and con members of the board in the comments, I thought it would be a good idea to bring it up top and spread the word.<br><br>Here are the Kansas good guys. When they come up for re-election, vote for them.<br><br>Pro-evolution, the heirs of the Enlightenment:<br>Janet Waugh<br>Sue Gamble<br>Carol Rupe<br>Bill Wagnon<br>Here are the Kansas bad guys. Vote against them whenever you can.<br><br>Pro-intelligent-design, the wretched sucktards of Ignorance:<br>Kathy Martin<br>Kenneth Willard<br>John W. Bacon<br>Iris Van Meter<br>Connie Morris<br>Steve Abrams<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/longcomments/goodbye_kansas/">pharyngula.org/index/webl...ye_kansas/</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>nonetheless, interesting, hot on the heals of the wiki/Seigenthaler thing...<br><br>'we're not in Kansas anymore', but is it Nebraska, or Missouri<br><br>Kansas-Nebraska Act <br><br>Kansas-Nebraska Act, bill that became law on May 30, 1854, by which the U.S. Congress established the territories of Kansas and Nebraska. By 1854 the organization of the vast Platte and Kansas river countries W of Iowa and Missouri was overdue. As an isolated issue territorial organization of this area was no problem. It was, however, irrevocably bound to the bitter sectional controversy over the extension of slavery into the territories and was further complicated by conflict over the location of the projected transcontinental railroad. Under no circumstances did proslavery Congressmen want a free territory (Kansas) W of Missouri. Because the West was expanding rapidly, territorial organization, despite these difficulties, could no longer be postponed. Four attempts to organize a single territory for this area had already been defeated in Congress, largely because of Southern opposition to the Missouri Compromise. Although the last of these attempts to organize the area had nearly been successful, Stephen A. Douglas, chairman of the Senate Committee on Territories, decided to offer territorial legislation making concessions to the South. Douglas's motives have remained largely a matter of speculation. Various historians have emphasized Douglas's desire for the Presidency, his wish to cement the bonds of the Democratic party, his interest in expansion and railroad building, or his desire to activate the unimpressive Pierce administration. The bill he reported in Jan., 1854, contained the provision that the question of slavery should be left to the decision of the territorial settlers themselves. This was the famous principle that Douglas now called popular sovereignty, though actually it had been enunciated four years earlier in the Compromise of 1850. In its final form Douglas's bill provided for the creation of two new territories—Kansas and Nebraska—instead of one. The obvious inference—at least to Missourians—was that the first would be slave, the second free. The Kansas-Nebraska Act flatly contradicted the provisions of the Missouri Compromise (under which slavery would have been barred from both territories); indeed, an amendment was added specifically repealing that compromise. This aspect of the bill in particular enraged the antislavery forces, but after three months of bitter debate in Congress, Douglas, backed by President Pierce and the Southerners, saw it adopted. Its effects were anything but reassuring to those who had hoped for a peaceful solution. The popular sovereignty provision caused both proslavery and antislavery forces to marshal strength and exert full pressure to determine the “popular” decision in Kansas in their own favor, using groups such as the Emigrant Aid Company. The result was the tragedy of “bleeding” Kansas. Northerners and Southerners were aroused to such passions that sectional division reached a point that precluded reconciliation. A new political organization, the Republican party, was founded by opponents of the bill, and the United States was propelled toward the Civil War.<br><br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0827030.html">www.infoplease.com/ce6/hi...27030.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>maybe the 'community fountain' is not only deeper than hitherto suspected, but also harbours more than a few lurking crocodiles.<br><br>whatever, Bob the bard anchored it for me with the seeminly anomalous combination of 'days of '49' and 'gentleman's club of spalding'. there's much 'wealth' to be had in the digging.<br><br>trivia aka duckies for the bubble bath<br><br>James Polk, who Seigenthaler<br>wrote a book on, (eg. see <!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.booknotes.org/Transcript/?ProgramID=1763">www.booknotes.org/Transcr...ramID=1763</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--> - recommended reading)<br>lived in Columbia, Tennessee, <br>which is on the <br>Duck River.<br><br>Quack.<br><br>and banned, imho, your nose for lurking amphibians is a talent to be nurtured and valued.<br><br>'ear, 'ear.<br> <br> <p></p><i></i>
