Evolution, Florida Style

[Howey]

I remember this crazy dude from when I lived in Jacksonville. Seems he hasn't changed much. What's scary is he's the chairman of the Senate Education Committee.

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2011/mar/14/more-conservative-legislature-considers-evolution-/news-politics/

As lawmakers wrestle with financial and policy challenges that could affect the quality of education in the state, one influential legislator is also hoping to change the way evolution is taught in Florida public schools.

Science education advocates are alarmed by a bill before the Legislature that they say could force teachers to challenge evolution at the expense of settled science.

Stephen Wise, chairman of the Senate Education Committee, has resurrected legislation he authored in 2009 that calls for a "thorough presentation and critical analysis of the scientific theory of evolution." Wise's bill failed to pass in 2009.

The critical analysis approach originated at the Discovery Institute, a think tank that supports the teaching of intelligent design, which holds that evolution alone cannot explain life, which is so complex that it must have had a creator.

Sen. Ronda Storms, R-Valrico, led another battle over evolution in 2008, but the Legislature failed to pass her bill that would have given protection to teachers who criticized evolution.

Storms' bill was filed in response to science standards adopted that year by the State Board of Education, which for the first time used the word "evolution" instead of such terms as "biological change over time." The standards also required more intense and detailed teaching of the concept.

Wise, R-Jacksonville, thinks his evolution bill may have a better chance this year because there are more conservatives in the Legislature and because he chairs a substantive committee.

"Why would you not teach both theories at the same time?" Wise said, referring to evolution and what he called "nonevolution."

"You have critical thinking in school," Wise added. "Why would you not do both?"

In 2009, Wise told WMNF radio he was concerned that students might be persecuted for wanting to talk about intelligent design.

"Why do we still have apes if we came from them?" Wise, a retired educator, said during the interview with the Tampa radio station. "And those are the kind of questions kids need to ask themselves. You know, 'how did we get here?' And, you know, there's more than one theory on this thing. And the theory is evolution, the other one is intelligent design."

[44nutman]

I vote for this creationist theory. It is my favorite, plus I read Thor a lot as a kid.

World of Fire and Ice
Originally there was a chasm, Ginnungagap, bounded on either side by fire (from the world known as Muspelheim) and ice (from the world known as Niflheim). When fire and ice met, they combined to form a giant, named Ymir, and a cow, named Audhumbla (Auðhumla), who nourished Ymir. She survived by licking the salty ice blocks. From her licking emerged Bur (Búri), the grandfather of the Aesir. Ymir, father of the frost giants, employed equally unusual procreative techniques. He sweated a male and a female from under his left arm.

Odin Kills Ymir
Odin, the son of Bur's son Borr, killed Ymir. The blood pouring out of the giant's body killed all the frost giants Ymir had created, except Bergelmir. From Ymir's dead body, Odin created the world. Ymir's blood was the sea; his flesh, the earth; his skull, the sky; his bones, the mountains; his hair, the trees. The new Ymir-based world was Midgard. Ymir's eyebrow was used to fence in the area where mankind would live. Around Midgard was an ocean where a serpent named Jormungand lived. He was big enough to form a ring around Midgard by putting his tail in his mouth.

Ygdrasil
From Ymir's body grew an ash tree named Yggdrasil

whose branches covered the known world and supported the universe. Ygdrasil had three roots going to each of the 3 levels of the world. Three springs supplied it with water. One root went into Asgard, the home of the gods, another went into the land of the giants, Jotunheim, and a third went to that primeval world of ice, darkness, and the dead, known as Niflheim. In Jotunheim's spring, Mimir, lay wisdom. In Niflheim, the spring nourished the adder Nidhogge (darkness) who gnawed at the roots of Ygdrasil.

[clc]

Ben Stein has an interesting on Intelligent Design, I know it's on Netflix streaming, called Expelled. It's worth taking a viewing.

I am not on board with taking evolution theory out of schools, but I don't see an issue with intelligent design, or a 'creator-based' theory being offered as "this is something that some people believe". There's not wrong with taking a "top level" evaluation of the different theories.

[uselesslegs]

The problem I have with intelligent design, is that it suggests a posit, based on nothing...and by nothing, I mean no work that provides data to support it.  If it is going to enter the school system, it needs to be able to revolve around facts learned from the works done that lead to the scientific observation of it's hypothesis and theories.

Any work done to date, verifies nothing that is postulated or suggested.  My other problem is that it is not ultimately neutral.  It implies, not so subtly, that all the biological mechanisms intelligently put in place lead irrevocably towards one conclusion, that God did it.  Not a God, but the God of Christianity, without any evidence or markers that are decipherable as Christian in nature, let alone any lab work at all that points towards any intelligent design.

To me, that is religion trying to be science, but not wanting to hold themselves to the standards that they cite for qualification of serious inquiry.

I have nothing against ID, nor would I reject it if it could in fact show very strong lab research that displayed divine origins, implementation and construction.  But it does not and has not.

I'm all for shaking up the world, readjusting my reality with new information, but it's unfair to children (in a secular school system) to favor one religion over another, using science as a shield of legitimacy for verification.

[clc]

Chuck, from the reading I can tell about what comes out of the Discovery Institute is that it doesn't postulate a specifically Christian god, but a generic intelligent creator. Supply your own God. That being said, because it IS based in the US...and we are a predominately Christian nation...and most fundamental churches espouse the creation theory... it does basically sum up as a Christian view.

[uselesslegs]

Wedge strategy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge_strategy

Ya know I luvs ya, right?!

[uselesslegs]

That being said, because it IS based in the US...and we are a predominately Christian nation...and most fundamental churches espouse the creation theory... it does basically sum up as a Christian view.

But then, isn't it just existentialism and not science.  Or more over...shouldn't it be philosophy?

Let me know if I start coming off snooty...because that is not my intention...and...I can't run.

[clc]

Wedge strategy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge_strategy

Ya know I luvs ya, right?!

Meh... I still agree with evolution...I just don't see a problem with a teacher being honest and saying evolution doesn't have an explanation for the original creations of life and saying, some people answer that question with the belief of an intelligent creator. I'm definitely not a 6000-year-old-Earth creationist, haha. Genetic drift and natural selection don't justify the first beginnings of life. It's false for evolutionists to say, "we can explain how life was created"...they have a good explanation for how life has changed over time. But it stops there. Biopoesis has a theory on the creation of life, but I don't EVER recall being taught that in school... I had to go dig that one up on my own, and it's never the subject of the debate.

I don't see evolution and a theory of an intelligent creator being opposite or opposed of each other. My source for that isn't, and never has been the Discovery Institute, who are evidently partisan fucks, haha.

[uselesslegs]

Meh... I still agree with evolution...I just don't see a problem with a teacher being honest and saying evolution doesn't have an explanation for the original creations of life and saying, some people answer that question with the belief of an intelligent creator. I'm definitely not a 6000-year-old-Earth creationist, haha. Genetic drift and natural selection don't justify the first beginnings of life. It's false for evolutionists to say, "we can explain how life was created"...they have a good explanation for how life has changed over time. But it stops there. Biopoesis has a theory on the creation of life, but I don't EVER recall being taught that in school... I had to go dig that one up on my own, and it's never the subject of the debate.

I don't see evolution and a theory of an intelligent creator being opposite or opposed of each other. My source for that isn't, and never has been the Discovery Institute, who are evidently partisan fucks, haha.

It's alllllllllllll good sista.

Evolution, in and of itself, never attempts to explain our origins.  It can only explain change over time from existing life and highlight it accordingly. 

THAT SAID, there is a restrictive arm in place, as it pertains to origins...in the scientific arena in schools...on purpose.  Science has a standard that demands that theories, that evolve into hypothesis, have to be testable explanations within the frame work of a natural world.  The super natural negates verifications or observation using scientific methodology...so it's not fair to make an exception of demands for something that wants to be legitimized within scientific parameters.

I'm not against ID in and of itself...origins is a heated subject of debate.  I'm against them wanting to use science to legitimize a philosophical concept, without also using the methodology that establishes many scientific hypothesis.

If you're going to postulate that origins were divinely instituted, and do so as acceptable within a scientific framework, then all scientific criteria has to be met, not just a little or some.  Otherwise you're already starting off on a disingenuous foot.

I do, however, have no issue with philosophical debate...and if it was framed as such, instead of trying to attach itself as a scientific endeavor, when methodology is being side stepped or dismissed that doesn't favor the results desired...I'd have no issue at all.

Yup...I pooped. 

[ekg]

Ben Stein has an interesting on Intelligent Design, I know it's on Netflix streaming, called Expelled. It's worth taking a viewing.

I am not on board with taking evolution theory out of schools, but I don't see an issue with intelligent design, or a 'creator-based' theory being offered as "this is something that some people believe". There's not wrong with taking a "top level" evaluation of the different theories.

what 'creator' do you teach? Christian God and Adam/eve? Allah? or Mormon's view of Jesus as the one who just 'organized' what was already there?  If you teach one, you have to teach them all.. because the one you are teaching, might not be the one some students believe in..

this is why I think this is where the church should play their role..

[Howey]

what 'creator' do you teach? Christian God and Adam/eve? Allah? or Mormon's view of Jesus as the one who just 'organized' what was already there?  If you teach one, you have to teach them all.. because the one you are teaching, might not be the one some students believe in..

this is why I think this is where the church should play their role..

Which is why the church, any church, has no business in our schools. I don't care if it's teaching the church's view of creation or allowing a moment of prayer to anyone you want.

Although fish on Fridays is cool. 

[clc]

Why do you need to specify what creator? Allah/Christian God/Concepts of Jesus refer to the same creator anyways...

[Howey]

Why do you need to specify what creator? Allah/Christian God/Concepts of Jesus refer to the same creator anyways...

Because of the mass confusion of fifty kids screaming out "Amen!", "Praise Allah!", and "Hooya!" all at the same time?

[clc]

Because of the mass confusion of fifty kids screaming out "Amen!", "Praise Allah!", and "Hooya!" all at the same time?

So what?

I mean honestly though, why does it have to be narrowed down? It can't simply be presented as: an alternative theory for the initial existence of life is that of an intelligent creator

I'm not talking about a scientific unit on this, as obviously that's not possible... I'm not even sure if it should be TAUGHT, as in tested on, etc. But I'm not opposed to it being thrown out there as a possible solution, since we can't eliminate it as a possibility.

34. Please select all of the theories on the creation of the first primitive life forms:
A. Biopoesis
B. Intelligent creator
C. RNA Crystal development
D. Seeding
E. All of the above

If that was a test question... the answer would be E.

35. The theory of _______ states the first primitive life forms were brought into existence by a knowledgeable creator.
A. Evolution
B. Intelligent Design
C. Biopoesis

36. We have universally-accepted scientific theories that successfully explain the existence of the first primitive life forms.
A. False
B. True

Teaching it as a scientific theory? Of course not. But I will state again: the theory of an intelligent creator is not diametrically opposite of the theory of evolution. Teaching one doesn't eliminate the other. Offering it in a higher level class as a potential solution for the question isn't stamping crosses on everyone's foreheads--it encourages debate and critical thinking.

[Howey]

So what?

**Takes off Unfunny hat and crawls back in corner**