I thought Nehemiah Scudder was supposed to be from Missouri?
List of stupidities from our states? Well, please make sure that the ones you list for California are actually California’s governmental stupidities and not the feds’.
Considering that the jury is quite literally still out on whether a school district will be required to teach Intelligent Design in my state, I’m not going to say anything against Kansas. (Both sides rested last week, and I haven’t heard anything about a verdict yet.)
I will remind Polycarp, however, that a couple of years ago he was making predictions about my love life which I didn’t believe at the time. This isn’t a case of the proverbial “white van on the corner”; it’s the only prediction he’s made about my love life.
I hope that the actions of the local school board which introduced ID in my state and the actions of the Kansas state school board will have the effect Una Persson described and get ordinary people to realize just how much of a threat these people are. I read recently in my local newspaper that 67% of the people in the US believe in evolution. The denomination Polycarp, Baker, and I share has no problem with evolution. Then again, it’s the same denomination Darwin belonged to. There is a limit to how far people are willing to be put. Given what I recall from when the Kansas state school board has attempted similar things, I think this may be past that limit.
I’ve a feeling this, too, shall pass.
CJ
Oh, that’s been done in this very forum, not too many weeks ago. The usual assertion came up about how many people have been killed in the name of religion, and in order to deflect the counter-argument about Stalinism, Maoism, Pol-Pot-ism and Nazism, someone whose name I forget brazenly described all these as “religious” regimes too. And then helped himself to a generous spoonful of sugar for his porridge, I’ll be bound.
Godless heathen bastard. Bananas are proof that God exists.
I would say there is hope for Kansas…When the children grow up and think for themselves(If given the opportunity) they will get away from the brain washing and learn the truth about science by themselves as many other people do.
They will wonder why the adults that made this a law were afraid that science may be true, and if their faith is strong enough it won’t interfere with their personal beliefs.(unless there is a lot of doubt to begin with).
Monavis
There is a light at the end of the tunnel in my state. Eight members of the school board who put Intelligent Design on the curriculum were defeated in yesterday’s election. The ninth and last member of the board wasn’t up for re-election. I figure we’ll hear the same from Kansas in a few years.
CJ
That undersells the problem just a wee bit.
I already presented “evidence” by my experience with a wide range of people of all walks of life who actually live in this State. But this evidence is not proof; to say otherwise would be false.
Yes, I already supported it with “evidence”. But that evidence is not proof.
And if a majority of Kansans can be found to support the new science standards (I assume it’s not clear, otherwise you would have posted a cite yourself to show me up), that is completely and totally irrelevant to my point that demonizing all people from a State based on the decisions of a subset is wrong. Let’s extend that and include the majority - you live under Bush, right? Is it fair to say “fuck you, you’re an ignorant piece of shit” because Bush was elected by an electoral majority?
One can try to spin this any way they want, but the statements demonizing an entire State based on this are indefensible. Damn the Board, damn the scientific obstructionists, damn ID - but don’t damn me and the others who live here who are not part of the problem, and who are working towards a solution.
As a Kansan who’s traveled through the Fine state of Missouri, I happen to know that Jesusland is on I-70 between Kansas City and Columbia.
Truly, a frightening sight.
As for the rest: I’m ashamed to be a Kansan at the moment but I don’t see our local district changing their curriculum based on this decision.
Still… :smack: Freakin Idiots. Fred Phelps and now this…
:eek:
Heretic
To me, all ye who call yourselves Orangines!
I know that it’s fun to ridicule the idea of a bunch of bumpkins redefining science, but you may want to take a look at their document. It looks to me like their standards had previously included a somewhat wordy definition, which has simply been revised. It doesn’t appear that they have attempted to distort what science means. YMMV.Here it is. Warning: PDF Look for the heading “Nature of Science.”
It appears to me to be a wordy but reasonably accurate description of the nature of scientific inquiry.
Crotalus, I think that the concerns about the revised definition are at least partly justified. Here is the corresponding excerpt from the previous (2001) version of the standards:
It seems pretty clear that in the first sentence, the shift in phrasing from “natural explanations” to “more adequate explanations” is deliberate, for the purpose of permitting supernatural explanations also to be considered under the heading of science.
And in fact, on more closely reading the two excerpts, the only difference between them seems to be that very change in the first few sentences, to wit:
(And in fact, these revisions make the definition more wordy than it was previously.)
If anyone remembers that definition for even a minute after they have to write it on a test, I’ll be amazed. 
Seriously, though, the new definition does say that science seeks explanation of natural phenomena. I’m much more concerned about that teaching of ID in school than about this tweaking of the definition of science.
[sings]
Don’t cry for me, Orangina… [/sings]
So what? The point is that it no longer restricts science to seeking natural explanations of them, which I think is indeed pretty important.
A fundamental part of the methodology of science is that it doesn’t admit supernatural explanations, no matter how “adequate” they may appear. Science has no business invoking supernatural causes for observed phenomena, because supernatural causes can’t be scientifically studied, tested, or predicted.
If you’re worried about ID teaching then you ought to be worried about this too, because it appears to be part and parcel of the same campaign.
And by the way, my take on that definition change is corroborated by the opinion of the chair of the National Academy of Science’s science standards writing committee, which has been opposing the Kansas Board of Education on these proposed revisions:
I agree. But note that the definition doesn’t use the term “supernatural”.
I don’t like either one, but I think kids are going to remember more about ID or creationism than they are about this arcane definition. It won’t really matter to anyone not studying science in college, and for anyone who DOES study science in college, they’ll learn the correct definition there.
That’s not to excuse either action, but people in this thread are acting like this is going to destroy any leadership position the US has in the sciences.
I don’t think that’s really the point. AFAICT, the official “science standards” are not meant for Kansas students to study directly. Nobody’s actually expected to memorize this definition of science and write it on a test. Rather, the standards’ purpose is to identify the official educational goals and directions that educators are supposed to pursue.
So the redefining of science as a search for vague “more adequate explanations” rather than for strictly “natural explanations” can be used—and is apparently intended to be used—to validate the teaching of supernatural theories like Intelligent Design as genuinely “scientific”.
And that scares me. Yes, I can see the influence of this line of reasoning as being pretty bad for American science education in the long run, and I don’t think I’m being alarmist or hysterical.
FWIW, I did already apologize to Baker for my comment.
And secondly, how ironic that in a post complaining about generalities, you start off with “the typical mental midgets on the SDMB”. No limitation of scope there, either. Gee, maybe people sometimes say things that sound like there’s no limitation of scope, but there really actually is? And it’s expected that a reader of average intelligence can figure that out?
And yes, I see one comment explicitly says “the entire state of Kansas”. I think most reasonable people would enterpret that as exaggeration, and that the poster did not literally mean every single person within those state lines.
It’s a shame people have to caveat the fuck out of every comment or get accused of PC bullshit like this. Try giving folks the benefit of the doubt.
Can you outline the scenario where this definition in one state (and a small one at that), for High School science classes is going to significantly affect American science education? Remember, the slippery slope argument is a logical fallacy unless you have actual proof that the slope exists-- not that it could conceivably exist.
Frankly, if this definition is not the one that’s taught in schools, I’m even less worried about it. The school boards are going to be in for a rude awakening when they try to enforce this on actual science teachers across the state.