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Goodbye Jesus

We all know creationists don't know their stuff.


fallenleaf

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Eric,

 

That's one of those, can't-read-unless-you-register links. :Doh::shrug:

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Odd, I wasn't registered.

 

Or maybe I used bugmenot to get a reg before and it saved it.

Name: bobross@pbs.org

Password: happy3

 

But here it is anyway:

Those seeking change on evolution haven't read science standards

 

BY JOSH FUNK

 

Knight Ridder Newspapers

 

TOPEKA, Kan. - (KRT) - None of the eight intelligent design proponents who testified at the Kansas State Board of Education's evolution hearings Friday have read the science standards they want changed.

 

Under cross-examination, all eight admitted they simply read the 28-page minority report and not the full 107-page draft of proposed science standards, most of which is not controversial.

 

State board member Kathy Martin spoke up during the meeting to reassure University of Georgia professor Russell Carlson that reading the standards wasn't really important.

 

"Please don't feel bad that you haven't read the whole thing because I haven't read it myself," Martin said.

 

After the hearing, Martin said what she meant was she hadn't read the second draft of the science standards presented to the board March 9 because she had read the first draft.

 

Martin and fellow state board members Connie Morris and Steve Abrams make up the committee listening to testimony at the hearings. Both Morris and Abrams said they had read the proposed science standards.

 

But Morris agreed with Martin that she didn't think it was important for the witnesses to have read the whole document.

 

"It's important they've read the sections that are proposed to be changed," Morris said.

 

Pedro Irigonegaray, the Topeka lawyer cross-examining witnesses, reacted incredulously every time one of the witnesses admitted to not reading the standards.

 

"You have been brought to Kansas to tell us how to educate our Kansas children, and you have not bothered to read the majority draft?" Irigonegaray asked as a follow-up question.

 

Rose Hill eighth-grade teacher Jill Gonzalez Bravo was the only witness who testified as part of the minority's case for a more critical approach to evolution who had read both the full majority draft of science standards and the minority report.

 

Bravo said she thought adopting the changes suggested in the minority report would be a good idea because it would give teachers more guidance about how to handle the subject of evolution in class.

 

"I'm just not sure what can be covered," she said.

 

Friday was the second of three days of hearings where the minority group is explaining its case. The hearings will continue Saturday.

 

The state board plans to use the testimony from these hearings to help decide what should be included in the science standards when they are adopted later this summer.

 

Because conservative Republicans control six of the 10 seats on the board, some changes in the way evolution is treated in the standards is considered likely.

 

Currently, students are expected to know and understand evolution because it is the central theory of biology and supported by the vast majority of the scientific evidence. But students are not required to believe evolution, and teachers are cautioned to be considerate of students' beliefs.

 

When conservatives last controlled the Kansas board in 1999, they voted to de-emphasize evolution in the standards, leaving the decision whether to teach evolution up to local school boards.

 

That decision earned the state ridicule nationwide and prompted voters to elect a moderate majority to the board. Moderates restored evolution to the standards in the spring of 2001.

 

Since then other state boards, local school boards and legislatures in 43 states have all debated evolution's merits. Most eventually reject the argument that evolution is a flawed theory, but some have endorsed versions of it.

 

Several times during Friday's testimony, the exchanges between Irigonegaray and witnesses grew testy, particularly when they tried to evade his yes-or-no questions.

 

After Carlson finished explaining how he doesn't think evolution affects his bacterial research, Irigonegaray asked whether Carlson believes in the theory that all life descended from a shared ancestor.

 

"No, and I - ," Carlson said, trying to explain.

 

"I'm not interested in an explanation," Irigonegaray said, cutting him off.

 

Do you believe humans descended from pre-hominids? he asked next.

 

"I don't accept that as a fact - scientifically proven fact," Carlson said.

 

Then how can you explain human life? Irigonegaray asked.

 

"I don't have an alternate theory," Carlson said. "That is not my area of research."

 

Several of the witnesses also admitted under questioning that the subjects they were testifying about were not the areas they study.

 

For example, Edward Peltzer, an ocean chemist in California, testified about the likelihood of chemical evolution because he studied it as part of his doctoral thesis on the content of a meteorite more than 20 years ago.

 

And John Millam, a computational chemist in Lenexa, Kan., testified about the history of science and the origins of naturalistic philosophy because researching that history is a hobby.

 

Peltzer said the chemical reactions needed for the start of life in the prevailing theory isn't likely to have happened.

 

"There are big problems with the scientific theory of the origin of life," Peltzer said.

 

But the minority group wants to insert a section about theories of the origin of life into the standards because it would reveal flaws in evolution.

 

Harry McDonald, president of the pro-evolution Kansas Citizens For Science, said there's a good reason why the origins of life was left out.

 

"It's not in the standards because the scientific community has not reached a consensus," McDonald said.

 

One of the other main complaints the minority group's witnesses repeat about the proposed science standards is they think the standards are biased in favor of naturalism. They see that as an endorsement of atheism, which many scientists deny.

 

So when one of the slides in Millam's presentation mistakenly quoted that the majority's proposed standards included "methodological naturalism" Irigonegaray objected sharply.

 

"That is incorrect and should not be made out to the public as our standards," Irigonegaray said, interrupting Millam's presentation.

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It's not like we should be surprised. Every page they read could accidentally show them the truth, and as all truth is from saaaaaaaataaaaaan... :fdevil:

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(headdesks muchly) Oh man... These people are such idiots! Even they are mixing up evolution and abiogenesis and no one's calling them on it!

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