Devolution
KANSAS SCHOOL BOARD - "Doctor, my heart is attacking me. / Well, it must be haunted. / What do I do? / Pray."
"Kansas, preparing young minds for the high tech jobs of 1652."
PENN. SCHOOL BOARD - "Does this mean that Pennsylvania is more highly evolved or more intelligently designed than Kansas? Yes, yes it does."
We may watch the Kansas Board of Education's display of "unintelligent behavior" this week, with detached amusement; it can't happen here, can it? Yes it can. It's happening in Dover, Pennsylvania, and a dozen other places around the country; the religio-political lunatics are running wild with a trick 'wedge issue' and the media and the naive among the public are lapping it up. The good news from PA is that the "intelligent design" faction was completely repudiated in Tuesday's election, and voted out of office. However, the court case initiated to block the overtly religious "ID" programs of the now un-elected Dover school board is still in motion; testimony is now over, and a ruling by the judge is due in January. We can only hope that the judge in this case has an "intelligent" mind and at least a high school science education.
We are clearly entering into a profoundly dangerous period in American history. We are either on the verge of a final denouncement of the 'dark ages', or on the verge of a pathetic slide back into them. The world is watching this sorry spectacle with no small interest; it would be very helpful to the blossoming technologic economies of places like China and India if the US were to renounce science, and reason, and totter back into religio-mumbo-jumbo. China and India have no doubts about this issue; they are firmly in the grip of secular rationality and they are not looking back. They would like nothing better than to steal our children's jobs.
I recently read a sad testimony on our efforts to educate American scientists - a renowned american scientist was speaking to a graduate level Masters Symposium, at MIT, when he realized suddenly that the entire auditorium was filled with 'foreign' students. There were in fact no American enrollees in his course. This is a situation that is being repeated all around the country. At least our colleges are doing a brisk business in educating student scientists, foreign students...for now. Meanwhile, our high school science teachers are at their wit's end debating the lunatic fringe over the importance of teaching biblical fairy tales instead of the scientific method. It doesn't seem to matter that this argument is based on totally unsupported rubbish, and that's the real problem. Can our inherently scientific culture overcome the PR induced delirium of a scientifically naive majority? What ever we may hope, the outcome of this struggle currently not clear.
Clearly our 12th century throwbacks must be soundly repudiated, or we are in for a very bumpy ride. This may be the single most important issue of our time. We must educate our children in proper secular science, how else can they live and work in the technical world of tomorrow, how else can they vote on the intensely technical issues we face; by praying? Barring a rational and scientifically literate secular majority in this country, I am not optimistic about where we go from here. Witness the middle east; perhaps we should adopt something like they have in Iran - Sharia.
Kansas Board Approves Challenges to Evolution
TOPEKA, Kan., Nov. 8 - The fiercely split Kansas Board of Education voted 6 to 4 on Tuesday to adopt new science standards that are the most far-reaching in the nation in challenging Darwin's theory of evolution in the classroom.
The standards move beyond the broad mandate for critical analysis of evolution that four other states have established in recent years, by recommending that schools teach specific points that doubters of evolution use to undermine its primacy in science education.
Among the most controversial changes was a redefinition of science itself, so that it would not be explicitly limited to natural explanations.
The vote was a watershed victory for the emerging movement of intelligent design, which posits that nature alone cannot explain life's complexity. John G. West of the Discovery Institute, a conservative research organization that promotes intelligent design, said Kansas now had "the best science standards in the nation."
Kansas Board Approves Challenges to Evolution - New York Times
Evolution Slate Outpolls Rivals
All eight members up for re-election to the Pennsylvania school board that had been sued for introducing the teaching of intelligent design as an alternative to evolution in biology class were swept out of office yesterday by a slate of challengers who campaigned against the intelligent design policy.
Among the losing incumbents on the Dover, Pa., board were two members who testified in favor of the intelligent design policy at a recently concluded federal trial on the Dover policy: the chairwoman, Sheila Harkins, and Alan Bonsell.
The election results were a repudiation of the first school district in the nation to order the introduction of intelligent design in a science class curriculum. The policy was the subject of a trial in Federal District Court that ended last Friday. A verdict by Judge John E. Jones III is expected by early January.
"I think voters were tired of the trial, they were tired of intelligent design, they were tired of everything that this school board brought about," said Bernadette Reinking, who was among the winners.
Evolution Slate Outpolls Rivals - New York Times
Dogma
When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kind of dogmas or goals, it's always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt.
Robert T. Pirsig, author and philosopher (1928- )
Meanwhile...
Fossilised crustacean boasts oldest penis
A newly discovered 425 million-year-old fossil boasts a lurid claim to fame - it has the oldest penis on record. The five millimetre long crustacean, discovered by UK and US researchers, has been named Colymbosathon ecplecticos - derived from the Greek for "astounding swimmer with a large penis".
New Scientist Breaking News - Fossilised crustacean boasts oldest penis
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