In the continuing saga of “and you thought we had it bad,” I present to you this NY Times article about evolution woes in Texas. It looks like more board of education members there are vocal about the issue than our folks were here in Florida.
“ ‘Strengths and weaknesses’ are regular words that have now been drafted into the rhetorical arsenal of creationists,†said Kathy Miller, director of the Texas Freedom Network, a group that promotes religious freedom.
The chairman of the state education board, Dr. Don McLeroy, a dentist in Central Texas, denies that the phrase “is subterfuge for bringing in creationism.â€
“Why in the world would anybody not want to include weaknesses?†Dr. McLeroy said.
What is up with dentists? Sheesh! McLeroy’s question is answered later in the article:
“When you consider evolution, there are certainly questions that have yet to be answered,†said Mr. Fisher, science coordinator for the Lewisville Independent School District in North Texas.
But, he added, “a question that has yet to be answered is certainly different from an alleged weakness.â€
Brandon asks: “What is up with dentists?” I spotted the same thing when I too blogged about the Texas situation. But I’m starting to figure it out. Dentists have long favored fluoridation of water, right? And you know what General Ripper said about that. Yes, a pattern is beginning to emerge …
If you look at pre-dental course work, the advanced science courses include biochem., micro and basic genetics. Although biochem, micro and genetics deal with aspects of evolution, it is not typically a major emphasis.
What they don’t take are courses like evolution, comparative anatomy and physiology, ecology, population biology, zoology, botany etc. These are courses where evolutionary theory is prominent. So if they have not taken any of these classes (unlikely they would), they’ve only been exposed to evolutionary theory that is slightly more in depth than a typical high school student.
So these dentists are playing off the public misconception that a dentist or MD is a scientist. They are not. Wearing a lab coat doesn’t make you a scientist. They are technical specialists in human pathologies. Unless they work with a teaching Medical/Dental school, they don’t do any research. In fact, the vast majority of doctors and dentists have never done any research or run experiments outside of their general science class labs.
How can a dentist look at a set of Wisdom Teeth(who the hell gave them that name) and consider that humans were Intelligently Designed?
The really bad part, though, is that Texas is so big, that it tends to set trends in textbook publishing. So if they really do reject evolution, it has the potential to hurt every student in the country.
If you read the full article you might find some Texas Dishonesty at the bottom – I went to the link that said it was a Texans for Better Science Education – and it isn’t.
Dr. McLeroy believes that Earth’s appearance is a recent geologic event — thousands of years old, not 4.5 billion. “I believe a lot of incredible things,†he said, “The most incredible thing I believe is the Christmas story. That little baby born in the manger was the god that created the universe.â€
How do these people get elected to Educational positions?! This is more than enough proof that the U.S. needs a refresher on Science and its importance to our survival. This guy can publicly state his belief in the thousand year old idea and still get elected to a position that affects our kids science education.
FSM save us all!
RAmen!
Howzabout some public debate concerning the strengths and weaknesses of his religion? They never talk about that stuff, do they?
Wolfhound Says:
June 4th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
Howzabout some public debate concerning the strengths and weaknesses of his religion? They never talk about that stuff, do they?
WHAT STRENGTHS ??????
If only Christians like McLeroy – especially someone with medical training like McLeroy – decided en masse that instead of advancing anti-science dogma, their real priorities were to aid the poor and sick and promote peace throughout the world. Missions to the inner cities. Missions to Darfur. Imagine the good they could do.
Awwwww, someone wasn’t taught enough evolutionary theory…. Why wasn’t he taugh these things???? Everyone has a right to be taught evolution. In fact, if they are not taught evolution it is a violation of the Bill of Rights, right? You guys act like it’s a crime to disagree with evolution, or even to lack complete immersion in it. Get real. And stop whining about it.
No John, we just don’t think a dentist(!) should be making any decisions about evolution.
Let’s leave the standards for teaching up to the teachers who have a very good grasp on what needs to be taught.
Unless of course, you think that what they are doing in TX is acceptable. If that’s the case, then you should have no problem with us evolutionists teaching your youth group.
Johnny Mac is still smarting over how badly he got OWNED by Calilassea on the other thread. Oh, and how he got called out on his Confederate-Wannabe status.
…not to mention how he fell flat on his face by proclaiming that Marxism was based on evolutionary theory, even though the former was written eleven years before the latter.
Yeah, that’s gotta hurt.
Zygo, stupid, I also showed how the formation of Marxism was linked to evolutionary thought. Nice try, Captain Deceptive.
And yes, I am the Nihilist now – I want to see how you can escape the conclusions of Naturalism. This is going to be fun.
Hi John McDonald! Having fun with your sock puppetry. A little advice, you might want to change your handle back prior to posting a comment that is supposed to be said as yourself again.
What a CreTard.
The Nihilist Says:
How does “to each according to his needs” work with “survival of the fittest”?
You screwed up and were BUSTED with your socket puppetry, and now you are trying to play it off like Pee-Wee Herman. “I meant to do that.”
“The Nihilist” sock puppet a.k.a. John Mcdonald said:
How do you explain the fact that historians have documented the influence of Engels on Marx, specifically a book that he wrote fifteen years prior to the publication of Darwin’s first work on evolution? You screwed up, you tried to cover your ass, you failed, then you resorted to sock puppets. You are circling the drain, my friend.
I did mess up on the handle, sorry dude. But anyway, I was never the Voice. I wanted to “experiment” to see how you guys could handle full blown Nihilism.
I have never denied the influence of Engels.
Yeah, and the killing of millions ( by the bibles on admission ) of weaker tribes by the strong ones was done long before Darwinism.
You said, and I quote: “Marxism is based upon evolutionary theory.â€
How can Marxism be influenced by Engels when it is, as you claim, based on evolutionary theory? Why is it that neither Communist Manifesto nor Das Kapital mention evolution even once? For something so important as to be the basis of Marxism, you’d think that Karl Marx would use it at least once to justify the arguments on his two most influential works. As I said, you screwed up, and you were hoping that your new sock puppet would distract us from your screw-up.
Does your world view make you ignore works, then lie about what is the basis of these works, even though you have never read them?
So, how do you guys resist Naturalism’s slide toward Nihilism?
Naturalism is not Nihilism. If you believe this to be true, then you are definitely ignorant of philosophy.
I think this Marxism-evolution linking is amusing. The only concrete link between Darwin’s theory of evolution and political-economic-social policy is via Herbert Spencer, who coined “survival of the fittest”, developed the social darwinism idea (inappropriate application) and proposed…laissez-faire free market capitalism (again based on Darwin’s writings, inappropriate application again). Yes, that economic-political darling of the conservative right.
So, who’s up for more games of six-degrees-of-Darwin?
I love watching someone grasp at straws like poor McDonald here. It’s like watching a train wreck in slow motion.
There is, quite simply, no Darwin-Marx connection. Their ideas are in conflict. Given Darwin’s intellectual roots in the Scottish Enlightenment, there’s a case to be made for a Darwin link to Adam Smith. Smith understood and wrote about economic systems that were, in effect, self-organizing — the well-known invisible hand. A similar phenomenon takes place with living creatures. Neither requires a centralizing Designer.
Read this from AIG:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v27/i2/darwin.asp
And Zygo, I didn’t equate the two, what I was getting at is that there is a slippery slope from Naturalism to Nihilism.
McDonald –
It’s terrible that you would use a fallacy, and then name it, and still expect us to believe that you have any point. You are implying that Nihilism is the inevitable outcome of naturalism, which is absurd.
That’s not just my claim, it is the claim of Nihilism itself.
So, Karl Marx was influenced by Darwin because… you say that Karl Marx was influenced by Darwin? Or because someone else just… says that?
(I also notice they credit Hitler with being influenced by Darwin. Even though Hitler banned “writings of a philosophical and social nature whose content deals with the false scientific enlightenment of primitive Darwinism and Monism” and “all writings that ridicule, belittle or besmirch the Christian religion and its institution, faith in God, or other things that are holy to the healthy sentiments of the Volk”.
And Stalin with being influenced by Darwin, even though espousing Darwinian evolution in Stalinist Russia would get you carted off to the gulag in short order. The dominant biological paradigm in Stalinist Russia was, as stated earlier, Lysenkoism.)
Karl “thesis + antithesis = synthesis” Marx? Whose idea for progressing society was to create as near as possible the opposite of capitalism and let them fight it out, with the winner being some superior alloy of both? That’s not evolution, that’s metallurgy.
John McDonald, Director of Student Ministries, Westminster Presbyterian Church Says:
June 4th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
“You guys act like it’s a crime to disagree with evolution”
Exactly how does one disagree with a scientific theory of which they are obviously totally ignorant??
You yourself McJohn, have provided a glaring example of the irrelevance and uselessness of such mendacious and absurd arguments from ignorance.
Don’t get me wrong, I heartily extend my appreciation to you for that….seriously! 🙂
RAmen
p.s. John, if it’s any consolation, I think you’re funny 🙂 🙂
Sad for the kids you may influence though 🙁
Straws…grasping…….
Now how again does naturalism equate to nihilism?
Well, until now, I have avoided stepping into this fray, content to read the expected responses from each “side” (though, of course, there are no sides, this being a forum in those who believe the generally accepted model of the way in which live has evolved over time are incessantly attacked by those who believe that…well, those who believe that an invisible architect of our percieved, measurable and predictable reality has personally fine-tuned our universe).
Issue number 1: I have no problem with a nihilistic philosophy. It makes our attempts and accomplishments in creating a “moral” order out of an uncaring universe all the more impressive. In other words, evolution has given us the mental capacity to create social systems in which certain things (equal rights for all; concern for the halt, the blind, the lame and the weak; etc.) are deemed moral positives and other things (enslavement of other humans; destruction of our own environmental surroundings; etc.) are deemed negative. I say “HOORAY for us and evolution!”
Issue number 2: As per Martin Amis’ novel “Time’s Arrow”, the reversed flow of time (as is argued to be possible by some physicists) makes murderers life givers, baby doctors life takers. In other words, science seems to be totally removed from morality. And of course, there are various thought experiments (the crying baby in the cellar of Jews fleeing a Nazi death squad) that present a horrendously horrible moral choice to make.
In the physical world, morality is not absolute. The religious have no copyright on it, the self-proclaimed righteous have no unique claim to being able to implement it and, certainly, moral ambiguity is a feature of modern life which we all encounter every day.
What sets us aside from our fellow creatures is the ability to recognize and act upon this ambiguity. I praise us for our ability to do so.
Fellow athiests: don’t be afraid to take these evangalists on regarding your own beliefs. Take a stand. Try to make the point that the free-willed person who CHOOSES to lead a good and positive life has greater claim to moral superiority than the brain-dead, automatonic reader of a long dead book who claims that the book tells them what to do and that he/she is, therfore, a morally the better person.
It doesn’t take Darwin to influence Marx with evolutionary thought. “Engels wrote that life originates from nonliving matter, that man is a product of nature, and that thought is a product of the brain.” Clark, p. 477. It seems then that it was Engels that gave Marx the foundation of materialism and evolution.
More info: Marx cited the ideas of Democritus and Epicurus and, like them, believed that the universe is a closed system in which everything has a natural explanation.
It seems then that his own research mixed with the influence of Engels led Marx to a belief in at least an incipient form of evolution, and Darwin’s work only seemed to better confirm what Marx had already speculated.
Since you are copying and pasting this inane point all over, I’ll do the same with the response.
McDonald –
You are losing the argument, so you are re-defining evolution in a pathetic attempt to be able to attack it.
You started with attacking Darwinian evolution, by first trying to expand its definition to encompass abiogenesis and morality, then when this failed, you are reaching desperately for something that you can attack.
Darwinian evolution is a remote cousin to the current scientific understanding of evolution. What existed before Darwin could not be considered evolution by any stretch of the imagination.
Even if Zygo’s position was granted, no one can doubt that the stage was set for Marx to espouse Darwin’s more developed theory, and this he did.
I doubt it, John. Convince me. I doubt both that the stage was set of Marx to espouse Darwin’s more developed theory, and I doubt that he did.
Convince me.
Because in the text of the Communist Manifesto, Darwin is mentioned twice, by Engels. Once in a passage saying he hopes that his sociological theories will change the study of history the way Darwin’s theories changed the study of biology, and once in a footnote quoting that passage directly. Evolution is mentioned once, in a passage about “the historical evolution of the West”, which is using the more broad meaning of the term to talk about one thing producing another, in this case the past producing the future.
I mean, heck, you say yourself that Marx quotes Democritus and Epicurus. Obviously he espoused their theories. If he espoused Darwin’s theory, then give up a quote. If the link is so clear that “no one can doubt it”, surely there must be a myriad.
But even if you do establish this link, you haven’t discredited evolution at all. Any more than anybody has ever discredited germ theory by trotting out Hitler’s far more obvious statements on it, like for example: “It is one of the greatest revolutions there has ever been in the world. The Jew will be identified! The same fight that Pasteur and Koch had to fight must be led by us today. Innumerable sicknesses have their origin in one bacillus: the Jew! Japan would also have got them if it had remained open any longer to the Jew. We will get well when we eliminate the Jew.â€
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