Kansas

Check the Kansas Governor’s statement on the Board of Education’s decision at redstaterabble.

Democrat Kathleen Sibelius does not see this as a step in the right direction for Kansas and attracting higher paying high-tech service jobs.

Kansas = Stupid.

there, i just redefined Kansas.

Ugh.

And this was the most disconcerting (from the CNN article): “In addition, the board rewrote the definition of science, so that it is no longer limited to the search for natural explanations of phenomena.”

“Paleyontology” is a nicely coined term, though!

…no longer limited to the search for natural explanations of phenomena…

Good, finally. Can I now defend my PhD thesis that exactly 7 angels could dance on the head of a pin without feeling crowded?

“Kansas=stupid” is not an argument; it’s a graffito.

And, abb1, the controversy about angels on pinheads was not a question of 7 or 8 angels, but rather whether angels have a physical presence or not (and thus whether a finite or infinite number of them could fit in a given space). It’s not scientific, but a damn sight more sophisticated than the urban legend has it.

Recall that the Kansas school board tried this six years ago, and the voters, who all, according to recent shocking news reports, turn out to be Kansans, tossed them out. Yes, the ID’ers are more subtle this time around, and that means that people who do understand what science is must be as well.

If you’re going to be a humanist, you have to have faith in your fellow humans.

I have a compromise proposal on this which I trot out from time to time–intelligent design used to be a scientific theory, right up until 1859, and it can be taught (briefly) in biology class as part of the history of the subject, in the same way astronomy classes sometimes spend a little bit of time discussing Ptolemy vs. Aristarchus/Copernicus/Galileo/Kepler. Intelligent design qualifies as a scientific theory if you put enough conditions on the principles you think God used to make organisms–obviously it wouldn’t qualify if you just said “God could do whatever He wanted.” But pre-Darwinian biologists did spend time thinking about the patterns they saw in biology and split into two camps, as outlined in Gould’s massive evolution book or any other book on the history of biology. Gould’s terms for the two camps were the functionalists and the formalists. Functionalists stressed adaptation (Paley) and formalists stressed archetypes, blueprints, homologies (Richard Owen’s term). Darwin combined the two ways of looking at life and showed you didn’t need a Creator to explain it. The Platonic archetype became the common ancestor.

Darwin spends a fair amount of time in the Origin of Species commenting the sorts of things you might find in nature if creation were true, which you couldn’t find if his theory was correct. For instance, you don’t expect to find animals with instincts which have the sole function of benefiting the members of another species. God might do this, to illustrate His benevolence, for instance, but natural selection could not. If God created animals in certain places based on physical conditions, then why aren’t there frogs native to remote tropical islands which should be frog paradises? Etc… In other words, Darwin didn’t simply say ID isn’t science because it involves the supernatural–he looked at the particular ID theories of his day, and showed the evidence supported his theory.

I know it’s popular to say that ID isn’t science because it involves the supernatural, but historically that’s not the case–if anything, it was the triumph of Darwinism that led people to see science as the search for purely naturalistic answers. Falling back on the notion that science must exclude the supernatural makes it sound like the evolutionists are trying to win the argument simply by defining the word “science” in a particular way. It’s not necessary to do this.

BTW, the philosopher of science Elliot Sober takes a position like the one I’m defending in his book The Philosophy of Biology–creationism is a failed scientific theory and Hume’s famous argument against design missed the point. Design was the best explanation for living organisms in the pre-Darwin era, because random chance was a non-starter.

rewrote the definition of science, so that it is no longer limited to the search for natural explanations of phenomena

At least six Kansans, then, have apparently eaten a good book lately. While this may not reflect on other Kansans NOW, it is now education policy.

Beginning next year, all institutions of higher learning should reject Kansans’ applications to natural science programs. Their pigskin’s no good around here any more.
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Intelligent Design stops thinking.

Anything that looks a bit more complicated than we can immediately handle: Intelligent Design—a theory designed for the intellectually challenged.

And, abb1, the controversy about angels on pinheads was not a question of 7 or 8 angels, but rather whether angels have a physical presence or not (and thus whether a finite or infinite number of them could fit in a given space). It’s not scientific, but a damn sight more sophisticated than the urban legend has it.

Smart aleck. I know it’s 7 ’cause there are 7 days in a week.

No, abb1, it is because there are 7 holes in the head. If you are going to bring back argument by analogy–and maybe Kansas will–you at least have to get it right.

Anything that looks a bit more complicated than we can immediately handle: Intelligent Design—a theory designed for the intellectually challenged.

There you go…the existing Darwinian theory doesn’t handle these cases well, so some thinking person presents an audacious alternate explanatory model.

How anti-scientific.

I thought this was a good move, simply because the broader range of ideas being taught to students is better in the long run. Shouldn’t we give the students several dominant views for discussion, rather than deciding what’s right for them??

My writeup.

Right, because any student who’s heard the term ‘Intelligent Design’ mentioned in the wrong context has obviously been tainted for life. That’ll show those rigid, closed-minded know-nothings.

Is your density a pre-existing condition or is it an adaptive defense?

I would expect that even you would be able to glean from my actual words that a science education compromised by superstition is unlikely to prepare one for advanced study in that area.

There. I said it. I wonder how you’ll fuck it up next.
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The thing that gets me, that really salts my slug, is that the faith of these fundies is so damn fragile.

Kids in the US usually only take a single year-long biology class. 180 school days, 45 minute classes: 135 hours of instruction, minus goofing off and the teacher telling stories about the dumb things he or she did in college. The vast bulk gets spent on dissection and physiology. Total hours spent teaching evolution: Ten? Fifteen?

You’ve raised a kid for fifteen years, and Darvin will corrupt them in fifteen hours? Some faith you got there, buddy.

“Kansas=stupid” is not an argument; it’s a graffito

crap. looks like i don’t get my Debate Club ribbon.

eric, (re #23)

The problem isn’t presenting a broader range of ideas (which isn’t what ID proponents want), it is how things are presented. Presenting ID as a *scientific* alternative to evolution is outright fraud.

If anyone in Kansas were arguing for more comparative religion (yeah, right, I can see the ID proponents lining up to support that) in high school, I’d be all for it. For that matter, if they wanted to tighten up the science curriculum in a rational way, I’d be all for that too.

I strongly object to the intellectually dishonest way that these people are trying to cram their ideas down others throats. If they would just come out and admit that they want to limit thought and education in certain areas, it would be possible to have a little bit of respect for them (if not their ideas).

I have no idea what you may have come into contact with that so confounds your attempts at sense, but I was talking about education.

Your proposal was to summarily reject the application of any graduate of a Kansas high-school to study natural sciences, was it not?

Now, you might reasonably claim that high school biology that included I.D. was not adequeate preparation, but high school classes are hardly the only ways to learn science and be prepared for university. If you wanted to suggest that Kansas high-school graduates interested in Biology (but not all Natural Sciences — certainly not Chemistry) should have extra scrutiny of say, relevant ACT or SAT II scores in science then OK (though even that is somewhat shaky since the changes to the curriculum do not remove evolution by natural selection).

But proposing to summarily reject Kansas high-school students based on the idea that they’d been exposed to ‘superstitious ideas’ is ridiculous and the intention can only be punitive.

“In addition, the board rewrote the definition of science, so that it is no longer limited to the search for natural explanations of phenomena.”

Hmm. AFIK, the state board does not set the curriculum. I wonder if there is an actual quote floating around somewhere.

The removal of references to evolution is far more eggregious. As it is, secondary texts do precious little to provide the proper evolutionary framework for biology.

Your head seems to be clearing, you’re half-way there.

Yours doesn’t–you’re still being as obnoxious as when you started.

Accreditation. You may be familiar with the concept. Schools teaching superstition as part of science (and REDFINING SCIENCE AS INCLUDING NON-NATURAL EXPLANATIONS) should lose it.

Perhaps so — but that’s an entirely different proposal than summarily rejecting the application of every Kansas HS grad, which is where you began. So I guess you are half-way there.

Flying Spaghetti Monster.

http://www.venganza.org

I feel for the people who will/do have to teach it. The ID mob is not asking schoolteachers to stand in a biology class and demonstrate that ID is not science. They are expecting the teachers to say that ID is a serious alternative, and that there are holes in Darwin etc etc.

Lying upon command.

Unfortunately they didn’t adopt my suggestion that science be further redefined to include sitting at home drinking a beer and watching the game on TV.
Damn, where were you when I was in grad school? Would have been awesome to collect a stipend for that.

The state board’s actions should leave no doubt that the IDists are about destroying all of science, not just biology.

Steve, if grad students stopped drinking and watching games they might get some work done and graduate in a reasonable amount of time. Say, 4 years.

For everyone bashing on Kansas, check this out. Besides having large classroom sizes, poor funding, and failing infrastructure, Kansas students and schools are not only in the top 10 in the US, but quickly improving.

So for all you ID hata’s out there, painful isn’t it ? They’re learning ID and are smarter than your kids ;)

But the high-performance of Kansas K-12 schools (assuming the facts in that link are legit) is something that virtually nobody outside Kansas knows about. The I.D. fiasco, on the other hand, is known everywhere and is going to completely dominate the image of education in Kansas outside the state itself (and that image is going to be, “Kansas — what a bunch of laughable hicks”). I have the feeling that any resulting pain is going to be felt far more keenly by Kansans than those of us opposed to teaching I.D.

Slocum,
“assuming the facts in that link are legit” are you proposing that the NEA isn’t a reliable source for information on education without showing another source? And do you think kids from Kansas worry about being called “laughable hicks”? Besides the fact that they’re too busy scoring higher on the ACT and getting into college to worry about being called laughable hicks, they’re from Kansas, they’re already called laughable hicks. And I really don’t have a point here except to say that even if Kansas is implementing this stupid idea, the kids are being better prepared for the rest of the lives than most of the states. The condition of education in DC, CA, LA, or many other states is probably a much more worthy cause for our time than harassing a religious state over its touting of ID.

Slocum: “assuming the facts in that link are legit” are you proposing that the NEA isn’t a reliable source for information on education without showing another source?

No, I’m not casting doubt on that site in particular, only indicating that I hadn’t taken the time to look for other sources to confirm.

And do you think kids from Kansas worry about being called “laughable hicks”? Besides the fact that they’re too busy scoring higher on the ACT and getting into college to worry about being called laughable hicks, they’re from Kansas, they’re already called laughable hicks.

Well, yeah, I think Kansans have good to worry about the ‘hick’ label. Having such an image can’t be a boon to attracting employers and promoting economic development. Kansas doesn’t want to be in the situation of sending their H.S. graduates to university as a way-station on their way out of the state.

Put it this way — if you were in charge of managing the ‘Kansas’ brand, you wouldn’t be real happy with ‘Intelligent Design’ publicity.

This ID requirement doesn’t even have to be detrimental to education. It is a perfect oppurtunity to discuss how science works and then leave the final conclusions up to the kids. It is a great popular cultural example of the woes Science has faced in the past, which can be turned into a discusion of how science goes from theories to facts. Thus it is a helpful oppurtunity, not an obstacle to overcome.

Slocum, if I was in charge of the Kansas brand, I’d be spinning like hell over ID, but I wouldn’t be much worried (and might even be excited about all the Kansas Kansas Kansas in the news). Corporations care about taxes, infrastructure, and educated (well priced) labor. If the local religion played into corporate decisions to build factories or open centers, why do so many companies go to places with much odder ideas than ID?