Oklahoma: Where people co-existed with dinosaurs

[All Along The Watchtower]

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http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/02/oklahoma-hr1674-science-evolution-climate-change

I would say "lol", but...

[Landslide Lyndon]

It's unfortunate that people prevailed over dinosaurs in Oklahoma.

[minionofmidas]

Still do.

[Maxwell]

Always loved going to secular private schools in the state. One year in public education was awful.

Really hope Fallin is more reasonable than this and vetoes, but I doubt it.

[Oswald Acted Alone, You Kook]

Oh man, I thought this was going to be about proof that people and dinosaurs co-existed, but only in Oklahoma.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

No teacher would flunk a well-reasoned paper that contrasts evolution and creationism and comes out in favor of the latter, anyway.

[Ban my account ffs!]

What bothers me is that they lump global warming in with evolution like they're universally accepted.

The problem is.. when creationists try to poke holes in evolutionary theory.. it's so obviously ridiculously wrong.

When skeptics try to poke holes in the alarmist claims that the oceans will rise 40 feet by the time your grandchildren are walking... they are generally correct.

Our "consensus" on global warming is based on climate models that cost inordinate amounts of money but cannot simulate the two largest natural climate variables in the earth's climate system:  El Nino and the Asian monsoon.

Hell, they can't even model clouds.  And clouds are one of the biggest factors in global warming since they greatly exaggerate small changes in solar output, thus warming or cooling the climate.

Evolutionary theory is a relatively old theory with mountains of concrete evidence to back it up... not to mention that we see evolution all the time.

One of the big factors that has helped keep the planet from warming in the last 15 years wasn't discovered until 1999.  And if the models can't model El Nino, they certainly don't understand other large oceanic variables that can warm or cool the atmosphere over multi-decade time periods.

If a student is penalized because he or she is skeptical of global warming predictions... then something is very wrong with our science classes.

[Antonio the Sixth]

It's unfortunate that people prevailed over dinosaurs in Oklahoma.

I would argue that some Oklahomans (including the guy who introduced this bill) have more in common with dinosaurs than with homo sapiens.

[badgate]

I don't even bother getting mad at Oklahoma politics anymore. It just makes me very, very sad.

[John Dibble]

No teacher would flunk a well-reasoned paper that contrasts evolution and creationism and comes out in favor of the latter, anyway.

I would be interested in reading such a paper that qualifies as well-reasoned.

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

Yes... you can't flunk kids in science class for completely refuting science!  Genius! 

What exactly are the religiouses trying to prove anymore, anyway? 

[Torie]

Well the bill says nothing about dinosaurs (that is article hype), and I think the intent is that if a paper challenges the theory of evolution, referring to the usual suspects as to why it is not fact, and we don't know everything, that is not curtains grade wise. Of course, it seems to me that if the question is to describe the theory of evolution, rather than is the theory of evolution flawed, or whatever, and instead of describing the theory, the Bible is referred to, than an F would still stand. Yes, silly bill, but maybe even sillier article.

[Mr. Morden]

Still do.

I thought that was going to be a link to the Wikipedia entry on James Inhofe.

[DemPGH]

Madness. The entire enterprise of science is built upon people challenging each other's work and each other's theories. That's what scientists do. If something makes it into a high school text book, it's on solid ground.

These people will stop at nothing; they've been beaten back before, they'll be beaten back again.

No teacher would flunk a well-reasoned paper that contrasts evolution and creationism and comes out in favor of the latter, anyway.

Depends upon the class. And whether or not you can even make a "well-reasoned" argument for creationism against evolution. If it's a class or a field where people just get to make up stuff, maybe, but if it's science where things are based on evidence, I have to disagree.

[retromike22]

But that could soon change for kids in Oklahoma: On Tuesday, the Oklahoma Common Education committee is expected to consider a House bill that would forbid teachers from penalizing students who turn in papers attempting to debunk almost universally accepted scientific theories such as biological evolution and anthropogenic (human-driven) climate change.

Gus Blackwell, the Republican state representative who introduced the bill, insists that his legislation has nothing to do with religion; it simply encourages scientific exploration. "I proposed this bill because there are teachers and students who may be afraid of going against what they see in their textbooks," says Blackwell, who previously spent 20 years working for the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma. "A student has the freedom to write a paper that points out that highly complex life may not be explained by chance mutations."

But this is only the subject of science. What about Math and English? Can a student have the freedom to write that Abraham Lincoln discovered electricity and invented the telephone while defeating Hitler? And the freedom to write in their tests that 1 + 1 = fish?

[Joe Biden 2020]

I am surprisingly against this measure.  As much as I agree with creationism more than evolution, I also respect the separation of church and state.  The classroom needs to teach evolution as a theory, not as a fact, but does not need to discuss creationism because of the taxpayer funding.  Children should be allowed to discuss their opinion and refute the theories that are being taught, but only if the assignment calls for their opinion or an editorial-type assignment.  The same goes with a religion class that teaches creationism.  The student should be allowed to give their opinion and refute the subject at hand if the assignment.  Note that this is a big change from previous positions I've held, but with a clearer head I can see things a little differently.  As the Bible says in Ecclesiastes 3 - There is a time and place for everything.

[Obamanation]

I am surprisingly against this measure.  As much as I agree with creationism more than evolution, I also respect the separation of church and state.  The classroom needs to teach evolution as a theory, not as a fact, but does not need to discuss creationism because of the taxpayer funding.  Children should be allowed to discuss their opinion and refute the theories that are being taught, but only if the assignment calls for their opinion or an editorial-type assignment.  The same goes with a religion class that teaches creationism.  The student should be allowed to give their opinion and refute the subject at hand if the assignment.  Note that this is a big change from previous positions I've held, but with a clearer head I can see things a little differently.  As the Bible says in Ecclesiastes 3 - There is a time and place for everything.

Surprisingly, I agree with your line of thinking here. Great to year your position has evolved to this.

[Mr. Morden]

Great to year your position has evolved to this.

His position hasn't evolved.  It was directly created by God in its present form.

It also didn't take a year.  Closer to six days.

[DemPGH]

But that could soon change for kids in Oklahoma: On Tuesday, the Oklahoma Common Education committee is expected to consider a House bill that would forbid teachers from penalizing students who turn in papers attempting to debunk almost universally accepted scientific theories such as biological evolution and anthropogenic (human-driven) climate change.

Gus Blackwell, the Republican state representative who introduced the bill, insists that his legislation has nothing to do with religion; it simply encourages scientific exploration. "I proposed this bill because there are teachers and students who may be afraid of going against what they see in their textbooks," says Blackwell, who previously spent 20 years working for the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma. "A student has the freedom to write a paper that points out that highly complex life may not be explained by chance mutations."

But this is only the subject of science. What about Math and English? Can a student have the freedom to write that Abraham Lincoln discovered electricity and invented the telephone while defeating Hitler? And the freedom to write in their tests that 1 + 1 = fish?

That's precisely it. If you're a teacher or a professor, don't you assess work? Isn't that a big part of your job? Last time I checked. Now you can get away with this sort of thing in Creative Writing, which is fun: "Abe Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" or whatever. But outside of that, it doesn't fly.

If a person goes to Biology and rejects the founding principles of the subject in favor of whatever strikes their fancy, that doesn't pass. Sorry. Try again.

Besides, I don't remember writing essays in any high school science - we ran rudimentary experiments and learned lots and lots of material through memorization and application.

[pbrower2a]

But that could soon change for kids in Oklahoma: On Tuesday, the Oklahoma Common Education committee is expected to consider a House bill that would forbid teachers from penalizing students who turn in papers attempting to debunk almost universally accepted scientific theories such as biological evolution and anthropogenic (human-driven) climate change.

Somehow I suspect that the next theory to be challenged will be the atomic theory of matter.

Subordination of science to political ideology, religious doctrines, or public relations of Big Business is, of course, unscientific. As a science teacher (were I such) I would show the example of Trofim Lysenko, scientific quack who 'refuted' genetics and became useful to the horrible Josef Stalin for ideological reasons -- yet set back Soviet agriculture decades behind the West.

Scientists do not use proofs of the type commonplace in algebra, geometry, number theory, trigonometry, or calculus.  Mathematics works with ideals -- not with objects not easily described in practice. I wish that I could show how one cookie and one cookie can make three cookies; one uses one cookie to break another cookie into two cookies.

Science depends upon experiment under controlled conditions (double-blind testing) with peer review evaluating what is to be expected. Greenhouse gases are well studied for their effects, and collections of temperature are readily available.

I'll make it easy for religious believers: science can show what cyanide does as a poison (basically, it puts an end to cellular respiration and causes swift death). Science cannot show that casting pellets of Zyklon-B into a building full of people who then die is immoral. For people of limited learning, some religious prophet can have established that deliberately causing the death of people who pose no threat is an abomination. No atheist philosopher can refute the idea that murder is indefensible. Bertrand Russell could not prove that the Holocaust was wrong, but he could certainly find it 'disgusting in the extreme' -- which is adequate. Russell is easy enough reading for a smart teenager or the average adult -- but "Thou shalt not kill" is easy enough for a child or an imbecile to understand.  

Children and imbeciles can easily learn that murder has no sanction through so simply-worded a meme as "Thou shalt not kill". Justifying or excusing a homicide is rightly difficult. Maybe someone who stabs or shoots a rapist committing a crime gets a pass. Maybe someone isn't treated the same for accidentally striking and killing a drunk pedestrian whose erratic wandering makes such a collision inevitable.  Killing one's grandparents for an inheritance, let alone casting Zyklon-B into a fake shower that regularly gets shipments of 'Untermenschen' isn't so excusable.      

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OK -- if God created the Universe and the laws by which it operates (including laws of mathematics and physics) then He also created possibilities that some intelligent creature might come to understand. That the universe exists and makes sense is enough of a miracle to allow one to believe in a God as the Creator and Enforcer of mathematical laws and the relationships of matter and energy. That a creature capable of understanding some of this is enough of a miracle to justify belief in God. Newton's laws of motion and Einstein's relativity are God's laws.
 

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I told you how one cookie and one cookie can make three cookies. What I did not refute was the conservation of matter and energy -- one of God's laws, of course. One of the two original cookies was really two cookies welded to the other by a little overlapping of the batter within the heated oven.

One cannot refute the historical record. One cannot refute the wealth of scientific knowledge that has been achieved through careful experiment. One might refine either, but such refinement usually adds more detail to the lore. The accumulated knowledge usually refutes quackery even if the quacks (such as 'scientific creationists' and Holocaust deniers) prefer their quackery to reality. "Believe it or burn (whether in Hell or at the stake)" is about on the same plane as "Your money or your life!" -- an argument to fear.  

[DC Al Fine]

Madness. The entire enterprise of science is built upon people challenging each other's work and each other's theories. That's what scientists do. If something makes it into a high school text book, it's on solid ground.

These people will stop at nothing; they've been beaten back before, they'll be beaten back again.

One small quibble: Making it into a textbook does not mean it is on solid ground. My high school physics textbook taught string theory with the same confidence my biology book taught evolution even though string theory is still a contentious issue. Another example is what you read in some 1930's biology textbooks about differences between races.

Making it into the school books is no guarantor of truth.

[pbrower2a]

At some point in public school, some science textbook must not simply say what the scientific findings are but also how science operates. Science is in fact what scientists do, and not some body of purported truths as determined by some state legislature. Science puts itself up to double-blind testing and peer review -- not to votes. No election ever established Newton's laws of motion, the atomic theory of matter, the gas laws, the conservation of matter and energy, the inverse-square law of gravitation and electromagnetic interactions, biological evolution, continental drift, or relativity. Politics can determine whether people are free to express them whether Inquisitors, Nazis, Stalinists, or Apartheid-era racists. Politicians cannot decide the truth of Nature lest they arrogantly defy the Power of... God?

Much of what appears in K-12 education as science is either read-relate-and-test learning with an occasional canned demonstration. The 'experiment' that shows that sulfuric acid dehydrates sugar leaving carbon behind is not what scientists do. Scientists are always refining their measurements and trying to prove things with double-blind tests and peer review impossible 'below' the level of the graduate school.   

 

[fezzyfestoon]

The less we teach our children, the better off Republicans are in the long run.

[Torie]

The less we teach our children, the better off Republicans are in the long run.

Unless they are taught economics.

[fezzyfestoon]

The less we teach our children, the better off Republicans are in the long run.

Unless they are taught economics.

That's true, market manipulation can be complex.