I guess I was wrong...

[chelle]

About the separation of church and state...at least in Georgia. Pretty sad that those kids won't learn about some fairly basic concepts in biology. IMO this is just wrong!

 

- - - -

January 30, 2004

Georgia Takes on 'Evolution'

By ANDREW JACOBS

ATLANTA, Jan. 29 — A proposed set of guidelines for middle and high school science classes in Georgia has caused a furor after state education officials removed the word "evolution" and scaled back ideas about the age of Earth and the natural selection of species.

 

Educators across the state said that the document, which was released on the Internet this month, was a veiled effort to bolster creationism and that it would leave the state's public school graduates at a disadvantage.

 

"They've taken away a major component of biology and acted as if it doesn't exist," said David Bechler, who heads the biology department at Valdosta State University. "By doing this, we're leaving the public shortchanged of the knowledge they should have."

 

Although education officials said the final version would not be binding on teachers, its contents will ultimately help shape achievement exams. And in a state where religion-based concepts of creation are widely held, many teachers said a curriculum without mentioning "evolution" would make it harder to broach the subject in the classroom.

 

Georgia's schools superintendent, Kathy Cox, held a news conference near the Capitol on Thursday, a day after The Atlanta Journal-Constitution published an article about the proposed changes.

 

A handful of states already omit the word "evolution" from their teaching guidelines, and Ms. Cox called it "a buzz word that causes a lot of negative reaction." She added that people often associate it with "that monkeys-to-man sort of thing."

 

Still, Ms. Cox, who was elected to the post in 2002, said the concept would be taught, as well as "emerging models of change" that challenge Darwin's theories. "Galileo was not considered reputable when he came out with his theory," she said.

 

Much of the state's 800-page curriculum was adopted verbatim from the "Standards for Excellence in Education," an academic framework produced by the Council for Basic Education, a nonprofit group. But when it came to science, the Georgia Education Department omitted large chunks of material, including references to Earth's age and the concept that all organisms on Earth are related through common ancestry. "Evolution" was replaced with "changes over time," and in another phrase that referred to the "long history of the Earth," the authors removed the word "long." Many proponents of creationism say Earth is at most several thousand years old, based on a literal reading of the Bible.

 

Sarah L. Pallas, an associate professor of biology at Georgia State University, said, "The point of these benchmarks is to prepare the American work force to be scientifically competitive." She said, "By removing the benchmarks that deal with evolutionary life, we don't have a chance of catching up to the rest of the world."

 

The guidelines, which were adopted by a panel of 25 educators, will be officially adopted in 90 days, and Ms. Cox said the public could still influence the final document. "If the teachers and parents across the state say this isn't what we want," she said, "then we'll change it."

 

In the past, Ms. Cox, has not masked her feelings on the matter of creationism versus evolution. During her run for office, Ms. Cox congratulated parents who wanted Christian notions of Earth and human creation to be taught in schools.

 

"I'd leave the state out of it and would make sure teachers were well prepared to deal with competing theories," she said at a public debate.

 

Educators say the current curriculum is weak in biology, leading to a high failure rate in the sciences among high school students across the state. Even those who do well in high school science are not necessarily proficient in the fundamentals of biology, astronomy and geology, say some educators.

 

David Jackson, an associate professor at the University of Georgia who trains middle school science teachers, said about half the students entering his class each year had little knowledge of evolutionary theory.

 

"In many cases, they've never been exposed to the basic facts about fossils and the universe," he said. "I think there's already formal and informal discouragements to teaching evolution in public school."

 

The statewide dispute here follows a similar battle two years ago in Cobb County, a fast-growing suburb north of Atlanta. In that case, the Cobb County school board approved a policy to allow schools to teach "disputed views" on the origins of man, referring to creationism, although the decision was later softened by the schools superintendent, who instructed teachers to follow the state curriculum.

 

Eric Meikle of the National Center for Science Education said several other states currently omit the word "evolution" from their science standards. In Alabama, the state board of education voted in 2001 to place disclaimers on biology textbooks to describe evolution as a controversial theory.

 

"This kind of thing is happening all the time, in all parts of the country," Mr. Meikle said.

 

Dr. Francisco J. Ayala, the author of a 1999 report by the National Academy of Sciences titled "Science and Creationism," vehemently opposes including the discussion of alternative ideas of species evolution.

 

"Creation is not science, so it should not be taught in science class," said Dr. Ayala, a professor of genetics at the University of California at Irvine. "We don't teach astrology instead of astronomy or witchcraft practices instead of medicine."

 

But Keith Delaplane, a professor of entomology at the University of Georgia, says the wholesale rejection of alternative theories of evolution is unscientific.

 

"My opinion is that the very nature of science is openness to alternative explanations, even if those explanations go against the current majority," said Professor Delaplane, a proponent of intelligent-design theory, which questions the primacy of evolution's role in natural selection. "They deserve at least a fair hearing in the classroom, and right now they're being laughed out of the arena."

[scrambled_legs]

1) Pig meat is the closet to human meat

2) Pig milk is the closest to human breast milk

3) Pig hearts are used for human heart transplants.

 

 

 

If we were really descended from apes then why isn't ape milk & meat nearer

to us than pig's? Why are pig's hearts better than chimpanzee hearts for

transplants?

 

 

Maybe we are descended from pigs.

 

 

Let's admit it folks: evolution is a blindly followed fundamentalist doctrine.

[scrambled_legs]

Oh and that big bang... well it just altered compounds that were already present... so it still relys on the principals of creation.

 

Too many questions unanswered. If we want to teach a theory as Evolution was always outlined in Canadian classrooms, then why don't we learn about life on mars?

[scrambled_legs]

Or about the principles of banning in CC

[Thinker]

Let's admit it folks: evolution is a blindly followed fundamentalist doctrine.

 

so is creationism.

[Lars]

fukkin' atheists

[Dan_Harris]

Had a discussion about this yesterday at a workshop. I am a Catholic and I teach science and Biblical fundamentalists drive me nuts. There is nothing to my knowledge that suggests creation and evolution are mutually exclusive. In pretty much every piece of classic literature questions are asked about what the author meant by this or that passage. The Bible is no different. The hypocrisy of the fundamentalists gets me. In their bible studies, I have talked to a few,they talk about symbolism and analogy and then with certain parts, there is none of it, just literal meaning.

A classic comment from Albert Einstein needs to be heard by many on both sides of the creation vs. evolution argument, "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."

[Bug]

The amount of wasted energy expended on the debate over evolution vs creationism is rarely if ever exceeded.

[Dave_Schuldt]

Not again! Kansas went through a similar thrash several years ago. The international media picked up on it making the board of education look realy bad. Businesses threatend to move out of state because they were concerned about about atracting qualified people. The proposed changes were dropped.

[mothboy88]

1) Pig meat is the closet to human meat

2) Pig milk is the closest to human breast milk

3) Pig hearts are used for human heart transplants.

 

 

 

If we were really descended from apes then why isn't ape milk & meat nearer

to us than pig's? Why are pig's hearts better than chimpanzee hearts for

transplants?

 

 

Maybe we are descended from pigs.

 

 

Let's admit it folks: evolution is a blindly followed fundamentalist doctrine.

 

What exactly do you mean whe you say closest? Are you talking about how you organize your refrigerator?

 

Where could I find some more details about the human-pig relationship you are citing?

[murraysovereign]

OK, now you're creeping me out. Why are you so curious about human-pig relationships?

 

You're not Trask, are you?

[JoshK]

Silly rednecks. If they are going to teach creationism, it's only fair that they teach the views of the world according to buhdism, hinduism, scientology, and every other religion out there. They are no less valid than christian creationism.

 

The real loser in all of this is the poor georgia school children.

[mothboy88]

OK, now you're creeping me out. Why are you so curious about human-pig relationships?

Maybe it all began with seeing Deliverance as a child...

 

And no, I am not a reincarnation of the banned Trask.

I submit my ability to refrain from swearing so far as evidence of this.

 

For real though, I am curious to see the evidence that humans are "closer" to pigs than chimps. I am pretty skeptical that is true from a DNA standpoint, which most would consider to be the gold standard of determining biologic affinities. I would just like to see the evidence if Scrambled Legs still has access to where he learned this.

 

I don't believe a pig heart has ever been transplanted successfully into a human. I think some guy in India tried it in the 90s resulting in death for the patient and jail time for the surgeon for violating Indian law. Pig valves that are dead and chemically treated to prevent rejection are transplanted into humans all the time. I don't know why they choose pigs over any other animal - my guess would be that its probably close in size since pigs can have a similar body mass to humans. And pigs must be an awful lot cheaper to raise for valve harvesting than chimps.

 

If I had to have tissue from another animal transplanted into my body, I would prefer to have pig over chimp because I would guess there would be a much smaller chance of an undetected disease making a cross-species jump and attacking my human cells. For similar reasons, Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle won't allow simian feces in their ZooDoo fertilizer because as a precaution against simian to human disease transfers.

 

Scientists are also trying to gentically alter pig organs so they could be transplanted live into humans and fool the immune system so they don't get rejected. But virologists are concerned about the possibility of porcine viruses making the jump to humans.

 

 

Anyways, sorry for the thread drift of this ramble...

[chelle]

No problem Moth...it was an interesting tangent.

[Dru]

pigs are faster to breed and faster to mature than chimps hence the organs are easier to "harvest"

 

chimp DNA is closer to human than pig DNA though.

 

there have not been any signiicant xenotransplantations from pig to human with long term survival of the transplant recipient yet.

 

also potential problems with pig flus jumping to human from the transplanted organs mean the technology is never likely to be developed seriously.

[Cpt.Caveman]

I see nothing groundbreaking in this news after living in the south for years...

 

Keep whining and shit but you aint in Jorja.

[Dru]

[Cpt.Caveman]

Fukkin a

[Lars]

[mothboy88]

OK, so most of us agree that its ludicrous to not teach evolution in school. My question then is do you think the latest permutation of creationism - Intelligent Design - should be given any time in a science class?

[catbirdseat]

A resounding NO. Creationism is not science because none of it can be tested by observation or experimentation.

[HRoark]

OK, so most of us agree that its ludicrous to not teach evolution in school. My question then is do you think the latest permutation of creationism - Intelligent Design - should be given any time in a science class?

 

Way to go on the comprehensive poll, fucko. Evolution is a theory, and has been billed as such since I was a lad. I see validity in presenting BOTH creation and evolution theory - let the student decide what he believes.

[catbirdseat]

Creation is not theory because it is untestable. If you want to teach it, don't teach it in science class. Teach it in social studies class.

[Dru]

A resounding NO. Creationism is not science because none of it can be tested by observation or experimentation.

 

Bullshit. Every time I take the gods speak to me. That is testing by observation.

[minx]

OK, so most of us agree that its ludicrous to not teach evolution in school. My question then is do you think the latest permutation of creationism - Intelligent Design - should be given any time in a science class?

 

 

Way to go on the comprehensive poll, fucko. Evolution is a theory, and has been billed as such since I was a lad. I see validity in presenting BOTH creation and evolution theory - let the student decide what he believes.

 

teaching creationism in schools is tantamount to teaching religion in schools. it should be presented at home and the student can make up his/her mind there. there is solid evidence for evolution. it is more than a theory. specific evolutionary changes in specific species may be theoretical but the concept is not.