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Some ill-informed members of the Florida House of Representatives voted this week to pass a bill that would bring creationism into schools. A different version in the Senate would have to be reconciled for any new law to be made.
The evolution bill (SB2692) would require that alternatives to evolution be taught in public schools.
Here’s the core of the problem: There are no viable alternatives. Yet Florida Governor Charlie Crist has tacitly bought into the naiveté. Asked whether he believes in evolution, Crist said: “I believe in a lot of things. We should have the freedom to have a good exchange of ideas, right?”
That’s a stupid answer and an even stupider question, and Crist fuels irrational creationist flames by failing to give a square answer. Evolution is not something to believe in or not believe in. It is something to realize (or dismiss or perhaps not understand).
Religion is something one believes in. The rightness or wrongness of the Iraq war is something you can believe in. The certainty of a pay raise next year is something you can believe in.
The theory of evolution is one of the most well-established scientific theories, rooted in facts and observations from multiple tests and investigations on several scientific fronts over many decades. There’s absolutely zero credible evidence to support any other explanation for the incredible diversity of life and the changes that we see happening right before our eyes.
Do you “believe” that deadly superbugs are evolving to resist antibiotics? The question is irrelevant to the rapidly evolving bugs, but ignorance of facts could leave you just as dead.
According to the Sun-Sentinel, the bill is likely to die for lack of action anyway, as the legislative session ends Friday But don’t be surprised though to see the bill re-emerge in the future. Like organisms, bad legislation on this topic has a habit of evolving into new forms and surviving like a superbug.
April 30th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
I agree that alternatives to any idea should be taught, as logn as there are alternatives to be taught. There are two view sof creation. Evolution, and god. Only evolution has any info whatsoever to be taught. Creationism consists of some supreme being we call god created life, the universe, and everything, then gave it the insependanent abiltiy to evovle. That’s it. Anythign else is various ideas put forth by different cultures, none of which have been proven in the slgithest. This bill is just another excuse to force Christianity onto the masses. Firts it’s the Christian view of Creationism. Then comes the Flood. Then comes jesus. Now, everybody’s a Christian. Ask any of these creationists to allow Islamic creationism in the schools, or Native American creationism, and see how readily they agree. They’ll laugh in your face, and call you a savage terrorist. As a jew, I find it highly offensive another’s beleifs should eb forced upon everybody (wouldn’t want Jewish theory either mind you.) You wnat Christianity taught? teahc every other belief too. Which is too much to ask for in a year. Nor would it be tolerated by Christians.
Now, if we should ever find proof of any other cause for life besides evolution, and we can test it, and verify it’s real and happens/happened, then yes, please, teach it to our kids. But we need more than the blurb I provided above. heck, even proving to all that god does exist wouldn’t change anything, until he tells us what he did, and how he did it. Seriously, would you teach kids that a giant potato sneezed out all life, just ebcause I said one did? Nope. You’d demand proof first. Yet we’re all supposed to accept Christian Creationism as fact, just ebcause a few fundmentalists say it’s true.
April 30th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
The problem is the lay understanding of a Theory.
Scientists need to agree on a set of Laws of Evolution. Setting these laws would give the lay person more understanding that these are immutable, like the Laws of Physics. Note: even laws can have violations, which do not invalidate the theory behind the law, they just become special cases.
A 1st Law of Evolution could read like:
“The organism best suited to survive in a given environment will. over time, come to dominate the evironment.”
May 1st, 2008 at 12:29 am
There’s nothing to see here folks, please move along.
Please ignore the fact that prior to 1929, science asked us to believe that the universe had always existed. Please ignore the fact that the majic solution to the dilemma of the big bang, the big crunch, was seriously challenged in 1998. Please ignore the fact that science now asks us to believe that our finely tuned universe is explained by the multiverse hypothesis — dispite Stephen Hawking, the worlds most renoun living physicist hasn’t bought in.
Please ignore the fact that there is no theory for the origin of life. Please ignore the fact that there isn’t even a reasonably well worked hypothesis. Just “know” (we don’t believe in the scientific community) that we have no theory YET!!
Please ignore the fact that the cambrian explosion remains to be a huge mystery. Hey, while we’re at it, please ignore the fact that there is no established theory for how the placenta happened.
Please ignore the fact that there are three, not two, options for what to believe about these issues, and that the state of Florida is asking that the third be taught where appropriate: 1: The theory of naturalistic evolution, 2: The theory of intelligent design (that some evidences are best explained as the work of a designer — Young Earth Creationists certainly hold to this tennet, but hold a lot of expectations that are not part of mainstream ID, like the expectation that the earth is young, and that the Bible renders an accurate order of existance.) 3: The dono theory — that’s the theory that “we don’t know, AND WE MAY NEVER KNOW!”
Just remember, it may look designed, but it’s just an illusion.
Repeat after me: we know, they believe, we know, they believe …
May 2nd, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Note to BFast. Thank you for pointing out in your first couple of sentences that even science evolves. More evidence in the science of evolution.
May 2nd, 2008 at 1:38 pm
In fact, science and evolution are the same thing. Science is an instance of evolution — trying things out, throwing away what doesn’t work, and keeping what works.