Yet another judge who doesnt understand "theory".

[no1_vern]

A judge has decided that Evolution is not a theory, but an actual fact. While I agree that evolution should be taught in school as a theory I disagree that it should be considered a fact - it is only a working theory and satisfies most of the questions, it doesnt answer all of them.

The school had placed the stickers in the textbooks after more than 2,000 parents complained their children were being taught evolution as a fact, without being exposed to other theories about the origin of life.

The judge ordered that stickers previously inserted into biology textbooks to be removed as they are "unconstitutional because the endorse religion" because

"The sticker conveys an impermissible message of endorsement and tells some citizens that they are political outsiders while telling others they are political insiders," Cooper said in his 44-page ruling.

http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/nation...ion050113.html

I personally think the 6 parents need to go along with the crowd or if not to just teach their kids what they want taught.

[OuTpaTienT]

From the story,

The judge wrote that while evolution is subject to criticism, "the sticker misleads students regarding the significance and value of evolution in the scientific community."

[Gomer]

Thread ought to be:
Yet another Christian who doesn't understand "theory"... or court rulings for that matter.

The court ruling said nothing regarding the legitimacy of the theory of evolution from a scientific standpoint.

U.S. District Judge Clarence Cooper ruled that labeling evolution a "theory" played on the popular definition of the word as a "hunch" and could confuse students.

"Due to the manner in which the sticker refers to evolution as a theory, the sticker also has the effect of undermining evolution education to the benefit of those Cobb County citizens who would prefer that students maintain their religious beliefs regarding the origin of life,"

[Whir]

"Due to the manner in which the sticker refers to evolution as a theory, the sticker also has the effect of undermining evolution education to the benefit of those Cobb County citizens who would prefer that students maintain their religious beliefs regarding the origin of life,"

Isn't that sort of contradictory?

[Gomer]

Elaborate Whir?

Cooper said he was ruling on the "narrow issue" of the case, brought against the Cobb County School District and Board of Education by four parents of district students, was whether the district's stickers violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

His conclusion, he said, "is not that the school board should not have called evolution a theory or that the school board should have called evolution a fact."

"Rather, the distinction of evolution as a theory rather than a fact is the distinction that religiously motivated individuals have specifically asked school boards to make in the most recent anti-evolution movement, and that was exactly what parents in Cobb County did in this case," he wrote.

"By adopting this specific language, even if at the direction of counsel, the Cobb County School Board appears to have sided with these religiously motivated individuals."

The sticker, he said, sends "a message that the school board agrees with the beliefs of Christian fundamentalists and creationists."

"The school board has effectively improperly entangled itself with religion by appearing to take a position," Cooper wrote. "Therefore, the sticker must be removed from all of the textbooks into which it has been placed."

[Gomer]

And for the lay people amongst us who do not understand the term "scientific theory"... the first google search (which will some day revolutionize the world) on "scientific theory" yields the following:
http://wilstar.com/theories.htm

In layman’s terms, if something is said to be “just a theory,” it usually means that it is a mere guess, or is unproved. It might even lack credibility. But in scientific terms, a theory implies that something has been proven and is generally accepted as being true.

A theory is more like a scientific law than a hypothesis. A theory is an explanation of a set of related observations or events based upon proven hypotheses and verified multiple times by detached groups of researchers. One scientist cannot create a theory; he can only create a hypothesis.

In general, both a scientific theory and a scientific law are accepted to be true by the scientific community as a whole. Both are used to make predictions of events. Both are used to advance technology.

The biggest difference between a law and a theory is that a theory is much more complex and dynamic. A law governs a single action, whereas a theory explains a whole series of related phenomena.

[mr.jiggyfly]

Someone explain this part of the article for me please:

"The sticker conveys an impermissible message of endorsement and tells some citizens that they are political outsiders while telling others they are political insiders," Cooper said in his 44-page ruling.

What is that all about? Political outsiders/insiders? My head hurts >_< So people are not happy if there is this disclaimer, and some others are not happy if the disclaimer isn't there. It really doesn't matter. Students should be able to make up their own minds and think independently. It isn't as if they'll read some book and not question it. A reasonable person would weigh the merits of each belief and decide which one makes more sense. So... not a big deal. Some arguement over a stupid sticker :rolls eyes:

[willy_ph]

Basically, that phrase means that the stickers identify individuals as politically relevant (included) or not (exluded) based on their particular views.

[Whir]

Elaborate Whir?

Oops. After the seventh time I read it, I finally understood it. I misinterpereted it earlier. Sumimasen.

[no1_vern]

It is a theory.

In fact:

Close examination of a whole raft of scientific data reveals the absence of virtually any empirical scientific evidence in support of the theory, either regarding the alleged spontaneous generation of life in first place, let alone the evolution of life forms from one species into another. If anything, the fossil evidence to date indicates the spontaneous appearance, without the existence of any earlier related life forms, of a vast number of life forms around 600 million years ago known as the 'Cambrian explosion', followed by very long periods (tens of millions of years) of minor changes occurring within species (a process known as Stasis) and the absence of any examples of possible evolutionary links between species prior to, during, or after this period.

HM, "spontaneous appearance" I wonder..

Darwin said in his book, 'The Origin of Species':

"If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down."

Has anyone found any such slight modification??

[Epidemic]

Mud skipper.

Lung fish.

foot bones on dolphins and whales unlike any other sea creature and completely un required.


as for the rapid change versus long periods with out change. It would seem after mass extinctions there is an eco system out of balance.

Early dinosaurs inefficient varied and bizzare. Late dinosaurs millions of years with minor changes very efficient and sleak refined and perfected not needing more changes to be better.

Radiation could also assist in this process . Ice ages and hot spells every 250 thousand years. 4 short periods requiring changes every million years.

evolution is how god did it, that is if there is a god. If not the answer is still the same all evidence points to evolution. Why do we not see the change. several reasons 1 we are in a period with refined animal life sleek efficient not requiring much change. changes may be to subtle to notice or too dramatic. sudden subtle shift would simply be given the title of another breed rather than an offshoot of a breed.

[pphalan]

Mutations on a strain do not prove evolution

[Epidemic]

Mutations on a strain do not prove evolution.

If those mutations breed true and give some advantage or detriment to the success of the new species then is sure as hell does.

[RADAR1797]

I chalk this up to another failure of public education. If we cannot identify evolution as a theory, then obviously we are not teaching kids what a theory is scientifically.

-RADAR

[OuTpaTienT]

It is a theory.

Yes of course it is. But do you even have a clue what a scientific theory is?


Proof for Evolution?
Evolution, Creationism and Evidence
Kinds of Evidence
Evidence and Evolution
Is there evidence for Creationism?

Has anyone found any such slight modification??

Sure they have.

[Gomer]

Where the hell is the battering ram...

IT IS A SCIENTIFIC THEORY

Are you seriously not understanding what a scientific theory is? You are so caught up in some sort of religious fervor because the sticker was removed (my theory [non-scientific]) that you posted saying a judge had ruled evolution to be a "fact." When in fact, he had done nothing of the sort. Jesus, this is a science class... shame on them for trying to teach "scientific theory."

We've got a variety of threads discussing creationism vs evolution. One is religious dogma, one scientific theory. This thread is about the appropriateness of the court ruling. I am guessing this is an attack evolution thread then? We can play that... but if you are going to quote material, at least share the site with us =) Do we want to discuss evolution in depth? What is your background on the subject no1_vern?

The crazy part about all of this is that Darwin's Theory has little if anything to do with "the origin of life" and that is what is getting everyone's panties in a twist. It might deal with the origins of humans (and that scares the hell out of religious folk) but not life itself.

Darwin's hypothesis and its contemporary interpretations (usually called the "synthetic theory" of evolution for reasons that don't matter here) concern how living things, once they exist, respond to changes in their environments. That living things evolve in response to changes in climate and competitive pressure from other living things seems as close to certain as any assumption of science. Natural selection administers the process, causing adaptations that increase fitness to be favored (in most cases) and adaptations that decrease fitness to fade (in most cases). Natural selection is driven by chance, namely random mutations in the copying of DNA, but acts as though it were guided, because genes that confer advantages are more likely to be reproduced than genes that do not. The evidence for natural selection in the evolution of living things is overwhelming. Our planet orbits around its star; like charges repel and unlike charges attract; the speed of light is absolute regardless of the frame of reference of the observer; geologic forces are uniform over time; living things evolve in response to change. Only flat-Earth types say otherwise on any of these points.

None of this bears on "the origin of living things," which ranks, with the origin of the firmament itself, with the deepest mysteries of existence. Darwin's theory of evolution is silent on how life began--the great man took pains to say that he did not have the slightest idea. (Darwin mused that a "warm pond" of chemicals struck by lightning might have been the primordial site of first life, but also called this no more than an unsubstantiated musing.) Here, yours truly goes over some of the scientific speculation on how life might have begun; all current speculation is weak, to say the least. Here, Science magazine, the world's foremost technical journal, profiles a German theorist who recently proposed that the first "prebiotic" compounds arose from volcanic activity. The article also details how little is known about the origin of life.

Natural selection believably explains how eohippus evolved into the horse, or how homo hablis evolved into homo sapiens sapiens. But evolutionary theory does not give any clue regarding the manner in which life began, and it remains very, very hard to imagine how chance forces could have caused the leap from inanimate disorder to a living, self-organizing world. Bear in mind that Thomas R. Cech, a 1989 Nobel laureate in chemistry and author of the theory that the earliest self-reproducing cells were based on RNA, has said that the origin of life is so improbable it must have been a "near miracle."

Perhaps there is some natural explanation for the origin of life, so far unknown to us. But if life began on a chance basis in a natural system containing zero knowledge, why have researchers been unable to create life today in labs, working with the advantage of modern understanding of biology? Numerous attempts to create life in the lab have failed. Until such time as a natural explanation for the origin of life may be shown, there is no reason serious people cannot entertain the prospect that we are the result of a system of evolution that was originally put into action by a creator God.

But please, Cobb County Board of Education, if you must place your idiotic sticker on textbooks, at least make it scientifically accurate. Darwinianism is silent on the origin of life. Whoever is advising the Cobb County Board of Education appears to have no grasp of the theory of evolution, which does tend to play to the Scopes-trial Southern-rube stereotype, doesn't it?

http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=expre...terbrook121304

[Knothead]

Whoever is advising the Cobb County Board of Education appears to have no grasp of the theory of evolution, which does tend to play to the Scopes-trial Southern-rube stereotype, doesn't it?

"Calling Mr. Darrow...Mr. Clarence Darrow..."

Edit: Sorry, that was obtuse.

Clarence Darrow was the defense attorney for John T. Scopes, of the famed "Scopes Monkey Trial" (as they called it) back in 1925.

Scopes had been persecuted for teaching Darwin's theory of evolution in public schools...

Hmmm, things have changed a bit, but...seems no matter what we do or how far we progress, there is always gonna be some green-toothed, hare-brained pot-stirrers, eh?

[pphalan]

Excuse me its a THEORY so NONE of your arguments for it prove a thing. Yet somehow the some of you know more than the best scientist that have researched the question, they couldnt prove it. This was about a sticker in a book saying it was a theory.

[Gomer]

I chalk this up to another failure of public education. If we cannot identify evolution as a theory, then obviously we are not teaching kids what a theory is scientifically.

-RADAR

If you want to chalk it up to something... chalk it up to the fact that religion and science are diametrically opposed. It is not a shortfall of the children being properly educated... it was not the children that called for the stickers. Either the parents were not properly educated... or they have been blinded by religion.

Hell, I know what a theory is... Out knows what a theory is... I know there is the SCIENTIFIC theory of evolution... I know there is a theory of creationism. I know one was DISCOVERED and the other REVEALED.

Hopefully through reading this thread some other members here might get the picture of what a scientific theory is.

[Knothead]

...I know there is the SCIENTIFIC theory of evolution... I know there is a theory of creationism. I know one was DISCOVERED and the other REVEALED.

Hey, that was a pretty nifty (not to mention, succinct) defininition of the controversy here, Gomer!

Neither side will ever agree in principle, you realize...

One side has belief only in the DISCOVERED.

The other side has belief only in the...ah, REVEALED...(or at least BELIEVED, hahahahaha!)

What in the world am I doing in this thread? I thought I gave this jazz up.

Hi ho.