The fight to keep creationism out of public schools is a long one, with many reverses, and won’t be over until America becomes a secular land. Nevertheless, I see the arc of rationality bending upward, and there’s two pieces of evidence this week.
First, from WFPL in Louisville, Kentucky, we learn that public opposition in Kentucky to the eminently sensible Next Generation Science Standards—which, as I noted on July 26, mandate learning the truth about evolution and the facts about global warming—has failed.
The Kentucky Board of Education on Thursday rejected that public opposition and approved a final report from the education department on the new science standards.
Some people were concerned about teaching students evolution. But state officials says evolution is already included in the current set of standards. Further, in the statement of consideration approved Thursday, officials say there’s enough scientific research supporting evolution.
Officials also rejected claims that creationism should be included and that climate change should be removed.
Again, they cite the research. (Click here to read the SOC report).
Great weeping Jebus; there was enough scientific research supporting evolution by 1900. But be grateful for small favors; Kentucky has been a benighted state, science-wise, and kudos to the Board of Education for rejecting the yahoos who lobbied them. Here’s the board’s official response on three issues:
Evolution
Citing support from dozens of scientific organizations, Kentucky education department officials rejected comments opposing evolution in the new standards, saying it’s “the fundamental, unifying theory that underlies all the life sciences.” It goes on to say, “there is no significant ongoing debate within the scientific community regarding the legitimacy of evolution as a scientific idea.”
KDE also notes that the concept of evolution already exists in the current version of the Kentucky Core Academic Standards for Science and has been assessed since 2006.
Creationism and Intelligent Design
KDE rejected comments related to including intelligent design in the new standards because they lack scientific support. “The overwhelming majority of scientists do not consider creationism intelligent design,” the report says.
Officials also point to court decisions that have repeatedly declared teaching creationism and intelligent design as unconstitutional. The new standards no not attempt to explain the origin of life, while creationism and intelligent design do, the report reads.
I’m glad that the board gave two reasons for opposing creationism and ID: its unconstitutionality as a religiously based theory, but also (my preference for attack, but one harder to implement legally) the fact that creationism and ID are not only religiously motivated science, but simply failed science. I’ve always said that scientists can’t rule out supernatural intervention in the world a priori, but that there’s simply no evidence for it. Any theory saying there is, like creationism is unevidenced and not worthy of presentation as a viable alternative to purely naturalistic evolution.
Climate Change
KDE officials say the standards do not advocate any particular public response, policy change, or civic action related to climate change, but it does ask that schools include climate research and studies within the standards framework.
The standards, “ask students to consider the evidence for the factors influencing climate change.”
Is that so onerous? I’m not quite sure why the religious mindset rejects anthropogenic global warming (after all, they presumably accept the effects of overfishing in the world’s oceans), but it may be a case of simple wish-thinking that spills over from a belief in gods.
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Second, as reported by YouGov, an Omnibus poll taken in July, asking Americans the standard question about how they think humans evolved, shows a slight but heartening uptick in those who adhere to naturalistic evolution rather than theistic evolution or creationism.
Note, though, that 62% of Americans believe in God’s intervention in the appearance of humans, with more than half of these adhering to straight Biblical creationism. However, the 21% who are naturalistic evolutionists is an increase from 2004. I’ve always seen the theistic evolutionists as neither allies nor diehard foes of pure science, but tending to the “foe” side since they are enabling superstition as well as seeing humans as being the recipients of divine intervention. These are the people, by the way, whose rumps are osculated by organizations like the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Center for Science Education.
The number, however, who believe in evolution without help from God has increased by 8 percentage points since 2004, when CBS conducted a poll using the same questions. In 2004, 13% of Americans said that human beings evolved without guidance from God. This number may continue to increase in the coming years, as the belief in evolution without the influence of God is most common among those 18-29 years old, with 31% of those in that age group believing it.
I don’t know if the 8% increase is statistically significant, nor whether the two polls use the same methodology, but Gallup polls repeated over thirty years show the same increase in acceptance of naturalistic evolution. Here are the data since 2004:
And, finally, the bad news: only 32% of Americans oppose the teaching of creationism or intelligent design in public schools, while 40% are in favor of it. As courts have ruled repeatedly, that kind of teaching is illegal, so either these Americans are ignorant of the First Amendment or opposed to its enforcement. I suspect many of them are simply ignorant, and have the typically American “let’s-be-fair and teach all sides” attitude. I’d be curious to see how some of the 40% justify their answers, and what proportion of them actually accept evolution vs. Biblical creationism and ID creationism.
x
h/t: Felicia
There is a reason why the Creation Museum is located in Kentucky since it is so backward. Glad to see some of them stepping up to the plate on this.
Recently I visited the Creation Museum. You wouldn’t believe what I saw:
http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2013/08/an-atheist-visits-creation-museum-in.html
Sadly, we would.
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Hi John:
I left a thank you at your site; also a link to John Scalzi’s report on his visit:
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2007/11/12/your-creation-museum-report/
>I’m not quite sure why the religious mindset rejects anthropogenic global warming…
It’s hard to be sure with these people, but it seems to me they are just following their political leaders (not necessarily their religious leaders). They like and respect politicians who loudly proclaim their faith in the public square, so when the same pols and ‘opinion makers’ scoff at global warming, they just follow along. In my experience they don’t know and don’t care about the science. A pol who spouts Jesus is automatically trusted. It’s pure tribalism.
It’s because of some biblical nonsense of “dominion over the earth” and providing for all. Just the usual biblical literal stupidity.
I was curious about the climate change demographic question so I looked it up. There are some studies and Wikipedia summarizes well. Basically, in relatively recent times, political figures (Republicans) have presented climate change as an economic burden. It is interesting to see that as Democrat numbers change, so do views of climate change.
I saw a Jack Chick pamphlet that explained it this way: global warming can’t happen because Jesus wouldn’t let it. We’re not in charge of climate; he is. So nothing can change unless he wants it to. But when he wants it to, you’d better be right with him because the whole world’s gonna burn.
(Seriously, that’s how the tract ended: with the world in flames and billions of sinners dying in agony. And that’s apparently supposed to be a good thing.)
Consider their funding. Consider also the association of creationist and right-wing memes that the right has been busily consructing since reagan.
Man, those are some depressing charts right there. But I suppose any progress is good progress, especially if kids are learning about evolution.
Ken Ham is spinning in his grave.
The ‘answers in genesis’ guy? If so, didn’t hear of his death
Brain dead.
Cheers for the people who stand up for science in Kentucky.
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If goddidit is not taught in high school biology as the design guidance for evolution, what happens is that students learn Evolutionary Theory as developed since Origin of the Species was published. Next thing you know, they believe everything the Genome Project says and there is no Adam & Eve, no ensoulment moment, no snake, no sin original or otherwise, no Divine land grant to Hebrews, no atonement sacrifice, no blood libel attached to that, no 2nd coming, no scriptural underpinning for the Zionization fire the likes of a Rev Hagee lives to stoke, and on and on.
I say teach the controversy, let the students make up their own minds about which theory to believe. These are only “just theories”, anyway, am I not right; we’re concerned here with believing, not knowing, and especially with sowing permanent confusion and doubt in young minds about the properties of epistomology.
And since we’re only talking about competing theories, my idea vs your idea, let’s bring into the classroom the theory that Ham sired the inferior black race, and let the kids decide whether to believe it or not. That is a fact stated in the Bible, too, after all. And we certainly don’t want to waste a golden opportunity to indoctrinate the kids against the wild-ass scientist idea that all humans are the same race (damn the Human Genome Project, damn it to Hell!).
There is plenty more biblical stuff we can wedge into 10th grade Biology, if we work hard enough at it. Bible School on the public dime Sep-Jun, here we come.
Let the kids decide. With plenty of guidance from scriptural literalist adult school board members, of course. After all, they’re just kids.
“let’s bring into the classroom the theory that Ham sired the inferior black race,”
Say WHAT? I thought he just ran the Creationist Museum? Didn’t know he’d been doing some creating himself.
Still, if cavemen rode dinosaurs, then I guess anything’s possible in time warp land. 😉
Creation Museum. No ‘ist’. Bah. I want an Edit function.
+1
Educating people that the side with faulty or no evidence is the wrong side, may help trend the acceptance of naturalistic evolution upward. Simplification of critical thinking has convinced most people to reject absolutes without deeper analysis and to hunt down “the other side” (which sometimes doesn’t need much searching) and make sure that side has equal opportunity to present its “facts”.
The majority of people think that the grey area is the most honest, so they immediately reject the notion that one side is absolutely wrong; it’s why we have the enraging “there are two sides to every story” as explanations for the most stupid things. I had a manager say this to me once after an employee flew into a narcissistic rage at me to the point where I thought he was going to hit me and it was over absolutely nothing (pfffft, I have experience with violence, I remained totally calm which just enraged him further); my response to my manager at the time was, “yeah and one side is often wrong”, which seemed to shock him into realizing I was completely correct in my assessment.
If there were a multi disciplinary approach to this in all education systems, it would certainly go a long way in eliminating other stupid beliefs, namely the ones that irritate me regularly: RF gives you cancer, homeopathy is a viable treatment option, chakras are real and there is an invisible sky god that watches you and will punish you (okay that last one may be trickier to get rid of).
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What particularly surprises me is the religious opposition to human-caused climate change, when these people oftentimes believe that earthquakes are the result of human rebellion against god.
For those who don’t know, when asked to account for ‘natural evils’ (those that can’t be explained by free will), such as earthquakes, Christians will often blame them on the Fall.
Basically, eating an apples can move mountains, but putting a lot of foreign gas into the air can’t make it a few degrees warmer outside.
Or gays, feminists and socialists.
Oh dear-lots of god rebelling going on in New Zealand today-30 earthquakes since 6am. Must be people dodging church. He was really pissed a couple of weeks ago-coincidentally also a Sunday
Yeah, but I’d guess they’re miniquakes. I’m in Auckland and I didn’t feel a thing. More to the point, our TV is just repeating the usual drivel. If there had been a serious quake it’d be full of it. Right now on my TV they’re arguing about the effect a bit of polluted milk powder might have on New Zealand’s ‘100% pure’ image. 100% pure bullsh*t, IMO. Always was, always will be. What would you expect from advertising execs.
(Why am I watching TV? I’m not. My wife is.)
Back to topic – I just looked at this:
http://www.geonet.org.nz/quakes/felt
and the biggest was a 3.9.
When G*d got really pissed was a couple of years ago when he hit Christchurch). Must have been provoked by all the naked sunbathers on New Brighton beach.** Amongst the buildings He flattened was Christchurch Cathedral. Gotta love the irony.
(**Regretfully, they exist mostly in my imagination…)
Well maybe just mildly annoyed today
Maybe indigestion…
I really wish every Author and Speaker in support of Evolution would quit saying “Belief in Evolution” or “Believes in Evolution”. That brings it down to the religious types level and it becomes a battle of beliefs rather than science.
A much better phraseology would be “Accept Evolution as settled science”
Re theistic evolution, I only recently discovered (to my surprise) that Julian Huxley, the grandson of Thomas “Darwin’s Bulldog” Huxley, was, in spite of his commitment to secular humanism and naturalism, a great fan and indeed promoter of the prominent theistic evolutionist, Teilhard de Chardin. They both buy into the canard that evolution violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics (rebutted here http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=441 )
Historically, I suspect that must have given theistic evolution a huge boost in credibility to minds in a certain demographic.
There is not contradiction between the teachings of Islam and the teachings of the Evolution.
[Qur’an 4:2] O ye people! fear your Lord, Who created you from a single soul and created therefrom its mate, and from them twain spread many men and women; and fear Allah, in Whose name you appeal to one another, and fear Him particularly respecting ties of relationship. Verily, Allah watches over you.
The Koran just warms over nonsense from the Old Testament here. This quote has very little to do with evolution at all. It appears you have no sense of what science entails.
Where do you get that? Qur’an nowhere says men came from women. In fact the word “Nafs” used in the verse quoted refers to “all beings” and has a feminine connotation (or is sexless but definitely not male). Meaning Qur’an is the only book in the world that puts a feminine connotation to creation. Abiogenesis (created you from a single soul) followed by asexual reproduction (and therefrom its mate) followed by sexual reproduction (and from them twain spread many men and women).
What warm up are you talking off?
Not so much a warm up, then; more of a re-hash.
In any case, where is the 3+ billion year history of humanity’s ancestors?
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I never said anything about gender. Your original quote from the Koran is just a paraphrase from the Old Testament. Stolen from the Hebrews who stole it from an earlier religion.
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The old testament says Adam was created first. Science says the first creation was sexless or, in a way, a mother cell.
The old testament says Adam was created from Eve’s rib. Qur’an says a mate was created from the original (female/sexless) soul.
The old testament says Adam was the first human. The Qur’an specifically refers to adam as a caliph, i.e. a representative of God to, obviously, a people.
How Qur’an paraphrases old testament please explain.
You are too confused for me to bother conversing.
Okay then. Thanks for the time in any case.
[Qur’an 18:30] “And say, ‘It is the truth from your Lord; wherefore let him who will, believe, and let him who will, disbelieve.”
[Qur’an 6:108] “And if Allah had enforced His will, they would not have set up gods with Him. And We have not made thee a keeper over them nor art thou over them a guardian.”
“So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” Genesis I 27 NIV. (tautology much).
You’re probably thinking of this: “Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man…” Genesis II 22 NIV
That’s the trouble with inerrant holy texts – they tend to have errors.
Really? Proposing creationism magic and quoting magical texts on a science site?
Creationists shouldn’t comment on science, it is hilarious and makes converts to science, see Dawkins’s Convert’s Corner.
Assuming this isn’t the usual trolling, I’ll respond for once.
Assuming that the quote’s use of “soul” refer to an individual and not the even more blatant contradiction with evolutionary finds (minds, not ‘souls’), the claim that there was ever a single human breeding pair has been in direct and too serious conflict with facts and evolution to be acceptable since 2011. From genome sequencing of Neanderthals it was established that the smallest amount of the human population was > 1 200 breeding pairs, and likely ~ 4000 bps.
Also, evolution is much more than education as it is a science.
Religions such as islamism on the other hand are a dime a dozen. I’ve read the claim that there are ~ 36 000 sects of christianism alone, and I imagine similar abrahamism such as islamism is comparable, each making different claims on how the world works. From this we learn that they are _all_ scams, and in contradiction with everything and everyone.
My old Encyclopedia Britannica (11th ed, 1910) listed “the seventy sects of Islam” as though they were a traditional reckoning of some sort.
Never make the mistake of thinking that Islam is a monolithic whole. Besides the interminable bloodshed relating to the Shia-Sunni divide, there are Ismailites, Alawites, Wahhabis, and many other flavors of Moslem. (Some of these may be classed as Sunni or Shia.)
Qur’an nowhere says men came from women. In fact the word “Nafs” used in the verse quoted refers to all beings with a soul and has a feminine connotation (or is sexless but definitely not male). Meaning Qur’an is the only book in the world that puts a feminine connotation to the start of creation. Abiogenesis (created you from a single soul) followed by asexual reproduction (and therefrom its mate) followed by sexual reproduction (and from them twain spread many men and women).
Just because there are many liars doesn’t mean no one is telling the truth. That logic don’t add up.
Oh, no! Read this about Creationism and GW and the Kentucky Educattion Dept. And even the rubes in Kentucky have seen the light on both. Come out of the dark, Geotorney! Save your soul! Stop bowing down to that guinea godhead! Come out into the warm, cleansing light of 21st century science!
Sent from my iPhone
Down here, any progress is good progress. Good for Kentucky! Still holding out hope that the rest of our region will follow suit.
Kentuckians for Science Education worked hard to rally support for the new science standards. The work isn’t over yet, though. The Next Generation Science Standards still have to be reviewed and voted on by joint legislative committees and signed by the governor.
http://kyscied.wordpress.com/2013/08/08/ngss-moves-forward-in-kentucky/
Keep track of us on facebook, while we work towards building a more permanent website.
https://www.facebook.com/Ky4Sci
KDE officials say the standards do not advocate any particular public response, policy change, or civic action related to climate change, but it does ask that schools include climate research and studies within the standards framework. The standards, “ask students to consider the evidence for the factors influencing climate change.”
That seems entirely correct to me. The reality and causes of climate change are scientific questions and as such are legitimate subjects for public school science classes. But advocating a particular kind of response to climate change is a political position, not a scientific one, and has no place in public education.
True, but considering the potential consequences of climate change and range of policy options might well have a legitimate place.