Teachers take a stand against anti-evolution teaching order

[DinoDoc]

What species of dinosaur was it?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
If you all had clarified terms from the get-go, this whole frickin' retarded conversation wouldn't have happened, you know. This is a prime example of 'Poly intellectual masterbation at its finest.

Let's use these terms:

Function
Intent
Purpose

Let's NOT use them interchangeably.

Apples have a function. That function is to protect the seeds of a tree to help ensure propagation.

There is no intent behind that function, as to have intent requires consciousness. Apples do not possess consciousness, so there is no intent.

To have a purpose is to have a function with intent behind it. Ergo apples have no purpose, as there is no intent to their functions.


How about a knife?

A knife has a function. It's to cut things or be utilized as a tool. It has no intent, since a knife has no consciousness. Function but no intent, so no purpose.

Sexual organs have a function, to reproduce humans. They have no intent (although sometimes my penis seems as if it does). So function but no intent means sex organs have no purpose.

Now, an apple, a knife and sex organs can all serve a purpose, but that is not the same as having a purpose.

I disagree. I think it's perfectly fine to describe the purpose of an object as the sum of intents held towards that object by intelligent agents. Otherwise there's no real difference between the two words.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by General Ludd
I don't know if you could attribute a purpose to rain, because it's not an actual object - it's an action. It's water falling from the sky.

Water falling from the sky is an object, which happens to be performing a particular action. Way to miss the point

But gravity, does have a purpose. It binds and draws mass together, and in that sense, it's purpose is to keep the earth near the sun - not specifically, of course, because that is simply one example, or result of it's function.

That's absolutely retarded.

What is intent but a reason - a reason to exist, a reason for being?

It's not a mechanical reason, the answer to "how", it's the answer to "why". Otherwise, the "intent" behind everything is simply that it is a result of the operation of physical laws on some initial configuration.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
I disagree. I think it's perfectly fine to describe the purpose of an object as the sum of intents held towards that object by intelligent agents. Otherwise there's no real difference between the two words.

That's not true.

The function of a knife is to cut things, but these things can be pieces of meat or another person. How it is used entirely depends on the person in control of said knife.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
What species of dinosaur was it?

Some small herbivore dinosaur that had some bird-like features.

Here's the thread on this particular discovery

[Boris Godunov]

Update from the county in Atlanta that adopted the disclaimers last year: They're outta there!

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&ncid=718&e=3&u=/ap/20050114/ap_on_re_us/evolution_stickers

Ga. Evolution Stickers Ordered Removed

31 minutes ago

By DOUG GROSS, Associated Press Writer

ATLANTA - A federal judge Thursday ordered a suburban Atlanta school system to remove stickers from its high school biology textbooks that call evolution "a theory, not a fact," saying the disclaimers are an unconstitutional endorsement of religion.

"By denigrating evolution, the school board appears to be endorsing the well-known prevailing alternative theory, creationism or variations thereof, even though the sticker does not specifically reference any alternative theories," U.S. District Judge Clarence Cooper said.

The stickers were put inside the books' front covers by public school officials in Cobb County in 2002. They read: "This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered."

"This is a great day for Cobb County students," said Michael Manely, an attorney for the parents who sued over the stickers. "They're going to be permitted to learn science unadulterated by religious dogma."

In a statement, the school board said it was disappointed by the ruling and will decide whether to appeal. A board spokesman said no decision had been made on when, or if, the stickers would be removed.

"The textbook stickers are a reasonable and evenhanded guide to science instruction and encouraging students to be critical thinkers," the board said.

The stickers were added after more than 2,000 parents complained that the textbooks presented evolution as fact, without mentioning rival ideas about the beginnings of life, such as the biblical story of creation.

Six parents and the American Civil Liberties Union (news - web sites) then sued, contending the disclaimers violated the separation of church and state and unfairly singled out evolution from thousands of other scientific theories as suspect.

At a trial in federal court in November, the school system defended the stickers as a show of tolerance, not religious activism.

"Science and religion are related and they're not mutually exclusive," school district attorney Linwood Gunn said. "This sticker was an effort to get past that conflict and to teach good science."

But the judge disagreed: "While evolution is subject to criticism, particularly with respect to the mechanism by which it occurred, the sticker misleads students regarding the significance and value of evolution in the scientific community."

The case is one of several battles waged around the country in recent years over what role evolution should play in the teaching of science.

Last year, Georgia's education chief proposed a science curriculum that dropped the word "evolution" in favor of "changes over time." The idea was dropped amid protests from teachers.

A school district in Dover, Pa., has been locked in a dispute over a requirement that science students be told about "intelligent design" — the concept that the universe is so complex it must have been created by some higher power.

Officials in Alabama said they do not think Thursday's ruling affects the several-paragraph evolution disclaimer in the front of that state's science books.

The disclaimer says that "any statement about life's origins should be considered theory, not fact," and lists four of the "many unanswered questions about the origin of life which are not mentioned in your textbook." One of the questions is, "How did you and all living things come to possess such a complete and complex set of 'Instructions' for building a living body?"

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
That's not true.

The function of a knife is to cut things, but these things can be pieces of meat or another person. How it is used entirely depends on the person in control of said knife.

I said no difference between purpose and intent, not purpose and function. My use of purpose makes a distinction between purpose and intent - intent is held by intelligent actors, purpose is an extrinsic property of objects (including intelligent actors).

[Last Conformist]

Removing stickers

[Kuciwalker]

"The textbook stickers are a reasonable and evenhanded guide to science instruction and encouraging students to be critical thinkers," the board said.

Creationists aren't ALLOWED to talk about critical thought.

[Last Conformist]

Yup. The 1st Amendment doesn't apply to stupid people.

[Kuciwalker]

[Berzerker]

Boris

That apples can be eaten is a happy consequence of millions of years of coevolution between apple trees and things that eat apples.

It works as a defense, as it ensures the seeds get spread and planted, since the fruit is what gets eaten, not the seeds.

The seeds are eaten, thats why apples exist.

No, it only assumes that non-conscious objects do not have an intent, as they can't "intend" to do anything.

With ID the intent for all life, including us, lies with the designer.

You're mixing the terms, conflating "purpose" and "function." If you use the word "purpose" to mean "function," it loses its meaning in this debate, because the entire debate is whether or not inanimate/unconscious objects possess some intrinsic meaning beyond their function

To answer that we'd have to know if ID is responsible for the universe. If there is a design with a designer, our "consciousness" does not create intent. We do know there is a design, so what intrinsic meaning do we have beyond our function within that design?

Even if an intelligence created an item, the item does not possess an intent, but rather it serves an intent.

So how can we assume human beings are beyond serving this intent? This sounds almost like a free will/determinism discussion, dont it?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

"The textbook stickers are a reasonable and evenhanded guide to science instruction and encouraging students to be critical thinkers," the board said.

Creationists aren't ALLOWED to talk about critical thought.

They can talk about it all right, they just don't apply it themselves.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by SpencerH
We have one fossil of one mammal with one small dinosaur in its belly and paleontology is rocked (no pun intended) by the discovery! How pathetic

How was Paleontology rocked? It seems like wishful thinking by anti-evolution types. Seriously, all they said before was that based upon the evidence we've seen all the mammals we know of from 70m years ago were about the size of a rodent. One new species is found which was a meat eater and it is supposed to be revolutionary? Not at all. I'm sure as time goes on more species will be discovered and we will continue to learn more.

This is part of the scientific process. Truth is arrived at slowly though a lot of thinking and hard work.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Arrian
Scientists are certainly not immune to hype, either.

If you are a young PHD candidate looking for a tentured position then you want to hype any discovery you make other wise you might not get that tenure track job you were hoping for.