Steve Abrams, the Arkansas City veterinarian who chairs the Kansas State Board of Education, is leading the fight to inject criticisms of evolution into state science standards so kids can weigh the supposedly competing evidence and make up their own minds. But Abrams’ mind sure sounded made up in a speech last week in Independence, as reported by the Lawrence Journal-World:
“At some point in time, if you compare evolution and the Bible, you have to decide which one you believe. That’s the bottom line,” Abrams said.
At the same event, board member Iris Van Meter asked the crowd to “pray for six of the conservative members that God will use us to see some life-changing things happen for the children of the state of Kansas.”
More evidence that what the state of Kansas really needs is some changing of the board.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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27 Comments
Yeah, I support evolution, but I don’t believe in it. At least not in the unreasoning and self-consciously ignorant way the hard-core evangelists believe in creationism.I accept evolution as the best explanation of the origins of life because it fits all the facts we currently have about geology, biology, paleontology, physics, chemistry and genetics. As more facts become available, I will no doubt modify my views to fit the facts.So far, anyway, the IDer’s have presented no facts whatsoever. They’ve picked and chosen a few scientific facts and intentionally misinterpreted them so that they seem to support ID, and posed questions that have already been sufficiently answered, in hopes that their audience hasn’t heard those answers. In other words, they’re treating science the same way they treat the bible!
Jed–
You start with the facts and work to the conclusions. That’s logic.
Conservatives start with the conclusions (the market place is like God, the Bible is true in all respects, the government is bad–except for the military) and then they find the facts that support that conclusion.
No wonder they hate evolution, it’s part of the “reality-based” community.
Jed–
You start with the facts and work to the conclusions. That’s logic.
Conservatives start with the conclusions (the market place is like God, the Bible is true in all respects, the government is bad–except for the military) and then they find the facts that support that conclusion.
No wonder they hate evolution, it’s part of the “reality-based” community.
I think it is an interesting inconsistency the conservative Republicans can believe in the supremecy of free-market economics, and not see that evolution might be God’s free-market dynamics on a biological level.
Spencerian survival of the fittest = good; Darwian evolution = bad. An interesting and untenable inconsistency.
Please don’t lump all conservative Republicans into the same group on this evolution thing. It is not as much as partisan issue as a scary one.
The basis of this country is spiritual, but with constitutional safeguards against endorsement of any particular religion. The Kansas BOE seems perilously close to crossing over that safeguard. Endorsing a Biblical creation standard over, say, Shintoism, is endorsing one type of religion over another.
As the state of Pennsylvania found out a few weeks ago, crossing that line results in lawsuits.
If they want their children to learn Creatism, teach them at home or in Sunday school…not the public, taxpayer funded school system.
Ray’s right, I’ve learned about the Repub heterogeneity thing first hand. There is a Pro-choice group of Republicans in Wichita who are trying to stack the precinct committee positions with persons sympathetic to their views. They fight being called RINOs by the more conservative part of the party. Their views seem more like Democratic talking points to me. Bottom line, my belief is that there can be a wide variety of views amongst those calling themselves Republicans – but conservative Repubs tend to be more homogeneous than other types. But, if Ray is right and there are fractional elements within the Conservative branch of the GOP – I think that would be a good thing!
Boy, have you liberals gone astray on this one. I always thought evolution was a conservative value. I am a Conservative Republican and most of us understand evolution and, like Jeb, change our view as more is known. It is not a left vs. right issue. ID is just the Religious rights’ way of trying to get God back in the schools. There are zealots on both sides.
Except, Joe, we don’t keep voting for the people that bring us “intelligent design” and “faith based” crap.
Nor do we.
Well, if you vote for Republicans, you do . . .
Brilliant article at WaPo.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/25/AR2005092501177.html
New Analyses Bolster Central Tenets of Evolution TheoryPa. Trial Will Ask Whether ‘Alternatives’ Can Pass as Science
By Rick Weiss and David BrownWashington Post Staff WritersMonday, September 26, 2005; Page A08
It is true that the ID thing is the small religious-conservative fraction of the Republican party. They built their platform on stopping Gay rights and because they won, think that all Republicans think as they do.
My husband had a friend who was recently laid off from Boeing because he was over 50. He said this last election was the first election in which he voted Republican.He did so because of an incident when he was 18 when a man made a pass at him. As a result, he hates gays. I told him, “Well now you are going to find out how many ways you can get screwed!”
It is a great relief to see the posts of some known Conservatives to these blogs showing some concern about the fundametalist bent that is happening in their party. If you all are made a lttle nervous by the fundamentlists, I think you begin to understand how some of us on the other side are starting to see those folks as more than a little scary.
But as to those folks; Abrams is a Veterinarian? I didn’t know that. But isn’t his dabbling in government and politics and religion distracting him from where he could do the most good?
Now I don’t have any problem with some of the difficulties ( I don’t personally know of any) with evolutionary theory being taught. That is science. But I think most of us know thatthat is not the real agenda of folks like Mr. Abrams. This most recent remark of his proves it. He wants CREATION taught. And it doesn’t stop there. Folks like him don’t want to “allow” kids to pray in school, they want to make them pray in school. And that friends is not science or encouraging faith. That is dictating government forced education of the particular beliefs of a few folks in power. That is fascism.
Judging by the response of the republicans here, I’d say the free-market conservatives are rapidly becoming aware of how much of a devil’s pact the christian extremists offered them in exchange for their votes. Maybe the best thing for the party would be to call their bluff. The fundies are sure not going to vote democrat, whatever the republicans do!
Jana,Y’know, I’ve had gay and lesbian friends since I was old enough to know there were people other than my parents in the world. Not once has any of them made a pass, and if they had, I can’t imagine a situation I could get into with any of them that a simple “no thanks” wouldn’t get me out of. I really can’t see what the big deal is about! They’ve been good friends and wonderful people. Role models? I hope so!
I seriously doubt that Jana’s husband was laid off at Boeing BECAUSE he was over 50! Look around.. dang near everyone at Boeing is now over 50!!
As for Creation in the classroom, no.. there are probably not enough qualified teachers! Anyone who wishes their kids taught Creation at school can send their kids to a Christian school.. But I really don’t understand the problem with putting an asterisk by evolutionary theory and stating that there could be other answers to question of origins. After all.. noone was actually there to do any scientific testing.
Devolution comes to mind when one includes the Kansas board of education.
Jed, we have gay friends too and I have some family members that are gay. I think that guy was so creeped out by this one pushy pervert (probably more of a pediphile) that it has skewed his ideas ever since.
Kansassam, as for my husband being laid off…he was the first wave after 9/11. Most of the guys left working there were definately older. I was pointing out to that guy that we was way too comfortable and he was about to learn a hard lesson.We went through three years of hard lessons…luckily we had funding for school. All of those programs we got to use are now dried up…no more funding coming. Anyone who has been laid off in the last year are gonna be screwed. If they are over 50, they can go back to school…but who is going to hire them?
Jana,sorry, I mis-read your comment… you are right about getting a new job over 50.. it’s pretty scary! I’m not crazy about my job… but at my age, one has to just settle in and hope that the business keeps afloat. Spirit is at a real disadvantage when they get affected if either their unions or Boeing’s unions go on strike!
Thanks for your insights, Jana, and best of luck to you in your job search.
But make no mistake about conservatives. They may not all belive that the earth is only 6,000 years old, but they do believe that the marketplace is God. So what happened to your husband is “natural” and “inevitable.” It is the almost mystically divine “unseen hand of the marketplace” reallocating resources where they need to go and cutting out the unproductive deadwood.
This view basically allows conservatives to feel no sympathy with people like your husband and to justify any selfish act as the “inevitable consequences of the marketplace.”
I don’t for one second think that it’s “inevitable” that a hedge fund manager earns 4 million dollars a DAY while a WalMart employee doesn’t make a tenth of that for a lifetime of work.
The rules of the marketplace are made by men, not by God, and we can change them if we have the will to do it . . .
I still don’t understand the need of these ID people to emphasize on criticising evolution. Being a scientific theory, doesn’t it mean that it is automatically exposed to critical analysis everytime new discovery is made? Gee, I grew up thinking that dinosaurs were tail-dragging and cold-blooded animals. See what 10 years can do to your views…
Perhaps, Mr. Abrams will hear a voice from God and change his name to Mr. Abrahams. God will also tell him to move to the Promised Land…New Jersey and settle there to become BOE director . He will be asked by God to sacrifice his bastard son, Charles Darwin Abrahams on the altar of PC. But at the last moment, and angel will stop him from striking, saying “What are you, looney toones? God would never ask you to kill anyone one for His satisfaction, especially Charles since his theory explains GFod’s plan for the evolution, that’s right EVOLUTION, of life on earth.”
Brian,Sorry, I just can’t believe that a righteous God would promise New Jersy to anyone, no matter how evil. Isn’t hell bad enough?
Roo,Critical analysis is exactly what they’re against. They’re terrified that when all the evidence is weighed, it might show that god isn’t really necessary to the universe, and they’ll have to get real jobs.
This guy looks and sounds just like Rush. A big fat lying bloated hypocrit.
Jed, ROFL!!
From what I heard, someone gave God New Jersey as part of a sacrifice. He repackaged it and gave it to someone else !!
Brian,If the buck doesn’t stop with God, then where?I pity anyone unfortunate enough to be stuck in New Jersey, and I’m in Kansas, for crissake!