Kansas’ public humiliation beyond its borders continues, this time in the form of Popular Science magazine’s annual “The Worst Jobs in Science” list. “Kansas Biology Teacher” was accorded the No. 3 spot (after “Human Lab Rat” and “Manure Inspector”). Olathe high school science teacher Brad Williamson explained, “The evolution debate is consuming almost everything we do. It’s politicized the classroom. Parents will say their child can’t be in class during any discussion of evolution, and students will say things like, ‘My grandfather wasn’t a monkey!’” Of Kansas’ reputation, Williamson said, “We’ve heard anecdotally that our students are getting much more scrutiny at places like medical schools. I get calls from teachers in other states who say things like ‘You rubes!’ But this is happening across the country. It’s not just Kansas anymore.” So why is Kansas feeling most of the pain?
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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36 Comments
Dear Rhonda,
Why should we care at all about what is said about our science standards in other states?
Maybe, just maybe, there wouldn’t be such an uproar if newspapers would report honestly on the debate.
Anyone that reads the WE editorial pages or depends on the left wing bias of your reporting will never understand what the science standards are now or the truth of the proposed changes.
Then you wonder why we are being laughed at! The shame is on you!
Rhonda
The reluctance by many in Kansas to let the Scoops Trial die its own natural death is dragging Kansas down with it.
There’s your problem.
Rhonda,You raise a good question about “Why Kansas?”.
I remember when the butts of jokes were certain large groups like races, genders, etc. Now, the butts of jokes are small groups like the Amish. Kansas is a small group, agrarian, and relatively lacking in political power. Perhaps this is the reason for “Why Kansas?”
This is embarrassing, yes, but it’s also much more than that! It means that graduates of Kansas schools will be less eligible for admittace into out of state colleges, and scientists that graduate from Kansas universities will be suspected of beinmg less qualified for jobs, and it means that science-based companies will avoid the state. This little sideshow by the religious right will ultimately hurt us all, and for a long time after it’s gone!
Esod–
What part of maintaining science standards is “left-wing?”
What part of keeping superstition out of science class is “left-wing?”
Galahad
None.
But fuel for trouble-makers.
Why complain? Kansas kids are getting just the kind of education the fundies want them to have. How smart do you have to be to say, “Would you like fries with that?”
Should we adopt the motto:”A Kansas education, preparing the future fast food workers of America”
Why not? it works for people like esod.
My son (11) wants to be a scientist. In Kansas I guess the fact that his father is an atheist will disqualify him from that field on the local level while his residency here will do so on a global level. Double Jeapordy!
Alex, I’ll take “Get me outta Kansas fast, for 100″
Evolution stresses the large time interval involved, while creationism often relies on frequent sudden catastrophical events. From this, I am inclined to say that having a monkey as a grandfather is more likely within creationism than with evolution, where it’s the great-great-great-great- … -great-great-great- … -great-great-grandparents who SHARE the same ancestry with other primates. Just an observation on a slow morning.
I’ll say it again.Our kids need to know how to divide fractions, not classrooms!
BTW, reporting honestly on the so-called debate just makes “esod” look like more of an ignoramus.People like that reject reality and substitute their fantasy.You don’t have to be blind and delusional to believe in a living God.
Interesting that ‘esod’ hides his/her identity by using the email address of employees at the Eagle.Esod–do you not have enough conviction of your words to be honest in indentifying yourself? What are you hiding from?
Ray, I guess real geniuses like that need anonymity.Think of all the people that would have to do a pilgramage to esod’s mountain top.Might upset the neighborhood association.
Ah yes…the “politically correct” neighborhood association, no less.
As much as I sympathize with Ms. Holman’s awful plight, the opinions I care about are favorable as to what Kansas is trying to do with the science standards. It really does not seem to be unreasonable to go ahead and teach evolution in science class, but also let the kids know that it is theory only and that there are alternative theories. After all, scientists were not there to observe what happened in the past and have to make questionable assumptions to develop and support evolutionary theory. Is science not up to being questioned?
Dudley,
What alternate science based theory or theories to common descent are there?
Brian, don’t you know anything?It’s the Blow In The Handful Of Mud And Create Modern Man scientific theory.Made well known by the scientists from the IDiot tribe.
Brian: As you probably could guess, I believe that Intelligent Design is one alternative that should be mentioned. To save time, of course your next point will be that ID is not science but only thinly disguised religion and creationism. That is a debatable point. However I think that this comes down not to necessarily what is the perceived best science, but what is the truth. Science has its own demonstrable prejudices and leaps of faith. Any honest scientist will tell you that there are problems with evolutionary theory. It should be taught as science’s best guess. What is wrong with that?
And who is to say that Kansas students don’t know evolutionary theory as well as those in any other state? They are taught the same theory. What bothers secularists is that the students may not actually believe it. They may take it with a grain of salt. They may question it. Now isn’t developing an open, questioning mind what education is all about?
If we want to be fully open, then a course in comparitive religions and philosphy should be a requirement for graduation. Let these things be discussed and debated there.
Dudley, science is very much up to being questioned. And it is quite often, by qualified people. The religious nut jobs do not qualify for the purpose of evolution. Look at the BoE meeting that drew so much attention. Not a single person on the ID witnesses was an evolutionary biologist. Those who had any familiarity with the subject did it for a ‘hobby’. That is why Kansas is a joke to the rest of the country.
Dudley,
To be called a scientific theory, that theory must be falsifiable. When you indicate to me what experiment or experiments, even in theory, that can be performed to demonstrate the existence of the “intelligent designer” then you might have a leg to stand on.
..forgot to add
you cannot offer any experiment that would falsify the claim that an intelligent designer exists. Without at least one POSSIBLE experiment that would disprove your hypothesis, one must conclude that the ID hypothesis is NOT a scientific one.
I’m not saying that there is no intelligent designer..there very well could be. I’m saying that the hypothesis is not subject to analysis by the scientific method and is therefore unequivocally not a scientific hypothesis.
Brian: You ask a good question. Given that definition, I might have a tough time qualifying ID as good science. But let me ask you a question. Does Darwinian theory (macro-evolution as opposed to micro-evolution) have any application in practical science? I contend that it has little to none. If this is correct, then evolutionary theory is basically pure science and all of this controversy is over a theory that isn’t of any use in a practical setting! So, in order to be a physician, an engineer, a chemist, or any other profession that you can name, (except for perhaps a public school science teacher!), you wouldn’t need to know how to apply the concepts of Darwinian theory.
So why then is it such a big deal to question the theory? I can only conclude that it must be about indoctrination. K, your point about no evolutionary biologist being present at hearings is valid. But I doubt that any evolutionary biologist would get very far in the profession questioning evolutionary theory. I submit that he or she has been indoctrinated into a certian way of thinking. I understand that you can make the same argument about ID supporters and/or religion. We all have been indoctrinated to some extent. But science does not seem to want to admit any bias.
Wrong again, Dud.
Understanding evolutionary change is central in understand viral mutation of HIV, say, or drug resistance and preventing it.
There’s quite a lot of evidence that HIV became more virulent as a consequence of promiscuity. Since the virus was getting transmitted more rapidly, it could afford to kill its host sooner.
That is a clear example of an organism responding to environmental change, and an evolutionary model helps to understand that.
Questioning assumptions and putting forward new ideas is not discouraged in science.
Far from it, that’s how people win Nobel Prizes . . .
Dudley,
I’d first suggest you look up the political connection to the Stalinist USSR of the 1930s of the terms macro- and micro- evolution.
And does evolutionary biology have any practical implications? The answer is…yes, of course!!
Bioinformatics, a multi-billion-dollar industry, consists largely of the comparison of genetic sequences. Descent with modification is one of its most basic assumptions
Diseases and pests evolve resistance to the drugs and pesticides we use against them. Evolutionary theory is used in the field of resistance management in both medicine and agriculture
Artificial selection has been used since prehistory, but it has become much more efficient with the addition of quantitative trait locus mapping.
Knowledge of the evolution of parasite virulence in human populations can help guide public health policy.
Sex allocation theory, based on evolution theory, was used to predict conditions under which the highly endangered kakapo bird would produce more female offspring, which retrieved it from the brink of extinction.
Tracing genes of known function and comparing how they are related to unknown genes helps one to predict unknown gene function, which is foundational for drug discovery.
Phylogenetic analysis is a standard part of epidemiology, since it allows the identification of disease reservoirs and sometimes the tracking of step-by-step transmission of disease. For example, phylogenetic analysis confirmed that a Florida dentist was infecting his patients with HIV, that HIV-1 and HIV-2 were transmitted to humans from chimpanzees and mangabey monkeys in the twentieth century, and, when polio was being eradicated from the Americas, that new cases were not coming from hidden reservoirs.
With regard to your contentions of bias? Yes, scientists are biased in that they require that an hypothesis and its associated experiments abide by the rules of scientific inquiry. We don’t seem to complain when sports, for example, have certain rules that the participants must follow. Science is no different. The rules are there to make sure that results are quantitative, falsifiable, lead to further experiments that test and further refine the hypothesis, etc.
I’m just glad we all have Galahad to tell us how we should think.
Steve,I don’t recall where Galahad told anyone what to think, but he does make a much better case for his points than anybody on the fundie side has.
Hehe, thanks, Jed.
It’s like Listerine . . . the rage from the right tells you it’s working.
Macro vs. micro E? Where is the boundary? Compound couple micros, that may as well amount to macro. I’m sorry, D., that may as well saying what people do in their home budgeting has no relations with the nation’s GNP.
Good point, Roo!
Just came across this quote, “Religion is a belief, not a fact.”
Dudley, from my (admittedly limited) understanding of evolution the difference between micro and macro is the time scale on which change occurs. Hundreds maybe thousands of years as opposed to tens or hundreds of thousands, or longer (of course this depends on what you are talking about). If this is the case then understanding one would help to understand the other. And thus teaching one is the same as teaching both, they are intertwined.
As for the scientists who would question evolution and pose ID (or some other theory) they would face an up hill battle. Necessarily so. The atmosphere in the scientific community is such that they rarely will openly embrace a new theory. This prevents hacks from proposing some off the wall theory just to get his/her name in lights to get their 15 minutes of fame. The scientist proposing it must prove to the rest of the scientific community that their new theory is based on evidence and that their theory is testable (there are other requirements). These are problems for the creation scientific theories. And this is why scientists will continue to ignore them. The burden is on the proponents of the new theory to change the minds of the believers of the old theory with facts and rational arguments. That is the way science works.
Kansas is an embarrassment to America.
If you want to teach your children mythology over fact – send them to a private school or secede from this nation.
You are a sick, sad stain up the United States.