1. "select materials to be used in science classes in order to critique scientific theories. The law is supposed to be used to promote "open and objective discussion of scientific theories..."

This quote alone expresses my point. this law is not to push intelligent design but allow teachers and students to critique and objectively discuss scientific theories. Theories are meant to be put to test and proven or debunked. In this day and age, where there are thousands of scientists squabbling over whether global warming exists, global cooling, or if it is all purely natural . . . in an age where we are exploring the many ways that the universe/existence may have been created don't you think it is a good idea to allow our children the chance and opportunity to look deeper into what makes these theories theories and not just assume they are law. I mean the reason they are called theories is because they are still unproven or they would be scientific laws. It has taken too long for the education, scientific community to open up and allow its students to explore the possibilities just as it does daily. This is NOT purely about intelligent design versus happenstance, it is the idea that our children have the right to question the soundness of the theories around us and create their own opinions.

I AM a science teacher and the ability to question, critique, and defend theories/opinions (scientific or not) is considered to be the goal of higher level thinking.

Do not allow yourselves to focus on evolution versus creationism but to focus on the ability for our children to choose by critiquing, testing, and debating what theories (in general) are sound and will last for years to come. Just because it is placed in a science book does NOT mean that it is a scientific law, let these theories stand to the testing they deserve.

Posted at 4:43PM on Jun 29th 2008 by ltmslov

2. Um, what?

For one, how is it that the government needs to pass a bill saying that teachers are allowed to put anything in context? Oh, I get it, they need to do that when the materials being put forth aren't scientific, they're religious.

Second, claiming that evolution is 'just a theory' is a tired response from the religious right. Evolution is a fact. It's usually too much to ask, but I highly suggest you read through this: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-fact.html . There are different (and competing) theories about the mechanisms involved, but evolution in itself is indisputable. There is clear, observable, measurable, and repeatable evidence. You can explore evolutionary biology in exactly the same way that you can explore Newtonian physics and chemistry. You perform experiments and/or examine experiments that other people have performed and draw your conclusions. If the competing mechanisms bit bothers you, then you should be worried about gravity too: there are different theories about how that works.

The fact that a "science teacher" would entertain anything otherwise is troubling -- because if you're promoting anything else, you're not teaching science and the scientific method, you're brainwashing innocents. Discussion of anything beyond 'although some people believe that a higher power is responsible for doing these things, the scientific method shows that this is truly what happens:...' has no place in public schools. ID and creationism deal with 'belief' and other intangibles that are unobservable and therefore have no place in a scientific discussion. Particularly in schools.

Posted at 6:56PM on Jun 29th 2008 by Anthony

3. I couldn't figure out how to word myself, thank you! You did it much better than I ever could.

Why not? Is it threatening to science to have another outlook? But then again, I am of the mind that God created everything and even if it was through evolution, then he was the cause of that evolution. Similar to the way that I am responsible for creating green when I mix yellow and blue paint together.

So, go ahead and prove your evolution theory or anything else, I still think God started it all!

Posted at 7:44PM on Jun 29th 2008 by Jenni

4. >>> "The scientific community, naturally, has opposed this legislation."

Citation please. This is one of those phrases intended to get things past your average citizen - it's saying it doesn't matter if you agree or not the scientist say it's OK and they are more intelligent.

Of course as you note one member of the "scientific community" at least is for it, the Governor.

For scientists to oppose the questioning of scientific theory would seem rather twisted as that's the job of many scientists.

Posted at 8:19PM on Jun 29th 2008 by pbhj

5. Why can't religious folk just stick to teaching their beliefs in church/temple/whatever and stop pushing it down our throats?

Please... Christians... try READING THE BIBLE and not just taking as doctrine what your "leaders" tell you. Christ taught by example, he never advocated these sort of subversive and deceptive tactics. If your god is so pitiful that you need to lie and distort the law in order to evanglize then why do you worship such a god?

Posted at 7:22PM on Jun 29th 2008 by eugene

6. Why are you so afraid that we are going to prove your theory wrong? It's not a matter of shoving things down others' throats. It's simply a matter of looking at things from a different argument. You don't have to buy it.

Then again, as I said before, as a Christian I don't necessarily think science and religion don't go hand in hand. For me, it's God that put things into motion; how they ended up evolving was all part of His plan.

Posted at 7:48PM on Jun 29th 2008 by Jenni

7. See, that's the difference. I'm not afraid of anyone proving evolution wrong. but do it in the established framework of science. Pulling out some poorly translated religious text and saying "see there, 7 days!" isn't proof.
Misrepresenting theories you don't understand, isn't proof. Lying to children about where your ideas come from, isn't proof. Setting up false dichotomies to trap people into thinking "science = moral degeneration, God = good" isn't proof. Dragging out decades old ideas that no one holds to any more, isn't proof. Trotting out "scientists" who will prostitute themselves for money, isn't proof.

See, science is all about taking the natural world and through observation, reasoning and experimentation, coming up with ideas on how it works. Some times we'll be right, some times we'll be wrong. But through open and honest debate we can weed out the ideas that don't work. Wrapping up religion in pseudoscientifc lingo and trying to pass it off as science is neither open nor honest.

And again, what Christian always fail to answer... how can you justify using lies and deceit in order to subverssively teach your religion to people who don't want to hear it? Instead of telling everyone how to live their lives, why don't you all try to live your OWN life according to your supposed ideals.

You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? So, every sound tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears evil fruit. A sound tree cannot bear evil fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, you will know them by their fruits.
— Matthew 7:16-20

The only fruit i see here is one of deception and coercion.

Posted at 8:08PM on Jun 29th 2008 by eugene

8. >>> "Setting up false dichotomies to trap people into thinking 'science = moral degeneration, God = good' isn't proof."

Nice strawman. Who said that? And on the point of false dichotomies - 6 day creation is not a literal. It's impossible for it to be a literal. A day is the time it takes for a planet to rotate against the stellar background. Well that background wasn't made until the 4th "day" in the Genesis account (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=gen%201&version=31).

If you're to use the standard technique of internal comparison then there's 2 Peter 3 which says that "With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. ". So those periods of time before mankind, how long are they?

As for 'science = moral degradation' science is amoral.

What's this poorly translated religious text, clearly not the bible. The NIV translation for example used 5000 source documents and took 100 scholars 10 years (with 10 years of planning). Most NIV books include possible mistranslations and make notes of any differences in source texts (see http://www.ibs.org/niv/accuracy/NIV_AccuracyDefined.pdf for more). Most Christians will use more than one translation to avoid linguistic nuance from leading away from the true meaning of the original texts.

Lastly western science has been driven by monotheists for much of the last two millennia - the belief being that to discover the nature of the creation is to become closer to knowing the nature of the creator. Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, Faraday, Planck ...

"I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts, the rest are details." Einstein (http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/biography/Einstein.html)

Posted at 9:06PM on Jun 29th 2008 by pbhj

9. The evolution/creationism (and thus morality/amorality-hedonism) dichotomy has been used many times. Lee Strobel uses it in his "case for a creator" book. It's one of the straw man arguements he sets up right from the start.

As for mistranslations... uhm.. how about the well known Dead Sea versus Reed Sea? That's well know and yet it's continued. There's also the interpretation of the Isaiah line "a virgin will give birth..." the Greek New Testament is clearly referring to a virgin, yet the original HEBREW old testament (almah) is not clear. It could be translated as maiden and not virgin.

Then there's the problem of books of the Bible being attributed to apostles out of tradition when we now know they weren't... such as Timothy, 2nd Timothy and Titus. Attributed to the apostle Paul but now understood to have been written in the 2nd century. 2nd Timothy, BTW is where most conservative christians get their mysoginistic prohibition against female pastors/leaders... even though that's clearly in contradiction with what we know of the early church. There's also the book of Revelations/

Then, there's the hairy problem of using Greek books to try and understand the old testament which you did when you talked about the differing measures of time in the Genesis account versus 2nd Peter. The hebrew word for day used in the genesis account being Yom and used throughout the Old Testament as a literal period of 24 hours.

But there's plenty of language in the Genesis account to suggest that the creation story is not meant to be taken literally. Take for example: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters." The word "deep" is tehom which is understood to be a cognate of the babylonian word "tiamat" which is chaos or a big water serpent. So there is a fine, symbollic reading of the text.

Look, despite my rhetoric here, I don't have a problem with religion or Christianity. So the fact that many scientists are theists and that they don't see a problem with a belief in the Divine with their understanding of science has no bearing on me. In fact, I would also espouse that belief.

What I have a problem with is sneaking religion into a science class in an underhanded way of evangelising to my kid. Teaching religion... which is a completely contrary way of thinking as compared to science (one has to do with understanding the natural world through observation and experimentation and the other fitting the natural world into what is pre-accepted as "truth") belongs in church or temple or the home.

Creationism, or it's euphamism: Intelligent Design, has no more place in a science class room than Hinduism does in Church as "an alternative theory to salvation".

Posted at 11:03PM on Jun 29th 2008 by eugene

10. Wow! I think this is the most intellectual and "nice" discussion I've seen on here in a long time! I hope it stays that way.

Kudos, posters!

Posted at 9:34PM on Jun 29th 2008 by Inger

11. I think the biggest part of the debate is origin of life, not evolution. Evolution is generally the word that gets thrown around to encompass all of the discussion.

While I understand the scientist POV about scientific theory, it is irresponsible NOT to address intelligent design and other POV when teaching these scientific prinicipals. These two arguments are forever linked in general debate and to not address either POV is doing the students a disservice.

And Anthony, if you don't believe teachers need protection when putting things in context (especially controversial things) then you haven't been in a school in a while. It is particularly noticeable in high school and colleges.

People who say students are going to come out of this confused are not giving them enough credit. Don't you think all of this comes up for discussion no matter what the chosen texts or POV of the teacher? Why not select texts that actually addresses this controversy? Why not explain the scientific community POV as well as other POV and let students process all of the information?

Posted at 10:48PM on Jun 29th 2008 by Karen

12. Heh, 13 years of university and then some teaching. At times I *wish* I hadn't been in a school for a while. Plus, my wife is an elementary school teacher.

No, the biggest difference is that we live in Canada and religious fundamentalism is confined to the fringes and kept out of the public schools.

I agree with you that the origin of life is something that science doesn't have much agreement on. And in that context, discussing religious ideologies (from many religions not just the 3 western religions) is appropriate. But it's not appropriate to say that these are scientific alternatives.

I refer you to the train wreck that is 'Expelled' as ample demonstration that ID'ers generally lump evolution into 'origin of life'. That you don't is a welcome demonstration of clear thinking.

So, teach science in science classes. Teach religion in religious classes. In science classes, by definition, you teach the application of the scientific method to various topics and subjects. The ID 'point of view' here is 'God made this happen', which is not scientific in that it's not testable and founded on 'belief' rather than anything else. To bring religion into science is as bad as bringing science into religion.

A>

Posted at 12:08AM on Jun 30th 2008 by Anthony

13. Why not express the point of view of multiple belief systems?

Because this is a science class, not a class in comparative religion. Comparative religion might be a great deal more useful to these kids in the long run, but that's not the point.

Science classes should concern themselves with teaching two things - they should teach kids how to think and act like scientists, and they should teach science as it is understood today.

Science itself concerns itself with one thing - those things which can be tested and verified. Nothing that depends on "a wizard did it" or "it's god's fault" counts.

Posted at 12:53AM on Jun 30th 2008 by Uly

14. the reason why intelligent design is not taught is science class because the theory has no merit. Intelligent design says that everything came to as it is through the intervention of a divine being. Where is the proof of this divine being?

If one cannot prove the existence of said being then your theory has no evidence and no merit.

the negative effect this will have on teaching in school is that it will allow material into class rooms that cannot be backed with evidence. such as the ability to reproduce that evidence, evidence that can be looked at scrutinized and picked through for flaws.

If religion really wants convince non theist's that there is a god, PROVE IT with evidence that can be reproduced. Until then simply saying you need to have faith won't work.

In response to itmslov: sure these theories do deserve to be tested however they're not being tested because no one is putting any effort into testing them. As a science teacher don't you think it's difficult enough to teach the core material alone? Why would you want to interject pseudoscience into the variable? Only to confuse your children more. As a teacher children look to you for an answer to a question an important question, what is science an what is not? Evolution is a scientific theory that has been tested observed and scrutinized, intelligent design has not stood up to any testing, in fact not even our judicial system is willing to accept it.

Posted at 7:34AM on Jun 30th 2008 by Don

15. You cannot separate the two discussion into two different classes any more than you can separate the two discussion here. It doesn't happen.

So address all POV, explain why some is scientific theory and why other POV doesn't fit that category if you want. But to ignore either side is unfair to the students.

It is being discussed ANYWAY, just like it is here. But to not acknowledge other POV, even if they do not fit your definition of scientific, only makes the kids think you are either hiding something from them, or that you are stupid.

Posted at 10:13AM on Jun 30th 2008 by Karen

16. Meh. Aren't Louisiana schools already the worst in the union? It's hard to see how poorly-taught religion-cum-science classes are actually going to be that much worse than poorly-taught science classes ever were.

Posted at 12:53AM on Jun 30th 2008 by Uly

17. You guys are missing the point. Kids who learn about creationism in church or at home are simply going to dismiss inconsistent theories in science class. Would you rather they dismiss them outright or learn how to consider them intelligently?

Why do you assume that questioning scientific theories automatically means pushing religious ones? You who think this obviously had poor science teachers since if you'd been taught to actually think, you'd understand there are other possibilities besides the black and white that you keep pushing for.

"Science" over the years has been proven wrong (or incomplete) much more often than it's been proven right, and a true scientist's whole job is finding out what has been missed by those before him. If my kids are at all interested in science, I would hope they would not be kept from this basic fact.

Might as well drop science from the curriculum and replace it with "disrespect for religion" class, since that is what you guys are really interested in.

Posted at 9:40AM on Jun 30th 2008 by ghost

18. I wish I had time to read all the posts, as they seem pretty good, but I just wanted to make one, quick point about the article here... It states that this is going to leave people "unprepared to excel in a modern workforce", which, in the past 10 years of being employed in various industries, I have not once had to talk about, defend, or use whatever teachings on evolution that I had in school. Unless you were going into a very specific set of fields, I don't see where it would come into play, other than to spark some debates.

Posted at 11:04AM on Jun 30th 2008 by Baron

19. You're missing the point. The problem isn't that the kids aren't being taught evolution but rather that they're being taught that science = religion. The two are fundamentally opposing schools of thought.

ID is not a theory. It's not science. It's taking a preconceived notion and (creationism) and repurposing the language of science to try and sneak religion into the classroom. The problem, other than the obvious seperation of church and state... and oh yeah, teaching religion to the children of parents who don't want their children to be indoctrined at school... is that it confuses what science is.

Religion understands the world be assuming we already have the answer. Practitioners then interpret the world and their experiences through the lens of that "answer". And this is a perfectly fine world view. It certainly helps during difficult times to think/know that there is a greater plan.. it gives meaning and context to lives. Wonderful.

Science (when done right) is the opposite of this. Science doesn't assume we have the answer, but rather, through observation, experimentation and verification, seeks to understand the mechanisms of the universe.

This scientific method is used, in some degree, in all jobs that don't involve the phrase, "do you want fries with that?"

Posted at 1:06PM on Jun 30th 2008 by eugene

20. Since when did science and religion become opposing schools of thought? I think, religion "done right", is something learned through just as much of the scientific method as anything else is... I've been going to church for 27 years and I am a very strong believer in both science and religion and I think many people are. Most of the people I know look (and the churches teach it as such many times) at the Bible as a guide, knowing that it is a good guide to live their life and they do believe that evolution is how we, well, evolved. Anyway, I apologize as I am really starting to ramble, trying to type while concentrating on a problem is not working right now! I need to give one or the other my full attention, so I will leave it with (unfortunately, without going back to the main article)... Does this new law forbid teaching anything scientific, or is it opening it up to the school/school board to decide what to teach? Hopefully, this evening, I can revisit all this information and make a clearer point. :)

Posted at 2:05PM on Jun 30th 2008 by Baron