Reflectorites
On Tue, 15 Aug 2000 11:14:34 +0100, Richard Wein wrote:
[...]
>SJ>http://www.kcstar.com/item/pages/opinion.pat,opinion/3774a282.726,.html
>>The Kansas City Star ... 07/26/00 ... Did the state writing committee really
>>believe, when it equated religious values with "superstition," "mystical
>>inspiration" and "myths" in its draft, that the faithful wouldn't rise up
>>out of their chairs?
[...]
RW>This is just the kind of misrepresentation that warrants the name
>"propaganda". The committee did *not* equate religious values with
>superstition. Here's the relevant passage:
>
>"In so doing, science distinguishes
>itself from other ways of knowing and from other bodies of knowledge.
>Explanations based on myths,
>personal beliefs, religious values, mystical inspiration, superstition, or
>authority may be personally
>useful and socially relevant, but they are not scientific."
>
>It should be obvious to any moderately careful reader that these various
>sources are being *listed*, not *equated*. The only thing they are asserted
>to have in common is that they cannot be used as the basis for scientific
>explanations.
This is not mathematics. Listing things together *is* equating them.
Besides, Richard's fine distinction would not be noticed by the average
reader. The implication is clear that "religious values" should be
understood as being in the same category as "myths" and "superstition".
RW>Furthermore, one might assume, from reading the Kansas City Star article,
>that this passage was one of those deleted or changed by the Board of
>Education. It wasn't. The BOE seems to have had no objection to it.
Richard is simply wrong. The words do not appear in the final standards
(see http://www.ksbe.state.ks.us/outcomes/science_12799.html), adopted
by the KBoE in December 7, 1999. The Board read them the way most
people would have and *did* have an objection to them.
Steve
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"The changes within a population have been termed microevolution, and
they can indeed be accepted as a consequence of shifting gene frequencies.
Changes above the species level-involving the origin of new species and the
establishment of higher taxonomic patterns- are known as macroevolution.
The central question of the Chicago conference was whether the
mechanisms underlying microevolution can be extrapolated to explain the
phenomena of macroevolution. At the risk of doing violence to the
positions of some of the people at the meeting, the answer can be given as
a clear, No." (Lewin R., "Evolutionary-Theory Under Fire: An historic
conference in Chicago challenges the four-decade long dominance of the
Modern Synthesis," Science, Vol. 210, pp.883-887, 21 November 1980,
p.883).
Stephen E. Jones | sejones@iinet.net.au | http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
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