The Alabama State Board of Education has created a one-page insert for its biology textbooks that regurgitates the same old arguments that creationists have been trying to use for a long time to discredit evolution. The insert says the following:
This textbook discusses evolution, a controversial theory some scientists present as a scientific explanation for the origin of living things, such as plants, animals and humans.
No one was present when life first appeared on earth. Therefore, any statement about life’s origins should be considered as theory, not fact.
The word “evolution” may refer to many types of change. Evolution describes changes that occur within a species. (White moths, for example, may “evolve” into gray moths.) This process is microevolution, which can be observed and described as fact. Evolution may also refer to the change of one living thing to another, such as reptiles into birds. This process, called macroevolution, has never been observed and should be considered a theory. Evolution also refers to the unproven belief that random, undirected forces produced a world of living things.
There are many unanswered questions about the origin of life which are not mentioned in your textbooks, including:
- Why did the major groups of animals suddenly appear in the fossil record (known as the “Cambrian Explosion”)?
- Why have no new major groups of living things appeared in the fossil record in a long time?
- Why do major groups of plants and animals have no transitional forms in the fossil record?
- How did you and all living things come to possess such a complete and complex set of “instructions” for building a living body?
Study hard and keep an open mind. Someday you may contribute to the theories of how living things appeared on earth.
This insert will likely be challenged in the courts. Previous attempts along these lines like the sticker in Cobb County, GA and the statement read to biology students in Dover, PA have been found to unconstitutional, as I discuss in some depth in my book God vs. Darwin: The War Between Evolution and Creationism in the Classroom.
It’s almost hilarious how much of a leading question this is. Almost.
I wonder if a more effective mandatory insert/sticker would be one to explain that in science the word “theory” doesn’t mean “zis crazy idea I am being havving”.
I once had an unsolicited doorstep conversation with a Jehovah’s Witness and his son. I wanted to keep the conversation going as long as possible in the (vain?) hopes that the son was yet young enough to hear my gentle explanations of how daft his Dad’s ideas were. Maybe one day he’ll grow up and see sense.
Shortly after my pointing out that Gravity was also a “theory” and that the theory evolution was far, far better understood and with far, far more evidence staring us right in the face, the JW thanked me for my time and left!
the “Cambrian Explosion”
It took, what, 200 million years??? It’s called the “explosion” because of lots of proliferation of life, not because it happened exactly fast.
Of course we can’t expect biblewhackers to understand that; it takes thinky stuff.
I thought mammals and insects would be “major groups of animals.” I fairly sure they didn’t start in the Cambrian.
None of the four “unanswered questions” is unanswered, and at least two of them are based on false premises — the “Cambrian explosion” wasn’t all that sudden, and there are plenty of transitional fossils (including for transitions between major groups).
No one was there to see the big bang either so let’s not teach that crazy stuff.
So since we don’t understand these “instructions” does that mean no silly talk about DNA?
And I’d like to thank Alabama for taking the heat off my state of Texas…..at least for a day or two. I’m sure one of my fellow Texans will do something this week to change that off course
FIFY. Ignorance begets ignorance, and the blindly ignorant are trying to lead kids away from seeing.
In related news that the Talibama will try to prevent the kids from learning:
http://gizmodo.com/scientists-have-drafted-a-complete-tree-of-life-1731833326
But that is 30,000 times longer than they think the world has existed….
Did Ken Ham personally witness Noah’s flood? No?! You weren’t there, Ken! You weren’t there!