Reflectorites
Here is a well-written op-ed piece written by a student at Harvard
University. This sort of letter would be almost inconceivable at
Harvard only a year a ago. It shows what a watershed Kansas has
been and what progress has been made by the ID movement in re-
educating the public that the real issue is not the Bible vs
science but *naturalistic philosophy* vs science!
This quote crystalises the *real* issue:
"What was alarming wasn't so much the vote itself, but what
it represented, how large an issue evolution had become,
how powerful its opponents had grown and, most
importantly, how the debate was not as simple as many
made it seem. The truth is, the school board vote was not
simply a matter of reason versus religion, good guys versus
bad. The conservatives weren't crazy, Bible-toting
fundamentalists spouting scripture. They were highly
organized and researched. They brought in their own
scientists and their own theories. They claimed that their
ideas had scientific basis and were not dependent on the
Bible. They were convinced that the way evolution was being
taught in Kansas science classes was wrong. And, like
everyone else, they claimed to want the best for the
students."
Steve
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http://www.thecrimson.harvard.edu/opinion/article.asp?ref=8612
Published on Friday, August 11, 2000
A Pyrrhic Victory For Kansas
By HEATHER B. LONG
Crimson Staff Writer
KANSAS CITY, Mo.--On the day of the Republican primary in Kansas,
my cousin adamantly ushered his wife out of the house with stern
instructions: "You will vote against Linda Holloway."
Last year, Holloway and five other conservatives on the Kansas school
board voted to downplay evolution in the state's science standards. All
over the globe and on "The Daily Show" with Jon Stewart, the world
alternated between laughter and outrage. Kansas was made to look stupid.
Very stupid.
So, early this month, my cousin's wife, like many other voters in the state
of Kansas, rushed to the polls. It was time to redeem our state. And when
moderates defeated Holloway and two of the other six conservative school
board members who cast the controversial votes against evolution, much
of the world breathed a sigh of relief.
On TV, in the newspapers and throughout homes all over the country,
there is a feeling that order and reason have been restored to the Midwest.
No matter who wins in this fall's general elections, the candidates promise
that evolution will be reinstated in its full form to Kansas classrooms. It
was a triumph for the mainstream.
But although the embarrassment is gone, all is not happily ever after in the
state of Kansas. We haven't seen the last of the conservatives, I guarantee.
The situation was mishandled, many of the details blown out of
proportion.
A lot went wrong last year. But the controversy was both smaller and
larger than the world made it seem.
In the beginning, contrary to preliminary reports by some major news
organizations, Kansas school board members did not outlaw evolution.
Nor did they erase all traces of the subject from state science standards.
Instead, they voted to de-emphasize the role evolution would play. They
were okay with the concept of microevolution, changes that occur within a
gene pool of a species of plants or animals. That was left alone.
But they made it so that Kansas schoolchildren would no longer have to
display any knowledge of macroevolution, large-scale evolutionary
change, on a state exam. Local school boards were left to decide how this
aspect of evolution would be taught in their schools.
On the surface, the vote didn't cause too massive of a change. Only a few
questions would be removed from the state exam and local school districts
still had to prepare their students for a medley of other standardized tests
which would require teaching evolution. Most vowed that they would
continue teaching the subject in its entirety anyway, no matter what the
school board decided.
So while people around the world chuckled, shook their heads and made
doomsday predictions about the future of science in Kansas, they were
somewhat misinformed. There was plenty of room for outcry, for heated
debate and discussion, but not for the hysterics that went on throughout
the globe.
What was alarming wasn't so much the vote itself, but what it represented,
how large an issue evolution had become, how powerful its opponents had
grown and, most importantly, how the debate was not as simple as many
made it seem.
The truth is, the school board vote was not simply a matter of reason
versus religion, good guys versus bad. The conservatives weren't crazy,
Bible-toting fundamentalists spouting scripture. They were highly
organized and researched. They brought in their own scientists and their
own theories. They claimed that their ideas had scientific basis and were
not dependent on the Bible. They were convinced that the way evolution
was being taught in Kansas science classes was wrong. And, like everyone
else, they claimed to want the best for the students.
Maybe the conservatives were way off the mark, their theories flimsy and
easily defeated by modern science. Maybe they did have an ulterior
agenda whose main goal was to bring God back into the classroom. But
the world did everyone a disservice when it painted them as stupid.
There is a major breakdown in communication between the right and left
in this country. And most debate simply degenerates into childish name-
calling. But the conservatives grow in power when they are dismissed as
crazy. Evolution will be back when the new moderate members take
office, but grumbling beneath the surface will continue and the
conservatives still will be able to say that the only reason they lost was
because their actions were skewed by the national media. They were
misunderstood.
The debate over evolution has grown much larger and more complex than
the Bible versus the science book. And if the subject is restored
belligerently in the state of Kansas, no one will win, least of all the
children. Because whatever is taught in school can quickly be undone with
a few words from a conservative mom or dad.
If the new school board members don't acknowledge this when they take
office, if they act on retaliation rather than facts, the future really will look
bleak for the children of Kansas. Their education will be subject to a
constant "us against them" fight whose outcome is entirely dependent on
whoever is in power at a given time.
The issue is complex, but the solution is simple: Just listen to the
conservatives. It may seem ludicrous to doubt Darwin in today's modern
society, but as Kansas has shown, a growing number do.
If they're wrong, it's time for all of us to make sure we know why.
Heather B. Long '03, a Crimson editor, is a history and literature
concentrator in Mather House.
[...]
Copyright 2000 The Harvard Crimson, Inc.
Website questions? E-mail online@thecrimson.com
News questions? E-mail news@thecrimson.com
==============================================================
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"And then what of the ' primitive soup' required for Chemical Evolution? If
such an environment ever existed on Planet Earth for any appreciable time,
it would require relatively large quantities of nitrogen-containing organic
compounds (amino-acids, nucleic acid bases and so on). It is likely that
such nitrogen-rich soups would have given significant quantities of '
nitrogenous cokes', trapped in various PreCambrian sediments. (The
formation of such 'cokes' is the normal result obtained by heating organic
matter rich in nitrogenous substances.) No such nitrogen-rich materials
have yet been found in early PreCambrian rocks on this planet In fact the
opposite seems to be true: the nitrogen content of early PreCambrian
organic matter is relatively low (less than 0.15%). From this we can be
reasonably certain that: * there never was any substantial amount of
'primitive soup' on Earth when ancient PreCambrian sediments were
formed; * if such a 'soup' ever existed it was only for a brief period of time.
Subtract from the basic concept of the Chemical Evolution Theory the
ideas of substantial amounts of 'primitive soup' and a long period of time,
and there is very little left." (Brooks J., "Origins of Life," Lion: Tring,
Hertfordshire UK, 1985, p.118)
Stephen E. Jones | sejones@iinet.net.au | http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
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