Underpaid high school teacher: “Any questions on the lesson?”
Student: “Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”
West Virginia learning nothing from Kansas doung the same dumb shit with their board of education two decades ago sounds about right.
Also, it seems that legislators don’t know the difference between a scientific theory which is supported by evidence and a layman’s theory which is a hypothesis.
In scientific use, a hypothesis must be testable. The word “hypothesis” can be used more loosely in a non-scientific context, but we are talking about a science curriculum here.
We can test for intelligent design. All we need to do is find some evidence.
Since there is no supporting evidence, it fails the test. Just like the hypothesis that the planets affect our destiny or that essential oils can heal people.
Supporting evidence of what though? What testable thing would we even be looking for? Intelligent Design doesn’t predict what the creator is, how to detect it, or what process it uses to create. Intelligent Design has a concept of “irreducible complexity”, but you can’t test that.
Intentional design would not include things like terrible spine structure for humans, which is clearly shown to be an evolutionary change that wasn’t bad enough to not work out but is also clearly a recent change. Then there are the different animals that went extinct because of evolutionary pressure. Irreducible complexity is shown to be bullshit because we always find the ‘missing steps’ or gaps in evolution when we find new fossils.
Heck, most of the examples the people who promote the idea are things that humans intentionally changed over time like bananas and corn, which undermines their arguments of some kind of higher power doing the same.
Religious extremists will always work to propagate their beliefs by coopting state resources: in this case, the education system. They know their ideas can’t stand on their own merits, so they instead work to weasel their way in through forced prayer in school, teaching of religious ideas in science class, and of course, censorship of school libraries. It is theft of our taxpayer dollars to support their proselytization, which is ironic because some of these creeps are the same people raving about welfare queens and food stamps.
This sucks for the kids that were already going to fight in the water wars of the 2030s and WWIII, because why not add a new christian crusade to the list.
The solution to these “stealth” ID bills is to recruit Scientologists and NOI teachers to instruct children on the origins of life on Earth. That’d be funny at least.
You see, children, the mad scientist Yakub created white people as an enemy of God. No, No, No, it’s Xenu who authored evil on earth by trapping the spirits of aliens in volcanoes.
Yeah, we evolved that way because it’s apparently slightly more advantageous to keep sperm just slightly colder than internal body temperature, even though it creates a higher risk of injury. An intelligent designer would have made sperm that can handle warmer temperatures.
The one-sentence legislation now declares that “no local school board, school superintendent, or school principal shall prohibit a public school classroom teacher from discussing and answering questions from students about scientific theories of how the universe and/or life came to exist.”
Seems like a really weird thing to make into a law. Does West Virginia codify any other part of their curriculum into a statute?
So they’re not ordering new text books (yet) they’re just allowing teachers to bring it up, and answer questions.
Sounds like it will open the door for crackpot teachers, but it’s not “being taught” in the school. Definitely a slippery-slope, hopefully not many teachers indulge.
What’s amusing is how the Nat C’s are confused about what evolution entails - it does not cover the Big Bang or abiogenesis. But if you get into discussions (if you can call them that) with these types, they will typically use strawmen phrases such as “Molecules to Man” in reference to science.
All they usually do is just repeat a bunch of Gish Gallop horse manure that is just quite a thing to behold in its combined arrogance and ignorance.
Come on! That was a joke! Like when he told Abraham he had to sacrifice his kid to prove his faith and then God jumped out at the last minute and says, “Stop! I was kidding! I totally got you with that one!”
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