Yesterday in the Oshkosh Northwestern on page B2 of the Local section appeared a huge ad titled EVOLUTION: TELL ALL. The ad complains that "evolution in the Oshkosh public schools is not taught truthfully." It asks readers to petition the school board to place a referendum on the November ballot: "Be it resolved that when evolution is taught in Oshkosh public schools is (sic) shall not be taught as fact, but rather with evidence, pro and con, and with an analysis of its testability."In case there was any doubt about the nature of this petition effort, the ad says this in bold letters: "Churches collect signatures of your members."
The ad tells readers to go to www.TellAll.org for more information. The site and petition drive are the work of Dr. Sandra Gade, retired UW Oshkosh Emeritus Professor of Physics.
Lake Winneblogo addressed an earlier letter of Dr. Gade's here and here.
8 comments:
This does not reflect positively on UWO.
"Fact" is kind of a silly word to scientists. While nothing can ever be proven 100% certain, for all practical purposes, evolution is most certainly a fact. At its very core, science is constantly trying to disprove things. To date nothing has come close to disproving evolution. There are disagreements as to the methods of evolution, but not that it has, is, and will continue to happen.
How much does an ad like that in the Northwestern cost?
Is she bankrolling this project herself or do some outsiders think that Oshkosh might be a good place to try to fire up their supporters?
As a final musing, do you think she purposely waited for Zimmerman to leave town before she launched her campaign?
I understand, or I think I do, that Jayce is concerned about the people who are criticizing the University system having more ammo, but I don't think personal choices of professors reflect on the University. Whether someone is gay, or christian or a Green Party activist are all non-issues. Another prof. might not want to invite someone to dinner, or a student might want to avoid taking a class with someone who would drive them crazy, but that's as far as it should go. Unless you think that by being employed at a place means you are in some way owned by them. If that is true I am in deep shit.
I started reading this blog when I heard my boss ranting about that angel statue. He was actually pissed that a guy he thought was a radical seemed to be defending the public angel because the conservatives woud not want to seem to be agreeing with him or something. The radical i mean, they did not want him on their side because he was a trouble maker. I hope this evolution issue doesn't get like that angel issue. People getting all hot about something just gives the issue more credibilty and detracts from issues that really matter. Personally I hope people will stay calm and just squash this thing.
Thank you for listening, I'm off to entertain myself on my own blog now.
Plush,
If you look at the "TellAll" website, professor Gade is NOT asking that creationism and/or "intelligent design" be taught side by side evolution in the science classroom. She says: "Competing theories regarding how life came to exist on earth, such as creationism and intelligent design, have supernatural aspects. Because of that they should not be taught in science classes." I'm not sure when Gade came to that conclusion, but the Kitzmiller v. Dover decision in 2005 (which ruled the teaching of ID in public school biology classes to be a violation of the establishment clause of the First Amendment) has pretty much put the kibosh on attempts to force school districts to teach ID as science. Instead, ID advocates are using a new strategy, exemplified in Gade's efforts, to try to argue the theory of evolution itself is merely a kind of dogma that is as untestable in the scientific sense as ID.
Throughout the course of the book we are shown how slavishly devoted and dogmatic Charles is to the scientific method - to the extent that he is unable to accept anything that does not enter his paradigm. In this, Charles behaves no differently than a religious zealot who shoves away any information that makes them think uncomfortable and questioning thoughts.
These two sentences show a profound lack of understanding as to what the scientific method actually is. While the scientist can be biased, the method can not.
As Tony pointed out, any discussion of religion is really off-topic. This is certainly not a direct push for ID, though by no stretch of the imagination could it "evolve" into one.
I only looked at TellAll briefly, but I did notice some factually incorrect statements. It also seems that the professor isn't so much saying the theory is incorrect, but that it isn't explained deep enough in the textbooks. It must be remembered that this is a High School text book, not a 400 level Paleontology course at UWO.
Someone dares to admonish the Cat???
No!
I shall have to catch up on this thread later (this may call for me to reliquish my ticket to Nirvana, but I don't travel anyway)
Jayce -
It doesn't either. It just shows you didn't follow what I said. Or what Fowles was saying. Since he's older, dead even, and famous I reckon I could give him the credit for the whole she-bang. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunatley)his being dead leaves him completely unimpressed at your opinion that his book and ideas are crap. I shall follow suit.
We're in the New Crusades, aren't we? It's all about religion of one sort or another. I didn't see Tony say religion was off-topic. Tony wouldn't do that, and if he did, I'd ignore him.
Cat, you are only willing to be "publicly admonished" because you do not give a rat's ass for people's opinion of you. And to think I was momentarily concerned....
Jodi-
I understand completely what you (and Fowles) are saying, but the part I quoted is still wrong. It is wrong by the very definition of the scientific method.
I'm fine with the general concept that, while we like to think we have much figured out with the world, we in all likelihood know very little. 100 years from now we'll probably look like fools. No problem there.
The problem I have is that it seems to be all the rage to say that both science and religion require equal amounts of faith. This is simply not true. And I know that is not what is being explicitly stated, I believe that being dogmatic to the scientific method and not accepting new information are mutually exclusive.
And you can bring religion into the discussion all you like. It's much easier to say "Oh, you're just trying to get your religion into schools" than it is to counter their newest approach. I'm not as concerned with the underlying motive as I am with the substance of their argument.
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