bq. When I started writing a weblog I made a conscious decision to avoid the cesspit of stupidity that is both sides of the evolution:creationist ‘debate’ (it’s not a debate if there are no cogent arguments). But this is too beautiful to pass up.
(Shamelessly taken from _”Science”:http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/319/5867/1168 _)
Florida scientists declared victory last week after the state Board of Education approved science standards that for the first time explicitly embrace the teaching of gravity. But antigravity activists are claiming that the vote bolsters their position that gravity is a “just a theory” and therefore unproven.
In lieu of gravity, the standards now refer to “the scientific theory of gravity.” State education officials say the new wording was intended to appease conservatives without compromising on accuracy. To be consistent, officials applied the same wording to every other scientific concept mentioned in the standards, for example, changing “evolution” to “the scientific theory of evolution.”
Harold Kroto believes the new language allows scientists and teachers to make a clear distinction between scientific and unscientific theories. “The original standards were fine, but this might actually be better in the long run,” he says. “The phrase ‘scientific theory’ gives us leverage to differentiate between theories that are supported by evidence and those that aren’t.” The simple addition of “theory” would have been disastrous, he adds.
“Theories that are not scientific may be discussed in a humanities or a comparative religion course,” says Mary Jane Tappen, director of the education department’s Office of Mathematics and Science. But the difference may not be clear to everyone, concedes FSU gravitational theorist Juliet Travis. “If somebody wants to say a particular religious idea is a scientific theory, that’s another issue.”
Hard-liners unhappy with the standards don’t intend to let the matter rest. In the Florida Baptist Witness, the speaker of the state House of Representatives said he and other House leaders are considering introducing legislation to allow teachers to teach criticisms of gravitational theory.
