Texas: Age of the universe now susceptible to popular vote

[wautd]

Link

Texas Board of Education creationist Barbara Cargill today proposed an amendment to the science standards saying that teachers have to tell their students there are different estimates for the age of the Universe. This is not even a veiled attempt to attack the Big Bang model of the Universe, which clearly, and through multiple lines of evidence, indicates the Universe is 13.7 +/- 0.12 billion years old.

So Ms. Cargill is right, if she means that "different estimates" range from 13.58 to 13.82 (given one standard deviation) billion years old.

But she doesn’t mean that at all, does she? If you read her website, you’ll see she’s an out-and-out creationist. She has a large number of, um, factual errors on her site that are clearly right out of the Creationist Obscurational Handbook.

Anyway, her antiscience amendment passed 11 - 3.

So tomorrow that will go to the final vote on whether it will be added to the standards or not. With such a majority voting to pass it along, it looks like it will pass, and Texas students will get their chance to learn that the Universe is 6000 years old, and when they try to get a job or do anything later in life, they will be routinely laughed at.

That’s great, Texas! Keep on keepin’ on.

Continued

[Broomstick]

I dunno, maybe we should let them secede after all, it would certainly get rid of a lot of dead weight....

[Lagmonster]

The Texas apologists will no doubt now claim that this is a small fringe group and not representative of Texans in general, despite the fact that these people are responsible for the education of Texans in general.

This Ms. Cargill's website claims she has a "Masters of Science in Science Education degree from Texas Woman's University", explains that she's taught Biology and Science programs to children in Texas, and yet contains such doozies as "...when evidence for universal common ancestry in the fossil record is taught (i.e. scientific strength), then the contradictory evidence showing the huge gaps of missing transitional fossils in the record must also be presented (i.e. scientific weakness)" and that "...we must educate our students -- not indoctrinate them by letting them hear only one side of an issue".

It's just fucked up to see supposed science educators giving the finger to science.

[Darth Wong]

That's how every argument about the US South goes: people present evidence that it's a goddamned shithole, and some Southerners agree themselves, but others have to get all butthurt and whine that there are people in the state who deviate from the norm. As if that hasn't been true of every region throughout history, even Nazi Germany.

[Oskuro]

"...we must educate our students -- not indoctrinate them by letting them hear only one side of an issue".

The irony is so thick it might have a noticeable gravitational pull. Are these people adept at doublethink? How can they be opposed to indoctrination if they constantly try to push forward regulations to favor indoctrination of their ideas?

Yeah, in other news the sky is blue and water is wet and the lot of it, I know.

[Jaevric]

And, once again, I remind myself that if I ever have kids I need to move out of the state before they get into the school system. Things like this make me cringe, and any time I bring this stuff up when I hear a bunch of people talking about how wonderful and awesome Texas is, they just stare at me like I'm out of my mind or blow it off as "an abberation," or "no big deal."

Yes, Texas has a good economy right now compared to the rest of the country. Let's see how long that lasts when idiots like this completely hamstring the educational system and high-tech businesses start to leave because they can't find local employees worth a damn. For that matter, an enormous amount of the higher-end labor pool around here isn't native Texans; it's people from other parts of the company who have moved to Texas!

[Darth Wong]

Yes, Texas has a good economy right now compared to the rest of the country. Let's see how long that lasts when idiots like this completely hamstring the educational system and high-tech businesses start to leave because they can't find local employees worth a damn. For that matter, an enormous amount of the higher-end labor pool around here isn't native Texans; it's people from other parts of the company who have moved to Texas!

Sounds like Dubai.

[Setzer]

I can't believe we fought a war to keep this fucking state.

[Count Chocula]

Well, if they agree to teach that the "6,000 year old Universe" figure is derived from Biblical references, which themselves do not contain any reference for the actual time period involved, from a Bible that has been written by many authors over many years, and aside from verifiable historical figures (Egypt), has NO basis in fact, then by all means include it. It's kinda hard to carbon date "First God made heaven & earth," after all. Let's make sure the chirren know that too.

The "gaps in the fossil record" argument is just laughable. How about, oh, sedimentation, decay, earthquakes, floods or hey why not meteor impacts as possible reasons for the gap? Oh yeah, I almost forgot: OUR PLANET IS FUCKING HUGE! We dig in areas known or thought likely to contain artifacts, which is an infinitesmal part of our landmass; never mind what may be buried under mountains, in lakes, or in the oceans.

Which has me wondering: were the 11 Board members who voted "Aye" really that stupid, or do they too ascribe to this theory? I was raised Catholic, and we were not once, never ever never, told that the Bible establishes the age of the universe. Must be a fundy factoid.

[Nephtys]

While we're on the subject, we need to vote to repeal Gravity. That's bullshit, and I want to visit the natives of Mars. I heard they make pretty dreamcatchers and have oil.

This is pretty ridiculous of course. But I'd love to see them do something completely ironic, like vote down a measure to offer kids a class on 'sorcery' as an alternative to physics. Let them decide. Teach the controversy.

[TheFeniX]

While we're on the subject, we need to vote to repeal Gravity.

It's more like teaching "alternative views" on gravity like angels holding up stellar objects. Of course, they'd scoff at the notion all the while ignoring the similarities between the arguments.

I've had an unrelated argument with a YEC who asked me "You don't believe in ghosts?" with a tone of voice he had no business using. It's like he was asking me "You don't believe the Sun exists?" These aren't people you can reason with. You basically have to ridicule them and their behavior until, hopefully, society ostracizes them. Unfortunately, being bat-shit crazy in Texas qualifies you for higher office.

I'm hoping for the day people I talk to say "People in the rest of the US/world ridicule us Texans" and feel a bit guilty about it rather than wearing it as some fucking badge of honor. I'm not holding my breath.

[Jaepheth]

And, once again, I remind myself that if I ever have kids I need to move out of the state before they get into the school system. Things like this make me cringe, and any time I bring this stuff up when I hear a bunch of people talking about how wonderful and awesome Texas is, they just stare at me like I'm out of my mind or blow it off as "an abberation," or "no big deal."

Yes, Texas has a good economy right now compared to the rest of the country. Let's see how long that lasts when idiots like this completely hamstring the educational system and high-tech businesses start to leave because they can't find local employees worth a damn. For that matter, an enormous amount of the higher-end labor pool around here isn't native Texans; it's people from other parts of the company who have moved to Texas!

It's hard to hamstring a dead horse. The high schools in Texas have been ranked really low for a very long time.

[Silver Jedi]

The (sad) honest truth is that there are really multiple sides to Texas. You have the cowboy culture in the west part of the state, where you get some of the sall townsey BS in small towns, but other than that isn't so bad. Out here in east texas, OTOH (where this Cargill lady is from), you get alot of bleed over from the redneck, moron-and-proud-of-it culture from the rest of the deep south. When you go into the bigger cities though (especially Austin and San Antonio), you could almost forget that those other parts of the state exsist. The school board's problem is that the regions are (more or less) evenly divided geographicly, so there's a disproportionate number of members from the idiot parts of the state.

I'm not saying there arn't a lot of backwards shithole places here, but it seems to me that it's a situation simmilar to CA, where despite the presence of places like San Fransisco, the rural fucktards can ruin it for everybody.

[Jeremy]

I've recently run into this sort of garbage ("weird unproven science theories") from people I respect.

To Americans and Canadians over 40, is this trend worsening or lessening with time?

[Samuel]

I've recently run into this sort of garbage ("weird unproven science theories") from people I respect.

To Americans and Canadians over 40, is this trend worsening or lessening with time?

Not over 40 but... the fight over evolution in the US has gone on for over 90 years. We just have rebranding now because creationism was completely bitchslapped by the courts.

Unless you are asking about pseudoscience, in which case I just need to point out spiritualism and other crazes- people have always fallen for weird things.

[Jeremy]

Pseudoscience generally.

I've run into opposition about Plate Tectonics!

[The Vortex Empire]

Pseudoscience generally.

I've run into opposition about Plate Tectonics!

As have I. In one debate, my opponent believed that the surface of the Earth was above a gigantic ocean, which is where the "Great Flood came from.

[HamsterViking]

Godfuckingdamnit not again. Once again the idiots in charge here do something retarded that Texans suffer from, and the result is a whole new wave of Texas bashing.

The Texas apologists will no doubt now claim that this is a small fringe group and not representative of Texans in general, despite the fact that these people are responsible for the education of Texans in general.

You know there are some Texans on this forum, right? We might, maybe, know Texas a little bit better than you. I can tell you that while there are disturbingly large numbers of people like this in the state, they are not representative of Texans in general.

Just because conservative, fundamentalist, white assholes control most of Texas, that doesn't mean that all - or even most - Texans are like that.

And, once again, I remind myself that if I ever have kids I need to move out of the state before they get into the school system. Things like this make me cringe, and any time I bring this stuff up when I hear a bunch of people talking about how wonderful and awesome Texas is, they just stare at me like I'm out of my mind or blow it off as "an abberation," or "no big deal."

I made it through the Texas education system alright, and I'm trying to see my step-son through it now. It may be a struggle at times, but from what I've seen it doesn't seem much worse than any other state. A lot of it depends on where in Texas you are.

Unfortunately, being bat-shit crazy in Texas qualifies you for higher office.

That's not a qualification, that's a requirement. I've seen intelligent, well educated people who were very good at public speaking absolutely refuse to go into politics. the reason being that politics here are dominated by the assholes and idiots who pull this kind of shit and manipulate the uneducated masses.

The (sad) honest truth is that there are really multiple sides to Texas. You have the cowboy culture in the west part of the state, where you get some of the sall townsey BS in small towns, but other than that isn't so bad. Out here in east texas, OTOH (where this Cargill lady is from), you get alot of bleed over from the redneck, moron-and-proud-of-it culture from the rest of the deep south. When you go into the bigger cities though (especially Austin and San Antonio), you could almost forget that those other parts of the state exsist. The school board's problem is that the regions are (more or less) evenly divided geographicly, so there's a disproportionate number of members from the idiot parts of the state.

I'm not saying there arn't a lot of backwards shithole places here, but it seems to me that it's a situation simmilar to CA, where despite the presence of places like San Fransisco, the rural fucktards can ruin it for everybody.

This is very true. There is a HUGE differance between rural and urban Texas. There are also far more urban than rural Texans, but they rednecks have a disproportionally loud voice here.

[Count Chocula]

Oh there's hope for rural Texas, but the two examples I'm familiar with here and here are transplants-by-choice.

Honestly speaking, Texas is a large state, and with that you have a lot of diversity. Its being southern and in the Bible Belt lends its morons a certain piquancy that's...umm...lacking in places like half-cracker Florida, where I live, or even rural areas in the Northeast. The stereotypes in Good Will Hunting, for example, ring true because they ARE true. Assholes are everywhere, but in the South the assholes speak loudly and they talk funny.

[erik_t]

Pseudoscience generally.

I've run into opposition about Plate Tectonics!

Plate tectonics was first proposed in a simplistic form in 1912, and in its current form was promulgated and accepted in the 1960s. I personally think it unreasonable to expect the timescale of acceptance of mainstream scientific ideas to be less than one human lifetime; your mileage may vary.

Really, I think it's easy to look at a couple of scary-seeming recent data points and therefore extrapolate scary trends. In a longer-period moving average, there's no question that the general population is becoming more scientifically knowledgeable, not less.

[Broomstick]

To Americans and Canadians over 40, is this trend worsening or lessening with time?

About the same, really - the batshit crazy just gets repackaged every so often.

[avatarxprime]

So how much closer does this latest stupid move by the Texas Board of Education push the country towards getting new idiotic science texts?

[FSTargetDrone]

Which has me wondering: were the 11 Board members who voted "Aye" really that stupid, or do they too ascribe to this theory? I was raised Catholic, and we were not once, never ever never, told that the Bible establishes the age of the universe. Must be a fundy factoid.

Yeah, not once in my 12 years of Catholic Schooling do I recall being exposed to this level of nuttiness. We had one class period of Religion a day, then the rest of the day was spent learning useful things of varying degrees--religion never bled over into other things in any appreciable way. Not even the nuns talked about Jesus in science classes.

[Count Chocula]

Amen to that! My junior year Physics teacher was an ex-Navy submariner, a real nukular scientist, and I couldn't tell you what his faith was to save my soul. When I hear things like "teh Earf and all teh ooniverse is less then 6,000 years old" I get images of writhing supplicants with rattlesnakes wrapped over their shoulders, or "cripples" getting palm-to-forehead concussions while some televangelist screams "OUT DEMON CANCER! OUT SATAN! HEEEEAAALLL OUR BROTHER IN CHRIST!" I'd be a little....uneasy at the thought of fundies of any stripe actually being in a position of power. Aren't we and the Pakistanis fighting guys like these (okay, a bit farther around the bend) right now overseas? Hell, America's founding fathers were for the most part deists (they believed in some kind of God, in the Christian tradition) but were smart enough to craft a Constitution that left religion out of the affairs of government.

[Big Phil]

Which has me wondering: were the 11 Board members who voted "Aye" really that stupid, or do they too ascribe to this theory? I was raised Catholic, and we were not once, never ever never, told that the Bible establishes the age of the universe. Must be a fundy factoid.

Yeah, not once in my 12 years of Catholic Schooling do I recall being exposed to this level of nuttiness. We had one class period of Religion a day, then the rest of the day was spent learning useful things of varying degrees--religion never bled over into other things in any appreciable way. Not even the nuns talked about Jesus in science classes.

Catholics are (bye and large) much less devout and insane than Protestants, particularly Evangelical Protestants. In my 12 years of Catholic school I never ran into this sort of idiocy, but once I went to college it took less than a week for one of my roommates to start spouting off about how the only requirement to go to heaven was to believe in Jesus (in his opinion, even Hitler was redeemed and went to Heaven because he believed in Jesus, while someone like Gandhi was burning in hell). He was (no surprise) part of the Campus Crusade for Christ, and while otherwise a good guy, a bit nutty when it came to religion.