Buttars’ crazy anti-evolution bill has been killed in Utah.
The evolution bill is no more.
The Utah House of Representatives voted 46-28 to kill SB96, which cast doubt on the teaching of evolution.
“There are a number of influential legislators who believe you evolved from an ape. I didn’t,” said Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, who sponsored the bill.
He said it was “doubtful” that he would try a similar bill in the future.
The bill would have required a teacher to say the state does not endorse evolution and that the controversial theory is not a proven fact before teaching Charles Darwin’s ideas.
Source: Salt Lake Tribune
though I chuckled, Butters is actually the most sympathetic character in South Park. I cannot sympathize with Buttars.
Simpsons did it!
Didn’t he want to call his bill “Divine Design”? Think there’s any connection between his religious convictions and his disbelief in a common ancestor with apes?
Just askin’.
Anyway, hope he and idiots like him get swept out of office. I’m actually glad when these nuts reveal themselves for what they really are. Now that’s a divine design.
Why of course not! He was in his garage laboratory, running computer simulations of protein folding, when he exclaimed “Great Scott! The p-values of a specified protein exclude a blind algorithm from finding it in a reasonable amount of time! Evolution is therefore highly suspect!”
LOL.
And if he had an IQ above the Points Per Game average of the LA Clippers, he would have then said, “Of course, there’s no way of knowing how many protein sequences in a given space are ‘specified’, so that idea is completely worthless, except of course maybe for getting rich off creationist rubes…”
How dare you suggest this is about money. This is about the cultural revolution to make your kid’s as ignorant as they are.
Waterloo in Dover! Waterloo in Ohio! Waterloo in Utah!
ROTFLMAO at Dembski…
And here was I thinking that he was a superb example of a transitional form…
Not nice– let’s show a little respect for our animal ancestors.
And let’s not forget their brave surrender in California.
And yeah I laff my arse off at Demsbki at each new ID humiliation.
So I guess the score is something like
IDiots - 0 Science - 4
Re “Waterloo in Dover! Waterloo in Ohio! Waterloo in Utah!”
And here I thought Waterloo was in Europe someplace…
Uh, on second thought, never mind that. :)
Btw, doesn’t it ever occur to some of those people that the genetic, anatomical and biochemical similarities between chimp and human are going to still be there regardless of evolution/creation? And that with creation and/or ID, that means the “designer” caused those similarities on purpose? Ergo, their model implies that humans are less special than otherwise since we were “designed” to blend in with the neighbors.
Henry
NCSE board member and BYU biology professor Duane Jeffery wrote a short, terse and to-the-point editorial dissection of the bill. There are in Utah a lot of people who understand and appreciate biology generally, and evolution theory more specifically – and many of them are, like Jeffery, rather devout Mormons.
Among well-educated people, truth has a better shot at winning. It helps when the local church of most persuasive power is not opposed to evolution.
We’ve been saved by “fervent opposition.”
Really?
Science survives or not based on in internal religious squabble? I don’t see any champion of science here. And, there are tens of millions of fundamentalists for whom science does conflict with their religion. And, they are NOT going to change anytime soon.
Did these pious Senators learn anything from Dover?
It’s great that ID has lost in Utah for now! But, I don’t see an affirmation of science! The Triffids were beaten back, but for how long?
I celebrate anyway!
http://steveu.com/blog/2006/01/evolution.html
Senator Urquhart has a blog. I shouldn’t be surprised anymore that Joe Random politician has a blog.
Urquhart better than I thought:
That’s much better than what was in the NCSE and Tribune links! He took the kooks at face value and gave them evolution instead of ID. My hero!! I take back some of the gloom I expressed above.
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Science survives or not based on in internal religious squabble?
No, a sensible science-education policy survives based on the fact that a good many Christians support good science education.
And, there are tens of millions of fundamentalists for whom science does conflict with their religion. And, they are NOT going to change anytime soon.
They’ve been publicly discredited in several forums recently, people are starting to stand up to their bullying, and more persons of faith, including some rather large established churches, are publicly saying that facing reality is not ungodly. That’s some serious beneficial change – what more do you expect?
Nice bit from MSNBC:
Maybe, Wyatt, I don’t know. Do you have an engineering degree? An engineering degree renders the recipient an instant Renaissance Man.
Somebody get Chris Mooney some smelling salts–the AP people who wrote that MSNBC story corrected Buttars, rather than just giving equal time! Here’s the end of the story:
The Salt Lake Tribune article is no longer available online. Interesting.
Not quite. One apparently must not only be an engineer, but also retired.
There’s a new one up on the Salt Lake Tribune. Maybe the original was an AP article, and they wanted to replace it with a local one?
http://www.sltrib.com/ci_3554104
Forgive me if this has been posted here before, but there was an interesting article about ID in Utah on the NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/05/n[…]&ei=5070
He seems to make the case that Mormons are keenly aware of their “minority status” in the Christian world and are therefore less likely to support “shove dogma down everyone’s throats” legislation than others…an interesting read.
New triffids, or the evil spirits have come to rest in the home of someone else, pick your metaphor: There is a creationism eruption in Nevada, now: http://sos.state.nv.us/nvelection/i[…]nScience.pdf
Nevada? Tell kids evolution is mathematically impossible?
The issue of human and apes is more complicated than that. It is because “ape” means something different to biologists than it does to the lay public. To the former it refers to a group of closely related primate species, and their recent common ancestors. To the latter it refers to only the other extant ape species.
Several points:
1. Humans are apes, or more properly “great apes”.
2. Humans are descended from great apes.
3. Humans are not chimps, bonobos, gorillas, or orangutans, the other extant great ape species.
4. Humans did not descend from any other great ape species.
4. Humans did not descend from any other extant great ape species.
Sorry, you lost me here. Humans are descended from some common ancestor of humans and other extant great apes. You defined apes as including: “a group of closely related primate species, and their recent common ancestors.”
Are you saying that this common ancestor was not recent ancestor, or that it was not a great ape?
I have always thought that if you had a live specimen of the most recent common ancestor of humans and extant great apes, it would probably look a lot more like what we’d think of as a great ape than it would look like some other kind of primate. Hence, you might classify it as a great ape. Is my intuition wrong?
Sorry, that was meant to be
4. Humans did not descend from any other extant great ape species.
Please help me understand something.
What was meant by this statement: “Maybe, Wyatt, I don’t know. Do you have an engineering degree? An engineering degree renders the recipient an instant Renaissance Man.”
I’ve been lurking here on PT since right after the Kitzmiller decision. I’ve learned a lot, not being a biologist by education. Mostly, I’ve had my prior views on the IDM and evolution strengthened. I’ve used some arguments I’ve read here when speaking with IDiots on other forums. I’m on your side.
I’m also an engineer. A very educated and experienced one. Very accomplished in my field.
You biologists etc. may not realize that you may need us in being critical of ID. D stands for design, remember? Who really designs stuff around here? Who you gonna call to help you really criticize a design if needed?
Perhaps the quote above isn’t a slight on engineers, but others here have been.
How about practicing some professional courtesy?
Dave
2hulls: I believe the comments you speak of were meant as a slight to engineers pretending to be biologists, or pretending that their knowledge of engineering qualified them to infer “design in nature;” or perhaps they’re just a slight against a certain retired engineer who posts nonsensical falsehoods under many assumed names; but they’re not meant for engineers in general.
I can buy that. Thanks for the elaboration.
No competent engineer I know would pretend to be anything else, except a student of science and reason.
That said, we do have our nut cases.….…
Dave
I didn’t realize Andy H./Larry Farflungdung was an retired engineer. It amazes me that anyone with the science background of an engineer (obviously weighted more in physics, and/or chemistry than biology) could be as obtuse as Larry. My undergraduate degree was in electrical engineering so I know what kind of science background it requires (although I am a dentist now). Of course the fact that Larry is crank really says nothing of engineers in general.
Leave LaLaLarry FaFaFarFlungDung, or alliterationists everywhere will lament his leaving.
Not to mention Otis (FaFaFa) Redding…
Moses wrote:
Now, let’s propose some bills to sticker all the Bibles and religious books in the public high school libraries. The stickers could say something like “The story of creation presented here is only a myth (not even a theory) and one should approach this material critically. To see an alternative view, read Richard Dawkins ‘The Blind Watchmaker.’”
So we might, with Baudelaire, say “if there were no Larrys, we would have to invent them?” Perhaps you have a point. Reality trumps all ‘theoretical’ discussions of issues.
http://www.bryanerickson.com/
Update