LANSING, Mich. - The State Board of Education on Tuesday approved public school curriculum guidelines that support the teaching of evolution in science classes — but not intelligent design. Intelligent design instruction could be left for other classes in Michigan schools, but it doesn't belong in science class, according to the unanimously adopted guidelines.
"The intent of the board needs to be very clear," said board member John Austin, an Ann Arbor Democrat. "Evolution is not under stress. It is not untested science."
Some science groups and the American Civil Liberties Union had worried that state standards would not be strong enough to prevent the discussion of intelligent design as the course expectations developed over the summer.Intelligent design's proponents hold that living organisms are so complex they must have been created by a higher force rather than evolving from more primitive forms.
Some want science teachers to teach that Darwin's theory of evolution is not a fact and has gaps.
Intelligent design has also become an issue in the Michigan governor's race.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Dick DeVos, a conservative Christian, said last month that he approves of intelligent design being taught along with evolution in science classes, though he said the decision should be left up to local school districts.
Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who is Roman Catholic, said Michigan schools need to teach evolution in science classes and not include intelligent design. She said school districts can explore intelligent design in current events or comparative religions classes.
9 comments:
OT, but I finally got around to setting up my own blog at www.anexerciseinfutility.blogspot.com
I hope to find the time to continue adding to it in the coming days. Of course, as an atheist, many of the posts will be about atheism and religion. I hope y'all will come by and pay a visit.
tommy - I went over to check out your blog and you are off to a good start!
When you write TommyKey as your name in comments, what does the "key" part mean if I may ask?
Yeah, I realized I forgot that part.
There's not much of a mystery to it actually. It's a condensing of my last name, which starts with "k" and ends with "ey" so I I thought I would use the name Tommykey.
tommykey - thanks for answering my trivial little question about your posting name. It's interesting how people come up with their monikers.
Stardust, I put up a couple of more postings I think you will get a kick out of.
I guess the trick now is to find ways to make more people aware of my blog so that I get some meaningful traffic.
While I certainly hope to get people like you and the gangs over at sites like GIFs and Evangelical Atheist, because I live in Long Island, NY, I would also like to get people in my geographic area to take notice too, as many of the topics I write about will be local in nature.
Thanks and best regards. TK
Thanks for adding me to your blogroll Stardust. I reciprocated, and added several other sites as well such as Bacon's, GIFS and so forth.
However, when I put the code in my template and clicked republish, the links appeared in my sidebar, but not the title I selected for my blogroll: Brothers and Sisters in Disbelief.
Do you have any idea as to what went wrong? I'm still getting used to doing this thing. Many thanks.
P.S. It looks like I already got my first troll! :-)
Tommy - Here is something from How do I edit my link list? that may help you. It's what I used.
Where you see the word >Links< in the line of code is where you put your list title.
Be careful with the coding. I lost my whole Random Writing blog for awhile and had to figure out what I did line, by line, by line...it took hours!
Good luck
Wow, a troll already! You are off to a good start if you are attracting varmints already!
I got it to work Stardust!
Now it's time to do my aquarium seal barking for a treat imitation.
Yay tommy! This technological stuff can be quite frustrating. Glad you got it to work.
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