Kansas Evolution Hearings

Day 1 (5/5/05)

De: Kansas Board of Education

A subcommittee of the Kansas Board of Education holds hearings on whether the state's science curriculum should permit alternate theories to be taught alongside evolution. During the first three days of hearings, proponents of intelligent design present their views. They are represented by a retired lawyer, John Calvert, who heads the Intelligent Design Network of Shawnee Mission, Kansas. The witnesses are questioned by the members of the subcommittee and by attorney Pedro Irigonegaray, who supports the teaching of evolution.Listen to Day 2, Day 3, and Day 4 (Conclusion) of the Kansas Evolution Hearings.

Also, listen to great related books, magazines, and lectures available right now from audible.com®:
Darwin on Trial
The Great Tennessee Monkey Trial
Scientific American Special Edition: Evolution
What's The Matter With Kansas?: A Lecture

©2005 Kansas Board of Education (P)2005 Audible, Inc.

Very interesting!

It is very interesting to listen to the original discussions. I think the way the opposition to Darwinism argues very clever and I think their argument can't be agued with, as the just asked that the whole evidence should be tought in school.

Amazing, enlightening & full of rational inquiry

This is the most interesting audio I have heard in a long time! The hearings contain many PhD level scientists, doctors, biologists, teachers, philosophers that prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that there are gaping holes in the theory of evolution.

The lawyer defending the side of evolution does not dispute one single fact... he simply degrades and belittles the witnesses. If anything, regardless of your opinion, there is an amazing wealth of rational inquiry and scientific testimony.

There may be debate over the origin of man, but after listening to these testimonies, there in no debate over the faltering, weak and withering theory of Darwin's evolution.

It is a long and winding road to nowhere

If you are looking for an instructive addition to the evolution vs creation/intelligent design debate, this is very much a one trick pony, As you go through part one, part two etc, you hear the concerns/claims of the Creation/ID camp. Some of it, sounds reasonable and you wait to hear the opposite rebuttal from the evo crowd. It is a rebuttal that never happens. After having spent several long hours listening through the entire set of "debates", (one sided opinions as the creationist offer their side of the argument first) those representing the evolution camp, refuse to debate when it is their turn.

They do not answer because they cannot, they do not answer because to them, there is no debate and that these trails cost the tax payers considerable money. It is annoying that they simply do not offer resonable evidence as to why evolution is true and quell the argument that way; They simply refuse to be involved.

Some may think that this is admitting that evolution is not fact, therefore creationism should be taught in schools as well, but it is not.

I can understand why evolutionist do not validate the ID perspective, but I understand how evolution works. I know about Lenski's work with bacteria that it shows two random mutations that are a benifit to a organism, therefore, evolution. (Look up Lenski''s work for the details if you are interested, or Read Richard Dawkin's book "The Greatest Show on Earth" for details)

So, If you are looking for a well laid out debate, this is not it. Not by a long shot. The information that is offered on the creationist side is false, (for some of it) and the Evolution camp simply does not respond.

A complete waste of time

All Nonsense

The Kansas Board of Education has no authority to do ANYTHING. They can recomnend various actions to the legislature or the governor. No legislature or governor in the country is going to be stupid enough to support any of the ideas involved. Listening to them is a waste of your time. Some religious fanatics in the Johnson County area have been playing games with this "issue" purely for publicity purposes for roughly 10 years. Not a single person from the legimate academic community even attends their meeings because they are such a joke. In the first place this Board serves no purpose, receiives no salary, and has authority to do NOTHING. The state legislature has never had a bill submitted during the 10 years this nonsense has been going on.. The sponsor would get laughed out of office. This group of idiots is not affiliated with ANY religious organization in the state. Most churches in thed K.C. area have gone out of their way to disavow any connection. This includes all of the so-called conservative churches and collleges. No one in the state really cares about these fools since they do little more thn make us look stupid. We've essentially grown tired of them and ignore them. Other candidates, if any,, have no financial support and do not "campaign." Several elections ago state voters got tired of their nonsense and threw 5 out of 6 out of offfice. But their publicity ideas for their ignorant agenda don"t seem to ever go away. I personally have ignored this issue in recent year Paying attention to anyone running for office is hopeless. The original intent was an advisory coimmittee of respeected citizens. Most of us now try to avoid them and hope they go away. The academic community in the state ignores them for the same reason. You will not hear any professor from any state educational institution bother to "testify" before them. NOT ONE. That should indicate something.

Think about the children

It's nice to see that the scientific community gave this fake debate the respect it deserved by not involving itself in something it has already spoken so clearly about. Even now Intelligent Design has yet to publish an article in a peer-reviewed scientific journal and the reasons are quite clear. Their arguments continually use the lack of evidence for one view as evidence for another view. Children in Kansas schools will be allowed to prove they have a monster in their closet because closet monsters do not hide under their bed, and they checked under their bed and there was no monster. And if the teacher questions this the child can say "but look it's here in my ID book and thats science"

Their quoted books and studies(non peer-reviewed) continually use unscientific concepts that simply sound scientific to a school board with a poor understanding of the associations ID exploits. For example ID relies heavily on measuring intelligence and information in a system, but information theory provides no scientific way to objectivly measure the amount of information or "inteligence" in a system (see Mismeasure of Man). Back to a kansas classroom example, let's say a child scribbles a note and passes it in class but the teacher intercepts it. The teacher finds a seemingly funny set of symbols on the paper that apear to be a pictogram making fun of the teacher, the teacher ,knowing her ID quite well, realizes that she can determine the information in the note and determines it's a note making fun of him/her. Of course the reality is that the student was merely tracing funny shapes found in their text book at random and there was no information relating to the teacher at all no matter how much it may have looked like it. But this is an ID school and that student is in big trouble.

So sure this might be worth a listen but be ready for some serious thinking becasue the pleasant-sounding lies abound.

Poor Kansas students, how can we help them?