So Ant, do you think people who believe dinosaurs and humans lived at the same time are qualified to establish science and history education standards? Your silence is deafening.

geo wrote:So Ant, do you think people who believe dinosaurs and humans lived at the same time are qualified to establish science and history education standards? Your silence is deafening.

I thought I had mentioned my support for qualified Board Members?
Did I not?

Of course there were cavemen and dinos living together.
We haven't found fossil evidence yet, that's all.

ant wrote:This is all trollish garbage.

no ant, don't get "all swole up", they are direct verbatim quotes from the McLeroy material linked in this thread.

also i linked to McLeroy responses to show something of what he had to say for himself in defence.

BTW: viva la Tejas, and the Rio Grande Mud.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkPeqK8Ui20

damn Texas has some fine pickers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hT9NhjXd9LM

As handy as hip pockets on a hog!

Of course we have evidence that cavemen and dinosaurs lived together; haven't you ever read "Alley Oop" or "B.C." in the Sunday Comics Pages?

But semi-seriously, Texas is not the only state whose legislators do dumb things. This occurred about 50 years ago, when I was in college, so if I have my facts a bit fuzzy, I beg forgiveness.

According to one of my math professors, a state legislator in an unnamed state (though I think he said it was somewhere in the Midwest) had a problem with the mathematical constant Pi. He decided it (3.14159265...) was too complicated for students to have to deal with. He introduced a bill that would (in his state) stabilize the value of Pi as 3 (that is 3.0000000000000 ad infinitum). I don't think he got very far.

Cattleman wrote:a state legislator in an unnamed state had a problem with the mathematical constant Pi. He decided it (3.14159265...) was too complicated for students to have to deal with. He introduced a bill that would (in his state) stabilize the value of Pi as 3 (that is 3.0000000000000 ad infinitum). I don't think he got very far.

"The Indiana Pi Bill" of 1894 introduced by Edwin J. Goodwin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Pi_Bill

What I like is the official title of the legislation, "A Bill for an act introducing a new mathematical truth and offered as a contribution to education to be used only by the State of Indiana free of cost by paying any royalties whatever on the same, provided it is accepted and adopted by the official action of the Legislature of 1897".

Now, if its a mathematical truth, with a capital T, how could it only be used by Indiana?

Cattleman wrote:He decided it (3.14159265...) was too complicated for students to have to deal with. He introduced a bill that would (in his state) stabilize the value of Pi as 3 (that is 3.0000000000000 ad infinitum). I don't think he got very far.

Brooks127 wrote:"A Bill for an act introducing a new mathematical truth and offered as a contribution to education to be used only by the State of Indiana free of cost by paying any royalties whatever on the same, provided it is accepted and adopted by the official action of the Legislature of 1897".

absolute classic ! you can't write material like that, it writes itself.

Cattleman wrote:Since we are talking about education in Texas, you might be interested to learn that our enlightened and forward-looking state has just passed laws (during the 2013 session) reducing the required courses for graduation from four years of math to three, from three years of science to two, and four years of social studies to three. Since Texas already ranks among the lowest states for academic achievement, no doubt it was felt this was needed to place our once-great state at the very bottom of the list.

Cattleman, have you no respect for football? Remember those Friday Night Lights!

DWill, I love football. I played for three years in high school, then realized I had gone as far as I could in that sport, and retired my cleats. But I still enjoy a good college or pro game. Can't wait for Sunday's rematch between the Chiefs and the Broncos.

Remaining o.t., I read H.G. Bissinger's Friday Night Lights and picked up that in his mind, the religion-like status of high school football in Texas has something to so with the slighting of academics. Of course, we could say this as well about states other than yours.

LanDroid wrote:The item about Tiktaalik at the bottom of page 6 in Wetherington's rebuttal (Interbane's link) is related to a book discussion we had about 5 years ago, Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin.

“I don’t see any major changes coming,” said board Vice Chairman Thomas Ratliff, R-Mount Pleasant. “I believe the books will get approved without incident.”

Well perhaps this will quietly blow over. 'Er, not quietly...

This movie looks interesting...
http://www.therevisionariesmovie.com/

Hey, speaking of Neil Shubin's Your Inner Fish, I just learned that in April PBS will be running a program based on the book. It will air on Wednesdays April 9-23 at 10pm.