Israel gets one right!

karma_

Chief scientist who questioned evolution theory fired:

The Education Ministry's chief scientist, Dr. Gavriel Avital, was dismissed on Monday following a scandal-filled trial period of less than a year.

Sources familiar with the affair said Avital was fired over past statements he had made, in which he questioned evolution and the global warming theory.

Avital, who was named chief scientist in December 2009, said Darwinism should be analyzed critically along with biblical creationism.

"If textbooks state explicitly that human beings' origins are to be found with monkeys, I would want students to pursue and grapple with other opinions. There are many people who don't believe the evolutionary account is correct," he said.

"There are those for whom evolution is a religion and are unwilling to hear about anything else. Part of my responsibility, in light of my position with the Education Ministry, is to examine textbooks and curricula,"

Avital added, "If they keep writing in textbooks that the Earth is growing warmer because of carbon dioxide emissions, I'll insist that isn't the case."

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3964117,00.html


So, for once, well done Israel.

MagicMarker

One down...

raah!

Hahahahahah, ridiculous. He's saying we should look at it critically, examine the evidence, in accordance with scientific methodology, and you say this is bad? And good riddance he's gone?

Stop pretending to care about biology.

Sykk

People will always be morons, just because he's from Israel doesn't make any difference.

MagicMarker

raah! wrote: »

Hahahahahah, ridiculous. He's saying we should look at it critically, examine the evidence, in accordance with scientific methodology, and you say this is bad? And good riddance he's gone?

Stop pretending to care about biology.

Erm, we already do this. I think the main problem was with the ''analyze it critically along with biblical creationism'' part. What with biblical creationism being complete bull**** and all.

karma_

raah! wrote: »

Hahahahahah, ridiculous. He's saying we should look at it critically, examine the evidence, in accordance with scientific methodology, and you say this is bad? And good riddance he's gone?

Stop pretending to care about biology.

How can you analyse biblical creationism scientifically?

curlzy

Wow, so disappointed, after reading the title I thought "oh great they're going to stop being bastards" but no; it's about science and religion, colour me very disappointed .

coffee_cake

There are those for whom evolution is a religion and are unwilling to hear about anything else.

Firing him wasn't exactly doing much to change his opinion there, was it?

FreudianSlippers

Pfft. Everyone knows the earth was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster.

raah!

I'm sure they'd be able to come to that conclusion after analysing it critically. If they hadn't analysed the evolution critically, then they would have no standard with which to compare creationism and declare it is not true. His comments were very mild, and he doesn't deserve to have been kicked out for making a proposal. Israel certainly haven't gotten anything right here.


Anyway, I do regret posting in this thread, and will proceed to unfollow it.

RedXIV

Just thinking, wouldn't it be encouraged for all these things to be constantly scrutinized? After all, many other scientific "facts" were disproved once technology was capable of sufficient aid. Nothing wrong with critically analyzing something. Failure to do so will leave you in the same camp that has said for centuries that God made the world.

coffee_cake

raah! wrote: »

I'm sure they'd be able to come to that conclusion after analysing it critically. If they hadn't analysed the evolution critically, then they would have no standard with which to compare creationism and declare it is not true. His comments were very mild, and he doesn't deserve to have been kicked out for making a proposal. Israel certainly haven't gotten anything right here.


Anyway, I do regret posting in this thread, and will proceed to unfollow it.

Well this part didn't help him

Avital added, "If they keep writing in textbooks that the Earth is growing warmer because of carbon dioxide emissions, I'll insist that isn't the case."

raah!

karma_ wrote: »

How can you analyse biblical creationism scientifically?

I was referencing his comments about evolution and creationism, he phrased it in such a way that evolution should be examined. You could analyse that in the same way you analyse anything.

Well this part didn't help him

Yeah, it's not exaclty connected with evolution though. And perhaps he has some strong arguments to the contrary, they do exist.

seamus

raah! wrote: »

Hahahahahah, ridiculous. He's saying we should look at it critically, examine the evidence, in accordance with scientific methodology, and you say this is bad? And good riddance he's gone?

What he effectively said was that we should examine evolutionary theory scientifically, but also compare it to unicorns for good measure.

losthorizon

BTW Darwin never said man developed from Apes. We just have a common ancestor. BIG difference.

FreudianSlippers

losthorizon wrote: »

BTW Darwin never said man developed from Apes. We just have a common ancestor. BIG difference.

This is the one thing that really bothers me. It's like opponents of evolution haven't even googled it once!

PeterIanStaker

OisinT wrote: »

This is the one thing that really bothers me. It's like opponents of evolution haven't even googled it once!

Well with religious search engines they dont need to google

http://seekfind.org/

(Ironically, I googled that!)

TwoShedsJackson

curlzy wrote: »

Wow, so disappointed, after reading the title I thought "oh great they're going to stop being bastards" but no; it's about science and religion, colour me very disappointed .

Everything about the Middle East **** storm is about religion.

Einhard

OisinT wrote: »

This is the one thing that really bothers me. It's like opponents of evolution haven't even googled it once!

Why would you bother educate yourself about it, when God has already told you how things came about?

strobe

Einhard wrote: »

Why would you bother educate yourself about it, when God has already told you how things came about?

bnt

Whenever you see evolution theory referred to as "Darwinism", that's a clue to where the speaker / writer is going: gearing up to try an old disinformation strategy. Associate the theory with the person, then try and discredit that person, as the theory depends on that person's every utterance. This kind of thing is justified when the theory really is consistently associated with one person - e.g. Lamarckism, Stalinism - but that's not the case when it comes to evolution, which has only grown from the solid start given by Darwin. What's next - Dawkinsism? Pharyngulism? :rolleyes:

coffee_cake

raah! wrote: »

Yeah, it's not exaclty connected with evolution though.

It isn't, but it doesn't appear he was fired just for his evolution thoughts, it was GW as well.

And perhaps he has some strong arguments to the contrary, they do exist.

They may exist but "I would insist it's not true" is not "well there are strong arguments against it".

sensibleken

OisinT wrote: »

Pfft. Everyone knows the earth was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster.

That's just stupid. The earth was made a few thursdays ago by Robert

sensibleken

bnt wrote: »

Whenever you see evolution theory referred to as "Darwinism", that's a clue to where the speaker / writer is going: gearing up to try an old disinformation strategy. Associate the theory with the person, then try and discredit that person, as the theory depends on that person's every utterance. This kind of thing is justified when the theory really is consistently associated with one person - e.g. Lamarckism, Stalinism - but that's not the case when it comes to evolution, which has only grown from the solid start given by Darwin. What's next - Dawkinsism? Pharyngulism? :rolleyes:

I know, evolution was around ages before Darwin.

MagicMarker

RedXIV wrote: »

Just thinking, wouldn't it be encouraged for all these things to be constantly scrutinized? After all, many other scientific "facts" were disproved once technology was capable of sufficient aid.

Can you name any of these scientific facts that were disproved?

faceman

The guy got dismissed for expressing his opinion outside of the classroom. His ability to teach the curriculum was not called into question. Is that appropriate? Should people be fired for having an opinion?

I dont really care what his views are on evolution, people will argue about religion till the end of the earth. But his question of a global warming theory (outside of the classroom) is hardly a disciplionary offence

So on review, it looks likes it a terrible decision by the Educational Minister.

karma_

faceman wrote: »

The guy got dismissed for expressing his opinion outside of the classroom. His ability to teach the curriculum was not called into question. Is that appropriate? Should people be fired for having an opinion?

I dont really care what his views are on evolution, people will argue about religion till the end of the earth. But his question of a global warming theory (outside of the classroom) is hardly a disciplionary offence

So on review, it looks likes it a terrible decision by the Educational Minister.

Is it appropriate than someone with those views should not be in his position? Yes, yes it is very appropriate!

MagicMarker

In fairness...

The Education Ministry's chief scientist, Dr. Gavriel Avital, was dismissed on Monday following a scandal-filled trial period of less than a year.

It seems there's more to it than these comments alone.

RedXIV

MagicMarker wrote: »

Can you name any of these scientific facts that were disproved?

People for countless years believed the "fact" that the earth was flat, or the "fact" that if you sailed west from Spain, you'd hit India or even as recent as the "fact" that smoking was harmless

"Facts" should be constantly under scrutiny as if our experience on this planet has thought us anything, is that we have made alot of mistakes in the past.

faceman

karma_ wrote: »

Is it appropriate than someone with those views should not be in his position? Yes, yes it is very appropriate!

Well we havent seen the full content of those views so none of us can make that decision. But again its his personal views. His personal opinion hasnt broken any law. As long as it doesnt interfere with him doing his job, there shouldnt be an issue with it. However as magicmarker has pointed out, there seems to be more to this than meets than eye.

If Catholic run school sacked a teacher because he/she didnt believe in God, would that be appropriate?

karma_

faceman wrote: »

If Catholic run school sacked a teacher because he/she didnt believe in God, would that be appropriate?

Religion has no place in education so no that would not be appropriate.