NYT: Evolutionary Biology Major Vanishes From Approved Federal List

[DeepModem Mom]

Evolution Major Vanishes From Approved Federal List
By CORNELIA DEAN
Published: August 24, 2006

Evolutionary biology has vanished from the list of acceptable fields of study for recipients of a federal education grant for low-income college students.

The omission is inadvertent, said Katherine McLane, a spokeswoman for the Department of Education, which administers the grants. “There is no explanation for it being left off the list,” Ms. McLane said. “It has always been an eligible major.”

Another spokeswoman, Samara Yudof, said evolutionary biology would be restored to the list, but as of last night it was still missing....

***

Scientists who knew about the omission...said they found the clerical explanation unconvincing, given the furor over challenges by the religious right to the teaching of evolution in public schools. “It’s just awfully coincidental,” said Steven W. Rissing, an evolutionary biologist at Ohio State University....

Dr. Rissing said removing evolutionary biology from the list of acceptable majors would discourage students who needed the grants from pursuing the field, at a time when studies of how genes act and evolve are producing valuable insights into human health....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/24/washington/24evo.html

[Monkeyman]

1. yep evolution never happen we are all childern of Adam and Eve

[TripeOmatic]

3. But didn't Eve only have two sons? - n/t

[Lindacooks]

6. Yep, what fundies conveniently omit

is that they are all descendants of incest!

[RaleighNCDUer]

31. The Apocrypha lists several other sons and daughters

besides Cain, Able and Seth, but you know what? That STILL leaves insest as the future of humanity. And it THAT isn't enough, who did Noah's kids marry? At the best, there were a lot of first cousins.

Maybe Cain's wife was a Neandertal.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

40. that explains Santorum's love of beastiality, no?

The real question is

If JC is the heavenly son of god,
who was his heavenly mother?

AND,
if that eve-babe was spawned from the rib of adam, obviously the top guy was using stem cell cloning techniques, ergo, fundies should support stem cell research.

[Cobalt-60]

66. yeah, I think

he'd go for a big girl.
Or maybe Lilith (adam's 1st wife) hooked up with a friendly gigantopithicus

[RaleighNCDUer]

68. "And in those days, there were giants..."

[Quantess]

55. It's a rationalization for incest.

See, incest really isn't so bad. Eve was intimate with her own sons, and Adam got a piece of his granddaughters. It's wholesome, the way God intended it. At least they weren't gay!

[TechBear_Seattle]

17. Nope. They had lots and lots

First came Cain and Abel. Cain slew Abel and was exiled to Nod, where he found a wife (presumably not a daughter of Adam and Eve, as there was a populated city "to the east of Eden." See Genesis 4:16-24)

After that unpleasant incident:

When Adam had lived a hundred and thirty years, he became the father of a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth. The days of adam after he became the father of Seth were eight hundred years; and he had other sons and daughters. (Genesis 5:3-4)

[GeorgeGist]

27. Thanks for the heads-up...

guess someone had a headstart on god.

[TechBear_Seattle]

29. One of the big questions on the Creation story is...

"Where did Cain get his wife?"

[VegasWolf]

42. In the Holy Babble it says he went to a nearby city to find a wife. WTF!!

Where the hell did this city outside of eden come from? Who are these people? The Babble has no answers.

[Kailassa]

56. The devil created them.

When God saw them he wanted some humans of his own, and made two very poor copies.

And they evolved into republicans.

[NickB79]

71. Populated city to the east of Eden?!?!

Um, if Adam and Eve were the first two humans, who was living in this populated city?

[TechBear_Seattle]

72. No one seems to know

If you are bored and want to see a Talibangelical have an aneurism, ask where Cain got his wife.

[Tesha]

74. Hobbits. (NT)

[obreaslan]

43. They should just study to become Adamandeveologists...

That will solve the problem. :crazy:

[aaronbees]

2. Bush administration continues its war....

against intelligence.

[countmyvote4real]

4. If you are not yet dumb, you must be dumber.

Don't get your hopes up yet. You will never be "Dear Dumbest*."

(Wish that I had a pic of the dumbass, but I think you can conjure it up.)

[Occulus]

5. What other areas of federal funding for low-income students will now

be targeted?

"“There is no explanation for it being left off the list,” Ms. McLane said. “It has always been an eligible major.”

Didn't you hear, Ms. McLane? The president (sic) doesn't have to explain himself to you.

He's the decider.

[mike_c]

7. as a biologist, I find this very chilling....

:scared:

[rodeodance]

10. very chilling

[Botany]

24. as somebody with a b.s. in biology I find this creepy too

BTW

Evolution = change in gene frequency over time or in other words
"things" change and sex shuffles the deck ...... nothing about there
is or is not a God.

Our race to bottom quickens

[nam78_two]

64. Biophysicist here and me too

:scared:

[BadgerKid]

65. Let's ban bioinformatics!

And screw ourselves out of the drugs of tomorrow. (Yes, sarcasm.)

Note to Rethugs: Big Pharma will die if knowledge of evolutionary relationships vanishes.

[bluedeminredstate]

8. Their attack on science

or "sound science" as the Chimperor loved to say back in 2000 is breathtaking when you think of all the stuff they have supressed on govt. web sites, publications and through withholding funding. And of course that doesn't include intimidation, threats of job loss, attacks on academia, the takeover of NASA and The Centers for Disease Control... and now I'm getting sick to my stomach and have to stop.
Assholes are the first in line for the expensive, convenient technolgy to make their lives easier, but dammit don't tell them nuthin' 'bout no science. The Lord Almighty made having seven babies in one litter and curing diseases possible! Same fer my teevee that gets 400 preminium channels and my computer so I can email everyone in my prayer chain so stop talkin' 'bout science!

:crazy:

[rodeodance]

11. I would love to see a before and after Bush administration web sites.

[rodeodance]

9. "there is an empty space between line 26.1302 ..." sure looks sneaky

to me.

.....The list of eligible majors (which is online at ifap.ed.gov/dpcletters/attachments/GEN0606A.pdf) is drawn from the Education Department’s “Classification of Instructional Programs,” or CIP (pronounced “sip”), a voluminous and detailed classification of courses of study, arranged in a numbered system of sections and subsections.

Part 26, biological and biomedical sciences, has a number of sections, each of which has one or more subsections. Subsection 13 is ecology, evolution, systematics and population biology. This subsection itself has 10 sub-subsections. One of them is 26.1303 — evolutionary biology, “the scientific study of the genetic, developmental, functional, and morphological patterns and processes, and theoretical principles; and the emergence and mutation of organisms over time.”

Though references to evolution appear in listings of other fields of biological study, the evolutionary biology sub-subsection is missing from a list of “fields of study” on the National Smart Grant list — there is an empty space between line 26.1302 (marine biology and biological oceanography) and line 26.1304 (aquatic biology/limnology).

Students cannot simply list something else on an application form, said Mr. Nassirian of the registrars’ association. “Your declared major maps to a CIP code,” he said.

[sofa king]

12. I have an idea.

Since all modern medicine is based on evolutionary biology, why don't we encourage the fundies to have Dick Cheney stop seeing his cardiologist?

[DarkTirade]

13. Those who don't believe in evolution

are themselves unable to evolve.
Evolution happens. It is a fact. As to whether or not is was the only reason we ended up how we are, we will never know for sure until there is time travel. INTELLIGENT christians are smart enough to realize that one single passage in a book FULL OF PARABLES just MIGHT be another one.
Unfortunately, they seem to be few and far between here.

[truthisfreedom]

14. the land of "make believe" party... REPUBLICANTS!

they can't believe in science.
they can't win a war.
they can't stop killing.
they can't believe in love.
they can't love anyone, ever.

[Ganja Ninja]

18. They can't balance a budget.

They can't get it up without viagra.
They can't tell the truth.

[RonHack]

33. Ah, ah, ah.... you mentioned SCIENCE, Chicken!

Besides, I find that hard to believe......

God frowns on sex as a subject AND came up with Viagra?

Must.... not..... follow..... LOGIC!

[htuttle]

15. This is an in-your-face outrage!

I don't know why this one is pissing me off a bit more than the 200,000 other acts of destructive idiocy we've seen out of that pinhead in Washington over the last 6 years, but it sure does at the moment.

[bklyncowgirl]

16. Ridiculous

Why should one group's religious beliefs dictate what others can study?

[Jawja]

20. Because their boy

is has the power, that's why.

[Thoreau-Ly]

36. All Power and No Brains

Unfortunately for us.

But, agreed, there has been some really sickly "spirituality" going on here, for some time. It's like, the Kings of Kings was a man of peace, but, really, can you imagine him not wanting to bitch slap this idiotic Bush thing?

"But Bush is a Man of God."

No, he is not, you shitheads.

[bklyncowgirl]

60. Jesus whipped the money changers in the temple with a knotted rope.

Yeah, he'd give up the Prince of Peace thing just for a few good licks at him--or ask the old man to send down some fire and brimstone.

[Thoreau-Ly]

61. Cool.

I kind of like that guy Jesus.

Too bad that if he is Bush's favorite "philosopher" (Bush has no clue what that means, obviously, by the way), he doesn't know more of his wisdom.

[formercia]

19. Somewhere, in a laboratory, scientists craft your future

to be a more pleasant experience than reality would predict.

[erik-the-red]

21. Accident

I really hope this was a mistake.

[Bretttido]

51. Wishful thinking... this was no mistake

[originalpckelly]

22. Once again I'll say it, the people who most resemble chimps...

are the ones who believe it is impossible they originated from them.

[Solly Mack]

23. Hey, at least we got to witness the implosion of America

Yay, us!

Move over greatest generation....here comes the last generation

[emald]

25. this was no mistake

it is another of GWdumbshits "decisions" to overrule us folks who still haven't bought their religious bs. this surely is not a mistake, at least I'll be surprised if it was.

[stepnw1f]

26. Proof of Fundimentalists Attacking Education

proof they should never be allowed in our political system.

[depakid]

45. I actually agree with this

Particularly as it relates to people obsessed with the rapture.

[Harry Monroe]

28. "Inadvertent" my ass!!!!

Bullshit!!!!!! Another lie from this Administration and another step backwards to the Dark Ages. We're FUCKED if the Democrats fail to take back Congress in November and the White House in 2008!!!

[Ilsa]

30. Okay, let's all sing together:

"It's beginning to look alot like Kansas!
Or maybe, Afghanistan!"
The Taliban is proud
That Fundie voices are so loud
As we morph into the Taliban!"

(Tune: It's Beginning to Look Alot Like Christmas)

[HereSince1628]

32. As a biologist I am just not gonna get excited about this.

At the undergraduate level evolution is pretty seamlessly integrated into courses so that evolution needn't be and usually isn't presented as an undergraduate "field of study."

At the graduate level where there typically are courses and seminars that break out evolution as its own area the students are usually funded via research or teaching stipends.

I find much scarier the push of many undergraduate colleges to make their biology programs into bio-tech, pre-medicine, nursing and health curricula. Most biology seniors can recite the Hardy-Weinberg laws but can't recognize a sedge when they see one.

[hunter]

38. Not the degree I graduated with, but certainly my "field of study."

I took paleontology and a number of evolutionary biology courses. Evolutionary biology was offered as a major, and I think it was an important one, as it distinguished you from the assembly line pre-meds who were setting themselves up for careers in the health care field. A degree in Botany would be a similar thing.

I would get excited about this -- they are trying to turn off yet another intellectual light in the world. This is a veiled message to future science teachers, the biologists most likely to choose a major of Evolutionary Biology, to shut up.

It is a deliberate policy of the Bush Administration to "disappear" information and intellectual lines of inquiry that conflict with their perverted ideology. They seek to dismantle every aspect of the government that they perceive as against them. The damage they have done to public health and environmental agencies has reached the point where disaster is probably now inevitable. They didn't like the number on the pressure gages so they taped them over, and they didn't like the hissing of the pressure relief valve so they wired it shut. This ship is doomed.

[Jankyn]

41. Sedges...

...have edges!

(English major with a delightful botany class)

[HereSince1628]

44. Yeah, and sedge meadows are the most endangered habitat in

Wisconsin. One in one hundred kids who graduate with a biology related major could recognize a sedge meadow or even have a clue of in what sort of conditions they occur.

We can't save what we don't care about, we can't care about what we don't know...

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

53. If that's true...

it's fine with me if the actual departments decide not to include it on their list of majors.

However, removing it by government officials from lists of majors supported by grants for low income students is absolutely horrible.

[HereSince1628]

62. Yes, horrible and an insertion into higher education that isn't welcome

but at the same time it is a problem that actually impacts relatively few students and is gonna be easy to fix once we get rid of this conservative administration.

[Ilsa]

34. So, what major is taking its place? Ark Design? nt

[Thoreau-Ly]

35. Strategic Rapture Planning

n/t

[LuckyLib]

37. This is happening in every corner of the * administration. This

government defines what is knowledge, what is science, and what "evidence based criteria" must be used to determine what is studied and what is funded. Medicine, education, labor, interior, it's all being manipulated. It will take decades to undo all the insanity they have crafted in the past 6 years.

[ElboRuum]

39. The biggest question about evolution vs. creation

At least to me, the biggest question about evolution vs. creation is what precisely is the difference to the average person? I mean, think about it, people who are against evolution take this whole thing very personally. What is precisely the difference if your entire species evolved from a simpler life form, or if it was zapped into existence by the Almighty?

How does this materially affect anyone who isn't directly involved in its implications?

Do you still have/did you still have parents?
Do you still not know which came first, the chicken or the egg?
Is your dickhead uncle still a dickhead?

Say you were descended from a sponge, or a sloth, or whatever. Does that really bother you? How can it when everyone you see is in the same boat, whether it's the Beagle, or Noah's Ark?

People interested in truth should have no personal vested interest in what it turns out to be. Nothing changes in your life regardless of that truth. You still exist. You still have bills to pay. You still have to deal with the fact that your spouse is mad at you for something. You still have to deal with the fact that your front lawn grows nothing but crabgrass. You still have to change the oil in your car every so often.

There are concerns that need your attention and how the human race came to be genuinely and materially affects nothing.

So why is it so important that everyone believe that God did it all in 6 days?

P.S. I was going somewhere with this, but it got lost somewhere. If anyone finds my point, please return it. Thank you.

[lilypad_567]

46. ur point

i think that ur point is that weather or not you belive in creation or evolution, that you still have to deal with all the bs out there, so it dosn't really matter what you believe, we are all in this together

[ElboRuum]

50. That may have been it. Thx. n/t

[RaleighNCDUer]

69. The problem is, the fundigelicals (and a great many other theists)

do not live for this world, but for the next. They make decisions is this world, which affect this world, based upon their reward in the next world. There is, fundamentally, no difference between the christofascist who bans science, like evolution and stem cell research, because of his concept of what god wants and the islamofascist who blows himself up on a crowded bus because of his concept of what god wants -- except that maybe the bomber does a little less damage.

IOW, the only truth that 70% of the world's population is interested in is their own truth -- there is no emperical truth, for them. There is only god's truth, and their reward is in the next life if they believe strongly enough in this one.

IMO, religion was invented as a social control some 10,000 years ago, designed to keep people from questioning the actions of their self-appointed leaders. Little has changed, since then.

[lilypad_567]

47. the thorcrat

will, if you think that the evoultion thing is scary, go to the website below, and you will be scared to death. look at what 10% of the population are planning to do to the rest of the 90% of america, especially pastor d. james kenndy said at the reclaming america for christ 2005 conference:

Our job is to reclaim America for Christ, whatever the cost. As the vice regents of God, we are to exercise godly dominion and influence over our neighborhoods, our schools, our government, our literature and arts, our sports arenas, our entertainment media, our news media, our scientific endeavors -- in short, over every aspect and institution of human society.

oh there is more, look at what they have done to ohio:

The Ohio Restoration Project was founded:

to identify and train thousands of "Patriot Pastors" to get out the conservative religious vote next year. According to press reports, the leader of the movement -- the senior pastor of a large church in suburban Columbus -- casts the 2006 elections as an apocalyptic clash between "the forces of righteousness and the hordes of hell." more

One of the stated goals of the Ohio Restoration Project is to get Ohio's Secretary of State, Kenneth Blackwell, elected Governor in 2006. Blackwell has authored a plan for "Civic Renewal" that is featured on Ohio's official government web site. Katherine Yurica's stunning article calls this new document:

... a Dominionist document: a religious treatise in secular terms, but dominionist to the core. It's a brilliant little package to get millions of evangelical Christians and their friends to accept authoritarian government without even a whisper of protest

How did this happen?

Voter apathy is key to the phenomenal ascent of the theocratic right in the U.S. government.

With the apathy that exists today, a small, well-organized minority can influence the selection of candidates to an astonishing degree. (Pat Robertson, The Millennium, 1990)
Robertson tells us who makes up that "well-organized minority." It includes only Christians who share his point of view. As he said on his television program, the 700 Club:

"You say you're supposed to be nice to the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians and the Methodists, and this and that and the other thing. Nonsense! I don't have to be nice to the spirit of the Antichrist." (Rob Boston, Pat Robertson, the Most Dangerous Man in America?, Prometheus Books, 1996, p. 149.)

"The apathy of other Americans can become a blessing and advantage to Christians," wrote Mark Beliles and Stephen McDowell in 1989 in America's Providential History, a popular textbook for Christian schools and the Christian homeschool movement.

If just 10% of all Christians in America today woke up and realized how easy it is, got involved consistently for the long haul, it would not take long to reform America completely. (p.266)

For the authors, the term "Christian" refers uniquely to people who share their biblical worldview. The word "reform" is key. It means reforming the United States so that it becomes a "Christian" nation

[Odin2005]

48. Fuck, I'm a Biology major who gets Pell grants.

This better be an accident.

[civildisoBDence]

49. I DID do my homework, I swear,

but the dog ate it.

News and commentary, left to right

[Barrett808]

52. I downloaded the document, and it is just as NYT describes it

The doc is at http://ifap.ed.gov/dpcletters/attachments/GEN0606A.pdf.

It sure looks like 26.1303 has been elided. Seems unlikely to have been accidental.

[reprobate]

54. Let me point out that a belief system based on folk tales from the ...

neolithic and early bronze ages is NOT one which should be guiding our way in the Information technology age.

While the rest of the industrialized world is advancing towards more environmental and medical knowledge, we, the United Corporate States of america are proving evolution by publicly DEvolving. The world is watching us and muttering "What fools these yanks be!". And you know what? They're right, but we have no control over it. It's interesting that in France, one of the BIG followers of Catholisism, the church is closing many parishes because they can't find enough priests to lead them. All over europe people are turning away from the fable of a bronze age people and turning to a more rational model of belief system.

Meanwhile, here in the good old "My great grandma believed it, my grandma believed it, so I believe it", AKA "My minds made up. Don't confuse me with facts." USA, we deny what our eyes show us and our minds tell us is true.

Now THAT'S the definition of STUPID!

[formercia]

59. All brought to you by

the people who said the Earth was flat and center of the Universe.

[Kailassa]

57. a K&R from Australia.

My biggest fear for Australia is that we will keep following America's lead.

[CatholicEdHead]

67. I listen to ABC Radio National via Podcast

and I would have to agree to you on this. :(

[kenfrequed]

58. I suspect

It is possible that this omission is preperation for a demand to introduce a "compromise" on including both evolution and ID (Intellectual Dishonesty).

But that's just a smoke screen.

It will be a cheap Rove stunt to energize the conservative base. The religious right will cover it on CBN and the Republicans in congress will make a big press thing out of it demanding equal time and talking about religious discrimination. It will be "The war on Christmas II: Fox News strikes back."

It would be best if someone slapped them up preemptively. Find a case of persecution BY Christians. It really shouldn't be that hard to do.

[RaleighNCDUer]

73. I suspect you're right.

And Welcome to DU!

:hi:

[nam78_two]

63. wtf???!!!

:wtf:

This kind of stuff makes me so :grr: :grr: :grr:

They want to kill science I tell you...kill it!

:mad: :mad:

[mahatmakanejeeves]

70. It was "Left Behind"

That's my guess.