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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 15, 1987)
Editorial_ — r Nebrayskan University ot Nebraska-Line oln Mike Keilley, Editor, 472-1766 Jeanne Bourne, Editorial Page Editor Jann Nyffeler, Associate News Editor Scott Harrah, Night News Editor Joan Rezac, Copy Desk Chief Linda Hartmann, Wire Editor Charles Lieurance, Asst. A & E Editor Academic probation Advisers must help, before it's too late Twelve percent of the un de rgraduate student population was placed on academic probation at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln last spnng — a figure that UNL advisers should take note of. This figure is up 2 percent from the previous year, while enrollment has decreased 3 per cent, showing a need for more discipline in the advising ranks. James Griesen, vice chancel lor for student affairs, cited fi nancial difficulties, emotional problems and lack of discipline as causes But that 's not all. Part of the problem lies with the advising 1 — or lack of it — that UNL students receive. Many students drift through their college careers without ever seeing their advisers. Even when they have problems, stu dents are notified by mail with the suggestion to go see their adviser. This “suggestion" is ridicu lous. Students having problems need help immediately. Most students probably don't take advantage of this suggestion, but they would if it were a requirement. Once students meet with ad visers, their top priority shouldn’t be just to raise their grade point average, but to get to the root of those problems Gric sen mentioned earlier. By the a time a student is on probation, it’s a little late to worry just about raising grades. Usually, grade problems arc a by-product of other problems. These suggestions will re quire much extra work. Advis ers can complain about being overburdened, but lack of per- | sonal communication only con tributes to more problems. If students aren’t guided through this maze of bureaucracy we call the university, they can get lost. And by the way, career advis ing also needs work. Students who want to major in a certain area may not have what it takes to keep them there, hence, poor grades. If they were advised in the beginning, they would have saved lime and money. Endless summer ends; LA tries new plan Lazy days of summer va cation arc over for grade-school and high school students in Los Angeles, the nation’s second-largest school district. The district's board of education voted Mon day to put all of its 600,(XX) students on year-round sched ules beginning in July 1989. Although opponents have lashed out against the system, proponents point to some no table reasons why three-month vacations may be on the way out in coming decades. Overcrowding prompted the Los Angeles board to adopt the new schedule. Students there will attend classes for two months, lake 20 days off and return to school. In some schools, four groups of students will be put on rotating schedules so that one group is on vacation while the other three attend school. Officials say this will allow them to accommodate about one-third more students. Although overcrowding may not be as big a problem in most Nebraska school districts, there arc oilier reasons why Nebras kans should consider the year round system. Charles Ballinger of the Na tional Association for Year Round Education said the tradi tional school calendar was de signed for the more agricultural I_ society of the 19th century, so students could help harvest crops and put food on farm families’ tables. “There is no education value in the calendar at all,” Ballinger said. Students with a long break in the summer are more apt to forget material and get out of a studious frame of mind, essen tially taking two steps forward and a step back. Students on year-round plans have a more evenly paced education. Critics say putting students from the same family on differ ent schedules will disrupt fam ily life and complicate child care. Students who need to make money also may have a harder lime finding jobs for just a few weeks at a time, instead of for three months. But the 67 schwils nation wide that are already on year round schedules are faring well, Ballinger said. And officials Irotn these schools predict jobs will be easier to lind when all of the working students aren’t looking for them at the same time. As we near the 21st century, an educational model that draws away from the 19th-century re quirements of a more rural soci ety and emphasizes well-paced, consistent learning is worth a close kxik from Nebraska edu cators. Letter Policy The Daily Nebraskan welcomes brief letters to the editor from all readers and interested others. Letters will be selected for publica tion on the basis of clarity, originality, timeliness and space available. The Daily Nebraskan retains the right to edit all material submitted. Science vs. creation: Issues one in same; evidence of both must be fairly debated Few debates in the pages of this Readable and Adept Gazette have been as inter esting to me as the recent flurry of letters in response to a column by Chris McCubbin a couple of weeks ago on creation science. Defenders of what Albert Einstein called “The Religion of Science” have come out of the Bunsen burners to defend the au tonomy of their sacred cow against the recent invasion from the ranks of learned colleagues who dare to be lieve in the divinity of anything but matter and energy. It has been, to borrow a phrase from Soren Kirkegaard, a most unscientific post script. I have found that very few who decry the creation science movement have any idea what the movement is about. This is evident from the afore mentioned letters. To couch the crea tion science issue in terms of science vs. religion is simply to reveal one’s ignorance and unwillingness to inves tigate what is a fascinating issue in the theory of origins. Creation science is just that — a science. I will admit that it is in es sence a “guerrilla warfare” analogue to normal science, and this often shrouds the intensity and importance of the data it discusses. Most creation scientists understand themselves to be apologists — soldiers in a war for the m inds of the world. The evidence they present, the questions they ask and the theories they propound arc often ad hot and piecemeal, and this contrib utes to the suspn. ion that theirs is not as honorable a discipline as the sterile ivory-tower ponlifications of the evo lutionary scientists. They are the reb els — the revolutionary forces wear ing moth-eaten uniforms and mount ing offenses with inferior weapons and non-existent funds. But that docs not make their questions any less important, their evidence any less empirical or their methodology any less scientific. 1 have found that most science purists have no idea what the evidence of the creation scientist even looks like. There is an unscientific dedica tion to the postulation that no evi dence could call the evolutionary hypothesis into question, so the crea tionist could have no such evidence. Consequently, on rare occasions, evolutionists agree to debate the is sues, as occurred in Omaha recently. They go in unprepared and unjustifia bly cocky, only to find themselves at the mercy of a top-grade scientist who can ask unanswerable questions and present insurmountable evidence against the supposed truth of Darwin ism. ’Tis a strange way indeed to do “unbiased science.” James Sennett One must ask why the antiseptic veneer of contemporary science is so uncharacteristically appalled at the creation science movement. There arc many reasons, none of them scientific. Perhaps the most telling, however, is that if the creation scientists arc right — or even if their evidence is worthy of consideration — serious questions about the supposed autonomy of sci ence arc raised. Creation science is a sub-species of a general theory known as catastro phism. Catastrophism proposes that much of the accounting of the present condition of the earth and the universe is explainable through the postulation of great catastrophes in natural his tory. Another sub-species of catastro phism that has received a lot of press lately is the meteorite theory to ex plain the extinction of dinosaurs. All of these theories have one thing in common: They deny the doctrine of umformiiarianism — the thesis that all natural processes have continued throughout the history of the world exactly as wc observe them today. Catastrophism suggests that sudden or unpredicted interruptions of those processes may account better for the condition of the world we find today than the postulation of their uninter rupted continuation. Creation scientists, for example, have offered a great deal of mathe matical and experimental evidence that a worldwide Hood, such as the one described in Genesis, was possible and cou Id account for much of the data normally attributed to uniformitaria;. processes over billions of years. In addition, the theory also accounts for many troubling issues in uniformitar ian ( >gma, such as the ice ages and the formation of mountains and conn nents. The arguments, if not air-tight, are at least worthy of response from the general scientific community. Bm all that has been forthcoming is den sion, innuendo and character assail nation. Human beings always react most violently when their most treasured beliefs and dogmas arc threatened. In the 1950s and 1960s, Christians screamed as decision after decision ate away at the society they had come to love. Someare fighting back—and using the arena of the scientist to do it — and it is now the naturalist and the secularist who cry “foul.” The facade of unified testimony against tradi tional theories of origins is cracking, and a lot of people don’t like it. In a groundswcll of what a friend of mine has labeled “thcophobia, those who would rather protect the ortho doxy than study the issues have taken pen in hand and lawyer to court in an effort to protect what once wascertain and now is at best debatable. If wc arc truly dedicated to the impartiality of scientific reseat h and the admission of any defensible data and theory into the arena of discourse, wc will cease this childish name ail ing and sit down to discuss the issues like adults. If the evidence docs not allow us toclosc the universe off from the hand of God — as the religion of science would demand that wc do then let that be the consequence v, uh which wc must live. The universe . as here long before wc decided that il was self-sufficient. I don’t think il will bo interested in changing its structure just to suit our prejudices. Sennett is a graduate student in philosophy and campus minister with College Career C hristian fel lowship. Letters Bikers must obey laws of the road Laura Hansen seems to have a chip on her shoulder — one that is at least a Cadillac wide. If she really believes (as slated in a letter to the editor, Daily Nebraskan, Oct. 12) that bicyclists are law -abid ing, civic-minded citizens, then most of her spokes arc loose. True, bicyclist don’t pollute the air with fumes, don’t need more roads, more downtown parking or oil Irom the Persian Gulf. Some don’t even shoot other riders in fits of frustration over traffic jams. And, for the most part, they hurt only themselves when they drive drunk. But it I wanted to go somew here in Lincoln and arrive there safely, 1 would never trust a bicyclist to gel me there without a scratch. Why? Lincoln's bicyclists, at least most of them, are negligent drivers who be lievc in anarchy of the roadways. Cyclists often weave between cars at intersections at their own conven ience. The result is often a near-colli sion with an automobile and the bicy clist is sent flying onto someone’s lawn because he or she has run through a stop sign or violated any of the other traffic laws. Perhaps, Hansen, you don’t realize that traffic laws arc not applied only to operators of automobiles and otfvr motorized vehicles. They also apply to to pedestrians and bicyclists. In your view, it only seems that bicy clists are being harassed by the police. You may see u that way because your racing helmet has been pulled over your eyes. If there has been an increase in citations to bicyclists, then the Lin coln Police Department is finally enforcing the laws as they were meant to he enforced — applying them to all vehicles and pedestrians on the road. And another thing, Hansen, you and the rest of the two wheeled road warriors aren’t being persecuted. You don’t even come close. The Romans persecuted the early Christians. Hiller persecuted the Jews. The Lincoln Police Department docs not persecute bicyclists. As soon as a bicyclist is thrown to the lions lor weaving through traffic or sent to a death camp (or running a rod light, then I will agree with you. Until then, you’ve got no right to whine. In comparison, you’ve got it easy. If you wish to ride on the same streets as the rest ol us, I suggest you and the other anarchist crybabies learn and obey the trallic laws, and stop whining when you get a well deserved ticket. Karl Vogel senior news-editor ial motorist Some not served by DN want ads Students should be able to express their preferences for the type of room mates they want in their student news paper, yet not all students at the Uni versity of Ncbraska-Lincoln are al lowed to do this. Members of the Gay-Lesbian Stu dent Association have filed a lawsuit against the Daily Nebraskan (Daily Nebraskan, Sept. 28) for not allowing them this service. Other students an state that they want a male, female, smoker or non-smoker for a room male; so what is the difference? I he difference is that homosexual people arc not yet accepted in our community as others arc. This is like printing that only white or black people can eat in or go to certain places. The only difference is that racial discrimination has been outlawed. Maybe some where there is a person looking l<' other homosexuals to live with. Mosi people would not want to call around to houses asking people if they would accept diem in spite of their sexuai preferences. The want ads are loi providing a service to UNL students, but obviously the Daily Nebraskan is not willing to do that for all the stu dents. Kim Larson freshman undeclared Editorial Policy Editorials do not necessarily reflect the views of the university, its employ ees, the students or the Nil Board of Regents. The Daily Nebraskan’s publishers are the regents, who established the UNL Publications Board to supervise the daily production of the paper.
