Plenty of depressing news today.
Of more than 900 teachers who responded to a poll conducted by Penn State University political scientist Michael Berkman and colleagues, 32% agreed that creationism and intelligent design should be taught as scientifically unsound. Forty percent said that such explanations are religiously valid but inappropriate for science class.
However, 25% said they devoted classroom time to creationism or intelligent design. Of these, about one-half — 12% of all teachers — called creationism a “valid scientific alternative to Darwinian explanations for the origin of species,” and the same number said that “many reputable scientists view these as valid alternatives to Darwinian theory.”
- Wired Science: One in Eight High School Teachers Still Teach Creationism
Apparently the rulings of the Supreme Court, the highest court in the land, don’t mean anything anymore.
Of the 939 who responded, 2% said they did not cover evolution at all, with the majority spending between 3 and 10 classroom hours on the subject.
- New Scientist: 16% of US Science Teachers are Creationists
Three and ten hours?! Evolution is the basic fundamental platform that all of modern biology and medical science rests upon and they only cover it for three to ten hours? No wonder why our kids are blithering idiots! Our teachers are blithering idiots!
When Berkman’s team asked about the teachers’ personal beliefs, about the same number, 16% of the total, said they believed human beings had been created by God within the last 10,000 years.
Teachers who subscribed to these young-Earth creationist views, perhaps not surprisingly, spent 35% fewer hours teaching evolution than other teachers, the survey revealed.
The survey also showed that teachers who had taken more science courses themselves – and especially those who had taken a course in evolutionary biology – devoted more class time to evolution than teachers with weaker science backgrounds.
- New Scientist
ATTENTION PARENTS OF PUBLIC SCHOOL STUDENTS:
Many public schools have “open house” days toward the beginning of the year. Many parents don’t go to these events. If you have a child in school and you care about their education, GO! If you missed the event or you don’t know when it is, call your child’s school and make an appointment to meet with your child’s science teacher. Go to the school and ask your child’s biology or geology teachers how many science courses they have taken. Ask them how much time they are going to devote to the teaching of evolution. Ask them how old the Earth is. Ask them if they will be studying the principles of natural selection. Ask them if they will accept incorrect answers on tests and quizzes if they are religiously sensitive. Ask them if evolution will even be on any tests and quizzes.
The problem is bigger than most like to think. I had a great biology teacher in high school, but she never touched the subject of evolution. She accepted and understood evolution, but she was scared of her religious students. I did not get any sort of decent education on evolution until I started reading Dawkins and Gould for myself. Don’t let your kids go through the same shit.
The study’s authors note that courtroom victories — classroom creationism has consistently been struck down in U.S. courts – [are] apparently insufficient to guarantee an accurate depiction of evolution. Neither will rigorous state science standards, like those recently passed in Florida, do the trick. Instead they recommend teacher certification requiring the completion of an evolutionary biology course.
- Wired Science
Wait a second… what? Biology teachers aren’t already required to take courses on evolutionary biology? Seriously? Jesus Fucking Christ! Would you go to a doctor who was not required to take at least a few courses on pharmaceuticals? Would you hop into a cab with a cab driver who didn’t take at least a few hours of drivers’ education courses? Why the hell would you send your child to learn biology from someone who hasn’t taken a course on evolution?
If you’re not outraged yet, read on.
In what could be a major change in public school policy in Tennessee, the “Bible in Schools Act,” sponsored by Sen. Roy Herron, D-Dresden, has passed the State Senate by a unanimous vote.
The bill authorizes the State Board of Education to create a non-sectarian high school course about the Bible and its impact on the world.
“Our government school teachers cannot constitutionally preach the Bible, but they can teach the Bible,” Herron said.
“I want students to study the greatest and most popular book in history. I want young people to understand how the Bible has enormously impacted literature, art, music, culture, history and politics. A Bible course will help students understand our culture and our highest and best values.”
Currently, 78 of Tennessee’s 95 counties do not have a single high school offering Bible courses. “There are school systems all over the state that are afraid to offer a course about the Bible because they’re afraid of being sued,” Herron said. “But the First Amendment does not require students to leave their Bibles at home, and the First Amendment does not require hostility to the Bible or faith.”
Prior to passage of the “Bible in Schools Act,” Herron and House sponsor Rep. Mark Maddox, D-Dresden, obtained an opinion from the state’s attorney general that the proposed legislation is constitutional. The attorney general commended the bill for going to “considerable lengths in order to comply with Supreme Court opinions on religious materials in public schools.’”
The bill is not exclusive, and it will not interfere with the few existing courses.
It will, however, make the Bible course a state-approved elective and no longer will school boards have to apply for a special course through the state Department of Education.
The “Bible in Schools Act” is scheduled to be heard by the full House today (Tuesday).
Check out the language here: “a non-sectarian high school course about the Bible.” Notice it is not a secular course on the Bible. Non-sectarian does not mean secular. Non-sectarian is still religious. All it means is that Protestants and Catholics can both go to class without getting upset at each other. This is a non-sectarian Christian class that will teach the Bible as truth. Don’t believe me? Move to Tennessee for a few months and get back to me then.
Let’s look at this quote.
“Our government school teachers cannot constitutionally preach the Bible, but they can teach the Bible.” WRONG. You cannot “teach the Bible.” You may teach about the Bible. You may teach about how it was written, by men, or you may teach about its cultural impacts. You may not “teach the Bible,” in any Christian understanding of the term. Growing up in church, I was often told to “teach the Bible”–exact same phrase–to my friends at school to get them to come to church and accept Jesus.
“I want students to study the greatest and most popular book in history.” WRONG. Why is the Bible, a self-contradicting, committee-authored, historically inaccurate book, the “greatest book in history?” Are you considering that the book was used to justify the Crusades, the witch trials, the Holocaust, the KKK, the murder of countless doctors and scientists over the years and thousands of wars? Wow! What a great book! Let’s teach the kids that it’s true and maybe they’ll grow up to do great things too! Like kill the Jews and blacks!
“I want young people to understand how the Bible has enormously impacted literature, art, music, culture, history and politics.” Okay… no problem here. However, this would best be done as a chapter in a history or literature class. A comparative religion class might even be good.
“A Bible course will help students understand our culture and our highest and best values.” WRONG WRONG WRONG! The Bible does not contain our highest values. We contain our highest values. We can cherry pick the Bible to find things that make it seem to mirror the values we have already chosen for ourselves through out natural ethical sense and the cultural moral zeitgeist. We can’t, however, take our morals from the Bible. Slavery, misogyny, racism, homophobia, murder, rape, genocide, theft, torture, genital mutilation… unless if these are your highest values, the Bible is not where you get your values from.
“the First Amendment does not require hostility to the Bible or faith.”
Actually, the First Amendment, as interpreted repeatedly by the Supreme Court, requires that schools not teach the Bible or any faith as holding any priority over any other religious text or faith. Unless you are holding a Qur’an class and a Bhagavad Gita class, no Bible class.
You’re not going to do it correctly or legally, so don’t do it at all. Keep the Bible out of our schools.
If you’re still not outraged, you hate children.
“If you have a child in school and you care about their education, GO! If you missed the event or you don’t know when it is, call your child’s school and make an appointment to meet with your child’s science teacher. Go to the school and ask your child’s biology or geology teachers how many science courses they have taken. Ask them how much time they are going to devote to the teaching of evolution. Ask them how old the Earth is. Ask them if they will be studying the principles of natural selection. Ask them if they will accept incorrect answers on tests and quizzes if they are religiously sensitive. Ask them if evolution will even be on any tests and quizzes.”
FUCKING SIGNED.
I did this at the last open house, as this is my kids’ first year in public schools and I was very, very worried about it. We live in a fairly christian community (I am the only jew in the municipality, I think, and almost certainly the only atheist in my neighborhood), so I think I had a right to worry.
Fortunately, the science teacher in the middle school is an absolute science FREAK. He and I bonded on Bad Astronomy and he bitched about intelligent design…. so I felt pretty good about it.
If nothing else, knowing what they’re teaching, as a parent, is comforting. If they AREN’T teaching evolution and instead are working on indoctrination with pseudoscience crap, it’s best to know as soon as possible in order to know how to handle it.
1: Call the principal and complain.
2: Call the school board and complain.
3: Call the local TV stations.
4: Torch the teacher’s house.
5: Wait…. no. Don’t do 4. Ever. That won’t help the cause (well, it might, actually – but you’ll be in jail, you fucktard)
Comment by jeremy — 20 May 2008 @ 4:50 pm
Those theistards need to be removed from the gene pool. NOW!
Comment by Evolved Rationalist — 20 May 2008 @ 5:39 pm
Wow, evolved rationalist, that’s pretty extreme.
I was joking about the torching of a house. you sound serious. How would you like to do it? Forced sterilizations? Gas chambers?
You do realize that you are advocating mass murder, right?
Comment by jeremy — 21 May 2008 @ 9:18 am
Jeremy, I think you’re missing the tongue-in-cheek tone of what she said. I know ER well enough to know she doesn’t condone the wholesale murder of creationists, although her alarmist and blackly humorous style of writing sometimes makes it seem that way.
Comment by Rev. Reed Braden — 21 May 2008 @ 2:30 pm
Reed, I do so hope that you have a basic understanding of statistics and know that stats can be manipulated to show just about whatever you want. Even at the source site, the writer concedes in the responses that some of his stats were misrepresentative. All going to show that even at the statistical level, the level of paranoia may be a little overblown.
On the idea that “Evolution is the basic fundamental platform that all of modern biology and medical science rests upon,” it seems you are saying that if the theory of evolution is not firmly ingrained in a person’s mind they can’t be good biologists or doctors. Really? My dad is an OB/GYN and evolution rarely comes up, I assure you. He has a better grasp of anatomy than you or I, has to spend a fair amount of time staying up to date on new procedures and studies, and employ standard diagnosis procedures constantly. Never has the issue of whether we share a common ancestor with apes, meerkats, or Gray Birch trees come into play. Knowledge of evolution isn’t what keeps people from being “blithering idiots.”
Comment by Trey — 21 May 2008 @ 2:36 pm
Trey, whether it’s 1/4 of all teachers who teach creationism or 1/100 of teachers, it’s illegal and wrong. No child in our schools should be taught that evolution is on the same plane, factually, as creationism. It seems that Bush’s party is now the one leaving children behind in school.
And a firm grip on evolution is the basis for all biological knowledge. You don’t have to be a biologist to be an OB/GYN. You don’t need to know much about the human genome and its vast similarities with other animal genomes to play with vaginae. Nor will that knowledge help a person flip burgers and retire twelve years after they die of old age. However, because not everyone needs to know evolution to survive is not an excuse to gloss over it, ignore it, or teach contrary to it in our public schools. If we only taught people what they needed to know for the majority of jobs in America, we could stop teaching after 4th grade.
I also didn’t say that evolution is the one thing keeping people from being blithering idiots. Francis Collins, head of the Human Genome Project, believes in the talking snake. Case in point. However, those who think that the Earth is 6,000 years old and life was created as it is today are blithering idiots. They aren’t the only blithering idiots out there–there are those who have a very firm grasp of evolutionary biology who believe that they have been abducted by aliens, although they are few in number–but they are blithering idiots.
Comment by Rev. Reed Braden — 21 May 2008 @ 4:44 pm
And, yes, evolution is the basis of biology and medicine. Take a flu shot from 1995 if you don’t believe me.
Comment by Rev. Reed Braden — 21 May 2008 @ 4:47 pm
“You do realize that you are advocating mass murder, right?”
No shit, Sherlock!
Comment by Evolved Rationalist — 21 May 2008 @ 6:13 pm
Reed, as the article should have pointed out, there is a difference between creationism and intelligent design. There is very little “creationism” being taught straight up, as they would say at a bar. Then you go and blame Bush for kids being stupid, when I think we both know that American kids are very much pampered, chock full of entitlement issues, and more interested in climbing the social ladder then actually learning anything.
And you did reference both medical sciences and pharmaceuticals in your rant; neither of which is strictly biological. Then you changed to biological knowledge alone in your response. I’m pretty sure the allure of the female genitalia for my dad may be roughly around the same as a gay man like yourself, but we haven’ really had that father/son conversation yet. And c’mon man, let’s not belittle my dad’s profession as “playing with vaginae” and comparing it to flipping burgers.
And I think we can agree on your point to neither gloss over or ignore evolution, though I wouldn’t have a problem teaching something contrary if it had a solid basis. It has its place, and certainly more people should have a good knowledge of it, even if it is to show its flaws. I also think we should teach more then just what kids “want” to know. Suck it up, kids. You don’t even know what you should know.
Oh yeah, and there is a difference between the flu virus adapting and “evolving” and the belief that all living and non-living things have a common ancestor.
Comment by Trey — 22 May 2008 @ 12:37 am
“Creation means that the various forms of life began abruptly through the agency of an intelligent creator with their distinctive features already intact. Fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, and wings, etc.”
“Intelligent design means that various forms of life began abruptly through an intelligent agency, with their distinctive features already intact. Fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, wings, etc.”
WHOA! BIG difference! Holy Intelligent Agency, Batman!
And, again, nowhere did I say Bush was the only reason. However, he has been very, very helpful to the anti-evolution movement. Video games, television and lack of reading contributes very much to the dumbing-down of America’s youth, but the Bush administration (remember… I’m a pseudo-Republican, so this isn’t your average liberal Bush hating) has its fair share of the blame. Clinton’s pandering to religion did a lot of harm too, so he’s not off the hook, but Bush took the cake with pandering to religion and helping religious people choke our children with idiocy.
Medical (biology focussed on human health) and pharmaceutical (chemistry, specifically how it reacts with the human body) sciences aren’t biological sciences? Really? What are they then?
I was also not equating OB/GYNs with fry cooks in any way except that a firm knowledge of evolution isn’t all that necessary for either career. Vaginae don’t evolve too terribly much in the course of a crotch doctor visit. “Playing with vaginae” was not meant to be belittling as much as it was meant to be humorous. Now that I know your dad is a crotch doctor, you won’t hear the end of it.
I wouldn’t have a problem teaching other scientific theories contrary to evolution with a solid basis either. However, ID/creationism has not solid basis. The “science” of ID is roughly, “Let’s find holes in evolution and use that to tell kids it’s wrong while offering no credible alternative and ignoring the massive amount of evidence that is undeniable to anyone who understands it.”
I don’t know where you’re getting, “teach more than what kids ‘want’ to know,” from. No one takes opinion polls of students to find out what they want to learn. Very few kids want to learn evolution. However, they should have to learn it and learn it well. The kids have to learn algebra; they have to learn evolution.
Your last sentence makes me sad.
Adaptation is, essentially, evolution. When something adapts to survive, it’s evolving. Also, evolution ONLY deals with living things. Evolution does not even speculate on non-living things or the origin of life. The theory of life coming from non-life is abiogenesis. The theory of non-life (rocks) being “related”–in the absolute loosest sense of the word–to life (bananas, chimps, George W. Bush) is covered in physics and cosmology (specifically, the origin of our universe). You can accept every single detail of evolution and still believe whole-heartedly that God or Thor or Reed Braden started it all in the beginning. You’d be an idiot for thinking so (using rational thought for every detail except the first one), but you would stil, technically, not be ‘doing it wrong’ by strictly evolutionlary standards.
Comment by Rev. Reed Braden — 22 May 2008 @ 1:03 am
Where did you get those definitions? Here is my take on the two. Creationism is a religious belief rooted and tied to a sacred text. While there is difference in how the creation happened, the root belief is that a supernatural being created life. Intelligent design, though some creationist have flocked to it, is a scientific movement that says that life as it exists on earth today could not have arisen simply through chance and natural selection (i.e. evolution). ID proponents say that the evidence points to an intelligent agency, which could just as much be an alien as God. Like evolution, ID doesn’t really help with first causes, because all it is looking at is life on earth. Life on other planets or of our alien creators could be very different.
My apologies if I took your statement to mean that Bush is primarily to blame for leaving our children behind. I do think we place blame a little differently. You point to Bush, video games, television, lack of reading, etc. as the cause, and I think those are just symptoms. As one commentator put it, Americans are “amusing themselves to death.” The interesting thing is that we have the problem of working ourselves to death as well. Competitiveness for colleges, jobs, advancement has made people so cutthroat that they willingly overwork themselves, load themselves down with excessive extra-curriculars, and worship at the altar of productivity and efficiency. Not on point, but just a thought I had.
I said “strictly biological.” Perhaps not the best word choice, but what I meant was they are more pragmatic in their use of biology as opposed to the more theoretical branches. In neither case is it imperative that the practitioner believe that all living things evolved from a common ancestor over billions of years. Stretching a understanding of the adaptation of viruses necessitate they be hardcore evolutionary biologists.
Welcome to party of people I know that find it humorous what my father does.
I was getting the “teach kids more than just what the want to learn” from the growing preoccupation with vocational/pragmatic studies. I’m sure you’ve heard of struggles Arts departments have had with funding or seen the masses flocking to a university’s business/law/medical college, while the liberal arts continue to shrink. Success is very narrowly defined these days, and it shows in our schools.
Comment by Trey — 22 May 2008 @ 11:00 am
You are right about evolution being different abiogenesis. I knew that, and think that one of evolution’s flaws is its explanation of first life, but I still shouldn’t make the two synonymous. Sorry about that. However, I will continue to disagree that adaptation is the same as large-scale evolution. Ignoring the distinction has been and is the chief reason for poor discussion between the two opposing views.
Comment by Trey — 22 May 2008 @ 11:11 am
ID is not scientific. ID starts with a rigid conclusion and looks for evidence to support it, ignoring all other evidence. Science starts with a flexible, falsifiable hypothesis and takes all evidence into consideration.
Here’s the definitions: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GqNxAzaWBo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_Pandas_and_People
Re: children working themselves to death, I agree. I’ve made that same point many times before. Most of my friends are in IB and AP classes, have multiple extra-curricular activities and study for hours daily. I see the effect it has on them. But these are not generally the stupid ones. The stupid kids are the ones who take the light course load and “amuse themselves to death.” And there are more of them than the A+ students.
I’m not sure what a “hardcore” evolutionary biologist is. Are there “hardcore” gravitational physicists or “hardcore” theoretical cosmologists? May I assume that you mean “hardcore” as in someone who is very publicly vocal about their science? All scientists are “hardcore,” then, when their own field is in jeopardy by people who don’t understand it.
But, still, you don’t have to be an evolutionary biologist to be a doctor, and I never claimed that, but you must understand the basics of evolution to be a good doctor. A doctor must understand vestigial organs, common human problems as a result of imperfect “design,” the ability of bacteria and viruses to adapt to resist drugs and many other lessons that we learn from evolutionary biology. And saying that an adapting organism is an example of evolution is not stretching any definition of evolution or adaptation that I know of.
Comment by Rev. Reed Braden — 22 May 2008 @ 1:26 pm
This video focusses on the book more. It also features “cdesign proponentsists.”
Comment by Rev. Reed Braden — 22 May 2008 @ 2:00 pm
You’re a theologian, not a scientist. You have also shown that you don’t even know enough about evolution to call yourself a layperson. Whether you agree or disagree with any premise of evolutionary theory holds no sway on the theory whatsoever. Essentially, anything you have say about evolution is entirely inconsequential.
[karate chop]
Comment by Rev. Reed Braden — 22 May 2008 @ 2:14 pm
So, you pull your definitions from wikipedia and NCSE propaganda videos, huh? That is a complete misrepresentation of ID, as far as I know. The theory is based on the belief that there is a discernable difference between things that are designed and those that were not. I think the evidence points to a large amount of designed attributes, while you choose to believe chance and natural selection explain everything. If anything, evolution is the inflexible, rigid conclusion that forces evidence to conform to its outcome.
Simply disagreeing with you doesn’t mean that I know nothing about evolution. If those rules apply, then your opinion on philosophy/theology is now entirely inconsequential. I understand the premise to some extent, but I do disagree with the conclusions. You’re bald, 19-year old student, not a scientist.
[karate chop] deflected
[judo kick]
Comment by Trey — 22 May 2008 @ 2:58 pm
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