Latest Challenges to the Teaching of Evolution

It's an odd sort of smile if you study it with care.

Josh Rosenau of NCSE has published a law school journal article, "Leap of Faith: Intelligent Design after Dover".

A pdf copy can be found at:
http://www.stthomas.edu/law/programs/studentorgs/organizations/JLPP/Publications/Vol4num1/Rosenau%20formatted.pdf

Father wants biology book ban
(By Lola Alapo, Knoxville News-Sentinel, April 4, 2010)

A Farragut High School father is appealing the findings of a review committee that recommended the continued use of an honors biology textbook the man said has a questionable description of creationism.

Knox County Schools Superintendent Jim McIntyre is recommending that the Knox County school board hear Kurt Zimmermann’s request. But he’s also asking that the board uphold the review committee’s finding.

The matter will be among discussion items today during the board’s monthly work session. The board votes Wednesday on the appeal.

Zimmermann in December requested that school officials immediately remove the book “Asking About Life” from use in his son’s class as well as from all students’ use because it contains “a clear bias” by the authors against Christianity, according to documentation he submitted to school officials.

On page 319 of the text, the authors describe creationism as “the biblical myth that the universe was created by the Judeo-Christian God in 7 days.”

Zimmermann said the useof the word “myth” could “mislead, belittle and discourage students in believing in creationism and pointedly calls the Bible a myth.”

In place of this material, he recommended that “non-bias textbooks” be used.

Zimmermann could not be reached for comment.

As is protocol, school system officials established a textbook review committee comprising six members, including Farragut’s principal, a biology teacher, a parent and a student.

One reviewer’s first impression of creationism’s definition was similar to Zimmermann’s in that “the authors must be offensively biased against this Christian view of the world,” the reviewer wrote.

“Upon further investigation, however, I quickly realized there is more than one definition of the word ‘myth.’ In this case the word is used appropriately to describe a traditional or legendary story … with or without a natural explanation,” the reviewer wrote.

Another said the word “myth” has many uses and could be misinterpreted in the context of the book. The reviewer noted that “the author tends to ‘sensationalize’ a few concepts … possibly to stir one’s interest in the subject matter.”

A third said the writers used the word “myth” “for shock value.”

But the reviewers did not deem the material questionable and said they did not think the book should be banned.

The school board now must decide whether to affirm or revoke the committee’s findings.

McIntyre said, “I believe the outcome in this instance was appropriate.”

He added that this is the first time in his almost two-year tenure as superintendent that a parent has asked for a textbook ban.

“I think it’s relatively rare for it to come up before the board of education,” he said.

Nothing was sacred to Grant. As a freethinker, he saw no spiritual power behind nature's throne. The origin and evolution of life were due simply to physical and chemical forces, all obeying natural laws. Like his French heroes, the maligned Jean-Baptiste Lamark and Etienne Geoffrey St Hilaire--evolutionists both--he believed that a new imaginative vision was needed. But evolution was almost universally condemned by Church and scientific authorities. It was castigated as morally degenerate and subversive. Were men* to see themselves as brutes, they would act accordingly. God was the arch-paternalist, working through patrician priests; His beneficence flowed from His Church into society. If nature and culture were self-evolving, if the clergy could not point to miraculously created species as a sign of His power operating from above, the Church's legitimacy was undermined. The logic was stark-- even if it was rarely spelled out. The day people accepted that nature and society evolved unaided, the Church would crash, the moral fabric of society would be torn apart, and civilized man would return to savagery.

creationism as “the biblical myth that the universe was created by the Judeo-Christian God in 7 days.”

"Creationism was the prevailing theory concerning the origin and devlopment of life before the 20th century. In Creationism, which is derived from a Biblical account in Genesis 1:1, The earth was created and populated with all lifeforms in a single seven day period. Many religious doctrines still rely upon this theory as true and complete, however, geological and biological sciences, since the time of Darwin have presented evidence that life on the planet is related to all other life and that the main stems of these lifeforms actually did evolve and ants and alligators, sparrows and asparagus are all related by their biochemical barcode"

If nature and culture were self-evolving, if the clergy could not point to miraculously created species as a sign of His power operating from above, the Church's legitimacy was undermined. The logic was stark-- even if it was rarely spelled out. The day people accepted that nature and society evolved unaided, the Church would crash, the moral fabric of society would be torn apart, and civilized man would return to savagery.