Latest Challenges to the Teaching of Evolution

@farmerman,

Pennsylvania is fairly unique about educating it children, at least in the Montgomery County township in which I was educated, and I credit the 18th century Quakers for emphasizing its value to the community even before the nation was born.

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@msolga,

Quote:

Which other creation stories are taught at your children's local state primary school, Ionus? I'm curious to know.

They cover the Christian morality and briefly mention the Christian creation story. Aboriginee Dream Time is covered in a topic that I forget the name of but means our world in general. The Indonesian and Muslim creation stories are covered in Indonesian Language and Culture, along with Indonesian cooking and geography etc. All of these creation stories are briefly mentioned; they are not explored in any detail.

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I gather you're talking about inland Queensland when you talk about living in an Oz "bible belt"?

Yes.

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@kuvasz,

We have had to face a seriuos problem where some states were falling behind acceptable education standards and some groups, esp the military were having difficulty with their children's education simply because of moving between states. Interestingly, the USA has a constitution that guarantees the right of the individual - we dont - our constitution guarntees the rights of the states, nothing else - yet we are slowly dismantling the power of the states - the USA seems to be having trouble doing that, even though a common area for states would greatly improve things.

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@Ionus,

Interesting about the "Sates rights". We reserve certain rights to the states without itemizing them.
Id really like to compare elements of constitutional law among the countries like UK, Oz,Canada,US,Germany, France, S Africa, Saudi ARabia, Japan etc.
Teaching thee creation stories is different than teaching Creationism AS science. I think that , in social studies and certain other electice courses , our schools can handle these topics only to stand as examples within a sort of "Survey" course.
I recall in my own HS experience we had a "cultural geography" elective which talked of "Dream Time", or Lakota Myths etc

Quote:

some states were falling behind acceptable education standards and some groups, esp the military were having difficulty with their children's education simply because of moving between states.

Are your ed standards so different between states as to be conerned about minimal outcomes for the kids? We used to have similar problems in the deep southern states . Now, in the south, we dont have a lack of good education, we now have an overabundance of bad education. Its funny though, at least the kids can read all the arguments AGAINST evolution so I guess we cann be thankful for small favors.

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@Ionus,

It's hardly comparable Io. California is a great deal larger than Australia in population and in GDP. Texas is bigger as well. And New York is not far short.

farmerman's post was a load of bullshit. As I said earlier, he's the type of bloke who gets indignant and feeling victimised if he's asked to take his feet off the dining table and knock off spitting greenies on the carpet.

The operation is about getting atheism as the national religion. Atheism is nothing new. It's been rejected by every society ever known in our western world since time began. The alternative was Paganism which ended up, somebody calculated, with 30,000 different gods and flew up its own arse in confusion.

It has taken 2,000 very messy years to restore order through Christianity which is responsible for all our style of science and art. To ascribe the mess to Christianity rather than to human nature is a complete cop out. Setanta has no historical sensibility. He judges past events by his own standards now. He takes no account of the different conditions of the past.

Now you have lined yourself up with anti-ID, which I suspected all along, you should know that you are in the business of promoting atheism as the national religion. There is no neutral ground.

These guys have personal agendas. Probably to do with licentiousness. Birth control, divorce, adultery, abortion, homosexuality and other conscience free activities. Career opportunities as well. Perfectly consistent with materialism of course as is repressive means of control.

All the rest is flannel and it doesn't take me in. They are atheist, socialist, materialist, one-party statists. Like N. Korea. Elitism is their bag and it's the sub-text of every post they make. They don't do humility. If ever they come to power watch out. They hide behind walls sending out directives. They think they understand how a society works as one might expect them to do as fundamentalist control freaks.

They now claim to have made life in a bottle and that it will save everybody's life, clean up the oil spills and make the girls stand in line. They have some computer generated visual aids to prove it. We were shown them on the news last night. And they have friends. Big Media, the legal profession, the licentious, the PC brigade and the NCSE plus imitators.

Notice fm slip into his post once again that he has "grad students". It was the point of his sentences about collecting old books. He collects books in order to take the piss out of them. I collect books too. To learn from them.

You have even caught the "some states were falling behind acceptable education standards" trick where there is no need to define what acceptable education standards are. It's just taken for granted. In theory of course.

No atheist has ever been elected president.

1 Reply

@spendius,

Quote:

The operation is about getting atheism as the national religion.

BUT

Quote:

No atheist has ever been elected president.

Your own posts are often internally inconsistent like this one above.

I guess another "US factoid" would be that AETHEISM could never be established as a state religion by virtue of our Constitution, any more than Catholicism, Quakerism, or Islam. Remember its freedom of expression and protection against establishment of religion. Its a two part test. AS I recall, atheism would be , technically, considered a religion so your attempetd argument has no merit at all.

Im thankful that you audit my posts so carefully spendi. DO I wander all over the place in my discussions or do they, as I hoped, come more to the point? Ive never liked being confused with someone who merely beats about the bush without saying much of anything.

1 Reply

TEXAS UPDATE

Quote:

State Board of Education schedules vote today on curriculum standards
(By TERRENCE STUTZ / The Dallas Morning News / May 21, 2010)

AUSTIN " Social conservatives on the State Board of Education were poised late Thursday night to push for a curriculum standard that would encourage high school students to question the legal doctrine of church-state separation " a sore point for social conservative groups across the country.

After working on scores of additions and changes to new social studies standards for elementary and middle schools, board members turned their attention to the requirements for high schools " where most of the disputes on the board have surfaced.

The board is supposed to wrap up the adoption process today with a vote scheduled on the final curriculum requirements, which will dictate what is taught in all Texas schools and provide the basis for textbooks and student achievement tests over the next decade.

The Republican-dominated board rejected an attempt by Democrats in March to have high school students study the reasons the Founding Fathers barred the government from promoting any religion. The GOP opposition reflected the hostility of many social conservatives to U.S. Supreme Court decisions that have affirmed the separation of church and state " including one far-reaching ruling that banned school-sponsored prayer.

Board member Don McLeroy, R-College Station, said he would address the volatile issue from a different perspective.

Under his proposal, students would "contrast the Founders' intent relative to the wording of the First Amendment's Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause, with the popular term 'Separation of church and state.' "

McLeroy and other board members contend that separation of church and state was established in the law only by activist judges and not by the Constitution or Bill of Rights.

Critics contend that McLeroy and his allies on the board are trying to "rewrite history and promote political agendas" in Texas classrooms.

Democrats, on the other hand, said they would try to resurrect the proposal that was voted down by the Republicans earlier this year. The 15-member board has five Democrats and 10 Republicans, who often vote as seven social conservatives and three moderates.

One potential division was averted when a Republican board member, David Bradley of Beaumont, withdrew an amendment to list President Barack Obama's middle name, Hussein, in the standard calling on high school history students to examine the historical significance of the 2008 presidential election " the election of the country's first black president.

Fellow Republican Bob Craig of Lubbock questioned the motion. "The intent of what you're doing is pretty obvious, but I don't think it is necessarily correct," Craig said, noting that other presidents like John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan don't have their middle names listed in the standards.

Board member Mary Helen Berlanga, D-Corpus Christi, was more blunt, telling Bradley, "I'm getting pretty fed up with this conduct and the way you're trying to be derogatory. You're braying in trying to make fun here, but we're talking about a serious subject, the election of the first black president " and you're making it sound derogatory.

"These are very bad manners."

Two other Republican members talked to Bradley at his desk before he agreed to withdrew his amendment "to stop the whining."

Board members then voted to add Obama's name to the standards, using his middle initial.

Board president said that was the practice with other presidents listed in the curriculum.

Some of the most prolonged debate early Thursday night came over whether to include Confederate President Jefferson Davis' inaugural address with a lesson on Abraham Lincoln's philosophical views; the board decided to include Davis.

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@farmerman,

Of course atheism can be a national religion. Everybody believes what the commissariat dishes out. Such a situation does not need the Constitution. It's not defined as a religion. Simple.

And there is nothing inconsistent about my post. We are talking about the future. What you lot are trying to bring in. You'll soon drop Darwin when you come to power. And science will be what you say it is. Darwin wasn't a Darwinist and neither are you. Christianity evolved successfully. It dominates the world. Atheism is mal- adapted to human society.

1 Reply

@spendius,

spendi - You're so fortunate to enjoy the fruits of labor from those who have defied the Christian religion. A round world, and self hygienics to name two things primitive Christians struggled with.

A
R
T

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@farmerman,

Quote:

Does this piece of rubbish mean that you are against teaching evolution in biology?

I could make a case for that fm. I hardly need to though because your daily life and those of your fellow travellers is against evolution 24/7/365.

You lot are like Lenin's crew. Come to power to free the workers and then stick their noses to the grindstone using terror tactics and state controlled bog paper.

Go on then-- explain to us what use evolution is in biology. I understand its use creating little empires with fusty old bones in expensive display cabinets in air conditioned preening suites with reserved car parks and rank pulling over chaps who could beat your brains to a pulp. I bet you don't know the history of the development of all the materials in the building the preening suites are in. Do you need to?

I also understand its use in infiltrating atheism into the national culture.

Explain its use in biology.

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@farmerman,

Quote:

Our Supreme court, in a fit of Conservative Craziness, could reinterpret the 1std amendment to mean "No separation betwen church and state" because that belief is nowhere in the constitution and has only been interpreted as such.

So presumably any sort of craziness could reinterpret the 1st, or other, amendment/s any way thought fit and thus your fond belief in the Constitution as set in stone is pure make-believe. And you've been riding on it for years.

When you compare the daily working and living conditions when it was written to those now it is obvious that the whole thing is an anachronism.

1 Reply

@Xenoche,

The problem Xenoche with what you did to my post is that the whole point of that post was to take the evidence of the three previous posts from Ed, Setanta and ros as typical examples of the anti-Iders conversation styles and offer a strategy for escaping from them. If you could sit still and listen to that mode of conversation all well and good.

But I had offered as one of my challeges to teaching evolution that it resulted in the effect displayed by those three gents whose education vast quantities of money and time have been expended, wasted I would say.

If you had not been keeping up with the thread I suppose it's understandable you are confused but hardly that you stick your oar in like you have done.

My contention that the Christian education is required to produce interesting companions is easily proved. All one need do is spend a few minutes in the company of atheist, materialist, scientific, socialist cretins and you'll soon see the point. And it is even more emphatic with the female sex who embrace such nonsense to the exclusion of all else. One minute is too long.

They have no imagination you see. What you see is what you get. There is only observable facts to go on. And the beautification industry is a measure of how inadequate they are.

So unless you have some evidence that our side is equally boring, trite and execrable your alterations are worthless and nothing but a facile and stupid gimmick.

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@spendius,

Quote:

your fond belief in the Constitution as set in stone is pure make-believe. And you've been riding on it for years.

I know that youre doing your best to "stir the pot" but if your gonna play cook, you should understand how.

1Show me anywhere that Ive stated the "Constitution is set in stone"

2Therefore I couldnt be "riding" it for years, so youre just lying youre fat ass off again.Statements that you make , are your responsibility to underpin with facts or evidence. Understand the concept?

1 Reply

@failures art,

I'm not ignoring what you say fa but an adequate response would take up too much of my time. I would like to know though what advantages you see in knowing that the earth is not flat and that the sun doesn't orbit our home. Such knowledge defies common sense as the earth looks flat and the sun seems to go around it. You end up with no sunset and no sunrise.

In relation to personal hygiene are you referring to circumcision? There was a great struggle over that I'll admit. Personally I never use soap or toothpaste or scented fragrances. I do my best to keep chemicals off my tender skin.

I'm in favour of some plurality. Atheists have none.

I think you have to take Christianity as a whole, warts included, and decide whether it has been benificent or not. Picking out bits here and there can be used to prove black is white. I think it has been a wonderful thing. And there is no way of offering any better alternative because it's been and the results of anything else are pure speculation.

All we are being offered by anti-Iders is the injunction to live by scientific principles and not any likely outcome of us doing so. It's a free ride in other words. Completely irresponsible. And they don't even live by the very simplest of scientific principles themselves. Nor would they want to. Which suggests they are mad. They are offering a policy which they only want in principle and not in practice. Like Diana did when she married her Prince.

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@farmerman,

Quote:

Show me anywhere that Ive stated the "Constitution is set in stone"

Well--I meant you lot of anti-IDers. Wasn't Dover decided on what the Constitution said. We have had the Constitution quoted on these threads hundreds of times and I'm not going to look back and see what you personally said. You've never objected to one of your side having a ride on the Constitution. And you're quick to object to anything said on my side. Your silence was acquiesence and approval. You approved the Dover farce decision.

Getting pedantic won't butter the toast.

1 Reply

@spendius,

Wow, talk about peddling to stay above water. You are a master.

Quote:

Well--I meant you lot of anti-IDers. Wasn't Dover decided on what the Constitution said. We have had the Constitution quoted on these threads hundreds of times and I'm not going to look back and see what you personally said. You've never objected to one of your side having a ride on the Constitution.

Jeez youre thick as treacle. YES ! we rely upon the Cosntitution for our interpretations of law. NO! there is no guarantee that the Constitution shall be forever interpreted the same, or even that the actual Amendment will survive a round of new amendment adoption.

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Jeesus, spendi. If one word of what you say is true, I would hang myself.

1 Reply

@wandeljw,

wandeljw wrote:

TEXAS UPDATE

Quote:
State Board of Education schedules vote today on curriculum standards
(By TERRENCE STUTZ / The Dallas Morning News / May 21, 2010)

AUSTIN " Social conservatives on the State Board of Education were poised late Thursday night to push for a curriculum standard that would encourage high school students to question the legal doctrine of church-state separation " a sore point for social conservative groups across the country.

I wonder if they will find it easier to rewrite history than to rewrite science.

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@wandeljw,

wandeljw wrote:

TEXAS UPDATE

Quote:
State Board of Education schedules vote today on curriculum standards
(By TERRENCE STUTZ / The Dallas Morning News / May 21, 2010)

McLeroy and other board members contend that separation of church and state was established in the law only by activist judges and not by the Constitution or Bill of Rights.

I guess if a judge doesn't rule the way you want, you label them an "activist" judge and declare them wrong.

1 Reply

@edgarblythe,

Quote:

Jeesus, spendi. If one word of what you say is true, I would hang myself

Don't do that Ed. Nothing's true. You're in a shadowy hall of mirrors.

0 Replies

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