@panzade,
Quote:"If today you can take a thing like evolution and make it a crime to teach in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools and next year you can make it a crime to teach it to the hustings or in the church.
That's disingenuous pan. It assumes there is no controversy regarding what is "taught" and how and by whom and that is not the case otherwise we wouldn't be here discussing the matter. Does it not give you pause for thought that we are not discussing the vast bulk of science but are exercising ourselves over this matter of evolution. It is a special case. And has been since 1859. To try to pretend that there is no valid reason for that is naive.
It also glosses over that there are other matters which are not taught in public schools and which some would say a similar statement could be made about.
And to make them a crime would require legislation and thus draw attention to them. The reason, I presume, for having school boards and state control of education is that they provide a responsiveness at provincial levels to various concerns. To legislate for the teaching of evolution in public schools would require a national control in Washington and the states and school boards being reduced to cyphers or being abandoned. A Soviet style education system in other words.
Let us see the guidelines for teaching evolution and some idea of who is going to impose them and supervise them.
We do ban books and many other things. That is not due to "ignorance and fanaticism". It is due to a general consensus worked out and agreed over centuries. Schools are "before the watershed" all the time.
I think the statements of the "great man" are complete drivel and would not stand up to serious examination. Nobody can accuse Western societies of not bringing any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind. What utter tripe. We are the most enlightened, intelligent and cultured race that the world has ever seen. By a distance too great to be quantified.