How did you react when you first learned of the Scopes Trial

Who says there's been a backslide?

Just because some hillbilly Bible-thumpers in flyover country want to take education back to the Dark Ages, doesn't mean there's been a sea-change in modern education itself.

If you call them contemptuous things like "flyover
country" you can hardly expect them to not notice.
Like in Deliverance when they patronised the rubes.

What do I care if Uncle Jed and Jethro notice? Do you think they'll behave any less irrationally if I'm friggin' nice to them?

That's serious hubris from the urban intelligentsia.
One can but admire it.It does have hairs on its balls.

Re: How did you react when you first learned of the Scopes T


I think we're seeing a resurgance in creationism dogma for several reasons.

Firstly, I think we are *seeing* it now more than before because the media is focusing on it, possibly because of all the internet discussion activities surrounding creation/evolution. I think the media recognizes First Amendment incursions as attention grabbers to get viewers. So creationism is magnified and distorted by the media lens of marketing.

As to why creationism is still alive and kicking despite the overwhelming success of science and the irrefutable evidence for biological evolution, I think it has to do with a lack of understanding of science along with the classic elements of indoctrination associated with Christianity.

As science education in the US becomes degraded in certain areas, the intrinsic force of christian indoctrination results in growth of dogma.

ros wrote-



Ah-yes.Dogma.The folk wisdom of 1000 years.

Re: How did you react when you first learned of the Scopes T


Yeparootie.

Remember, Scopes was really a put-up trial to get the attention of the legislature to drop the anti-evolution laws then on the Tennessee statute lists. Scopes lost but that started the glacial appeals process. Scopes was more concerned about the crappy religious based schoolbooks in science. The book publishers didnt wanna piss off the Fundmentalists who, despite their low numbers, had loud doctrinal mouths and had been politically active in the early century Even after Scopes, it took another 60 years to fully clean Creationism off the curriculum in some "fly over' states.
Then In 1980,Once again, since Reagan professed his "beliefs in Creation as a real scientific fact" it became closely aligned with the Conservative movement, this political activism has reared its ugly head with many variations of the Creation myths being a point of "fact" in the conservatives overall grasp for control and watching out for our morals.For the 25 or more Creationist associations now alive in the US (not even counting the "day/age believers" like the Jehovahs Witnesses) the literal interpretation of the Bible has been the inerrant moral lesson plan, as well as a science book for the Pat Robertsons and the more conservative GOP ers. Only recently(since Aguillard in 1987), since the Creationists have been losing every court fight theyve enjoined, have they even tried blending more with the times.

We now have another president who espouses teaching ID and Evolution side -by -side in science. This kind of dumb headed thinking sets teaching back years every time some 90 IQ politician espouses it, especially when the school boards are listening in , and they, technically have the "hire and fire" power over the school superintendents and this rolls down hill to the poor teachers, what can a science faculty do? They are being pelted from the community by the Evangelicals and the Fundamentalists, they are being prodded by religious minded school boards. The Supreintendents, in most cases, instead of standing up for their employees, become mere hacks and dont battle the school boards for curricular primacy.

Actually, the parochial schools are doing a much better job teaching the kids the entire boat of science than are the public schools. They do it without any special myth based bullshit like Creationism or ID or defined design or irreduceable complexity.
Just as the Craetonists and IDers want to teach "critiques of science" (without learning about the csience), the public school districts in rural Pa are now a bit cheechaco about teaching that Creationism and ID are based on religious , rather than scientific principles. The Dover case has actually had a negative effect in letting the kids know about "fringe science"
I was worried that teachers in the PA public school;s would clam up about Creationism because by keeping quiet, it merely creates an attractive mystique, when Creationism should be explained and debunked, especially since the kids had been taking part in the debates while the case was heating up in spring and summer of 2005. Now we ask the kids to get back in their cubicles and to shut up. This sends a wrong message, like we dont think they have any powers of reasoning.

Actually, it's not just them. Some legislature was being released in the UK regarding the introduction of ID's discussion along with evolution.

Ros wrote:

As to why creationism is still alive and kicking despite the overwhelming success of science and the irrefutable evidence for biological evolution, I think it has to do with a lack of understanding of science along with the classic elements of indoctrination associated with Christianity.

I wonder if it is because there was a failure of education across the board despite Sputnik, et al. What does someone who believes in Creationism expect his child to be taught?

Farmerman -- First, is your logo Ian Anderson?

Bush called for moreAdvanced Placement courses in high schools. I think we need to raise the level of science teaching in elementary schools, so that "earth science" or "general science" is no longer taught to 9th graders and science begins with physics.

Do you mean before, or after i stopped laughing?

Either before or after.

I first learned of it in the context of John Scopes' remark to another teacher to the effect that God created man, and man, being a gentleman, returned the favor. That was, i believe (and don't quote me), a quote of Voltaire. I was frankly astonished and incredulous about the entire proposition. I had never heard of "creationists," had been educated to understand and accept evolution in a rudimentary fashion, and really had no notion that anyone would ever have been prosecuted over the subject.

Of course, i learned about the "monkey trial" when i was about eight or nine years old.

I thought it was a vehicle to allow certain types of actors to look macho,intelligent and altruistic when actually they were a bunch of feminised con men wearing make-up playing upon the sentiments of love starved women of a certain age using the magic moving picture show as a sort of kamadhuk.

PLAINOLDME, My avatar is Baldrick, from the cast of Black Adder. Heres the cast portrait and more information about the actorsBLACK ADDER'S BALDRICK

That was a great response...<still snickering>

Well, hey, I don't begrudge them their irrational beliefs. I don't want them teaching it in school though. If they prefer that their kids live in the Dark Ages, that's fine. If mountains of scientific evidence won't sway them, I don't believe for a minute that I can persuade them differently. But I prefer that my own children learn actual science from a teacher and not fairytale mumbo-jumbo dressed up to vaguely resemble science from a preacher.