Posted on 05/22/2006 8:14:10 AM PDT by RightWingAtheist
A high school science teacher vowed yesterday to continue telling his Inuit students about Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, despite complaints from parents in the northern Quebec community of Salluit.
Science teacher Alexandre April was given a written reprimand last month by his principal at Ikusik High School for discussing evolution in class.
Parents in the village 1,860 kilometres north of Montreal complained their children had been told they came from apes.
"I am a biologist. ... This is what I'm passionate about," said April, who teaches Grades 7 and 8. "It interests the students. It gets them asking questions.
"They laugh and they call me 'ape,' but I don't mind. If I stopped, they would lose out."
April, who is leaving the town when his contract runs out at the end of the school year, said the principal first told teachers last fall not to talk about evolution.
Debate over the teaching of evolution in Salluit - a village of 1,150 located along the northern coast of Quebec, between Ungava and Hudson bays - is pitting an increasingly religious Inuit population against a Quebec education system that's becoming more and more secular.
Although April, 32, won't be punished, his reprimand has outraged Quebec's scientific community.
"What he's doing is right and it's best for the kids," said Brian Alters, director of the Evolution Education Research Centre at McGill University. "Science should not be de-emphasized for non-science."
Over the years, controversy over the teaching of evolution has erupted in Pennsylvania, along with U.S. states in the so-called Bible Belt. In November, the Kansas State Board of Education approved science standards that cast doubt on evolution.
But with heightened religious fervour among the Inuit and Cree in northern communities, some observers suggest Canada might have its own Bible North.
Molly Tayara, a member of the Salluit school's volunteer education committee, said she'd tell her four school-age children to walk out of a lesson on Darwin.
"The minister (of education) may have come from apes, but we're Inuit and we've always been human," she told The Gazette in a phone interview.
"Most of us rely on God's word. ... God made Adam and Eve and they weren't animals."
Legally, Inuit schools in Quebec's north must teach evolution, as it's part of the provincial curriculum. After April's story came out this week in the magazine Quebec Science, Education Department officials immediately called the school to ensure the curriculum was followed.
Topics like reproduction and diversity of species are part of Science and Technology, a course for Grades 7 and 8. Darwin's work, based on the premise that humans and other animals have evolved over time, is further covered in Grade 11 biology - an elective course.
"We want the curriculum to be applied. We're just saying the theory of evolution could be taught more delicately to students," said Gaston Pelletier, director of educational services for the Kativik School Board, which serves northern Quebec's 14 Inuit communities. "We have to respect their view."
Unless you call Homer a lyre.
This is true in spades for the pseudo-science books written by the creationists (Of Men and Pandas, for example) and by the IDists like Dembski, Behe, and Johnson!
A theory in science is the ultimate. You can go no further.
The earth revolves around the sun, this is a fact.
Heliocentrism is still a theory. (Always will be)
Old as time.
Superb comment! ROTFLOL.
Thank you for a well reasoned answer. I understand and appreciate your view. My only concern in all this is how does one who believes as I and many others do mesh having children taught an opposing view within the classroom. Is the only option taking the children out of school altogether? Won't that ostracize them from their peers?
Don't get me wrong. I understand why you feel the way you do and probably even agree with it to an extent, however it seems that a child is being requested to choose the State over his parents to be successful within class. If we're talking third year biology perhaps I can see the issue more clearly. But if we're talking about needing a semester of biology to graduate from high school I'm not sure I see the point of bringing up either POV if it's going to cause such concern. I had to take a semester in 9th grade. LOL, the only thing I remember was cutting up a frog and talking about flower pollenation.
Homer just made it up. He didn't see any of it.
Things are All Quiet, too quiet.
Give yourself a nod for that one.
I can see that. Not sure I agree but I can see where you could get that from. I'm almost of the view that I believe in creationism but I believe in some form evolution as well. That if everything came from God, God used evolution as a way to further His creation. LOL,now I realize that's not coming over to your side but it helps me understand it a little better.
I never get a "nod" anymore!
(except when I am working on PPT diagrams, then I have to keep myself from nodding!)
Perhaps you should steal a soul from a New Machine.
Give it time. You will be. :-)
hehe :-) (Good book BTW)
Surely you are not series. One of the admitted motivations of one of the initiators of the "intelligent design movement" was to deflect attention from Noah's Flood because "the scientific arguments are not favourable to supporting Genesis..."
The Flood mythology has a well-known origin from earlier pagan sources in Mespotamia, and probably from even earlier sources in Persia and India.
Almost every aspect of the Flood tale violates physics, starting from condensing so much water vapor to liquid would release enough heat the boil all the oceans! And nobody in the Middle East in 1000 BCE had ever heard of--much less seen--a penguin, kangaroo, or polar bear.
The idea that Noah's Flood ocurred as an historical event is absurd.
Flood ping
Hey, have you thought that with the right number of angels and pixies you could create a new species? According to Genesis, God started with far less. /abiogenesis-undermining-evolution mode on/off/
ME:
<< It is an extremely-well supported scientific theory >>
YOU:
<< Definition of Theory--Abstract reasoning; speculation >>
That is not the definition of a scientific theory. That is not even a hypothesis. A scientific theory is a well-supported explanation of a large body of accumulated facts. Atomism is a theory. Gravity is a theory. Evolution is a theory.
In fact -- it is an observed fact -- the fact that alleles change through generation. The other part of evolution -- the theory of common descent -- is well-supported by the evidence. There is no real controversy over that -- except in the minds of the rear-guard creationists who refuse to even look at the facts.
ME:
<< no evidence to undermine it >>
YOU:
<< Well if there's no evidence discovered to undermine it as of yet, it must be true. >>
The evidence is extremely strong, but no scientific theory is ever said to be completely and finally true. We keep learning, and we either tweak the theory with new evidence -- or overthrow it entirely, if the evidence against it demands such.
<< That is until evidence is uncovered to undermine it. >>
That's what makes it falsifiable -- and that's what makes it science, as opposed to ID or creationism. Find evidence that overthrows evolution, and you will win the Nobel Prize and be more famous than Darwin.
<< That's the problem with popular theories of the day. There's always something down the road that will change the opinion of the scientist. >>
First -- as you may have noticed -- evolution, especially the theory of common descent, is NOT very popular today! IT is accepted by the overwhelming majority of biologists, but it is not popular.
And the fact that scientists change their opinion when faced with evidence is a strength of science, not a weakness. We are always learning, always changing our opinions.
It's the creationists who won't change their "popular theory" in the face of overwhelming evidence, not the scientists. The creationists CAN'T change their theory; it's immutable.
We do believe that there are some theories that are so strongly supported that it would take a HUGE shock of evidence to overthrow them. Heliocentrism is one of them. Atomism is, too. So is evolution.
<< I imagine doctors in the Middle Ages thought there would be no future research to undermine their practice of bloodletting one day either. >>
That is not science. To assume that there will no future evidence that can possibly undermine what we believe is actually a description of creationism, not of evolution. It is creationism that refuses to be swayed by even the present evidence, and when I ask creationists what could possibly persuade them, they usually say, "Nothing ever will, and nothing ever will. I know the truth already."
Scientists, on the other hand, delight in tearing each other's ideas apart -- disproving each other -- challenging each other. Even within the study of evolution, there are some good knockdown-dragout fights over various issues. And as more evidence is found, it will help to make the theory better -- or it will undermine it.
As I stated, nothing so far has undermined it -- as far as I know. Someone who is more read-up can help me here, but I think that is an accurate statement. At this point, since it has so much support, it certainly would take something momentous to overthrow the entire theory -- as the geocentric theory was overthrown once the weight of the evidence become overwhelming.
ME:
<< Maybe we should let the kids figure out the atomic theory and heliocentrism for themselves, too? >>
YOU:
<< Except the fact that those have been proved beyond a 'theory'. >>
That is not scientific language. Those are the current theories, based on the available evidence. It is hard to conceive of what could possibly overthrow them at this point -- and the same is true of evolution. But all three theories are falsifiable.
YOU:
<< The earth revolves around the sun, this is a fact. >>
And here we have an example of "overthrowing a theory" and "tweaking a theory." You just stated Copernicus's idea. But the fact is that Copernicus's math did not work as well as Ptolemy's -- because Copernicus had the planets moving in perfectly circular orbits. So Copernicus did NOT "overthrow" Ptolemaism right away.
It was Kepler's work, based on the massive body of observations from Tycho, that finally made the Copernical system prevail (along with Galileo's observations, of course). You see -- the theory had to be altered by "future evidence."
Eventually, the older theory did die out, except among a few renegade weirdos, among whom are a few modern creationists, BTW. But Kepler's work did not overthrow Copernicanism -- it made it better. It "tweaked" the theory.
We now know that the earth does not "circle the sun." The earth and the sun both circle the foci of an ellipse. The earth and the moon do the same thing with each other. All heavenly bodies in orbital systems do the same thing.
Of course, for all practical purposes, we can say the earth circles the sun. But my point is that the theory had to be tweaked to make it a better theory than the previous one. And it has been continually tweaked by "future evidence." Newton added a lot of information -- and Einstein corrected Newton -- etc.
<< We've all seen it through pictures and video. >>
Have we all seen Pluto orbit the sun? No. Since Pluto was discovered, it has only covered a fraction of its orbit. How do we KNOW it circles the sun, then? Through "seeing it as a fact"? Nope.
<< Atoms can be split and cause a chain reaction release of energy, this is a fact. >>
Are you aware of the beginning of the atomic theory, and of all the changes it has undergone? Dalton's ideas seem primitive compared to what we now know. We keep learning new things, and "future evidence" continues to change the theory.
<< That I, or any other human being, came from a monkey is a theory and has not been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. Else it would be a fact instead of a theory. >>
Evolution does not say that you -- or any other human being -- came from a monkey. So that's not even a theory! It's nothing but a straw man of your own making. But saying this makes it clear to everyone with any knowledge of the subject that you really don't know what you are talking about.
Two things I teach my logic students:
1) A critical thinker knows not to argue about something he knows nothing about.
2) You are not ready to refute something until you are able to describe it in such a way that an honest proponent of it would agree that your description is accurate.
Your description of evolution is so far-fetched that no one with a shred of knowledge of the subject would recognize it as anything but a silly straw man created by ignorant people. Fortunately -- ignorance, unlike stupidity, can be cured.
I think the opposite is true. I've done the calculation - there is enough H and O on Earth to make 26,000 ft. of water, but to get it would leave some mighty strange minerals that would have to go back to "normal" after the water dried up (like Si+4 and assorted things). The energy required to strip enough H and O from minerals to make 26,000 ft of water is incredible. I'd say an Ice Age was more likely, not boiling seas.
But maybe that's what killed the dinosaurs. The poor babies just froze to death. And besides that could explain how some wooden thing almost the size of the Titanic could float and be seaworthy, it was stuck on ice.
Don't you find it strange no one reported millions of dead bodies (human and otherwise) after the flood?
So many questions, so few answers - and it will always remain thus.
Aw quit whining. Most of us never get a nod, although it has been said in private that we deserve them every now and again.
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