Quebec community cool to Darwin

Montreal Gazette via Canada.com ^ | May 20 2006 | Alison Lampert

[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."

[Almagest]

Goats, cows, and sheep.

[furball4paws]

So we had some "unnatural selection" going on. He must have realized on some level, that certain traits were "inherited".

While the ancient Jews were simple people with simple lives, they were not necessarily stupid. Some of them were also quite artistic as revealed in some of the Psalms and The Song of Solomon.

I would think that the average IQ has increased a little over the last 6000 years, simply due to better childhood nutrition and other factors, but I doubt that the giants of the bible were any less intelligent than your average Freeper.

Has anyone seen any studies in this area?

[Virginia-American]

Wonder if it's ever been tried by a 4-H-er?

Experimental proof that the bible is wrong.

[thomaswest]

Re 219: I do not see how thomaswest's explanation amounts to the logical fallacy that you reference. Could you perhaps explain your proclamation? Post Hoc Ergo propter Hoc.

It is unlikely that Minus knows the difference between a hoc, an ergo, and his posterior.

In Biblical times, nobody understood fire, either. It was magical, passed on from night to morning. Priests and pastors in the 19th century were unhappy when the strike-match was invented. One more loss of power. Tax-exemptions for the priestly class followed

From early times, some people have claimed to be exempt from productive work in their community on the basis that they have "spiritual powers" or "healing powers". It is a neat scheme for priests, shamans, ayatollahs, rabbis, imams, preachers--they get people to give them money and they don't have to work and avoid military fighting.

All shamanic transubstantions are the same. Eating a portion of the god to obtain godliness is a recurring theme in human desires to obtain power through a deity.

[Dimensio]

Surely you are not series.

I believe that the word that you intended to use is "serial".

[Doctor Stochastic]

In Biblical times, nobody understood fire, either.

It took years for Scientists to develop the Theory of Phogistion!

[Coyoteman]

It took years for Scientists to develop the Theory of Phogistion!

Teach the Controversy!

[Minus_The_Bear]

You make the mistake of framing this argument as disagreement between the enlightened vs. the simple minded. Parties who argue between macro-evolution and creationism are simply religious fanatics of different orders.

Just because one fossil follows another does not prove causation via macro-evolution. This is an illogical conclusion. Evolutionists like all 'true' religious believers are not dissuaded by facts or even the many falsehoods uncovered in their "holy books."

[Doctor Stochastic]

Teach the Controversy!

Maybe fire theory is covered by the Salamander Letter.

[Coyoteman]

Just because one fossil follows another does not prove causation via macro-evolution. This is an illogical conclusion. Evolutionists like all 'true' religious believers are not dissuaded by facts or even the many falsehoods uncovered in their "holy books."

You seek to demean the theory of evolution by comparing it to religion and religious fervor? Do you not undermine your entire argument?

[microgood]

There are differences between legal behavior and illegal. A nation whose citizens resist even reasonable prohibitions enacted in law is doooooomed.

But there are basic rules and using a child to snitch on something his parent is doing by quizzing the child is just child abuse plain and simple. It forever changes the family dynamic in a extremely negative way. It sounds like something a prosecutor might come up with.

The purpose of using children to snitch on parents is a liberal socialist/communist attempt to replace the family with the state. The state knows the child can manipulate the parent by threatening them, and thereby becomes they become a willing tool of the state. That is how it worked in the Soviet Union. They created generations of mindless state drones.

And they have had some sucess here as well. No more spanking, child seats, etc. The goal again, break up the family. Keeping the family structure together independent of the state is necessary for even the most basic freedom. And since they have taken both authority and methodology from parents we are well on our way to the Soviet style system. The only thing saving this country's birth rate right now are the Christians who tend to have larger families. The Russians, on the other hand, will be losing 50 million of its population by 2050, and are now paying women several years salaries to have them.

I spent a number of years dealing with child abuse. If anyone is paranoid about the government taking kids from basically good homes, I would like to show them the homes I worked my butt off to keep kids in.

You deserve great admiration and respect for this.

[Dimensio]

Just because one fossil follows another does not prove causation via macro-evolution.

No one claims that evolution is "proven" by anything. No scientific theory is ever "proven". Rather, the fossil record -- both the layout of the fossils in geological strata and the similarities across fossils -- is one piece of evidence that further strengthens confidence in the explanation of evolution.

Evolutionists like all 'true' religious believers are not dissuaded by facts or even the many falsehoods uncovered in their "holy books."

To what falsehoods do you refer? Please be specific.

[thomaswest]

Re234: Take a deep breath, and step away from the keyboard.

Ah, I can see when I hit a nerve.

There is the Novocaine of your priest/pastor or mullah.

Whatever band-aids or balms are needed, it is still necessary to confront that evolution has taken place on earth and that we humans are among the primates in this description of life on this little planet of ours.

[grey_whiskers]

All shamanic transubstantions are the same. Eating a portion of the god to obtain godliness is a recurring theme in human desires to obtain power through a deity.

Sure seems to have confused the daylights out of the Jews when Jesus talked about it though. "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" Not to mention the curious circumstance that by claiming the Body and Blood as His own, Jesus was laying claim to be Deity.

You appear to be confusing ease of classification after the fact, looking with a "bird's-eye view" across cultures, with identity of purpose or attitude by people within those cultures, who didn't necessarily have any knowledge of each other.

Cheers!

[thomaswest]

Surely you are not series. I believe that the word that you intended to use is "serial".

No, the right word was "serious". Meaning "a considered matter of thought". "surely you are not serious."

I wrote "series" as a parody on some anti-Bush Freepers who use this word to make fun of the President's speech habits.

I apologize for a poor joke.

[Dimensio]

I wrote "series" as a parody on some anti-Bush Freepers who use this word to make fun of the President's speech habits.

I take it that you are unaware of the use of the word "serial" employed to poke fun at a former presidental candidate.

[thomaswest]

Re248: You make the mistake of framing this argument as disagreement between the enlightened vs. the simple minded. Parties who argue between macro-evolution and creationism are simply religious fanatics of different orders.

Religious orders of various degrees of enlightenment?

I do not understand your post. I do prefer an enlighted/educated doctor over a priest or witch doctor or psychic about my systolic blood pressure. No doubt about it, I have a bias toward those enlightened by education.

I confess to a skepticism toward those who say my medical condition is due to inadequate prayer and failing to sacrifice chickens in the right way. I may be wrong about this, but on the whole, I am inclined toward medical understandings of the last century, and I have a distinct bias against Biblical notions of leeches and demon possession. In coming to a little faith in modern medicine, I have the confidence that no biblical writer even knew what blood pressure was. In Biblical times, the idea of the circulation of the blood was as remote from them as the moon.