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Quebec community cool to Darwin
Montreal Gazette via Canada.com ^ | May 20 2006 | Alison Lampert

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."


TOPICS: Heated Discussion
KEYWORDS: bewarefrevolutionist; canada; creatards; creation; creationism; creationist; creationists; creationuts; crevo; crevodebates; crevolist; doublestandard; evolution; evolutionist; frevolutionist; id; intelligentdesign; inuit; pavlovian; protectedfreep; quebec; scienceeducation; wardchurchill; whocares
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To: 2nsdammit
You don't think that any God who would kill innocent babies, commit genocide, etc is bad?

Do Hindus think cow eaters are 'bad'?

Someone has an idea of what their 'perfect' god would be like, and I'm being asked to sign off on it.

321 posted on 05/24/2006 4:42:57 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going....)
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To: Almagest
Why did you put the word 'innocent' in quotation marks?

Because it wasn't in the original.

As an adjective; it is a judgement call: something that a GOD would do.

322 posted on 05/24/2006 4:44:50 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going....)
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To: DennisR
You might want to get your facts straight before making assertions like this.

Why?

Them are FIGHTIN' words: designed to get a rise.

323 posted on 05/24/2006 4:47:07 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going....)
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To: metmom
... surely creation got inexorably edged out...

WATCH OUT for the swinging pendulum!

324 posted on 05/24/2006 4:48:20 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going....)
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To: Almagest
Good point -- although I would have put quotation marks around the words "creation science."

WHY?

325 posted on 05/24/2006 4:50:52 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going....)
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To: tgambill
 
Darwin has absolutely nothing to do with nothing.......He is a dreamer who had a limited capacity of the real world but an extreme imagination on the other hand. He would of been a great science fiction writer no kidding. But, he missed his calling and actually tried to use his theories in the real world.
 
So sad......

Charles Darwin (1809-1882)

"By further reflecting that the clearest evidence would be requisite to make any sane man believe in the miracles by which Christianity is supported,—and that the more we know of the fixed laws of nature the more incredible do miracles become,—that the men at that time were ignorant and credulous to a degree almost incomprehensible by us,—that the Gospels cannot be proven to have been written simultaneously with the events,—that they differ in many important details, far too important, as it seemed to me to be admitted as the usual inaccuracies of eye witnesses;—by such reflections as these, which I give not as having the least novelty or value, but as they influenced me, I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation. The fact that many fake religions have spread over large portions of the earth like wildfire had some weight with me. But I was very unwilling to give up my belief; I feel sure of this, for I can remember often and often inventing day-dreams of old letters between distinguished Romans, and manuscripts being discovered at Pompeii or elsewhere, which confirmed in the most striking manner all that was written in the Gospels. But I found it more and more difficult, with free scope given to my imagination, to invent evidence which would suffice to convince me. Thus disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but was at last complete. The rate was so slow that I felt no distress, and have never since doubted even for a single second that my conclusion was correct."

( Charles Darwin in his Autobiography of Charles Darwin, Dover Publications, 1992, p. 62. )


Charles Darwin (1809-1882)

"I think that generally (& more & more as I grow older), but not always, that an agnostic would be the most correct description of my state of mind."

( Quoted from Adrian Desmond and James Moore, Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1991, p. 636. )



NIV Proverbs 4:13
   Hold on to instruction, do not let it go; guard it well, for it is your life.
 

NIV Hebrews 3:6
   But Christ is faithful as a son over God's house. And we are his house, if we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast.
 

NIV Hebrews 3:14
   We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first.
 

NIV Hebrews 6:11
   We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, in order to make your hope sure.
 
 
NIV Hebrews 12:3
   Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
 

NIV 2 Timothy 2:11-13
 11.  Here is a trustworthy saying: If we died with him, we will also live with him;
 12.  if we endure, we will also reign with him. If we disown him, he will also disown us;
 13.  if we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself.
 

NIV 2 Peter 2:20-21
 20.  If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning.
 21.  It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them.
 
 
 
NIV 2 John 1:8
  Watch out that you do not lose what you have worked for, but that you may be rewarded fully.
 

NIV Jude 1:21
   Keep yourselves in God's love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.
 

NIV Revelation 2:25
   Only hold on to what you have until I come.
 

NIV Revelation 3:11
   I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown.


326 posted on 05/24/2006 4:54:43 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going....)
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To: Elsie
The fact that many fake religions have spread over large portions of the earth like wildfire had some weight with me. But I was very unwilling to give up my belief; I feel sure of this, for I can remember often and often inventing day-dreams of old letters between distinguished Romans, and manuscripts being discovered at Pompeii or elsewhere, which confirmed in the most striking manner all that was written in the Gospels.
 

Well, Charles; perhaps you can take solace in the fact that fake concepts have just about taken over vast areas of 'christianity' today. Why we even have blockbuster movies that proclaim fiction and folks gush over them as if they are true.

What? You don't know what a movie is? It's kinda like a play that can be seen over and over again; exactly the same the 100th time as the first.

327 posted on 05/24/2006 5:01:04 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going....)
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To: Elsie
Many evolutionists are concerned with creation being brought into school, or being *snuck in through the back door in the guise of ID* as if this is something new that someone came up with. What people are objecting to is it being shoved out. It's not a matter of bringing in something heretofore never taught, it's bringing BACK something that was taught for centuries.

I find it interesting that there is a correlation between the rise of the Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment, when so many of the discoveries that set the stage for modern science were made; and the beginning of the deterioration of the modern education system, which occurred at about the same time as the legal battles to get evolution taught in the schools. Now lest anyone accuse me of implying that evolution is the cause of the downfall of education, I did not say that. However, it can certainly lay to rest the fear that many have that teaching creation in the public schools will destroy their intellectual quality. If there is a correlation, then by that reasoning, reintroducing creation should result in their improvement. At the very least, it can be shown that it won't harm it.

328 posted on 05/24/2006 5:04:42 AM PDT by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: Virginia-American

It's not so much a matter of "proper subset" as it is an attribution of fanaticism from those who are blind to their own. The teacher referenced in this article ought to have free course in presenting his ideas regarding history, philosophy, and science, but he has absolutely no right to have his ideas go unquestioned - whether by individuals or by the community at large - if/when he presents them as anything more than reasonable conjecture.


329 posted on 05/24/2006 6:55:18 AM PDT by Fester Chugabrew
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To: Elsie

So you're saying there's nothing inherently wrong with killing babies?


330 posted on 05/24/2006 7:08:12 AM PDT by ahayes (Yes, I have a devious plot. No, you may not know what it is.)
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To: Right Wing Professor

Does your hatred for Christians know no bound?


331 posted on 05/24/2006 7:22:37 AM PDT by dartuser ("In 100 years the Bible will be forgotten and eliminated." - Voltaire (1694 - 1778))
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To: Zeroisanumber
And I hope that you can understand that the Evo side doesn't mean to imply that your beliefs are stupid or worthless, they aren't.

Havent been here long have you ?

332 posted on 05/24/2006 7:34:36 AM PDT by dartuser ("In 100 years the Bible will be forgotten and eliminated." - Voltaire (1694 - 1778))
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To: dartuser
Does your hatred for Christians know no bound?

When did you stop beating your wife?

333 posted on 05/24/2006 7:56:47 AM PDT by Right Wing Professor (...founder of African Amputees for Pat Robertson)
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To: PatrickHenry

*Sigh* this was a good thread until The Usual Gang of Idiots had to ruin it.


334 posted on 05/24/2006 7:56:55 AM PDT by RightWingAtheist (Creationism is to conservatism what Howard Dean is to liberalism)
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To: Almagest; metmom; Elsie

One fact that remains clear, and said in respect of course, is that the truth is told only one time, a misconception or flaw is told many times. I usually put this another way for another issue, but I softened it up.




"You have got the gist of it. That is the strength -- and the beauty -- of science. It adjusts to new information and improves itself.



*****Science adjusts, because they don't really have the answers and few ever really find them. They are most always called theories and for a reason. They don't really know the answer for sure. The weakness to Darwin is that he lost an open mind, to the existence of a force that he cannot see. He had a struggle with his soul and therefore ignored all possibilities that are possible explanations. This supernatural force is what brought him into the world but he denies another force that does exist, but not acknowledged by some scientists. This is their weakness. Science does not necessarily improve, they just find another way to explain what they are afraid to accept. Even Einstein who was a non-believer came to the conclusion that a "Superior Reasoning Power" existed....this bothered him, but he accepted this. True story......

It's simple, to accept the idea of a God or supernatural force leads on to the road of maybe I am responsible for my actions and my life in eternity. You will notice that being fanatical is not only reserved for "religous" notions, but hard core scientist that are agnostic or atheist are limiting themselves and will fight to keep their imaginations within the confines of their only frame of reference....Length, width, height and time which does not include the supernatural......which cannot be denied. :) This is why they have what is called a "singularity".......they can't explain past this notion.


335 posted on 05/24/2006 8:02:49 AM PDT by tgambill (I would like to comment.....)
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To: MEGoody; metmom; Elsie

Oh no......I was doing good until I got to your post. I'm in the Congo right now and almost every day, my lunches are sardines, bread and ........yes, banana's......you didn't have to remind me. :)) /sarc....

I just haven't discovered which ameoba or primate were my ancestors. If I found the ameoba I might be able to find the monkey species that went extinct which was my great
X 100,000 Great's that evolved into a Scotch/Irish human. :))) lolololol.....this is too much fun.


336 posted on 05/24/2006 8:09:06 AM PDT by tgambill (I would like to comment.....)
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To: RunningWolf

well, I read the other day that the ACLU joined with the ABOL..(Another Bunch of Losers).......:))


337 posted on 05/24/2006 8:11:20 AM PDT by tgambill (I would like to comment.....)
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To: tgambill
right now and almost every day, my lunches are sardines, bread and ........yes, banana's......

Well, it does sound nutritious..... if nothing else.

338 posted on 05/24/2006 8:36:53 AM PDT by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: metmom

uggggg......after a while, you don't want nutritious......Well, if anything, by the time I leave here I might be able to climb trees better......without IBUprofin....:))))


339 posted on 05/24/2006 8:43:48 AM PDT by tgambill (I would like to comment.....)
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To: tgambill
Even Einstein who was a non-believer came to the conclusion that a "Superior Reasoning Power" existed....this bothered him, but he accepted this. True story......

Bull. Einstein denied the existence of a personal god.

340 posted on 05/24/2006 8:44:08 AM PDT by Right Wing Professor (...founder of African Amputees for Pat Robertson)
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