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."
Well, this is part of the evolution in that where did the living things come from in the first place to be evolved. That question has to be answered to even believe in Evolution. Once you answer that question then it moves to evolution. How can one argue about Evolution when the origin of live is not yet discovered? Well, then it would lead one down the path of the supernatural creation.
For these species to evol they would have to be born or have some beginning. you have to take it back to the first cell and the first spark of life........it's actually very simple.
Sweetpea, they thought that if they sailed the ocean blue they would fall off the earth. Were you sleeping in class that day? Or, are you just one of those stubborn people whose spirit if fighting to hold on to your basic earthbound beliefs.......
Back then some believed the earth to be flat, others did not....It was even put in some text books....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth
My my, testy testy. I will openly and freely express my thoughts, opinions, and discuss whatever I like and you might want to get used to it or go on your way. I don't have time for emotional, unhinged people like yourself and the rightwang professory.....you folks need to chill or go on medications.....:)) This is your problem not mine.....
So, see ya round like a donut....
Maybe not well established but was thought so as many others as the ones who thought the earth was round. So, not completely false or they wouldn't have it in text books, "Sport".....
Unnnnggggggg, wrong goes the buzzer.....next. It's not science, God created Science to make it work. It's certainly politics as religion is power over the masses. Read about Jim Jones on that one......and the Catholics that actually believe one person of any ranking can "excommunicate" another for some reason, NOT!
Ouuuuu, perplexing isn't it.......:O
it has everything to do with evolution.....its' the origin of Evolution had to have an origin from which to evolve. I've never heard of a species creating itself.....
The Mormans or the Jehovah Witnesses, I keep forgetting, believe that when you die you inherit a planet. The Muzzies believe if you murder people for the sake of Jihad you get virgins in heaven........hmmmmmmmm???
:))
Of course, you can talk about it. My previous career was Military....USMC. My occupation was learning how to kill people bottom line. Now, you can talk about killing someone, watch a movie about it....but, unless you have, you can't even conceive of what it happens when you are in that situation and actually do it......
You can talk about the supernatural, God, Bible, but to actually conceive of it...you have to die and find out for yourself......now you understand?
No! They broke the chalice from the palace. The pellet with the poison is in the flagon with the dragon, the vessel with the pestle has the brew that is true!
Which wuz ROBBED at the Oscar's!!!!!
Of what use are good 'tools', if you do not believe the Bible is divinely inspired?
Might as well use 'em to 'analyze' Shakespere!
mormons....
It would be near impossible to explain to you why these things happen. We try to mold God into our expectations and judgment. You forget, you don't own one thing in this world, including your children. Neither do I.
I thought when I create my own world or universe I might control it also. We came into someone elses house as their invite, to make it a short clue.....
I keep 4-getting....:) either way my point was made....The Jehovah witnesses are the chosen ones, or at least 144,000 of them...and the Mormans will inherit their own planet......and the Muzzies get virgins.....I can't decide what I want more. If I own my own world, then I'll have more virgins...and that might be the best way to go...:)))
Yep....you are correct thanks for replying. I remember my history teacher telling us that before Columbus they all thought the world was flat...and that he proved them wrong. I never thought about it since.
Oh,..my history teacher in the 1960's.....when the Earth was flat...:) some time ago.
You have to borrow Carl Roves time machine to determine that (down the hall from his hurricane machine).
From a post by Dimensio:
I submit five hypothesis regarding the origin of the first life forms.From a post by Dimensio here.
a) Natural processes occuring entirely upon earth resulted in chains of self-replicating molecular strands that eventually became the first life forms.
b) Aliens from another planet and/or dimension travelled to this planet and -- deliberately or accidentally -- seeded the planet with the first life forms.
c) In the future, humans will develop a means to travel back in time. They will use this technology to plant the first life forms in Earth's past, making the existence of life a causality loop.
d) A divine agent of unspecified nature zap-poofed the first life forms into existence.
e) Any method other than the four described above led to the existence of the first life forms.
Evolution, that is, the origin of species, can proceed nicely from any one of the five origins.
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