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 Jeffrey Selman |
Posted on 09/07/2002 7:55:51 PM PDT by mhking
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Cobb dads enter fray over evolution in schools
By MARY MacDONALD
Atlanta Journal-Constitution Staff Writer
When Jeffrey Selman learned the Cobb County public schools had put disclaimers on evolution in thousands of science books, he skipped his usual outlet, a letter of protest.
The 56-year-old computer programmer sued the district to remove the textbook stickers. And he is ready to broaden the suit's scope if the school board allows science teachers to discuss what he sees as faith-based alternatives to evolution.
"I saw something wrong, and I went after it," Selman said.
Five miles away, in another east Cobb neighborhood, Larry Taylor had his own visceral reaction to the debate over science and religion.
Well-read and articulate, Taylor grew tired of seeing critics of evolution dismissed as uneducated rubes.
The construction manager attended his first school board meeting two weeks ago to urge members to require teachers to expose flaws in evolution.
"If it raises tough questions in the classroom, that's why they're there," Taylor said.
The men, both fathers of students in east Cobb schools, inserted themselves into a fray that neither expected would turn national. Both have found the attention unsettling. They worry about the impact on their families and will not disclose the names of their wives or children. Both screen phone calls. But neither regrets taking a public stance on an issue that has divided Cobb and drawn national media attention.
The board vote on instruction policy is set for Sept. 26.
Selman: I'm a patriot|
The division among parents is unprecedented, said board Chairman Curt Johnston, who is receiving 15 messages a day, divided on either side. "This is the most difficult and polarized debate the board has had since I've been on the board," he said. "Right now, we're just listening."
Selman, the plaintiff in a lawsuit filed against the district by the American Civil Liberties Union, said his decision to seek court intervention took perhaps "half a second." A transplanted New Yorker, Selman wants people to know he believes in God. A practicing Jew, he attends temple several times a year. He does not want to be equated with the California atheist whose challenge of the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance drew national scorn.
Selman describes his lawsuit as a patriotic action, stopping a move toward government-sanctioned religion. While the textbook advisories are vague, Selman and many other parents think the school board discussions that produced the inserts reflect a conservative Christian intent.
The advisories were approved after the board heard about two dozen parents protest the teaching of evolution, many on religious grounds. They produced a petition signed by nearly 2,000 parents who demanded accurate science texts. Many petitions circulated in Cobb churches.
A counterpetition is now circulating among pro-evolution parents, who will demand that the board maintain "traditional academic standards and integrity in the sciences."
Selman isn't sure what sparked the anti-evolution movement in Cobb, a county he and his wife chose nearly 10 years ago based on the good reputation of its schools. He thinks the board is pandering to a small group of parents. His own actions have produced a few dozen phone calls to his home, more supportive than not.
"This is one battleground," said Selman, who has a child in elementary school. "I'm sure they're not going to stop at this. The next thing, the moment of silence is going to be attacked, which is a beautiful piece of compromise."
Nancy Myers, a co-worker, wasn't surprised that Selman became involved in the dispute. "He's got a hot justice button," she said. "When he sees wrong being done, he wants to do something about it. I'd call him principled."
Although Selman thinks his lawsuit will squash any attempt to dilute evolution, he suspects the board policy will open classrooms to religious-based instruction. "The side for scientific education was asleep," he said. "We felt safe. This is the 21st century, for crying out loud. We can't go back to this."
Taylor: Teach all facts|
Taylor, 41, moved to Cobb as a child and was educated in its public schools. But like Selman, he now questions whether the county schools live up to their generally good reputation. He has two daughters and a son, in middle and high school.
While he disagrees with biological evolution, Taylor will not identify himself as a creationist or an advocate of "intelligent design," which argues that the diversity of life is the result of some master plan by an unidentified "designer."
But Taylor has read "Darwin's Black Box," a challenge of evolution by a biochemist at Lehigh University, and a stack of other books that question evolution. He has given copies to friends and co-workers.
Taylor believes these critiques, many written by scientists if not biologists, are being ignored unfairly by public school teachers and the media. "The media presents it as the educated scientists vs. the religious, fanatical extremists."
He was particularly angered when science teachers told the Cobb school board that criticism of evolution was based in religion.
"All the facts should be taught in the science class," he said. "There are many credible scientists in America who believe evolution has many flaws."
Taylor attends his church, Trinity Fellowship in west Cobb, twice weekly. The Rev. Richard Hemphill said the church had not become involved with the evolution dispute. Taylor has spoken out before, taking a position against abortion in a letter published in a newspaper. His pastor is not surprised to see him take a stance on something that affects his family.
"When he talks about an issue, he has studied it thoroughly," Hemphill said.
Parents and teachers who dismiss views opposing evolution are practicing their own form of religion, Taylor said. He insists intelligent design is not a faith-based approach.
"The supporters of evolution have an agenda as well. Their agenda is to keep God out, even if the evidence points to God. . . . It's faith. Those people are as fervent in their beliefs as Christians are in believing God created Earth."
Considering that you believe that "a circle is not an ellipse", the planets zoom around the solar system in "wildly elliptical" orbits, and that "1720" is a really, really, really big number, I am not surprised that you would also confuse the LACK of a religious belief with a "religious belief."
So, is a LACK of water a form of water?
Is a lack of air an atmosphere?
Is lack of weather a type of weather?
Does a lack of food taste good?
Do a lack of clothes cost much?
Is a lack of mental health mentally healthy?
Fortunately, science is not a popularity contest. Many people in the religious community have realized this.
Your grief is not with the 1st amendment, I submit, but with the post civil war amendments that pushed federal rights and priveleges down onto state and local governments.
Unless you wish to undo the 14th, 15th and 16th amendments, you have no case. Separation of church and state obviously applies to schools you are taxed to support and required by law to send your children to.
The Tree of Life established by paleontologists predicted, in major outline, and gross detail, the Tree of Life established by mutational distance calculations. There probably has not been a more dramatic independent confirmation in the history of science. And it is because of this that nearly all biologists now consider the theory evolution the basic explicatory fact of biology.
Worth repeating.
Nope. If you don't believe in God (i.e. judeo-christian deity) you're simply not a Christian or a Jew. One can still believe in Vishnu, Juju or the Great Green Arkleseizure.
You're an atheist if you don't believe in any supernatural entity (for whatever reason).
This nonsense is of course absolutely wrong. If that was what they wanted to say, they would have said it, and there would be references to this in the debates concerning the congressional passage and ratification of the Bill of Rights. There are no such references, and your future inability to make such citation will in itself be proof that I am correct on this matter. It is true that Jefferson and Madison had private thoughts closer to yours, but they are not relevant, since they were not made as a part of the amendment process.
Doesn't look like you have much experience with the way science is done, especially these days with controversial issues. This sort of science is at least as political as a congressional caucus.
First of all, as the Cambrian explosion shows, that tree is no tree. Second of all, DNA totally disproves the easy, almost magical, supposition of evolution that new functions, new features can easily arise. A medium size gene of some 1,000 DNA base pairs has one chance in 4^1000 power of arising. That such a miraculous occurrence happened even once would be quite astounding, that it happened the hundreds of thousands, or millions of times necessary to give us the vast variety of life we see on earth is utterly impossible. So yes, DNA thoroughly discredits evolution.
Well, in the Christian West, atheism means not believing in God. Also your definition shows that your friend's statement: "Lack of religious belief also does not make one an atheist, an atheist is one who does not believe in god. " is utter nonsense.
Doesn't look like you have much experience with the way science is done, especially these days with controversial issues. This sort of science is at least as political as a congressional caucus.
I was responding to your statement (paraphrasing): "I don't need facts or logic as long as a majority of people believe as I do."
You have demonstrated a piteous lack indeed in the quality of your thinking process on this issue. First you announce you are abandoning reason, and then you expect your analysis of the situation to have any meaning whatsoever? Sorry, pal, but you exceeded your credibility in the first paragraph. If that's your 2 cents, you owe me about a buck-fifty.
I'm sure Emperor Gore MMM will have a very good answer (and from personal experience, too), for this one.
If to state that in a democratic republic the 95% majority will control decisions about the direction of the government is to abandom reason, then call me unreasonable.
All the cambrian explosion shows is that there will be mighty little structure, and even less preserved structure, when all you can build is soft tissue. The cambrian explosion is pretty obviously a demonstration of what happens when landforms heave up out of the ocean and fresh water starts leaching free calcium into the ocean.
that tree is no tree.
There is lots of noise in the tree structure,--which creationists have made way more of than it deserves, in order to banboozle the scientifically illiterate, but no tree puts ameba ahead of bats, or bats ahead of people. Whether it's a tree or a bush, it's overall predictions are so massively on target, and poigniently obvious, that it is now taught as the organizing basis of biological science.
A medium size gene of some 1,000 DNA base pairs has one chance in 4^1000 power of arising.
And therefore, of course, life did not start out by spare parts magically jumping together. Nor did the pieces of life spring up later through utterly random stochastics. This is a creationist strawman, rather similar to fossil gap nonsense, and the result of equally precious reasoning--not a current thesis of science.
That such a miraculous occurrence happened even once would be quite astounding, that it happened the hundreds of thousands, or millions of times necessary to give us the vast variety of life we see on earth is utterly impossible. So yes, DNA thoroughly discredits evolution.
Only in your fevered imagination. To biological sciences it is what I said: an astounding verifying demonstration of the mechanism underlying the observed fossil sequencing.
The principle of retrospective astonishment has been explained to you a dozen times, without, of course, obvious impact. It is astonishing what we are, until you calculate all the other equally asonishing things that might have been, but weren't.
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