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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."
OK.
This is not a democratic republic, it is a representative constitutional republic, the written foundations of which reflect a profound, and well justified fear of democracy--which you have demonstrated the reason for. I have no desire to return to the days when the church burned heretics, books and scientists with equal lack of compunction.
Well said.
This nonsense is of course absolutely wrong.
This is an abysmally ignorant opinion. I quote from Thomas Paine's "Common Sense".
This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from every Part of Europe. Hither have they fled, not from the tender embraces of the mother, but from the cruelty of the monster . . .
As to religion, I hold it to be the indispensable duty of all government, to protect all conscientious professors thereof, and I know of no other business which government hath to do therewith. . . .
For myself I fully and conscientiously believe, that it is the will of the Almighty, that there should be a diversity of religious opinions among us. . . .
This is not exactly a minor tract in the history of the US Constitution. The notion was being actively bandied about by philosophers such as Montesque and Deist congregations since at least 1644, that we know of from existing records. To imagine that the notion had no influence on an active deist like Jefferson is to defy reason.
Our founding fathers were educated men, steeped in history, and the current events of the time. Madison and Jefferson, in particular, were well known to be extensively familiar, and ardently drawn, toward the likes of Montesque, on the nature of law, and, as is acknowledged in their biographies, were ever ready to discuss the pernicious nature of Church NOT separated from state. As in:
The Thirty Years War
The genocide of the Anabaptists
The burning of witches
The Trial of Galileo
The word "disestablishmentarian" was coined to describe these two men, and Washington, for goodness sakes. At any rate, by what stretch of the imagination do you come to the astounding conclusion that Madison and Jefferson could have stumbled upon this notion in the brief interval between the writing of the US constitution and the constitution of Virginia?
I did not call you unreasonable for the above. I submit you abandoned reason when you posted the below:
There is no Board of Scientific Laws that deems some things theories and some things laws. There is only differing levels of certainty regarding theories.
There most certainly is a "theory of Gravity". In fact, there are several. The one we currently adopt is currently being hammered by the fact that it seems to fail for outlying stars in rotating galaxies.
We thought, until very recently, with high confidence, that the continents were fixed on the earth. No reputable scientist thinks that there is closure on any "law" of science, such that we no longer need think about it critically.
In a course or section marked clearly "history of science", absolutely. As a viable, contending scientific thesis--not until it's a science widely acknowledged as such by working scientists.
Hmmm... I always thought it was the law of gravity. And every morning, when I get out of bed and my feet naturally go to the floor, I believe it, no matter how badly I wish I could fly.
So,...and when did you try getting out of bed in the outer orbit of the Andromeda Galaxy? Sure, you can demonstrate micro-gravity in our local gravity well. But you have absolutely no getting-out-of-bed experiments to report in the vacuum of space, now do you? Clearly, there is an emmense Gravity Gap, filled with the athiestic wishful thinking of physicists and astronomers.
You are right about that. Common Sense was not any part of the history of the Constitution, it was part of the history of the American Revolution, an entirely separate event in American history. Neither Paine nor Jefferson, whatever their otherwise considerable influence on our nation's history, was a founder, in the narrow sense, since neither one participated in the Constitutional Convention, or even directly participated in the debates in the ratification conventions.
The word "disestablishmentarian" was coined to describe these two men
Afraid not, disestablishentarian was coined to describe members of an unsuccessful British political movement to 'disestablish' the Church of England in Britain. After these two howlers, I am afraid that your historical analysis can not be taken seriously.
That is not very logical, since the two quotes mean the same thing.
As has been discussed earlier, mythology to the contrary notwithstanding, this process of acknowledgement is in large part, a political process. The way public institutions are governed is also based on a political process, one that involves ALL citizens, not a self-appointed scientific elite. Government by 'scientific' elites has been tried by both the Nazis and the Communists, and it does not work.
You'll have to get a majority of posters to agree before I'll believe you. In the meantime, I'm going to operate on the assumption that the different context of each of those two quotes is somewhat important.
In the meantime, what do you think about such majority-determined concepts as a flat earth, white male-only voting rights, and Clinton's praiseworthy tenure as President?
OK, OK, you don't like the results of democratic elections. No problem, I will go along with your idea of government by annointed elites, so long as I get to pick the members.
You're sidestepping the issue. You declared that a majority consensus is all that is required for a thing to be true. I direct your attention once again to your post #28.
Majority rule works great if you're in the majority, doesn't it?
You've already had you ass handed to you on the 1st Amendment, and everyone knows it but you. Majority rule, my logic-spurning adversary: You lose. And, while we're piling on, your already shoddy grasp of the US political structure has just taken another kick in the crotch. Anointed elites? In what post did I suggest such a course?
Perhaps a few remedial courses at the Electoral College would remedy the matter...
In context it is clear that I said that a 95% majority will control the government. In politics, that is what counts.
If you care to run a poll on FR as to who is correct about the first amendment, I will be glad to help out in making the arrangements, then we will see what everyone thinks. On this thread, at this point, there is only you and I, and you do not even have a majority of our two votes.
Evolutionists keep talking about the 'tree of life' as if it was something real. It is not even something on which evolutionists agree! Every single evo author paints a different tree. All the 'tree of life' shows is that evos were able to graduate from kindergarten.
Oh, oh, can I play then? Okay. You lose.
In context it is clear that I said that a 95% majority will control the government. In politics, that is what counts.
Fine. Now defend post 28.
(ENP)
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