Posted on 11/17/2004 4:25:20 PM PST by beavus
Two Emory professors went to court last week to testify in a case about the way evolution is taught in Cobb County.
At issue in the case that began in a federal district court on Monday is a sticker that Cobb places in all biology textbooks warning students that evolution is only “a theory, not a fact” and should be “approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered.”
Anthropology Professor Benjamin Freed and medical school Professor Carlos Moreno contend that the sticker discourages the teaching of evolution.
But because he did not fill out all of the information on his affidavit, Freed was told he could not testify in the case.
Moreno recently created a petition against the stickers that reads, “We feel that it is our duty as scientists, educators, and citizens that secondary level science classes teach science and not religion.”
No members of the Cobb County school board who implemented the stickers could be reached for comment.
In 1995, all teaching of evolution was banned in Cobb.
In 2002, when textbooks including information about evolution were purchased by the district, a group of parents petitioned the school board to stop discussions of evolution in the classroom.
In response to the concerns of parents, the stickers were placed in the textbooks.
Freed said he thinks the sticker signals a breakdown in the separation between church and state and undermines the quality of science education in Cobb.
Partially in response to the placement of the sticker in textbooks, Freed helped found the Georgia Citizens for Integrity in Science Education in 2002.
“There had been several challenges,” he said. “But no one was standing up for science. In order to facilitate more quality in biology teaching, which is essential for the state of Georgia, a number of us decided we needed to join forces.”
The issue moved to the courts, with the American Civil Liberties Union arguing on behalf of five parents who feel the sticker violates the separation between church and state.
Moreno, who is also a member of the Georgia citizens group, said the sticker encourages students to disregard evolution and teachers to introduce nonscientific material into science classes.
“I felt this was undermining science education in Georgia, and evolution is fundamental to understanding biology,” Moreno said.
Freed said he thinks the creators of the sticker misused the word “theory.” A scientific theory is much closer to a fact than most people understand, he said.
In fact, Moreno said, evolution is as credible a scientific theory as gravity.
Both Moreno and Freed agreed that science needs to exist more in the public domain.
Moreno said there is a lack of understanding of scientific processes and the way scientists create theories.
Freed, who moved to Cobb in 2001 after growing up in New Jersey, where he had access to more museums of natural history, said he found the lack of acceptance of science “absolutely astounding.”
“I really didn’t see any kind of dialogue,” Freed said.
Last February, Freed was vocal in his opposition to state Superintendent Kathy Cox’s (’86C, ’90G) proposal that would have removed the word “evolution” from middle and high school curricula. She suggested that the term be replaced by the phrase “biological changes over time” but later recanted the proposal in the face of widespread criticism.
Freed said he loves having students with nonscientific majors in his classes. He said his students will one day be community members who should have a basic understanding of science, which includes fully understanding evolution.
“There’s going to be a core element that will stick with them,” he said.
According to science, ALL knowledge should be “approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered.” To specifically label evolutionary biology with that dictum can only mislead kids into thinking it is okay to blindly accept other theories--which I suppose is the point--to make it easier to brainwash kids into blind acceptance of the absurdities of poofism.
Mankind lurches forward as the medieval mindset strains to hold it back in the darkness.
Then he shouldn't have any problem with the warning label...
Sure. As long as the label is attached to everything that is tought. It doesn't make sense to isolate evolutionary biology.
It should also be noted that the misnamed "law of gravity" is only a theory as well. And it too must be "approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered."
I'll never understand why some people think that Divine creation and evolution are mutually exclusive. If you ask me, the sheer complexity of evolution is demonstrable proof of God's existence and His intelligent design of all things living.
Precisely.
Ping
It takes a lot of "faith" to believe that.
This hillbilly stuff is an embarrassment to Republicans. Sorry, creationist freepers, but there it is.
What horsesh*t.
I see nothing religious about the label. It is truthful. It encourages free thought. It encourages analytical thought. What's so terrible about that?
Wasn't it Mencken who wanted a sign above every church saying "Important If True"?
I wouldn't have any problem with a "theory" warning label on non-factual information in any subject. Someone else brings up the example of gravity. Yes, like electricity, the fundamental underpinnings of gravity are theoretical. If that's what they're teaching, then it should come with a warning. If, as is more likely the case, they're teaching facts about the observed behavior of gravity or electricity, that doesn't need a disclaimer.
You're every bit as smug and condescending as your liberal counterparts.
Ping.
As soon as the poofists demonstrate an actual poof, they can make their argument. However, since no one has seen the space-time continuum disrupted for the magical appearance of a complex organism, most thinking people will consider challenges to that most fundamental of physical observations (continuity) to be unfounded at best, insane at worst.
In your way of thinking, what DOESN'T require faith? Blind acceptance?
I think most evolutionists would reject your suggestion that a "god" had anything to do with it.
The label is true. That it is applied only to evolutionary biology is misleading. It's like me telling people that you didn't punch your mother today. It's true, but intended to mislead.
You may have a point there, since evolutionary theory is far BETTER established and understood than gravitational theory.
Professors say evolution disclaimer is 'reasonable', by R. Robin McDonald and Greg Bluestein Fulton County Daily Report 11-12-2004
[Excerpt]
Calling evolution "a theory in crisis," more than two-dozen scientists have come to the defense of the Cobb County, Ga., Board of Education. The scientists, all Ph.D.'s, portray evolution as "a live and growing scientific controversy."
Among them are professors of microbiology, biochemistry and biophysics, who have filed a friend-of-the-court brief siding with the school board's 2002 decision to place a disclaimer about evolution in the front of its high-school biology textbooks. At the board's direction, a sticker placed in every Cobb biology textbook warns students that evolution is "a theory, not a fact," and should be "critically considered."
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Obviously these scientists are being paid-off by those pesky Religious folk! [/raving atheist mode]
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