Posted on 01/19/2005 9:19:13 AM PST by Michael_Michaelangelo
SACRAMENTO, JAN. 17 – A California school district has been sued in federal court for violating a parent's civil rights during a controversy over how to teach evolution.
For more than a year, Larry Caldwell tried to get the Roseville Joint Union High School District outside of Sacramento to consider changing how it taught the theory of evolution in its biology classes. Caldwell, who has three children, says he wanted the district to correct factual errors in its biology textbooks as well as to introduce students to some scientific criticisms of modern evolutionary theory. Caldwell did not propose that the district teach creationism or alternatives to evolution.
The Roseville district ultimately rejected Caldwell's recommendations. But in the process of trying to scuttle his proposals, Caldwell alleges that the district repeatedly denied him rights and procedures normally afforded to other citizens in the district, banned parents from speaking in favor of his proposals at a public meeting, publicly attacked his personal religious beliefs, spread false rumors about him, and even threatened to sue him and other parents if they continued to speak out.
"These are tactics you'd expect in a banana republic, not the state of California," said Caldwell.
"Mr. Caldwell's complaint describes a school district that appears to have been out-of-control," said Dr. John West, Associate Director of Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture. "Caldwell's proposals deserved to be accepted or rejected on their merits. The school district's apparent disregard for Mr. Caldwell's civil and constitutional rights is deeply troubling."
(Though I must admit, watching Barbara Boxer has given me my first reservations about "Intelligent Design.")
Dan
(c;
It's always amazed me about how little the FR evolutionists actually address anything scientific. To his credit, RWP probably has the greatest percentage of science in his posts though the logical fallacies remain.
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The Top 10 Scientific Reasons to Believe in Evolution (as presented by its FR apologists) |
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10 No scientist believes in creation and if he does, he is not a scientist. |
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9 You only THINK you see design. |
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8 Creationists have an agenda. Evolutionists do not. |
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7 Anything but evolution is religion. |
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6 Creationists have nothing but Genesis for evidence. |
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5 Theory now means fact, so evolution is a fact. |
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4 The Founders were creationists only because they were ignorant. |
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3 Answering creationist arguments is the same as refuting them. |
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2 We have a mountain of overwhelming evidence that proves evolution but we forgot where we put it. |
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1 If you do not believe in evolution, you do not understand science (We're smart-- you're not). |
THERE y'go!
Finally!
A fellow from NEITHER side that admits there are things that he doesn't know!
An honest man, I think!
I salute you!
INTREP - status quo - Survive
I have read Ussher - and he is very convincing.
Thanks for the ping!
AMEN!
The Onion did request Free Republic not to reprint articles from their site.
It's their loss, I used to go to that site everytime someone posted something from it. Now I hardly ever go there.
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