Posted on 08/08/2005 6:15:00 PM PDT by Crackingham
The real impact of President Bush weighing in on the national debate over how to teach the origins of life may be felt in the classroom, where much of the anti-evolutionary lobbying is done under the radar.
One tactic is for a student or parent to present the teacher with a list that's popular in conservative circles called, "Ten questions to ask your biology teacher."
The result, observers say, is that some teachers fear even mentioning "the e-word."
"That's what people would somewhat jokingly call it," said Al Janulaw, who spent more than 30 years teaching science in elementary and middle schools. For the past six he has been a Sonoma State University instructor teaching student teachers how to teach science.
The White House entered one of the country's most politically charged red- and-blue battles last week when Bush was asked at a news conference about his views on evolution and intelligent design -- a critique that says Charles Darwin's natural selection theory doesn't explain some features of the natural world.
"I felt like both sides ought to be properly taught," Bush said. "I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought."
The mere fact that Bush mentioned intelligent design on the same footing as evolutionary teaching is being seen as a huge moral boost for anti-Darwin critics.
Although California schools are not in the center of the debate, as are schools in other parts of the country, some of the state's science teachers are apprehensive and see Bush's comments as an unwelcome intrusion of religion into the science curriculum.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Good.
I see these threads go over 1,000 posts. I wonder if I am the only one who doesn't give a damn one way or the other.
Now, if he just would suggest that churches need to give both sides...
Poor teachers - can't just spew canned lessons that require no thought.
What're the 10 questions?
Science is the least tolerant of religions.
I donno if the ping list can handle another one of these right now. There's a few other threads that are quite active. Maybe I'll just sit back on this one.
ORIGIN OF LIFE. Why do textbooks claim that the 1953 Miller-Urey experiment shows how life's building blocks may have formed on the early Earth -- when conditions on the early Earth were probably nothing like those used in the experiment, and the origin of life remains a mystery?
DARWIN'S TREE OF LIFE. Why don't textbooks discuss the "Cambrian explosion," in which all major animal groups appear together in the fossil record fully formed instead of branching from a common ancestor -- thus contradicting the evolutionary tree of life?
HOMOLOGY. Why do textbooks define homology as similarity due to common ancestry, then claim that it is evidence for common ancestry -- a circular argument masquerading as scientific evidence?
VERTEBRATE EMBRYOS. Why do textbooks use drawings of similarities in vertebrate embryos as evidence for their common ancestry -- even though biologists have known for over a century that vertebrate embryos are not most similar in their early stages, and the drawings are faked?
ARCHAEOPTERYX. Why do textbooks portray this fossil as the missing link between dinosaurs and modern birds -- even though modern birds are probably not descended from it, and its supposed ancestors do not appear until millions of years after it?
PEPPERED MOTHS. Why do textbooks use pictures of peppered moths camouflaged on tree trunks as evidence for natural selection -- when biologists have known since the 1980s that the moths don't normally rest on tree trunks, and all the pictures have been staged?
DARWIN'S FINCHES. Why do textbooks claim that beak changes in Galapagos finches during a severe drought can explain the origin of species by natural selection -- even though the changes were reversed after the drought ended, and no net evolution occurred?
MUTANT FRUIT FLIES. Why do textbooks use fruit flies with an extra pair of wings as evidence that DNA mutations can supply raw materials for evolution -- even though the extra wings have no muscles and these disabled mutants cannot survive outside the laboratory?
HUMAN ORIGINS. Why are artists' drawings of ape-like humans used to justify materialistic claims that we are just animals and our existence is a mere accident -- when fossil experts cannot even agree on who our supposed ancestors were or what they looked like?
EVOLUTION A FACT? Why are we told that Darwin's theory of evolution is a scientific fact -- even though many of its claims are based on misrepresentations of the facts?
#10: If you teach evolution, why do you want to make baby Jesus cry?
#9: What level of hell do evolutionists inhabit?
#8: ...
All those objecting to evolution - raise your tails and throw a coconut at the vote counter.
Why has the MSM kept Intelligent Design under cover? Are there not scientist who are able to carry that side of the debate? Or is it that the institutional might of the evolutionists are unwilling and unable to carry on the debate?
I refuse to get into this debate again. I will say only one thing. When I was in school, religious beliefs were not discussed in public school. It wasn't "policy." It just wasn't discussed (nor was it prohibited). What we were taught in the sciences did not cross any line and we were taught what "many scientists believe...(whatever)". There was no conflict. We were expected on exams to know what "many scientists believed" as theory.
What we were taught in religious education (outside of public school) really did not conflict with what we were taught in school.
This current perceived problem has only arisen as a backlash to those who are interested in removing the possibility of religious belief not only from our school children, but from society in general. Secularism has become a religion in and of itself. I'm tired of secularist fanatics who wish to destroy freedom of religion.
Present the facts and let students and families decide.
I think they've identified a common poor explanation. Mayhaps this'll spur textbook writers to learn to write better.
You are not. Put me on the doesn't give a hoot bandwagon.
BTW, hasn't the crevo thread business gotten to be a bit much as of late?
*sigh* hasn't this been covered enough. I see the media want to string this out for weeks.
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