Posted on 02/12/2002 12:24:57 PM PST by PatrickHenry
Since 1920 creationists have been successful in persuading legislatures in five Southern states to pass laws favorable to their views, but the courts consistently struck them down, saying that they violated the establishment clause of the Constitution. In the 1990s creationists began focusing instead on changing state educational standards. The most famous attempt to do so in recent years--the decision of the Kansas Board of Education to eliminate evolution from the state's science standards--was not a success: the decision was reversed in 2001 when antievolution board members were defeated for reelection.
Still, creationists have been victorious in many other states, a trend catalogued by Lawrence S. Lerner of California State University at Long Beach. His evaluation, summarized and updated in the map below, is valuable in part because it points up the widespread sway of creationists in Northern states, such as Illinois, Ohio and Wisconsin, that have a liberal or moderate tradition. Furthermore, it highlights the fact that certain Southern states--North and South Carolina--have more rigorous educational standards than some Northern states, such as New York and Massachusetts.
There is little information on what is actually taught in individual classrooms and school districts, so it is not clear what effect state standards have on the quality of evolution teaching. The influence of the standards is, however, potentially great because they are likely to affect the content of textbooks and lesson plans. Standards set the tone under which teachers and administrators work and, if written well, make it easier for science-oriented educators to insist that all teachers, including the one third who advocate equal time for creationism, observe proper guidelines.
Creationists have been able to alter state education standards despite being a fairly small minority. According to a 1999 poll by the People for the American Way Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based organization opposed to the teaching of creationism in science classes, only 16 percent of Americans support the teaching of creationism to the exclusion of evolution. A huge majority--83 percent--favor teaching evolution, but most of them maintain that creationism should be discussed in science classes with evolution. Only 37 percent expressed strong support for evolution--that is, teaching it to the exclusion of all religious doctrine in science classes.
In the absence of a majority favoring strict standards for evolution teaching, it is easy to see why creationists have been able to make headway even outside the circle of evangelical Christianity. In 1996 Pope John Paul II reaffirmed the Catholic Church's commitment to evolution, first stated in 1950, saying that his inspiration for doing so came from the Bible. Despite this, 40 percent of American Catholics in a 2001 Gallup poll said they believed that God created human life in the past 10,000 years. Indeed, fully 45 percent of all Americans subscribe to this creationist view. Many who are indifferent to conservative theology give creationism some support, perhaps because, as mathematician Norman Levitt of Rutgers University suggests, the subject of evolution provokes anxiety about the nature of human existence, an anxiety that antievolutionists use to promote creationist ideas.
However, whale bones and other marine fossils have been found far inland, without having been either destroyed or eroded down to tiny fragments. This strongly supports the global flood hypothesis and contradicts the local flood theory. This evidence fully supports Velikovsky's hypothesis.I was just talking with Andrew about this stuff. Most people think that marine fossils inland (say, in mountains) are evidence for plate tectonics. I don't see where Ginenthal deals with why the sediments in the Appalachians have no mammal, dinosaur, or bird fossils. To mainstream science, this is no mystery since the topmost layer tends to be NLT the Permian.[Many, many similar citations]
Oh, I remember! Your answer is to link the femur of some giant salamder from the Carboniferous and swear it's from a man.
To: PatrickHenry
Thanks for the bump. After encountering the dismal science background exhibited by so many on these threads, I propose that science, including evolution, is taught earlier and with greater intensity. Begin, say, at kindergarten.
141 posted on 2/13/02 11:28 AM Pacific by Nebullis
Isn't that what the state school established unsonstitutional religion-system is all about...
indoctrination/brainwashing(evolution-masturbation)---were you just kidding??
Why don't we have seperation of state and false science--RELIGION(evolution)!
Thanks for the bump. After encountering the dismal science background exhibited by so many on these threads, I propose that science, including evolution, is taught earlier and with greater intensity. Begin, say, at kindergarten.
141 posted on 2/13/02 11:28 AM Pacific by Nebullis
"with greater intensity"...what are you frankensteins thinking about---
electrodes--racks--ins--batf tactics--attendants...christian hunts---bible burnings...gonna do effigies too!
ID cards---racial purity?
...NWO---one size..."science" fits all---
...the more perfect union---state(liberal-libberatarians) and religion(evolution-false science)!
Yeah...NWO!
sorta the overslept(inertia) drunk clown in his dirty(entropy) underwear the circus/freak show(evolution) left behind...
141 posted on 2/13/02 11:28 AM Pacific by Nebullis
Are you having delusians---hallucinations of competence--coherent thought? Voices?? Is you right arm twitching?
Defender of faith?
I keep science out of school!
I write in haiku.
So we agree.....the end must indeed be close at hand!
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