Louisiana, more specifically Livingston Parish, LA, is exploring the possibility to teaching . . . wait for it . . . Creationism. I guess the allure of Intelligent Design is wearing off because they didn't even bother with hiding behind it's pseudo-lab coattails. 2theadvocate reports "School Board might OK teaching creationism". How many folks have been predicting this ever since Bobby Jindal pandered to conservative voters and signed the poorly named "Louisiana Science Education Act". I find it telling that members of the school board are making comments very similar to comments made by former members of the Dover PA school board. Here are a few quotes from the article -- italic emphasis added is mine.
Jan Benton, director of curriculum: said that under provisions of the Science Education Act enacted last year by the Louisiana Legislature, schools can present what she termed “critical thinking and creationism” in science classes.Board Member David Tate quickly responded: “We let them teach evolution to our children, but I think all of us sitting up here on this School Board believe in creationism. Why can’t we get someone with religious beliefs to teach creationism?”
Fellow board member Clint Mitchell responded, “I agree … you don’t have to be afraid to point out some of the fallacies with the theory of evolution. Teachers should have the freedom to look at creationism and find a way to get it into the classroom.”
Board President Keith Martin, while reminding the members that a decision had been made in the past not to teach creationism, suggested that now might be the time to re-examine the issue.
I guess Louisiana has completely forgotten Edwards v. Aguillard, (1987), a case heard by the US Supreme Court that ruled a Louisiana law requiring that creation science be taught in public schools along with evolution was unconstitutional, because the law was specifically intended to advance a particular religion. So one question that comes to mind is the creationism they are talking about different from the creationism they wanted to teach in 1987? I don't think so!
So what is the go ahead plan? They are going to appoint a committee to look into it. Gee! What's next hiring Alan Bonsell or William Buckingham as consultants? After all their time on the Dover School Board was so . . . helpful.
The majority of the comments to the article call it 'disgraceful', I would agree, but I think their behavior is moving much more toward 'criminal'. What worries me the most is that how expensive this may get for the parish -- and it shouldn't be! The Board Members are pushing their religion, and that was already declared unconstitutional in 1987. this is completely unnecessary. I hope their committee looks at things clearly -- but since the move was accepted unanimously, I am afraid they are already seeing what they want to see rather than the realities of what they are trying to do.
A couple of other comments by Board President Martin make me think he doesn't really know what he is doing. Here is the first:
“You don’t want two different teachers teaching two different things.”
So what does he mean? Will biology teachers be forced to teach creationism? Or will the teaching of biology be shifted to someone with a more theistic-friendly background? I know, let's hire a Muslim to teach the Muslim version of Creationism! Yea, that will go over big!
One other reported comment is a real head-scratcher:
"Martin, noting that discipline of young people is constantly becoming more of a challenge for parents and teachers, agreed: “Maybe it’s time that we look at this.”"
So what is he advocating? Bringing back good old-fashioned religious discipline? How will teaching Creationism improve discipline in Louisiana public schools? What is he thinking? I sure don't know -- but if I were a student in Louisiana I would be concerned for my academic future. There are only so many slots at Falwell's lamented Liberty 'University' and the rest of you might not be eligible for other colleges. I bet we will see many Louisiana colleges offering remedial science classes to bring their student up to some acceptable standard of knowledge. Such a further waste of resources.
It might take a while, but I see a lawsuit in their future. I really don't see any good coming from this other than several board members patting themselves on the back for their attempt to bring their good-old religion into the public school -- or maybe I should say former board members if history does repeat itself.
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I guess Louisiana has completely forgotten Edwards v. Aguillard, (1987), a case heard by the US Supreme Court that ruled a Louisiana law requiring that creation science be taught in public schools along with evolution was unconstitutional, because the law was specifically intended to advance a particular religion.
ReplyDeleteCreationism is not a specific religion anymore than the notion that we are endowed by our Creator with inalienable rights is. The federal judiciary has shown itself capable of pulling decisions out of its own penumbras while making the Constitution into a "thing of wax" just as Jefferson said it would. That's because they are tending to take an evolutionary or fascist view of the law and language.
I would agree, but I think their behavior is moving much more toward 'criminal'.
Should they be put in jail? Should anyone publicly supporting Jewish creation stories be censored? Or how far must the State pursue a "Jewish influence" of this sort?
The Board Members are pushing their religion, and that was already declared unconstitutional in 1987.
Creationism is not a sectarian religion anymore than the Declaration of Independence is unconstitutional and local communities teaching their kids something other than Darwinian creation myths is not illegal. Indeed, given the history of those who actually believed Darwinian creation myths to be true freedom to criticize them should be viewed as a good thing.
I bet we will see many Louisiana colleges offering remedial science classes to bring their student up to some acceptable standard of knowledge.
I bet that anyone educated in what biologists tend to believe about the past as well as arguments against it will be better educated than those merely indoctrinated with the pseudo-science typical to biologists.
So when you say "Creationism is not a specific religion" your 'version' of Creationism is identical to The New Zealand Maori Creation Account:
ReplyDelete"Io is known as the Supreme Being and ex nihilo (out of nothing) creator of the entire universe. He creates Ranginui (Rangi) and Papatuanuku (Papa), Sky Father and the Earth Mother, respectively.
The sky and earth produce numerous offspring while they are physically,“cleaved together in a procreative embrace.” The children are forced to live in the darkness since their parents block all the rays from the sun. They soon become restless and worn out from the living conditions and gather to question whether to separate their parents or to kill them for more room and light.
The fiercest of the offspring, Tumatauenga (Tuma) voices his opinion for death, while Tanemahuta (Tane) wishes to just separate the mother and father so that the earth will “remain close as our nursing mother.” Most of the sons, including Tuma, finally agree with the plan for separation with a major dissenting vote from only one sibling, Tawhirimatea. As the guardian of winds and storms, he fears that his kingdom will be overthrown if the parents are torn apart. In the minority, Tawhirimatea remains silent and holds his breath.
The children begin to divide Rangi and Papa, and they soon realize their task is very difficult to accomplish. After many siblings attempt to separate the parents, Tane finally succeeds as he places his shoulders against the earth and his feet against the sky. He pushes slowly with both his upper and lower body with great strain.“Soon, and yet not soon, for the time was vast, the Sky and Earth began to yield.” The Earth Mother and Sky Father bleed and this gives rise to ochre (red clay), the sacred color of the Maoris. As the parents cry out for Tuma to stop, he only presses on harder. Sky Father and Earth Mother’s blood spills on his head, known as the kokowai, the sacred red earth that is created when the first blood spills at the dawn of time. Now that the separation is complete, there is a clearly defined sky and earth.
One of the offspring, Urutengangana, states that there is one element still missing, and he urges his siblings to find the female element, ira tangata, to enable the creation of woman. The search spans both land and sea, and Tane finally consults his mother, Papa, for her advice and knowledge. The earth takes pity on Tane and tells him to search an area named Kura-waka. Tane returns to his siblings with the new insight and they travel to the location. The children find the element in the Earth and dig it out to contribute in the creation of woman and her form. The elder siblings shape the body and the younger siblings add the flesh, fat, muscles, and blood. Tane then breathes life into it, and creates Hine-ahu-one, the earth formed maiden."
The 'Creationism' being pushing by people like the Discovery Institute, Answers in Genesis, and the Louisiana Family Forum is the Evangelical Christian version of Creationism. Only they don't just want it taught in religion class, they want and expect it to replace any other discussion of Creation including those in Chemistry and Biology classes.
ReplyDeleteI say the behavior is criminal because the ruling was already made and they should be held accountable for dragging their parish back into an argument they have already lost. The punishment is up to the members of the Parish, who should at a minimum vote them out of office. If you read the Dover Trial account certain board members should have been charged with Perjury because of their testimony (as in ther lied under oath).
Creationism is very sectarian, look outside of the Chrstian Religion and you might be surprised how the Earth lies on the back of a giant turtle to some. What makes your version any better than their's? Oh you can say we see no evidence of a giant turtle . . . but then we see no evidence of "in the beginning" either.
I don't mind if anyone brings up alternatives to evolutionary theory . . . but base them on reality, not your religion. Present the evidence and support rather than philosophical wishful thinking. Hell if the Discovery Institute would do that with intelligent design they would be welcomed in science class -- but they either are unable or unwilling because other than marketing and wishful thinking, they have been pretty quiet.
So when you say "Creationism is not a specific religion" your 'version' of Creationism is identical to The New Zealand Maori Creation Account...
ReplyDeleteCreationism is not a sectarian belief and has absolutely nothing to do with establishing a national religion or a national church. All I would note of your red herring is that if the old worldview was one in which Mother Earth gave birth to all in immanence then scientists seeking to differentiate themselves from their theological roots would now be working to prop up the notion of a transcendent God.
Only they don't just want it taught in religion class, they want and expect it to replace any other discussion of Creation including those in Chemistry and Biology classes.
Given the history of when students are indoctrinated solely with Darwinian creation myths it's not clear why such an education would be a bad thing. Darwinian creation myths are little different than others, note how they often seem to have more to do with the psychological dynamics of proponents of Darwinism than empirical evidence. E.g. the notion that just won't die among Darwinists, that embryos are evidence of or somehow retracing events which happened millions of years ago. Apparently this ridiculous notion is quite appealing to those who want to crawl back into the womb of Mother Nature so they can't let it go.
E.g.One of the foremost advocates of evolution was the flamboyant German embryologist Ernst Haeckel. He not only promoted Darwinism in Germany, but he went so far as to argue that we could see all the details of evolutionary history in embryos and reconstruct ancestors from the embryonic stages of living animals. His most famous slogan, the “biogenetic law,” was “Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.” This is simply a fancy way of saying embryonic development (”ontogeny”) repeats (”recapitulates”) evolutionary history (”phylogeny”). To the limited extent that von Baer had shown…. this is true. ….it is dangerous to overextend the evolutionary implications of the stages in an embryo, but they are useful guides nonetheless. (Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters by Donald Prothero :108)
And note that biologists taught known frauds to students for well over a century, a blurring of form quite appealing to the Darwinian mind and its creation myths. Indoctrinating students with evolutionary creation myths has had disastrous results in the past, yet we're supposed to believe that the open discussion of Jewish creation narratives will lead to disaster?
Oh you can say we see no evidence of a giant turtle . . . but then we see no evidence of "in the beginning" either.
That's incorrect. Even those who are philosophically biased against the notion of a beginning have found lines of evidence that there was one.
E.g.
All the details differ, but the essential element in the astronomical and biblical accounts of Genesis is the same; the chain of events leading to man commenced suddenly and sharply, at a definite moment in time, in a flash of light and energy. This is the crux of the new story of Genesis. It has been familiar for years as the 'Big Bang' theory, and has shared the limelight with other theories, especially the Steady State cosmology; but adverse evidence has led to the abandonment of the Steady State theory by nearly everyone, leaving the Big Bang theory exposed as the only adequate explanation of the facts.
(God and the Astronomers, by Rober Jastrow :9-10, 14)
I don't mind if anyone brings up alternatives to evolutionary theory . . . but base them on reality, not your religion.
ReplyDeleteMany hypotheses of evolution have little to do with reality in the first place, let's not play pretend about it. Despite their pretenses to the public of having a singular "theory of evolution" which is the epistemic equivalent of the theory of gravity biologists sometimes point out to each other that their creation myths have little to do with empirical science.
E.g.
“The viewpoint of Coyne et al. (1988) is one in which past events are argued to explain, in a causal sense, the world around us. Such explanations cannot be verified or tested, and the only biological observations they require are that variation and differential reproduction occur. This is not a caricature, as a reading of Coyne et al. will verify. In keeping with this general viewpoint, proponents claim that species are explained with reference to history. Important characters are hence “mechanisms” that have established and maintained the separation between diverged lineages of an ancestral population. According to Coyne et al., even the adaptive purpose of the changes that resulted in these mechanisms is irrelevant.
We would ask where biology enters into this schema. The answer is that it does not. Rather, biology is interpreted in terms of a range of historical processes, including selection of variation over time. This could, with equal relevance, be used to understand any nonbiological phenomenon such as the development of the automobile, agricultural methods, culture, or men’s suits (Lewontin, 1976).”
(Points of View
Species and Neo-Darwinism
by C. S. White; B. Michaux; D. M. Lambert
Systematic Zoology, Vol. 39, No. 4. (Dec., 1990), :400-401)
"Given the history of when students are indoctrinated solely with Darwinian creation myths it's not clear why such an education would be a bad thing."
ReplyDeleteWhy would it be a bad thing? Let's take your version of Creationism and teach it in Biology class. Let's take a quick peek and see what the teacher has to say.
"On the one hand we have the theory of evolution that says . . . ." The reason this is held to be true is all of this evidence including evidence from chemistry, micro-biology, paleontology, geology, climatology, physics, astronomy, anatomy, genetics . . . to name a few of the disciplines."
"Now on the other hand we have Creationism. Creationism is held to be true because the Bible says so."
See any difference in teaching method? When teaching biology you can list of millions of pieces of evidence. You can trace through the methodology that shows you not only what the scientists involved uncovered, but how it was uncovered and why it fits into the biological framework the way it does. The studuents learn to think for themselves and use the same methodology for their own work -- regardless of which scientific discipline they may someday work in. They are not being indoctinated to a set of facts, they are leanring a methodology with practical applications. The same methodology that brought you the computer you are beating your head against! The same methodology that keeps your house form falling down around your ears. The same methodology that gives you an operational vehicle. Evolution, and biology, is not just a list of do's and don't, it's a way of approaching a question and determining answeres, answers that are useful, usable, and repeatable. It's also a methodology that uncovers erroneous information!
Scinetists are not perfect, but the methodology tends to remove those that cannot produce and reproduce claimed results.
And on the otehr hand we have complete and total indoctrination to believe one narrow set of stories with no coorboration, no validation, that cannot be used or even repeated. And we have to convince students that the two are saying the same things? Aside from the simple fact that the majority of the creation stories in most of the world's religions are in conflict with the Bible. Aside from the fact there is not one shred of evidence supporting the truthfullness of the Biblical 'account'.
You can continue to call it the Darwin Creation Myth if you like, but you know that's a lie and a pretty standard creationist mis-characterization. Myths do not have evidenciary support. Darwin did not even address Creation, but life and life's diversity. Plus thousands of scientists have put their own mark on evolutionary theory. Darwin was one of the biggies, but you fail to give credit to anyone who came after he did -- and that is why it's called the Theory of Evolution, bot the Darwin Creation Myth -- but you won't listen. You filter all through your own prejudices and reality has little to do with your world view. Good luck with that, you'll need it.
Your last post does nothing by show you lack of education on the subject at hand. What we call the Theory of Evolution is more a collection of many theories and hypotheses that are constantly under rigorous experimentation and work. There is not one single 'Evolution' but many hundreds of concepts. Many of them are theories in their own right, like your own posted example of Punctuated Equilibrium. There is the Theory Of Natural Selection. There is the Theory of Sexual Selection. There is the Theory of Gene Flow. There is the entire study of genetics which it another whole set of theories. There are the studies of comparative anatomy. . . . the list gets pretty long.
ReplyDeleteNow if you want to address a single item at a time, we certainly can. Yes, you will find some that are still at the hyothesis level -- whether you are looking at Evolution or even Gravity. But you will also find many firmly understood and well supported theories.
BTW, this is another standard creationist tactic -- discussing evolution as a whole and then trying to nitpick pieces. Do you guys follow a playbook?