Reporting on key Nebraska K-12 education issues on a daily basis from Susan Darst Williams, a writer who lives at the base of Mount Laundry, Nebraska. To subscribe to this blog's mailing list, and see a variety of other education features and information, visit the main education website, www.GoBigEd.com
![[Powered by Blogger]](http://buttons.blogger.com/bloggerbutton1.gif){kind=small}
Wednesday, January 19, 2005
Posted
9:49 AM
by Susan Darst Williams
Good. A Georgia school board voted to appeal a federal judge’s ruling that the stickers their district put on public school biology textbooks have to come off. Why? Because they call evolution a theory, not a fact. And he thinks that violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
Riiiight. Pointing out what is true is bad for children? Evolution is theoretical because it is based on inferences, not observable, falsifiable data like so many other scientific lines of inquiry are. Until we invent time travel, scientists can’t observe or replicate the origins of life or the development of a new species. Even the most rabid evolutionist can go along with calling it a “theory.”
But nooooo. Somehow, the judge in the Cobb County case thought saying so on schoolbooks would cause the children to fall to their faces on the floor and worship the one true living God, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, or sprout acne in the shape of a cross or something.
Sigh. Next they’ll censor textbook mentions of Winston Churchill because he has “church” in his name. Yeah. You know, they can’t teach about fish in school – that’s a Christian symbol! All the mullions in all the windows of school buildings? They have to go – they’re in the shape of a cross.
Once again, the thought police of the ACLU are taking our money and our children’s time, and trying to take away the truth. How I wish people would . . . EVOLVE . . . a little smarts.
Comments:
Susan-
Evolution is a "scientific theory". Scientific theories arise from experimental tests. So many experimental tests support evolution that it is unlikely to be falsified. Whenever I hear "evolution is only a theory", I know that someone has failed to grasp what a scientific theory is.
Les Lane
Evolution is a "scientific theory". Scientific theories arise from experimental tests. So many experimental tests support evolution that it is unlikely to be falsified. Whenever I hear "evolution is only a theory", I know that someone has failed to grasp what a scientific theory is.
Les Lane
# posted by 
: 8:55 PM
: 8:55 PM
To Less From Susan:
Hi!
Please consider this. A bona fide scientific theory isn't full of guacamole and increasingly refuted and debunked the way evolutionahoonieology is, Les. Think about it. This is from my series of educational advice columns, Show 'n' Tell for Parents:
Q. What is all the fuss about teaching the theory of evolution in science textbooks and science class?
The controversy is over whether teachers and textbooks are covering both sides of the story. Many observers say they aren’t.
No reasonable person would oppose the teaching of evolution as long as its flaws, inconsistencies, hoaxes and serious problems are taught, from the early grades on up into upper-level science classes. But the evidence is, those “warts” of evolutionary theory are excluded from the K-12 classroom and most textbooks.
Is it some kind of a conspiracy against the God of the Bible, or are these people stupid? Neither. The problem has to do with the way educators and those who regulate them are trained and operate.
The teachers’ colleges are replete with the philosophy of “progressivism” – that new ways and ideas are always better than old ways and ideas.
School administrators are heavily into “continuous improvement” management systems, where the idea is to keep changing the curriculum and everything else in school, whether it’s better or not.
Meanwhile, units of government that regulate schools and have set statewide learning standards on items such as how life’s origins and development are to be taught, are generally in the grasp of “change agents” who prefer political maneuvering for ideological purposes to a strict academic fidelity to the facts.
Science has shown that the basic tenets of evolution, including spontaneous generation of life from nonlife, and significant changes in body form and function through genetic mutation, don’t happen and can’t happen.
There is not a single transitional fossil showing change from one species to another in all the millions of fossils collected over the years.
The more sophisticated science becomes, including areas such as genetics and molecular biology, the more it becomes clear that evolution is an “ism” that can – and should – be refuted.
Homework: Equip yourself and your children to rebut evolution; start with Access Research Network, www.arn.org
Post a Comment
Hi!
Please consider this. A bona fide scientific theory isn't full of guacamole and increasingly refuted and debunked the way evolutionahoonieology is, Les. Think about it. This is from my series of educational advice columns, Show 'n' Tell for Parents:
Q. What is all the fuss about teaching the theory of evolution in science textbooks and science class?
The controversy is over whether teachers and textbooks are covering both sides of the story. Many observers say they aren’t.
No reasonable person would oppose the teaching of evolution as long as its flaws, inconsistencies, hoaxes and serious problems are taught, from the early grades on up into upper-level science classes. But the evidence is, those “warts” of evolutionary theory are excluded from the K-12 classroom and most textbooks.
Is it some kind of a conspiracy against the God of the Bible, or are these people stupid? Neither. The problem has to do with the way educators and those who regulate them are trained and operate.
The teachers’ colleges are replete with the philosophy of “progressivism” – that new ways and ideas are always better than old ways and ideas.
School administrators are heavily into “continuous improvement” management systems, where the idea is to keep changing the curriculum and everything else in school, whether it’s better or not.
Meanwhile, units of government that regulate schools and have set statewide learning standards on items such as how life’s origins and development are to be taught, are generally in the grasp of “change agents” who prefer political maneuvering for ideological purposes to a strict academic fidelity to the facts.
Science has shown that the basic tenets of evolution, including spontaneous generation of life from nonlife, and significant changes in body form and function through genetic mutation, don’t happen and can’t happen.
There is not a single transitional fossil showing change from one species to another in all the millions of fossils collected over the years.
The more sophisticated science becomes, including areas such as genetics and molecular biology, the more it becomes clear that evolution is an “ism” that can – and should – be refuted.
Homework: Equip yourself and your children to rebut evolution; start with Access Research Network, www.arn.org
# posted by : 2:50 PM
: 2:50 PM