Tag Archives: Creationism

New Creationist Videos Being Produced in Area High School

This just in:

Dear Greg,

We are excited about our new public service campaign and it should be fully implemented within a month. Here’s the scoop:

This Thursday, May 28th, we will be at a local high school to
tape 3 presentations that will cover the following topics:

  • – Fossil Evidence
  • – The Truth about Genetics and Evolution
  • – How Does Evolution Supposedly Work?

Because most students respond better to interactive forms of learning, we have decided to offer free downloads of these videos as well as the supporting documentation for each of them.

Depending on future funding, we will be adding more and more videos and we will also be doing weekly webcam updates that will offer you the most recent scientific research. It’s coming forward fast and furious and it’s ALL goods news for us!

Please pray that I would have a Godly countenance and that God gives me wisdom and clarity for each word that is spoken.

We will send out an email when the uploads are available and thank you so much for your past and present prayers. It’s a fierce battle and I would be lost without them.

In Christ,

Julie Haberle
Who Is Your Creator

Don’t mess with Tex …

… tbooks. (get it?)

Josh Rosenau, of the National Center for Science Education, has a piece in Seed online:

The National Center for Science Education, in Oakland, CA, where I work, has tracked hundreds of attacks on evolution education in 48 states in the last five years. In the last two years alone, 18 bills in 10 states have targeted the teaching of evolution. These bills, like the flawed science standards approved by the Texas Board of Education in March, don’t ban evolution outright. But they do authorize teachers to omit evolution or include creationism at their whim. “These bills give cover to school boards and teachers who want to teach creationism,” says Barbara Forrest, a professor at Southeastern Louisiana University who studies the history of creationism. “It’s as simple as that.”

Read it here.

Science Education: How to do it right.

The podcast for today’s radio discussion with Fellman, Scott and Laden is available.

A bit about the history of the NCSE; cultural relativism in the science education movement; Greg disses bench scientists again; The appeasement question; A phone call from a famous Pharyngulistum; Science standards; Local control. The Minnesota Science Standards. An intelligently designed buffet and the question of “alternative curriculum.”

Go listen, and come back and comment.

What do science teachers need to say or not say about religion?

… In public schools. According to one Federal Judge in the US, not much.

A Mission Viejo high school history teacher violated the First Amendment by disparaging Christians during a classroom lecture, a federal judge ruled today.

James Corbett, a 20-year teacher at Capistrano Valley High School, referred to Creationism as “religious, superstitious nonsense” during a 2007 classroom lecture, denigrating his former Advanced Placement European history student, Chad Farnan.

The decision is the culmination of a 16-month legal battle between Corbett and Farnan – a conflict the judge said should remind teachers of their legal “boundaries” as public school employees.

In some ways, this ruling is correct, in my view, according to the current law. Statements about religion in a public high school classroom in a class that is not about religion can be taken a lot of ways by students, and given the authority enriched position of a teacher, almost always risk violating the establishment clause one way or another. This is why teachers are advised to make different kinds of claims, such as “Your question, Little Timmy, is about religion. This is a science class. Take your question elsewhere please.” … And after Little Timmy has asked the same religiously oriented question (related to Evolution) the third or fourh time, “Timmy, I asked you to stop disrupting the class in this manner, go to the office.”

On the other hand, if a question about evolution is legitimately raised in a science classroom, which can happen a number of different ways, a teacher may have the responsibility at some point to say that the scientific view is valid and the religious view is not. If the source of the conflict is not the teacher (is not in the curriculum) and is not merely a discipline issue (a student disrupting the class by handing out bible pages) then a direct retort may be valid, in my view.

But maybe not in this legal framework.

This brings up another question which to me is very disconcerting. Do these rules (the ones we are speaking of here as well as other case law regarding teaching science) apply to public colleges? Personally, I do not see the distinction between public high schools and colleges in many of these rulings. I find it fascinating that this has not come up as an issue. Yet.

In the case in question:

“Corbett states an unequivocal belief that Creationism is ‘superstitious nonsense,'” U.S. District Court Judge James Selna said in a 37-page ruling released from his Santa Ana courtroom. “The court cannot discern a legitimate secular purpose in this statement, even when considered in context.”

There clearly is a weaknessin the ruling here, and I think we can refer to Dover for this. The teacher is making te case that Creationism is not valid science. Perhaps the teacher used strong words to say it, but that is not the issue here. The teacher is technically correct. So, the court has suppressed a valid statement of truth in favor of a subjective opinion. That may be how this decision goes away at some higher level.

[source of the story]

This is being discussed here.

Texans have a chance to repent

Next time I get down on you slack-jawed yokels in Texas, which could be any time, I don’t want to hear any flack. No excuses. You can take my critique in the gut and live with it OR you can tell me to stuff it. But the latter is only an option if you get off your bovine Texas asses and do what you need to do.

State Board of Education Chairman Don McLeroy, R-Bryan, faced searing questioning during his uncommonly long confirmation hearing Wednesday at the Senate Nominations Committee.

And Chairman Mike Jackson, R-La Porte, said McLeroy’s nomination is on shaky ground because he might not be able to get the required two-thirds vote from the Senate.

Democratic senators Kirk Watson of Austin and Eliot Shapleigh of El Paso challenged McLeroy over his leadership during a number of controversial Board of Education decisions, including the recent adoption of new science curriculum standards that critics say undermine the teaching of evolution.

Shapleigh said he plans to have McLeroy separated from the others when his nomination comes up on the Senate floor so that it could be debated and voted on individually.

“You’ve created a hornet’s nest like I’ve never seen,” Shapleigh said, noting that 15 bills – “the most I’ve ever seen” – have been filed during this legislative session to strip various powers from the State Board of Education.

source

Texans, call or email your Senator now! Put the pressure on! Get this guy out of there!

And then, you can hang your head high and ride into town on that longhorn of yours with pride.

HT: Pharyngula

Dave Mabus in my Email Box

I just received a very threatening email from Dave Mabus. Dave is a christian who is rabidly anti atheist. As a person he is about as pleasant as a bad rash and as an intellect he makes a walnut look smart. Very few people send me truly threatening emails and get away with it for long. Remember the Turkish Spammers? I took care of them right good, didn’t I. (Details will not be forthcoming … just notice that they are not around here any more.) And I’d take care of Dave as well, except for one very important detail. He wasn’t threatening me, he was threatening my friend and colleague, PZ Myers.

Now, of course, I’ll stand up for PZ any time. But I don’t need to. He’s very capable of taking care of himself. I pity the person that threatens PZ.

As part of Dave the Dummy Mathus’s threat, and rather incongruously, he sent me this picture:

i-09122310ca41ab16571a824b89b2ae01-is_your_housemate_an_atheist.jpg

I think Dave thinks this is a funny anti-atheist cartoon. He does not understand that this is a funny parody on anti-atheism. So Dave sending this to me and a thousand other people (oh, Dave’s also a spammer) is pretty funny. Please pass the cartoon on.

It is possible that Dave himself is a parody. He is so utterly absurd that there is a distinct possibility that he is a texbook case of Poe’s law. But I don’t think so. The reason I don’t think so is because of the link between Dave and Nostradamus. This link usually means something.

In truth, I feel sorry for Dave. There is abundant evidence to inidcate that this man is in need of psychiatric help. Seriously. The problem is, having the disability he has does not place me in a position to help him. It does not make me responsible for him. All I’m going to do is keep busy defending rationality, evolution, and education. Dave’s family and friends should really step in here and get him some help.

Here is is web site in case there is any doubt about his condition.

Louisiana: Not so sure about evolution

“Just in time for the bicentennial observance of Charles Darwin’s birth, a new survey of Louisiana residents shows 40 percent of the respondents believe evolution is not well-supported by evidence or generally accepted within the scientific community,” the Baton Rouge Advocate (April 14, 2009) reports. The Louisiana Survey, sponsored by the Manship School of Mass Communication’s Reilly Center for Media & Public Affairs at Louisiana State University, asked (PDF), “Do you think the scientific theory of evolution is well supported by evidence and widely accepted within the scientific community, or that it is not well supported by evidence and many scientists have serious doubts about it?” Of the respondents, only 38.8% preferred the correct option, with 40.3% thinking that evolution is not well supported and 20.9% listed as saying they don’t know. The survey also asked, “When teaching students about human origins, would you generally favor or oppose teaching creationism along with evolution in public schools?”; 57.5% of the respondents said that they favored teaching creationism, 31% said that they opposed teaching creationism, and 11.4% were listed as saying they don’t know.

See this for all of the details.