Tag Archives: Intelligent Design

Unsurprising link between anti-gay and anti-science education policies emerges in Florida’s academic freedom frey

This is described in UDreamOfJanie:Ronda R. Storms is a Florida sate senator (Republican) who has spearheaded efforts against Planned Parenthood, against her local LGBTA community, and so on, is now linked to the Discovery Institute in regards to her latest project, the Florida “Academic Freedom” bill.In regards to Academic Freedom, Storms …

…took the age-old ethical high-road known as ‘Lying for Jesus’. She insists that this bill is about the freedom to inquire about all `scientific information relevant to the full range of scientific views regarding biological and chemical evolution in connection with teaching any prescribed curriculum regarding chemical or biological evolution.’ When asked if this is just a backdoor for sneaking in ‘Intelligent Design’, she wouldn’t answer the question.

Teach Creationism in the Classroom

This page is designed for teachers, pastors, youth leaders and organizations to provide useful tools and resources to promote the ideas surrounding this highly anticipated film.

You can get Expelled! movie clips to show in your life science class. This site has many movies designed for Christian teachers to use in the classroom… The developers of the side have

… made showing movie clips fast and convenient for anyone to use. It’s as simple as a click of a button. Also, we custom edit clips to better illustrate specific points. For instance, we might delete a portion of a scene, combine two scenes from the same film, filter out inappropriate content, adjust the brightness and/or audio volume, etc., for the optimal viewing experience in a church setting.

At the same site, WingNuts.com, you can also get sermon outlines and other useful items.It costs about 16 bucks a month to access this material.All For you. At WingNuts.com.

New NCSE Video

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“Teaching Creationism in Schools,” the second in a series of videos produced by NCSE, debuted at expelledexposed.com on April 23, 2008. The brief video presents three incidents in which NCSE helped concerned citizens to resist assaults on the integrity of evolution education. In the video, NCSE’s Eugenie C. Scott explains: “If we’re going to have good science education, now and in the future, we have to support people like Erec [Hillis], people like the citizens of Dover, and people like the citizens in Kansas, and we have to put out those brushfires. And NCSE is going to be there until the last fire is out.”

Continue reading New NCSE Video

New Poll Reveals Overwhelming Opposition to Teaching Intelligent Design Creationism in Schools

A new poll asks “Do you think the thoery of Intelligent Design should be taught in our education system? Respondents to this on line poll were given the options: Yes, No, Not Sure, and What is it?The results show that nearly 90 percent of respondents oppose teaching ID in schools.i-fc71eefa8f7bdc754fa8a9c445cd3412-idpoll.jpgAlmost no one was unsure, and just under six percent claim to not know what ID is.The poll was conducted by Expelled The Movement, a MySpace group.[source]

Poll Crashing Time

Pharyngula exhorts us to crash a poll on Intelligent Design. It is here. down on the lower left side. About eight hours ago, when PZ discovered the poll, the pro-intelligent design vote was overwhelming. Now, for some reason, the anti-intelligent design vote is overwhelming. So your vote is not needed, but you can still feel like part of the process.Go. There. Now. But come back, I’ll miss you.

The sun is riz, the sun is set … and we ain’t outta Texas yet.

But plans for the Institute for Creation Research Masters Degree in Creationistic Biology for High School Teachers is out of Texas.

Members of the Academic Excellence and Research Committee and the Participation and Success Committee voted unanimously to approve the recommendation of Raymund Paredes, the state’s commissioner of higher education, not to approve the Institute’s application. The full Coordinating Board will vote on the committees’ recommendation on Thursday.”The issue before the Coordinating Board isn’t about academic freedom or free speech. The issue is whether the state will sanction the teaching of religion as science. Committee members today recognized that doing so would be a disservice both to science and to faith.Just as important, our state’s leaders have said that they want our public schools to do a better job preparing students for college and the jobs of the 21st century. If we’re serious about that goal, then we must be serious about how we train our teachers. Approving an advanced degree in science education from an institution that doesn’t really teach science would represent a huge step backward.”

Texas Freedom Network

Yeee hawww!!!!!

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Institute for Creation Research Masters Degree in Biology

The Institute for Creation Research (ICR) has, some time ago, filed for approval to run a masters degree program in life science education. The purpose of the degree is to train educators to present biology in a way that is consistent with Christian Biblical beliefs, as opposed to actual scientific knowledge. The Texas board in charge of these matters is taking the proposal under consideration this week. (Please sign the petition linked below!)The Texas Freedom Network has recently conducted a survey of Texas colleges and university faculty to get their opinions on this proposal. Continue reading Institute for Creation Research Masters Degree in Biology

Florida Academic Freedom Bill Passes in State Senate

A bill designed to make it easier to introduce creationism into public school classrooms has passed in the Florida Senate by a 21 to 17 vote margin. The bill was proposed by Senator Ronda Storms, Republican, and is modeled after a template provided by the Discovery Institute. Continue reading Florida Academic Freedom Bill Passes in State Senate

Louisiana’s Stealth Creationism Bill Takes A Hit

Louisiana State Senate Bill 561 is an “academic freedom” bill intended to push discussion of creationism, global warming denialism, and so on into state public schools. This is the latest in a long series of efforts of right wing fundamentalist christians to indoctrinate public school students in their particular religious (and political) beliefs. Continue reading Louisiana’s Stealth Creationism Bill Takes A Hit

Expelled Exposed: But Wait, There’s More!

I’ve already announced to you, twice, the emergence of a new web site called “Expelled Exposed” developed by the National Center for Science Education. Chances are you already went and looked at the site.But, as of a few minutes ago, the site has been totally refined and updated. The site that is now up at www.expelledexposed.com is presumably the intended product, and it is quite different from, more extensive, more informative, fancier, than the earlier site. So if you looked at the one-page site I had sent you to before, please go back and have a second look. There is much more to be seen.

Fresno Area Rational People, Take Note!

i-c2ba7ddc1b61da060cf1af613acc77da-patton.jpgScott Hatfield of Monkey Trials reports that an infamous Young Earth Creationist Don Patton is planning a church sponsored talk in a local public high school on the topic of creationism. Scott is seeking help.If you live in the vicinity, please consider showing up and being a person with a brain in the audience.PZ Myers has outlined an excellent strategy for Scott (or anyone else i his position). I would add one more item: Scott, send off a note to the National Center of Science Education letting them know what’s up.

Expelled Busted

Things are happening exactly as I predicted…(Expelled! The Movie To Be Pulled From Theaters Following Myers/Dawkins-Gate Screwup)The movie “Expelled!” with Ben Stein (you may have heard of it) includes a segment consisting of the animation of the inside workings of a cell. It is said to look a lot like a production that came out of Harvard and a private animation firm last year or so:People who saw the clip used in Expelled! were beginning to think that the video Expelled! used was not the Harvard video because there were some differences. However, this remains unclear. My thinking on this was that it was the original video but somehow filtered through a process that may have rendered it a little different. Sort of like copying and pasting some text from a copyrighted source, changing the type face and font size, and declaring that it was different.Well, the other shoe has dropped, the shit has hit the fan, the cows have come home to roost… Continue reading Expelled Busted

Expelled Fizzles

From FOX:

After seeing a new non-fiction film starring Comedy Central’s Ben Stein, you may not only be able to win his money, but also his career.Stein is that whiny little guy with the monotone voice that makes him seem funny and an unlikely “character” for TV appearances. But that career may be over come April 18, when a movie he co-wrote, narrates and appears in, called “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,” is released.Directed by one Nathan Frankowski, “Expelled” is a sloppy, all-over-the-place, poorly made (and not just a little boring) “expose” of the scientific community. It’s not very exciting. But it does show that Stein, who’s carved out a career selling eye drops in commercials and amusing us on sitcoms, is either completely nuts or so avaricious that he’s abandoned all good sense to make a buck.To wit: Stein, Frankowski and pals say in “Expelled” that perfectly good scientists and educators are being stigmatized for wanting to teach their students creationism and “intelligent design” — in other words, junk science — in addition to or instead of conventionally accepted Darwinism. You see, Stein, like some other celebrities, finally has shown his true colors and they aren’t so pretty.The gist of Stein’s involvement is: He’s outraged! He believes in God! God created the universe! How can we not avail our students of this theory? What do you mean we’re just molecules?What the producers of this film would love, love, love is a controversy. That’s because it’s being marketed by the same people who brought us “The Passion of the Christ.” They’re hoping someone will latch onto an anti-Semitism theme here, since there’s a visit to a concentration camp and the raised idea — apparently typical of the intelligent design community — that somehow the theory of evolution is so evil that it caused the Holocaust. Alas, this is such a warped premise that no one’s biting.The whole idea of Stein, a Jew, jumping on the intelligent design bandwagon of the theory of evolution begetting the Nazis is so distasteful you wonder what in — sorry — God’s name — he was thinking when he got into this. Who cares, really, if “Expelled” is anti-Semitic? It will come and go without much fanfare.

And so on and so forth, the rest here.From Scientific American: Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed–Scientific American’s Take Continue reading Expelled Fizzles