First Russian Anti-Evolution Suit Enters Court Room 485
sdriver writes "If you thought it was only the US giving Darwin a hard time, Russia has its own problems starting with evolution. A student has 'sued the St. Petersburg city education committee, claiming the 10th-grade biology textbook used at the Cervantes Gymnasium was offensive to believers and that teachers should offer an alternative to Darwin's famous theory.' The suit, the first of its kind in Russia, is being dismissed out of hand by the principal and teachers. The teacher of the science class had apparently even taken the step of stating at the start of the school year that there were other theories on the origin of life."
Re:other theories (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Believer's Rights? (Score:5, Interesting)
1. The textbook does NOT refer to religion in negative way. Being a Biology textbook, it ignores religion completely.
2. The Russian law says nothing about not dissing religious groups. It does say that inciting inter-racial or inter-religious violence is punishable, but dissing is completely ok.
3. The girl who has "sued" the school is not religious in any special way. In fact, she dresses and looks like a goth. The lawsuit itself has been initiated by her father, working for some small PR outfit and in bad need for publicity. Now, thanks to the lawsuit, he has got onto national TV, if only for a few moments.
The whole thing is a publicity stunt and everybody including most journalists acknowledges that.
More on-topic this time... (Score:4, Interesting)
MOM: (reading from "Exploring Creationism with Physical Science") One popular thing to do in American Politics is to note that the summers in the United States over the past few years have been very warm. As a result, global warming must be real. What's wrong with this reasoning?
KID: It's only gone up 0.6 degrees.
MOM: Yeah, it's not really a big problem, is it?
KID: No. I don't think that... it's going to hurt us.
MOM: It's a huge political issue, global warming is, and that's why it's really important for you to understand...
KID: Is evolution too?
MOM: Um, not really. On a much...
KID: Creationism?
MOM: Um, it's becoming one now. What if you had to go to school where the teacher said, "Creationism is stupid, and you're stupid if you believe in it?"
KID: I think they should...
MOM: Well, or what if you had to go to a school where the teacher said "Evolution is stupid, and you're stupid if you believe it?"
KID: I wouldn't mind that.
MOM: You wouldn't mind it. If you look at Creationism, it's the only possible answer to all the questions. It's the only possible answer.
KID: That's exactly what dad said!
MOM: Mmm hmmm, it's the only possible answer to all the questions.
KID: Oh, yeah...
MOM: Oh, yeah.
MOM: Did you get to the part on here where it says that science doesn't prove anything? And it's really interesting when you look at it that way.
KID: It is?
MOM: It is.
KID: (reading further) I think, personally, that Galileo made the right choice by giving up science for Christ.
(later)
MOM: We know when things started changing, you know, prayer got taken out of school, and um... the schools started falling apart. And now the rest of us are going, wait a minute, where is my country? Our firm belief is, there are two types of people: those who love Jesus and those who don't.
Re:other theories (Score:2, Interesting)
Which would explain the the parent post is asking that evolution is not presented as fact, but as a theory, much like the theory of relativity, the big bang theory and so on are all presented as theories. Unfortunately, I've seen too many instances where evolution is presented as fact, not a theory. As you eloquently stated, it is a theory and those presenting it as fact are wrong.
Theory? (Score:3, Interesting)
No, there is only one theory about the origins of life. The theory is called the theory of evolution. Creation is based on old testament fables passed down from generation to generation by the tribes of Israel and put to text by scribes. The stories are supposed to teach deep lessons to the unwashed masses about what it means to be a person, not offer a theory on the creation of life. To come away from the book of genesis with the idea that God created the earth in 7 days means you completely missed the lessons the author was trying to teach. This is the reason why I think Christians are way off track, they have a totally wrong interpretation of Jewish texts. Maybe they should ask a Rabbi for help.
Re:other theories (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Why do you think Russia's such a hot destinatio (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Believer's Rights? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Sure! Here's your alternative (Score:2, Interesting)
Soviet Mass Starvation was mostly deliberate (Score:3, Interesting)
Natural Selection != Evolution (Score:2, Interesting)
The point here is that we could have been intelligently designed and the Theory of Natural Selection doesn't disprove this. Furthermore there are a ton of rather strong arguments for the existence of a god nevermind the very strong historical arguments based in facts for the existence of the Christian God. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existence_of_God [wikipedia.org] and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messianic_prophecy_i
Re:In Soviet Russia... (Score:3, Interesting)
Er, the "failure of the broken political system" was a direct result of the fact that the political system was based on and promoted adherence to acceptable ideological dogma as the bases of policy, even where that dogma concerned matters of empirically verifiable fact and was contradicted by systematic investigation of fact.
Lysenkoism and the associated marginalization of Darwinism was a symptom of that problem.
Understanding what was broken about the system is important.
Re: science (Score:2, Interesting)
No one makes you teach evolution in church. Because evolution belongs in a science curriculum. Just like creationism belongs a long way away from a science curriculum. There is no point mixing the two. Evolution is a scientific theory, like everything taught in science. It is based on observations, and used by people. Like you know the sun will come up in the morning because you observed that process occured on previous mornings. You can't guarentee that it will come up in the morning, but it is better to use the knowledge that you have than be shocked every morning when it rises and never learn the process.