Creationism In Texas Public Schools 770
An anonymous reader writes "Slate reports on new anti-science education coming out of Texas. The state has a charter school system called Responsive Education Solutions, which is publicly funded. Unfortunately, 'it has been connected from its inception to the creationist movement and to far-right fundamentalists who seek to undermine the separation of church and state.' The biology workbook used in these schools actually reads, "In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth." It also brings up social Darwinism as if it's an aspect of evolutionary theory and introduces doubt that the Earth is billions of years old. The article continues, 'To get around court rulings, Responsive Ed and other creationists resort to rhetoric about teaching "all sides" of "competing theories" and claiming that this approach promotes "critical thinking." In response to a question about whether Responsive Ed teaches creationism, its vice president of academic affairs, Rosalinda Gonzalez, told me that the curriculum "teaches evolution, noting, but not exploring, the existence of competing theories."' Other so-called education texts being used by the Responsive Ed program teach Western superiority and how feminism forced women to 'turn to the state as a surrogate husband.'"
Biology workbook (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Biology workbook (Score:5, Informative)
There's a lot that should get this squashed. Unfortunately, the person whose job it is to do the squashing (Sen. Dan Patrick, chair of the Texas Senate Education Committee) has said that he believes in Creationism and is a fan of the program.
Re:Biology workbook (Score:5, Insightful)
At some point in recent American history, we decided what we believe is more important than what is.
Re:Biology workbook (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Biology workbook (Score:5, Insightful)
"“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”"
--Isaac Asimov
Re:Biology workbook (Score:5, Funny)
That's a good quote!
When these kids grow up, I wonder whether they would be able to get a job at NASA in Houston.
Austronaut:Houston. We've got a problem!
NASA: We are all praying for you. Better repent of your sins while you still have a time. It is God's hands now.
Re:Biology workbook (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been.
Absolutely. Having been born and raised in the "Bible Belt" I can attest first-hand to how very proud some people are of their ignorance and lack of education.
Re:Biology workbook (Score:5, Informative)
Yup. Also:
"I never spent much time in school, but I've taught ladies plenty"
-- The Fall Guy
"Don't know much about history
Don't know much biology
Don't know much about science book
Don't know much about the French I took
But I do know that I love you
And I know that if you love me too
What a wonderful world this could be"
--Sam Cooke
The Woody Character in Cheers, the wise ignoramous who is shown as being smarter than Doctor Frasier Crane who is portrayed as an aloof buffoon.
I could go on.
Ignorance is revered in American culture. It's amazing how easy it is to spot when you start looking for it. It's like the loudly ticking clock that you didn't notice until someone pointed it out, but it's right there, hiding in plain sight.
Re: (Score:3)
Do you think they would so proudly admit to being unable to read and write?
Yes actually. Maybe not the same set of people, but I find it entirely plausible that there exists a group of people who would find pride in that.
Re:Biology workbook (Score:4, Insightful)
"Rather risky, though. You're taking someone else's word for what was actually written, and the Church often had its own agenda."
Makes you wonder who taught them to think that way in the first place doesn't it?
Re:Biology workbook (Score:4, Interesting)
Just listen sometime to how people brag about being technically illiterate as if it's some badge of honor. "I just don't know these computer thingees," says someone with no shame whatsoever. Do you think they would so proudly admit to being unable to read and write?
This isn't really bragging, you know. It's a way of making oneself feel better about being ignorant.
And it is widespread in the American population. There's a general contempt for "book learnin'" in general, and a special contempt for people who are knowledgeable in scientific topics, especially biology.
An example from when I was in high school: My father installed some rain-spout barrels to collect free water for watering the yard and garden. One day, I noticed a lot of little "wigglers" in them, aka mosquito larvae. I mentioned them to my parents and suggested we do something to eradicate them. The response was to demand that I tell them where I got such a stupid idea as thinking they were baby mosquitos. When I finally admitted I'd got the information from some books, I was soundly criticized for believing all that "book learnin". I was ordered to leave the little critters alone.
I was tempted to report them to the local health authorities, but I understood what would happen to me if I did that. So I kept quiet, and our yard was a local breeding ground for mosquitos.
There are a lot of people living around you like this. If you live in the US, those people have a lot of political power. We're not quite as bad (yet) as the countries that are consciously blocking attempts to eradicate diseases like measles and polio, but a lot of the population would like to push us in that direction.
Biological ignorance isn't just a matter of my opinion versus yours; such ignorance entails the spread of serious diseases among the general population. Ignorance of the evolutionary process is what has led to the overuse of pesticides and antibiotics, resulting in the evolution of resistance in many disease-causing organisms. This isn't an obscure intellectual discussion; it's about future epidemics, plagues, and famines.
Re:Biology workbook (Score:4, Informative)
we decided what we believe is more important than what is
Especially if what you believe is gleaned from your nightly newscast [ceasespin.org]. Far more people believe the TV than the Internet. The far-right has figured this out and is capitalizing on it at the polls.
Re:Biology workbook (Score:5, Insightful)
At some point in recent American history, we decided what we believe is more important than what is.
I'd put it this way: American's beliefs blind them to reality.
There's a study that shows that when confronted with reality, most Americans cling stronger to what they believe. Very few look at the evidence of truth and modify their framework of beliefs.
Re:Biology workbook (Score:5, Insightful)
That's called cognitive dissonance, and it's not restricted to Americans.
Re:Biology workbook (Score:5, Insightful)
"Recent American history"? That has always been default mode for 95%+ of people everywhere. It used to be much, *much* worse.
Re:Biology workbook (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, I know. I sometimes post things I know are untrue just to watch them get modded up as informative or insightful.
Re:Biology workbook (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Biology workbook (Score:5, Funny)
I don't believe that is exclusively an American problem.
But you must admit we are currently the reigning champs of delusion.
Y'all fancy scientists with yer fancy "facts" and whatnot.
Re:Biology workbook (Score:5, Insightful)
But thanks for the blind, knee-jerk anti-Americanism, it was clearly good for some cheap moddings-up.
Re:Biology workbook (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Biology workbook (Score:4, Interesting)
Clearly I'm not getting my point across adequately, my bad. The ballpark remark was about the number of people who self-identify as fundamentalist.
That the qualitative extremes of its effects are vastly different in different places and different religions is fairly obvious, which I suppose might be why I glossed over the distinction in my original post.
But in that sense, I do believe it is accurate to say the US are more like the places you might usually think of theocracies then what you might think of as your peers and allies. I am pretty sure the kind of policy we're discussing here would not even be proposed in any other "western" nation.
And this is true for the amount of state-sanctioned violence too, actually, albeit due less to religious motives and (therefore?) involving less ritualistic or ceremonial excess.
Re:Biology workbook (Score:4)
Re:Biology workbook (Score:5, Insightful)
You're a delusional asswipe.
Re: (Score:3)
The sky is not blue, because I say so, is a road only the most pedantic philosophers really bother going down.
Re:Biology workbook (Score:5, Funny)
It's a really dark shade of blue.
Re:Biology workbook (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Biology workbook (Score:5, Informative)
You go with the majority rule because you live in a democracy. You teach kids biology because the majority decided to teach the kids biology. That includes evolution, because evolution is part of biology. That does not include creationism, because creationism and intelligent design are by their own axioms not biology-based models of the universe.
Re:Biology workbook (Score:5, Informative)
You go with the majority rule because you live in a democracy. You teach kids biology because the majority decided to teach the kids biology. That includes evolution, because evolution is part of biology. That does not include creationism, because creationism and intelligent design are by their own axioms not biology-based models of the universe.
Please don't say this. According to Gallup [gallup.com], 46% of Americans believe that God created humans in their present form than believe vs 47% who believe either "humans evolved, with God guiding" (32%) or "humans evolved, with God playing no part in the process" (15%). That's a terrifyingly slim margin for something that is strongly supported by actual science.
Re:What exactly is the problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
A republic, sir, if you can keep it.
This is not a mob rule democracy. We have a Constitution for a reason. Minorities do have value in this country, and we should all fight to keep it so, because we are all in one way or another a minority, whether by race, creed, or just in our simple individuality.
A wrong thing believed by most is not made right by its popularity.
Re:What exactly is the problem? (Score:4, Insightful)
I said that creationism in texas public schools is the will of the people, and if you truly believe in the philosophy of "representative" government, then you will accept that government is working exactly as planned.
So if I came in and started pushing schools to teach the Pastafarian creation myth, and I managed to get enough people backing me such that we represented the majority of the nation, you would be completely ok with that? Because it seems to me that that would be a gross violation of everyone elses First Amendment rights. But that is exactly what is happening here, just with a different creation myth.
Opposing the violation of certain fundamental rights is not "I gladly accept the will of the people, as long as I'm on the winning team".
Which makes no sense (Score:3, Interesting)
The understanding that Genesis is a metaphorical, and not literal, goes as far back as the 4th century (even further, possibly, that is just what am aware of explicitly from my early church history studies). Protestantism is very recent compared to that, and this protestant misinterpretation of scripture as being literal is more recent still.
A bunch of relatively uneducated Christians cooked up this weird and grossly simplistic way of reading scripture, and it has become wildly popular, and gives the entir
Re:Which makes no sense (Score:4, Informative)
Quite simple - the parts that are deemed metaphorical are not random. There exists a rare and endangered school of thought that seeks to take the bible in it's literary, cultural and historical context.
Re:Biology workbook (Score:4, Interesting)
The issue that really should be brought up, debating the science vs. non-science it talking to a deaf ear...
However I think the debate should go more towards the direction.
These Major Christian churches, do not have an issue on evolution, and do not support teaching creationism in Science Classes. So why are you pushing your little minority sect of Christianity on the rest of the population.
If you don't want separation of church and state, then realize your particular sect doesn't coincide with the general belief of the country.
Oddly enough most members don't realize that their church actually supports real science.
Re:Biology workbook (Score:5, Informative)
I find publicly the mormons or catholics may not say anything, but in their cannon its quite clear the earth is only a couple thousand years old.
That is not at all true of the Catholics. The pope (prior, not current) weighed in on the subject to say that the theory of evolution is not in any way in conflict with Catholic teachings or beliefs. That church accepts that the "7 days" of creation is essentially a literal metaphor, and the evolution could well be the mechanism their God set in motion in order to create the species.
Mormons, I don't know about. But considering that their entire religious beliefs were literally pulled out of a hat...
Re: (Score:3)
We could probably replace Dan Patrick with Danica Patrick and still end up with a better system.
Re: (Score:3)
An interesting potential experiment: See if we could create a better "shadow Congress" by picking representatives at random from each congressional district and state. Yes, we'd have plenty of morons get in there, but I'd be hard-pressed to see how this kind of representation would do worse than our current elected officials.
An interesting example of this: In New Hampshire, there are enough House seats that almost anyone can get in if they are a reasonably good campaigner and actually want to do the job (it
Re:Biology workbook (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Biology workbook (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Biology workbook (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's where the assholery of charter schools come into play. They can claim charter schools are "opt-in" as they budget money away from public schools and into charter schools. They think that claim will invalidate concern from the establishment clause as no one is "forced" to use religious books.
Meanwhile, if you want to go to a school with any budget for things like teachers, the charter schools will be the only remaining option.
I hope a federal court will see this as a violation of either the first amendment or Brown vs. Board of education, but I don't have a ton of faith in the judicial process these days.
Re:Biology workbook (Score:5, Interesting)
Is this behavior really different then what goes on in Texas public schools? Of course not. We get the same sort of anti-science stuff from traditional public schools down there. The fact that this is a charter school isn't the problem. This is just a feature of Texas.
Of course in places like NYC, we see charter schools dedicated to math and good science. Charter schools reflect a community's desire for education. Thats it.
Re: (Score:3)
And yet national data doesn't endorse the notion that charter schools do any better(statistically speaking in spite of selection bias), so this is a weak-keened attempt to circumvent the first amendment's establishment clause.
Re:Biology workbook (Score:5, Insightful)
Schools are generally representative of the neighborhoods they serve.
Shitty neighborhoods have shitty schools.
Good neighborhoods have good schools.
When you hear horror stories about uncaring teachers and students being barely babysat until they get their state minimum hours, you're generally in a terrible neighborhood with a culture of not caring either...
Re:Biology workbook (Score:5, Insightful)
Shouldn't the opening of the Biology workbook alone be enough to get this squashed?
Who knows that it actually says in the context. You certainly can't expect Slate to be forthcoming when it's trying to incite the masses.
It might say, "In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth" is the first sentence of the Bible. In the section below, explain why you do or do not consider this to be a valid theory for how life came to Earth".
always Republicans (Score:5, Insightful)
who do this shit!
It's important to note that right now in US politics one party is completely and totally against the concept of scientific inquiry putting Newspeak-like religious rhetoric above all else.
There is no 'but the Democrats...' counterpoint on this...it's ALWAYS REPUBLICANS. It doesn't make the Democrat/Liberals better in some long-term philosophical way at all, but it forces a choice in a real-world context that alot of /.'ers can't mentally make.
I can't stress how important it is when placing blame to see past false dichotomies & historicity filled narratives to understand what these people who run our country *actually do*...and when you look it that way, the GOP are the enemy of society.
As someone pointed out below, the Texas system has a check/balance against this, but AGAIN, the person in that decision node is a REPUBLICAN and they do not operate as individual decision makers weighing options.
The GOP is a cadre of ignorance, working in rabid lockstep to kiss up to whatever money interest is telling them to on any particular day...this time its the religious conservatives anti-science people.
It's ok to just blame one party when they are truly at fault. Decide they are at fault and vote appropriately. The US system has been corrupted but the prinicples of it are sound if we **use** our democracy to it's full power.
Teach all alternate theories (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Teach all alternate theories (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah but we're talking about kids here, they aren't nuanced enough to recognize that. Plus they're getting bombarded with this nuttiness by their creationist parents every single day of their young lives, especially if home schooled. It's almost impossible for a 10 year old to see through the self-serving bullshit of it all. Rinse repeat as they grow up to be parents themselves.
And of course it's a slippery slope. As mentioned a million times here when creationism stories pop up, they're obviously not theories, just wild hypothesis w/ absolutely no way to test. In no shape, form or fashion is creationism related to science. Full stop.
Re:Teach all alternate theories (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
Particles appear and disappear all the time in an empty vacuum. There is solid evidence for this quantum fluctuation including the Casmir effect.
There is a theory that the universe is just a large scale quantum fluctuation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_genesis [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:3)
Then you should get out some. They certainly are a loud percentage but secular homeschoolers are a rapidly increasing group.
Re:Teach all alternate theories (Score:5, Informative)
Absolutely, they should both be taught.
Just teach them appropriately: Evolution gets taught in Science, creationism gets taught in Religious Studies with all the other myths & legends.
Not Just Texas (Score:5, Informative)
turn to the state as a surrogate husband (Score:5, Funny)
Other so-called education texts being used by the Responsive Ed program teach Western superiority and how feminism forced women to 'turn to the state as a surrogate husband."
It brings up a whole new connotation when they say "fuck the state"!
Creationists love Social Darwinisim (Score:5, Insightful)
It also brings up social Darwinism as if it's an aspect of evolutionary theory
Actually, Social Darwinism is the one kind of Darwinism your typical Creationist is happy to believe whole-heartedly in. If you start believing the poor might not necessarily deserve to be poor, a whole lot of modern Republican politics suddenly starts to look very unchristian.
Re:Creationists love Social Darwinisim (Score:4, Insightful)
The right wingers are not really christian. Joseph Smith wrote some really nutty stuff, but the Church of LDS practices a far more christian faith than most bible thumpers.
I find very depressing that I have more in common with Pastafarians, LDS, and Pagans than I do with my fellow christians.
Re:Creationists love Social Darwinisim (Score:4, Insightful)
On topic: What's wrong with American Christians?
In a word? Capitalism.
Now granted, not all American Christians have these problems you complain about. But there is a fair contingent who apparently believe that so long as they spend their "hour with Jesus" a week, and drop a few bucks in the Salvation Army bucket once in a while, they can live their lives as total pieces of shit and still be given some sort of eternal reward. That said, I hardly think blind religious fervor is a strictly American disease. Just look at Russia's attitude towards homosexuals.
Sidebar: Do mega-churches and evangelism not exist outside US borders?
Re: (Score:3)
That said, I hardly think blind religious fervor is a strictly American disease. Just look at Russia's attitude towards homosexuals.
Heck, it's not even a modern phenomenon. For example, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire [wikipedia.org] is serious argument that the rise of Christianity was a major factor in causing the Roman Empire to collapse. The idea was that because Christianity focused on the afterlife, rather than the quality of this life like pagan religions, and so people stopped giving a damn about whether they were taking the actions needed to ensure their own survival or the survival of their civilization.
Religion is fine when observable s
Re:Creationists love Social Darwinisim (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmmm... As I understand biblical theology, all humans deserve to go to hell, but some are given grace to go elsewhere(depending on your theology this may involve a choice). I suppose a departure from the sacred book is in keeping with the times.
On topic: What's wrong with American Christians? The ones outside America I know are so much more sane.
From the lips of Nazarene him self:
‘Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbours together and says, “Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.” I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.
Luke 15:3-7
In other words: whether or not you get into heaven is, according to the bible, entirely up to you. Caveat: I'm a a complete atheist but claiming that a ticket to heaven is reserved for a few chosen ones is just not true (well, at least not according to Jesus). There have many fire-and-brimstone preachers over the centuries who have claimed otherwise but from what I was taught about christianity (by a protestant priest), the word of Jesus takes precedent over any crackpot interpretations of scripture that some some bozo of a preacher cooks up.
This is how the media controls you (Score:3, Insightful)
Why look at trillion dollar deficits that are destroying the economy, widespread graft and corruption in our political elites, or ongoing job losses in America when when can talk about the Westborough Baptist Church or a Hispanic stranger shooting a black stranger or a creationist school somewhere in Texas?
Let's manufacture distractions to keep you from looking at the real issues...
Re:This is how the media controls you (Score:5, Informative)
Those trillion dollar 'deficits' are also a distraction, to justify austerity. It's the quadrillion dollar derivatives markets that will destroy your economies. Your political elites are merely servant to Wall Street banking elites.
Re: (Score:3)
It's the quadrillion dollar derivatives markets
It's nowhere near a quadrillion dollars. Notional amount != actual value. For example, I recently did a derivatives trade that had a notional amount of $13,000 and an actual value of $600 at the time of the trade.
Your political elites are merely servant to Wall Street banking elites.
Whatever. Just remember the banking elites are the ones who ask "how high?" when someone is told to jump. All the banking elites have is money. The political elites have power. That's a higher currency.
Re:This is how the media controls you (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This is how the media controls you (Score:4, Insightful)
Why debate trillion dollar deficits when the human race doesn't have a plan to escape the solar system before the sun ends its lifespan? Do you see how dumb that "we should focus on my preferred, bigger issue" trope is?
In a twist of irony... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:In a twist of irony... (Score:5, Funny)
Reminds me of the day that a giant statue of Jesus was struck by lightning [roadsideamerica.com] and burned to the ground. And of course, the religious nutjobs immediately started raising money to rebuild it.
What I should have done, but didn't, was figure out the frequency of the wireless mike the preacher almost certainly uses during his services, then secretly broadcast this message right after the pitch to donate to the replacement statue "DID YOU NOT GET THE MESSAGE THE FIRST TIME? I THOUGHT I WAS PRETTY CLEAR ABOUT IT!". The reaction of the congregation would probably have been priceless.
FSM! (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder how hard it would be to get them to teach about the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster! Hell, I would enroll in that class!
Why should YOU care that TX education is fucked? (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with Texas textbook selection is that Texas buys its textbooks 4.8m at a time (which is a huge chunk of the textbook market). Publishers cannot afford to lose Texas as a customer, so you get "the walmart effect" - Texas censors national textbooks by approving the one they like, everyone else can pick from the one texas drove the price down on, or they can pay twice as much for a "marginally more correct" textbook. In this way, Texas can dictate the behavior of national (and even international, to an extent) textbooks, because Texas is giant, organized, and horribly corrupted by the religious reich err, right.
The issue with pubically funded charter schools teaching bullshit mysticism instead of educating children is that charter schools are a convenient back door for this anti-science, conservative consortium to exert its corrupting influence on the texas education system. They are normalizing, perpetuating, and setting legal precident for further fucking over the entire United States education system.
Please care about this. This is important. Our future depends on the nation collectively saying "WTF, Texas"
Re: (Score:3)
Bloody idiots ... (Score:4, Insightful)
This is why America is in decline.
Because drooling morons and Luddites are being allowed to teach their nut-job theories on the same footing as actual science.
America continues on the decline to voluntary ignorance, and this is little better than the Taliban -- a bunch of religious fundamentalists who can't accept reality as it exists, but wish to impose their beliefs on it and define it as true.
Fuck you, fuck your god, fuck your stupid notions about how the world works, and fuck your creationism.
That these people hold political office and somehow function in the real world astounds me.
Because this level of stupidity should have caused you to be killed before surviving to adulthood.
Fucking morons. The rest of the country suffers because you guys are fucking idiots.
I've always wondered . . . (Score:4, Interesting)
Debating the insane (Score:4, Interesting)
There is hope... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd like to point out a few things that might give some of y'all hope this year...
* Open election November 2014. Perry is stepping down. State Sen. Wendy Davis (D), is running and has a lot of momentum behind her on this! Yes, she's riding her 15 minutes, but that doesn't mean it won't work!
* Texas Board of Education Commisioner is appointed by the Governor. The present Commisioner was former head of the Texas Railroad Comission ( what does that tell you???)
* The Democratic party has grown considerably in last 2 decades, and with an open election on the plate, they are getting very good funding for this run.
The Republicans in Texas have really done such a number on minorities and women that there is a very strong chance a Democrat, Davis, will win. If that happens, Texas Board of Ed. Commisioner is out! And THAT, is what gives me hope when it comes to the absurdity of creationism even being mentioned with science or in schools.
What you have to understand though, is that the Dem's and Repub's are the same party as what's in the rest of the US, but they really aren't. Texas is it's own battle ground of a country. The parties are connected, but in a very different way. So much is in play in Texas, that D/R(TX) really does not equal D/R(any other state). They're similar, but far from the same.
Those who don't learn from History.. (Score:5, Interesting)
There's a historical analogy to all this going on: Until the rennaissance, the middle east was vastly more advanced than the West (it had medicine, mathematics and so on that just weren't known in the west until scholars studied there). Arabic was the language of trade, commerce and learning during the centuries of its pre-eminence as a cultural and scholarly center.
People would come from all areas of the 'civilised world' (this didn't really include Europe at this point, apart from maybe Italy) to study.
The problems arose with the ascendancy of a faction (Asharite) which was distinctly anti-rationalist. It gained increasing popularity over the Mutazilite faction (which had led the Islamic world to scientific ascendancy over centuries, epousing the Greek philosophers such as Aristotle and Plato, and following in those traditions).
As the power of the Asharites grew, scientific advancement in the middle east stagnated, and eventually it became a crime to copy philosophical texts, as they were an abhorrence in the eyes of God. These sins would eventually be punishable by executions, and the candle of scientific advancement was effectively snuffed out.
Compare this to today. From England grew a large empire (comparable effectively with the Islamic Caliphate) crossing many countries, and being quite the center of learning. People came from all over to study in England. This Empire has been largely disbanded, but the strings of learning have still carried on beyond it.
Over the last hundred years or so, the power and center of effective empire has shifted to America as the rationalist factions invested in learning, keeping church and state separate (as the founders would probably have been painfully aware of the problems of allowing them to merge), and ensuring minds could be kept open, and difficult questions asked.
However, there's now a growing push towards anti-rationalism. It hides itself within the main power structure, and has permeated the political strata to a huge extent (I believe the parts of the national pledge that mention god were only included in the 50s or 60s, never having been present before then), and seems to be getting ever more powerful. Parts of the population (and I've met them on travels) consider it taboo to "Trust science" as it's all God's Will. Exactly analogous to the Asharite faction of a thousand years ago.
We know what happens if that faction gains ascendancy. Scientific tradition fails, as being an intellectual makes you a threat to the religious theocrats, and they're very good at getting rid of threats, and making it 'acceptable', even desirable that these people are removed.
Arabic ceased to be the language of trade and learning once the Asharites gained ascendancy and the Islamic world was in their grip. They were overtaken by the West, which had learned from their teaching earlier, and took on the torch passed to them by the Greeks even earlier.
Nowadays, China is investing massively in education, and particularly science; their technological base has caught up with the Western World at a furious pace. This, quite possibly, is a saving grace; it means that there are definitely alternatives to keep learning alive, just in case the anti-rationalists that are gaining traction in America manage to topple it from within. It would likely mean that the language of trade and learning becomes Chinese, but hey, the world can survive that quite easily.
I guess we see if history does indeed repeat itself, or whether humanity, as a species, has got any brighter since the last time this rise and fall happened.
there's a simple solution here (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Because the laws of economics suggest more productive members of society increase supply for goods a little more than they increase demand for them, and thus benefit everyone?
Re:What's the big deal? (Score:4, Interesting)
Right, but the concern is for the people who enjoy science and have some intent of being useful members of society and are going to be denied the opportunity to learn in order to protect some peoples' biases from information they disagree with.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you're underestimating how much funding is being channeled away from public schools to fund charter schools, with the "dumping money on public schools doesn't solve problems, dumping money on charter schools does." initiative.
It's actually the one thing that makes me leery of the Gates foundation, who normally does good work.
Re:What's the big deal? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What's the big deal? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
"Yeah, just get both parents to get new jobs in the same place, sell a house, buy a house, get children into a new school system, and go through the physical hassle of moving, just so some po-dunct theocrat can have their way, ignoring the law of the land"
Do you know how stupid what you're proposing sounds?
Re: What's the big deal? (Score:3)
I don't even know why you wasted post-space with that crap.
Re:What's the big deal? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because when these people graduate, they become our peers in society. They become the people on your jury, they become the people that vote in our elections, and they become the people who end up brainwashing the rest of society.
Re:Please tell me there is a court challenge alrea (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe it's because we fire 10% of our engineers in a year, but claim there's a shortage. There's multiple things going on here in the U.S. but mostly we haven't come to terms with being a post-industrial society.
Re:Please tell me there is a court challenge alrea (Score:4, Informative)
Probably because it's not easy legally to fire an H1B before their visa time is up.
Opens the company to more lawsuits, and requires them to pay for the trip home.
http://www.murthy.com/2012/11/01/bona-fide-termination-requirement-for-h1b-employee/ [murthy.com]
Re: (Score:3)
Here's the problem. We think we're dumb too, and can't do anything about it.
Re:The religion of science or else. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not a question of whether the science can withstand it, it's a question of whether the students will be properly educated. The science of combustion would survive a course that was split 50/50 between modern chemistry and phlogiston theory, but I don't think the children's usefulness as future scientists would escape the process intact.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:The religion of science or else. (Score:5, Insightful)
Creationism is not a scientific theory, and thus is also not a competing scientific theory. If you really think that 'science' cannot "withstand alternative theories", then you really don't know anything about science at all.
Re:Humans are ignorant. Critical thinking IS king! (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not a "theories on how the universe and life began class", though, it's a "biology" class. If you want to teach kids ontology, then by all means advocate the creation of a class for that purpose, but don't try to craft one out of the existing and important lessons on the science of living things.
Re:Humans are ignorant. Critical thinking IS king! (Score:5, Informative)
There are many theories on how the universe and life began.
This article is about evolution. Evolutionary theory is silent on how life first began. Read up a little before you weigh in with such a huge misconception. Here, take a look at this; it includes a cartoon to clarify the point.
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/misconceps/IAorigintheory.shtml
Re:Humans are ignorant. Critical thinking IS king! (Score:5, Insightful)
Scientific Theory: Something that describes the current state of the world in a way that makes testable predictions about the future. Useful in furthering our knowledge. Should be taught in science classes.
Colloquial "Theory": Any explanation that potentially describes the current state of the world. Not testable. Makes no predictions about the future. Potentially useful in exploring moral or ethical quandaries. Should be taught in philosophy classes.
Please learn the difference. Teach creationism if you want, I don't give a rat's ass. But don't teach it in a science classroom. It is not science. It never will be science.
Re:With a grain of salt (Score:5, Informative)
Publicly funded charter schools, as is says right there in the damn summary. Public funding for any religious instruction is illegal, and for extremely good reasons. Every culture in history that went down that path ended up collectively insane and wildly dangerous.
Re:With a grain of salt (Score:5, Insightful)
Charter Schools are typically funded via public money. So while they are not public in that they can pick and choose who they let in, they are public in the sense that they are publicly funded.
To me this is a clear violation of the seperation of church and state. If these were private schools it would be completely different, but charter schools are not private schools.
Re: (Score:3)
Err, do you have any specific objections or are you just waving your hands at the article and going "douuuuuuubt iiiiiiiiiiiit"?
Re: (Score:3)
Re:WTF do I care? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because you have to live in country where someone who believes Adam and Eve rode on dinosaurs will have the same say in the running of the country as you?
It's a good question, though. I never thought about the reason plutocracy has made common cause with religious fundamentalism before, but it's apparent that's because science is more difficult to co-opt than public opinion. A world where science is demoted to "just another opinion" looks like level playing field, but it's not, because it forces science to debate on religions terms, namely emotional appeal rather than evidence.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Not even half the story (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Where is Separation in the Constitution? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The other two issues? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, we have a ton of ignorant social conservatives in poorer, less educated parts of the country, and they do stupid things like claiming that feminism has caused greater dependence on public welfare, while glossing over the alternative of women staying with terrible men who dominate and abuse them.
I don't think we should ever let these stupid, superstitious people take the lead again. Awful, constantly lying, religious authoritarians are finally being marginalized after a terrible history of letting them get their way.