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Global Warming Only a Theory, Says School Board
BendingSpoons writes "A Seattle school board has placed a moratorium on screenings of 'An Inconvenient Truth', having found its subject matter too controversial. Echoing the language of the evolution debate, the school board found that students must be told that global warming is only a theory and presented with an opposing viewpoint. The ban was prompted by the complaints of a parent: '"Condoms don't belong in school, and neither does Al Gore. He's not a schoolteacher," said Frosty Hardison, a parent of seven who also said that he believes the Earth is 14,000 years old. "The information that's being presented is a very cockeyed view of what the truth is ... The Bible says that in the end times everything will burn up, but that perspective isn't in the DVD."'"
Federal Way is almost 26 miles south of Seattle, and the only thing in common both cities have is that they both share the same county. It's like saying San Jose is San Francisco, because they both have "San" in their names.
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
http://politeindian.wordpress.com/2006/10/03/is-is lam-violent/ ... ...
Well, there are 6236 verses in Quran and according to one website there are 337 verses with violent passages. The article has an excellent comparision of the violent passges in both bible and quran. Bible has 853 violent passages. Now does that make it more violent than Quran? If you do a percentage comparison then Bible has 2.74% violent passages and Quran has 5.4%.
Christianity
"When your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or your daughter, or the wife of your bosom, or your friend who is as your own soul, entices you secretly, saying 'Let us go and serve other gods,' . . . you shall kill him, your hand shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. You shall stone him to death with stones, because he sought to draw you away from the Lord your God. . . " (Deuteronomy 13: 6-10)
My personal favorite... (first read when I did a paper on organized religion back in college)
"Kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man intimately. But spare for yourselves all virgin maidens" (Numbers 31:17-18).
Islam
"But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem of war; but if they repent, and establish regular prayers and pay Zakat, then open the way for them: for Allah is Oft- forgiving, Most Merciful." (Surah 9:5)
Sura (8:12) - I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them
Judism
Jews are Divine, Sanhedrin 58b. If a heathen (Gentile) hits a Jew, the Gentile must be killed. Hitting a Jew is the same as hitting God.
Jews May Lie to Non-Jews, Baba Kamma 113a. Jews may use lies ("subterfuges") to circumvent a Gentile. (Islam has this too- as far as I know Christianity doesn't so you can trust them a bit more at their word).
(There is some distinction between the talmud and the torah that I miss here tho).
It goes on for many other religions.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
The word you are looking for is Hypothesis. That's when it's well reasoned but not thoroughly analyzed. Lower than that you have hunches and guesses. Where it just seems like it could make sense but you haven't worked out the details yet. Above Ordinary theories are "Natural Laws". Those are the theories that have been analyzed to death and tested extensively and still hold up. Newton's Law of Gravity is such a theory.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
The real Captain Avatar is a fictional character, so I suppose he doesn't mind if I impersonate him.
The fact that the parent is modded "Funny" gives me kind of an uneasy feeling, as it is closer to the truth than you'd think. For example, in some countries (I know Sweden is one) kids are given comprehensive sex education, unlike the US. They receive much less biased and much more complete information on things like condoms, STDs, and all the other info young adults need in order to make informed, safe choices about sex. They also start sex ed much earlier, I believe at 7 or 8 years old.
Since most Slashdotters are US'ian, compare this with the mandatory public-school "sex" "education" classes you took. Then compare statistics like "teen pregnancy" and "age that kids start having sex". In countries with comprehensive sex education, there is less teen pregnancy, and kids start having sex later[1].
[1] "The Naked Truth About Sex", Dr. Roger W. Libby (2006)
Due to the volume of interest in this matter I am using auto-reply to get
you the quickest reply possible because your concerns about what we did
are important. I write this intending to express my own views and not the
views of other board members. I will not be replying to your replies.
Some of the media has not reported this matter accurately and I wanted to
make sure the issues and our decision were clear to you. Feel free to
share this with others who are concerned.
1. We did not make the decision based upon Mr. Hardison's religious or
other beliefs. The decision was made because a teacher was going to show
the movie and it did not appear she was following policy. It turned out
that she was not following policy. There was also an offer last week by
the proponents of the movie to give 50,000 copies to teachers across the
country to use as curriculum, which would have increased the chance that
the movie would be used. There was more than one complaint/concern
expressed about this issue based upon that alone.
2. We did not ban or censor the movie and have no intent to do so.
Teachers can use it as they see fit if they follow policy on movies and
controversial issues, but because there was some misunderstanding on the
policy we asked that the Superintendent be involved in making sure policy
was being followed. One of our high schools has already used the movie.
The students were asked to take a side, research the issues, and then
debate the issues from that standpoint. What they did goes above and
beyond the policy in my opinion.
3. We are not banning the teaching of global warming.
4. The debate on global warming is crucial to society and limiting the
debate to only one side's view of the facts and science would not be good
for anyone even if they believe the debate is over.
5. Our policies are designed to make sure that the door is open for more
debate on issues, not less, but it does not mean as some allege that any
wacko theory can be taught in our schools.
6. The decision was made upon existing policy. It was not based on
anyone's direct belief regarding politics, science, religion, or when the
earth was formed or when it will end.
7. Policy 2331 and 2331P is intended to prevent one-sided views of
controversial issues.
8. There was more than one complaint/concern expressed about this issue.
9. The policy should be equally enforced regardless of what side of the
spectrum any controversial issue falls upon. This protects the integrity
of the education process. We would have made the same decision if the
movie was about the Iraq war or some other issue and was narrated by
George W. Bush or some other partisan, even if the proponents felt the
debate was over on the topic they were presenting.
10. Using a partisan to present issues affecting contested public policy
matters makes it controversial per se. The media attention to our
decision is also evidence of the controversial nature of this film.
11. Science and politics have been merged on this issue by persons beyond
our control. The political aspect of this is what makes it the most
controversial, especially when a political partisan makes the
presentation. With that in mind, there are many other ways to teach
global warming instead of using a feature film by a political partisan
(see links below from NOAA and NASA that have references to skeptics), but
despite that we did not vote to "ban" the movie even though we could have.
We also had the power to compel specific sources be used instead of the
movie and did not do that either. Some have raised the issue of us not
watching the movie first, but we did not ban the movie or that would have
been crucial. We did feel it was controversial based upon the above
reasons which is all we needed to know based upon our policy.
12. On the issue of how final the debate is, Galileo and other out of the
box thinkers com
"I love deadlines. I love the "whooshing" sound they make as they pass by." - Douglas Adams.