Texas Textbooks Battle Is Actually an American War

ideonexus writes "I've been lackadaisical when it comes to following stories about Texas schoolboard attempts to slip creationism into biology textbooks, dismissing the stories as just 'dumbass Texans,' but what I didn't realize is that Texas schoolbooks set the standard for the rest of the country. And it's not just Creationism that this Christian coalition is attempting to bring into schoolbooks, but a full frontal assault on history, politics, and the humanities that exploits the fact that final decisions are being made by a school board completely academically unqualified to make informed evaluations of the changes these lobbyists propose. This evangelical lobby has successfully had references to the American Constitution as a 'living document,' as textbooks have defined it since the 1950s, removed in favor of an 'enduring Constitution' not subject to change, as well as attempting to over-emphasize the role Christianity played in the founding of America. The leaders of these efforts outright admit they are attempting to redefine the way our children understand the political landscape so that, when they grow up, they will have preconceived notions of the American political system that favor their evangelical Christian goals."

Comments

People weren't aware of this?

[rugatero]

...dismissing the stories as just 'dumbass Texans,' but what I didn't realize is that Texas schoolbooks set the standard for the rest of the country.

I knew this and am not even American. Every piece of coverage I've seen on this issue has explained how wide reaching the ramifications are. How can anyone have missed it?

Re:A Christian's take

[h4rr4r]

One is science the other is religion. Guess which one does not belong in a schoolbook?

"Living Constitution"

[geoffrobinson]

I asked a lawyer who believed in this, pre-market crash, if they believed in a "living mortgage." Why is the Constitution the only legal document we do that to?

Anyone who wants to teach that is going for a particular point of view. Why is the opposite view nefarious but this one all sweetness and light?

This whole summary is ignorant. Everyone is pushing a point of view. It has to be somebody's.

Re:"Living Constitution"

[zippthorne]

Yeah, "living document" was definitely a rhetorical fraud or at least a rhetorical mistake made at some point. The constitution is valueless if it can be simply interpreted into the mores and norms of whatever the current age happens to be rather than debated and amended into the modern age as the framers intended.

Re:"Living Constitution"

[Rene S. Hollan]

The constitution is not the only legal document subject to modification. In fact many legal judgments and court orders are subject to modification.

The key is that the terms of how and to what degree things can be modified are either part of the document itself, or established by statute.

As with all things, there's often room for subjective interpretation of the terms of modification, and that's where case law and precedent come in.

What distinguishes a constitution is that it is intentionally difficult to modify.

Re:"Living Constitution"

[commodore64_love]

Because the Constitution was deliberately designed to act as Chains upon the U.S. Government and its leaders, and politicians don't like to be chained. They like to be free to act and control whatever they want. So what better way to achieve that goal than to pretend the Constitution is not a chain, but instead a piece of silly putty they can mold into any shape they please (or more recently - ignore completely). That gives the DC politicians the ability to do any damn thing that pleases them.

IMHO they (and we) have forgotten what the Democratic Party's founder (Thom. Jefferson) called the most important part of the Constitution: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

In reality the Constitution is a piece-of-paper with some Laws scribbled upon it, and it remains "fixed" for a long long time (two decades so far), until an amendment is added to it. Then it changes.

Re:"Living Constitution"

[JerryLove]

Yeah, "living document" was definitely a rhetorical fraud or at least a rhetorical mistake made at some point. The constitution is valueless if it can be simply interpreted into the mores and norms of whatever the current age happens to be rather than debated and amended into the modern age as the framers intended.

Which means that there's no way to understand what the constitution says in the first place.

"right to bear arms". What is an "arm"? Could the founders have intended it to cover a weapon they hadn't conceived of existing.

"right to feel secure in person and property". Does that include data on your hard-drive? What if we invent a scanner that can perform an invasive search without entering your house? Are you secure or not? The constitution doesn't mention scanners (or wire taps, or computer sniffing, or infra-red cameras, or WiFi hacking equipment, or laser mics).

It's "living" when it's applied to a new situation that did not in the past exist. The same as all laws (or do we need to make new copyright laws every time someone comes up with a new storage device?)

Re:"Living Constitution"

[Waffle Iron]

If you think that even one of those phrases are 100% unambiguous, you are the one who needs to take remedial English classes.

Nothing new here.

[couchslug]

It's worth revisiting the lesson of the sixties that the Hippies got right, such as not to trust the government and that the purpose of public education is to lie to you.

Students should regard any political lesson taught in school as propaganda, should never trust their teachers, an in general fucking hate the government. Bible Thumpers have always sought to rule by infiltration and dominionism.
Know this, fight back, agitate others to fight back, and above all disregard anything any religionist says to defend their superstition. We don't respect Scientology for obvious reasons, and there is no reason any other superstition should get a pass, especially on a geek site. We are modern people, and modern people don't need gods.

Re:Nothing new here.

[diamondsw]

Yes, because rejecting everything wholesale is so much better than accepting it wholesale.

Having a reasonable mind that can think through issues and make decisions for oneself - that is what we should strive for. Precious few high schools teach this, however.

Re:Nothing new here.

[rahvin112]

The documentation for Jesus' life is better than the documentation for that of Alexander the Great.

This documentation you speak of was written 90 years after this supposed person died. There are TWO references to this person you call Jesus in literature of the time that are believed to have not been altered by early Christians. (it was a fad in 300-600AD to rewrite history to insert religious dogma, it was actually supported and encouraged by the early Christian church mostly due to Constantine's "control everything" influence) In fact this documentation you speak of wouldn't be admissible in any modern court because it's heresay that's gone through at least 3 generations before it was written down. That is if it wasn't all concocted later by someone by the name of Paul (who used to be called Saul) seeking to exert his domination of this new religion. And it certainly would be suspect if Constantine had adopted a favored sect of Christianity and used his power as Emperor to destroy all the other sects of Christianity and burn all the conflicting teachings. And questions wouldn't be raised if someone found all those older teachings stored in some cave by the dead sea (maybe call them the dead sea scrolls) to hide them from the Romans searching out all conflicting dogma to destroy it.

The council of Trent compiled the Bible in 300A.D. in the village of Trent Italy. This council was tasked with taking over 1300 religious letters and teachings and compiling them into a single text. Controlled by the Sect of early Christians that Constantine adopted they selected the works and teachings familiar and supported by them and destroyed all the rest. The dead sea scrolls discovered several decades ago point to the vast collection of works which were scoured to gain the works of the bible. Later in the middle ages King James commissioned a translation of the Bible. Taking the Catholic work they removed 13 books, mostly by uncredited authors (which is silly as Mathew, Mark, Luke and John are pen names where the author was unknown and at least two of the books have multiple authors) and issued this as the King James Bible. As a modern translation of the Bible (at the time) the King James version was highly successful and adopted by most English speaking Christian sects as the "Bible", ignoring the existence of the original Catholic bible.

So your wonderful documentation is heresay that's been edited at LEAST 2 times by various parties not including the changes in translation. This doesn't even include the changes the Catholic church made in the book from 300A.D to the King James translation or any of the subsequent revisions. Your documentation isn't documentation, it's fiction with a historical setting. Jesus wasn't the son of god, he was a Jewish separatist that spoke out about the separation of the Jewish state from the Roman Empire (something Rome took very seriously and that got entire ethnic groups nailed to crosses). Saul/Paul created the entire virgin birth/resurrection myth single handily more than 70 years after Jesus was nailed to a cross for speaking out about leaving the roman empire. He never knew Jesus, never met him, never even met anyone that had met Jesus but his tale of virgin birth and life story is the basis of the new testament. Had he lived in a modern era he would have been committed to a mental institution along with many of the early Christians. In fact John the Revelator would have been that scary homeless dude preaching about the end of the world that exists in every major city. These are the people you idiolize if you are Christian, they are your prophets and they are no different than Joseph Smith other than that some of them were clearly eating the wrong kind of mushrooms.

Re:A Christian's take

[couchslug]

"After all, the initial singularity from which the universe sprung had to come from somewhere. "

Nice asserted conclusion. Asserted conclusions are not proof, but thanks for trying!

children at risk

[fermion]

Here is my favorite thing Texas has done in the name of promoting christianity. Adding "under god" to the Texas pledge that all Texas public school children are forced to say every day. Now, I have not problem with a pledge. It is a fetish thing when people want to show allegiance without have to do anything uncomfortable to demonstrate allegiance. I do have an issue with adding the notion of god, because that make it more a religious prayer than a country thing.

Here is the problem. The bible, and jesus, pretty much considered the worst thing one can do it be a hypocrite. A hypocrite is one who does things in a crowd to make others believe he or she has faith. Here is a famous verse of prayer.
Mathew 6:5-6"When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you."

We also know the verses on giving money to be seen. The idea is that one does these things because they are in our heart, not to gain profit. And we are putting our children in jeopardy when we ask them to do these things we know are wrong, such as acting like hypocrites.

The problem with these nut cases in Texas is they have no faith. No amount of science will sway me from what i feel to be true. No amount of world religions will change my mind what I know to be right. This does not mean I am inflexible, but that flexibility comes with experience, not cult brain washing. And because these people have not faith, how can they build faith in their children. They can't. So they limit their exposure to the world knowing the false faith could never withstand the truths in the world.

In some ways I agree with this. If one is not able to build faith in a child, then ones options are limited. What I disagree with is making all the rest of us suffer. Sure, a parent may have a right to screw up their own child, but that does not mean they have the right to screw up everyone else's. The parent can home school, turn off the TV, but there is no reason that those of us who are responsible should have to suffer because a few are irresponsible. It would be like saying I can't buy a beer because some children weren't taught discipline, or because genetically they can't have beer, and haven't been trained to stay away from it.

Re:children at risk

[dido]

I myself had most of my primary and secondary education at Roman Catholic school, and one of the things they taught us in religious classes is that the conflict between science and religion is completely bogus. Science is there to answer the how of the universe, whereas religion is there to answer the why. It is unimportant that the ancient Sumerian cosmology reflected in the Old Testament creation stories is at odds with the findings of modern-day science, that's not the point. The point behind the creation story is not to explain how man and the universe came to be, but rather why they came to be, and their purpose. It seems that this was how the Catholic Church came to resolve its once-turbulent relationship to science since the days of Galileo. As Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI has said:

We cannot say: creation or evolution, inasmuch as these two things respond to two different realities. The story of the dust of the earth and the breath of God, which we just heard, does not in fact explain how human persons come to be but rather what they are. (emphasis mine)

Further, he says in a book published in 2008:

The theory of evolution does not invalidate the faith, nor does it corroborate it. But it does challenge the faith to understand itself more profoundly and thus to help man to understand himself and to become increasingly what he is: the being who is supposed to say Thou to God in eternity.

The Catholic Church seems to have come a long way since the 17th Century. Unfortunately, it looks like fundamentalist Christians in the United States are all set to repeat many of the mistakes made by the Catholic Church back then, but with far greater matters at stake than the life and reputation of an old scientist.

Re:A Christian's take

[h4rr4r]

Tax dollars.

Re:A Christian's take

[calibre-not-output]

Creationism means that people descend from a dude missing a rib who was sculpted from mud. It's not only incompatible with evolution, it's incompatible with rational thought.

Second millennium Muslim civ, quit following

[dpilot]

Two immediate responses are prompted by this article...

First is to call to mind the fate of the Muslim civilization in the second millennium. The Muslims kept the lights on during the Dark Ages. They're the reason we know about the ancient Greeks. In those days, science was considered good, because it was discovery of God's world and ways. Somewhere about the middle of the second millennium the Muslim civilization encountered other pressures (like invasions) and turned their backs on science in favor of religious dogma. (Don't know if there was cause and effect there, coincidental timing, or some other relationship.) They've never been at the forefront of civilization since. We're starting to do the same thing here in the US. One key part of science is to face the world truthfully, whatever it tells you, and deal with it. Religion can help you deal with it. But when you impose religion as a "truth filter" between you and the real world, you've lost it.

Second, a more tactical response, is to quit following Texas' lead on textbook purchases. Is there any reason we have to let them set the standard, or is it a combination of laziness and their purchasing power?

Re:A Christian's take

[h4rr4r]

No, one offers testable theories the other just magic. The fact that something cannot yet be explained is not reason to start assuming magic, fairies, unicorns and the sky wizard are all real.

Science is not the search for truth, just facts. If you want truth you should seek out philosophy.

you will lose this argument every time.

[skydude_20]

you refer to people as "dumbass Texans".. if you're so smart, why not reason with them and fight the good fight instead of dropping below their level and resorting to name calling. those "dumbass Texans" are winning...

Re:you will lose this argument every time.

[Scrameustache]

you refer to people as "dumbass Texans".. if you're so smart, why not reason with them

Because he's smart enough to know that no amount of intelligent, thoughtfull discussion can sway these people from their emotional beliefs. We're talking about people who go "if evolution was true, why would there still be monkeys?" as if they'd pulled some irrefutable argument instead of profoundly ignorant tripe. You can't reason with them: they're immune to it.

Re:you will lose this argument every time.

[tthomas48]

Obama does this every day from the highest bullypullpit in the land. You know why you can't do it? Because they're not "for" anything, they're only against Democrats. Every time he concedes a point. Every time he gives Republicans what they want. Suddenly it's not what they want anymore. You wanht lower taxes? You want balanced budgets? Well, sure, but not if a Democrat's doing it. If a Democrat's doing it, it's going to destroy the very fabric of our nation.

The reason that you can't reason with the textbook manufacturers is that they honestly believe that if they somehow "fix" the textbooks there won't be any more Democrats in the United States and it will be one homogenous white Christian nation. The failure of reality to match up with that expectation means they have not gone far enough and must keep going. It's not a matter of reality. It's a matter of frustration at not being able to fix the world using the ideals they have faith in.

Most Christians in Texas who are aware of the situation think these people are ridiculously extreme, but it's nearly impossible to get rid of them.

Re:A Christian's take

[MightyMartian]

Also most of the scientists I've meant in three separate colleges believed in a Creator of some kind. After all, the initial singularity from which the universe sprung had to come from somewhere.

And why is that precisely? And if the Universe requires a prime mover, then why doesn't the prime mover? And if you're going to assert that the prime mover is exempt from the very logic you claim makes the prime move necessary, then why can't I apply Occam's Razor and declare the universe can have that property you claim for the prime mover, and thus declare the prime mover unnecessary?

Or, more to the point, why would this posited singularity be bound by causality?

On not throwing out babies with bathwather

[davide marney]

Religion has a huge impact on many aspects of society: language, culture, politics -- even science. Religion could certainly be a legitimate topic of academic study, done properly. For example, I doubt it is possible to truly understand the history of the United States without understanding the role of religious belief. It's just too intertwined.

Your point about people trying to pass religion off as if it were science is well taken, however. Bugs me when people try to pass humanism off as science, too.

Everyone Gets Their Own Truth Now

[G-Man]

You know, I have to chuckle every time I see one of these stories. When I was back in school, it was pretty standard classical stuff - the Greeks, Shakespeare, Newton, the Scientific Method, etc. Now, it happened to be that dead white guys came up with most of that stuff, but that was just how it was. But sometime after I left, the Deconstructionists, the Postmodernists, the Moral Relativists, and the Frankfurt School got their hands on the reigns. No ones 'truth' was any better than another. The scientific method was no more valid than animism. Everyone got their own truth.

Well, guess what, folks? Now the Christian Fundamentalists (and the Islamic Fundamentalists) are pressing for their own 'truth'. Remember, yin and yang - everything contains within itself the seed of its opposite. That's one piece of non-white guy wisdom that holds up pretty well.

Does curriculum matter anymore in the Google Age?

[presidenteloco]

I figure that there should be mandatory classes, at the mid to upper high school level,
in basic epistemology and metaphysics (i.e. meta-level topics such as):

-How to think carefully, logically.

-How to search.

-How to formulate good questions.

-How to recognize bias; people who are "speaking for effect"; trying to
influence you, and some of the common motivations why people do
that.

How to form beliefs using epistemic responsibility.

Then set them free to explore the information from a billion sources
that we have available to us at a mouse click today.

The scariest kind of graduate is one who has been taught only to
parrot, and to conform to orthodoxy, and who does not know how to question.

Re:Refreshing!

[JerryLove]

But where are you learning about the wrongs of these narrow-minded zealots? Other narrow-minded zealots on the opposite extreme? I can agree that there are a lot of crazy christian narrow-minded zealots, but I think there are just as many anti-religion narrow-minded zealots. Why can't we just have education books just present multiple popular theories along with the pros and cons of each?

1) Not all popular beliefs are equal. A popular belief that the holocaust never happened, or a popular belief that the president is elected by popular vote, or a popular belief that having sex "just once" can't get someone pregnant should not be taught because it's simply wrong.

2) How you teach those "popular beliefs" is itself extremenly biased. "Of People and Pandas" supposedly teached about evolution, and abstinance-only programs supposedly teach about birth control.

Re:A Christian's take

[Anonymous Coward]

So, I'm asking you to back up your claim. If you can't, then why on Earth would you claim it?

That's what religion is all about.

Re:A Christian's take

[KnownIssues]

The one that has never been proven.

This is the biggest fallacy that ID/Creationists propogate about science. It does not matter if evolution/the big bang haven't been "proven". The question is which of these is a scientific model that can be used to make statements about how the world works and make predictions to some degree of accuracy.

The Ptolemaic model of the universe was shown to be wrong, but it was science, because it claimed to predict the world worked a certain (measurable) way and it was shown to be inaccurate. But for thousands of years it was accurate enough to be useful. Newton developed a model that was more accurate and Einstein a model that was yet more accurate.

Someone will come along some day and develop a model of the universe that is even more accurate than Einstein's, but that will not mean that Einstein's model wasn't science or that the new model is "truth".

On the other hand, you cannot use the Bible to make accurate predictions about when to plant your crops, how the planets move around the sun, or what makes characteristics propogate from parents to children. This is why intelligent design is not an alternative form of science. It's not even a matter of whether intelligent design is true and evolution is wrong. Intelligent design cannot be used to do useful science. Evolution, even if ultimately wrong, can be used to make the most accurate models of the way things work.

If you don't want to treat intelligent design as religion, that's fine. Teach it in philosophy. But it is not science.

Re:So Ignorant It Hurts

[eldavojohn]

Why do ignorant people that one statement by Jefferson and try to make it stand on it's own completely out of context to prove all our founders hated religion.

On the contrary, that statement proves how much Jefferson loved religion. He loved it so much he wanted to protect every kind of religion and every diversity of religion out there by not allowing the government to indoctrinate people into one mandated religion. I'm not changing anything, the Bill of Rights was frame to protect all religions, not hate them by promoting only one of them.

Re:Christians take this!

[Stormwatch]

They can pretend as much as they want that their shit is science. That does not make it so.

Re:A Christian's take

[Anonymous Struct]

Or beyond that, why do we even have organs? I always felt that an intelligent designer would have just created us as walking, talking bags of magical life made from life cubes or something. Whenever I ask creationists why I have an appendix or a gall bladder or why, out of all the temperatures in the universe, I can only live within a tiny range of them, or out of the entire EM spectrum, I can only see a tiny sliver of it, or why leukemia exists, the only answer I get is 'God made it that way'. Seriously? All powerful? All knowing? That's why people have to poop? God wanted them to?