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Louisiana, Intelligent Design, and Science Classes
rollcall writes "The Livingston, Louisiana public school district is considering introducing intelligent design into its science curriculum. During the board's meeting Thursday, several board members expressed an interest in the teaching of creationism. 'Benton said that under provisions of the Science Education Act enacted last year by the Louisiana Legislature, schools can present what she termed "critical thinking and creationism" in science classes. Board Member David Tate quickly responded: "We let them teach evolution to our children, but I think all of us sitting up here on this School Board believe in creationism. Why can't we get someone with religious beliefs to teach creationism?" Fellow board member Clint Mitchell responded, "I agree...you don't have to be afraid to point out some of the fallacies with the theory of evolution. Teachers should have the freedom to look at creationism and find a way to get it into the classroom."'"
I still can't get over that he said "We let them teach evolution to our children..." as though this is some sort of compromise with liberals or something...
The musings of just another geek and his junk.
Other western nations have more government involvement in schools and don't see any of this nonsense. This is, if anything, the result of too little government involvement, especially at a high level: education, instead of being handled by professionals at a high level, is administered by local curtain twitchers with an agenda and little else.
This is what happens when you let populism stomp all over everything, and it's going to get worse as opportunistic politicians try to wield populist ignorance for their own end.
--srj/mmv
I went to a high school in Germany that was funded and run by the catholic church. But for a school (and their diploma) to be officially recognised, the curriculum has to be accepted by a expert board in the ministry of education.
So there was no teaching or mentioning of Creationism and the likes in biology. And even in religion classes, this was not a topic at all. No teacher and no parent would even entertain that notion. I was born in Poland and my parents are deeply religious and they would not think about that. The push to creationism in the US leaves me astonished and in disbelieve. It is mental.
Aside: Although the catholic religion classes were mostly just that, you were not grated on your faith or being able to cite the bible at all. It was about interpretation, comparison of the books of the new testament etc. We even had a fairly objective study about other religions (Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism), their history, their believes and customs. And even as it is a catholic school, we had about 40% evangelical christians, who had their own religion classes, and a few muslims, whose parents choose the school for its education quality and good standing.