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Kentucky Lawmakers Shocked To Find Evolution In Biology Tests
bbianca127 writes "Kentucky mandated that schools include tests that are based on national standards, and contracted test maker ACT to handle them. Legislators were then shocked that evolution was so prominently featured, even though evolution is well-supported and a central tenet of modern biology. One KY Senator said he wanted creationism taught alongside evolution, even though the Supreme Court has ruled that teaching creationism in science classes is a violation of the establishment clause. Representative Ben Wade stated that evolution is just a theory, and that Darwin made it all up. Legislators want ACT to make a Kentucky-specific ACT test, though the test makers say that would be prohibitively expensive. This is just the latest in a round of states' fight against evolution — Louisiana and Tennessee have recently passed laws directed against teaching evolution."
A few wealthy and modern cities surrounded by a huge sea of uneducated religious primitives with guns.
Yep it's a challenge to live down here amongst the hillbillies. Tennessee's law actually doesn't mandate teaching creationism, it just prevents a teacher from getting into trouble for teaching alternative theories. As a substitute teacher (between software engineer gigs) I'm amassing age-appropriate clips from as many different religions and prehistoric traditions as I can find, so when the opportunity [resents itself, I'll be ready.
It's terrible to see the country slide backward down the ladder of technological pre-eminence due to these wackos. Decades of badmouthing government are going to take a toll on us pretty soon.
Note also that science shouldn't be taught as set in stone, either. There's a lot we don't know and kids enjoy comparing what was known to be true in my teenage years with what we know now.
Not believing in evolution after you've seen DNA is like sticking to chopsticks after you've seen the fork, no offense intended.
Creationsim does have a place in schools. When I was a senior in high school we had a class called "humanities." It was a class where we covered a bit of art and a bit of sociology. That's where it belongs. Teach the basic ideas behind the major religions and touch on their influence on the world stage.
By doing this you start to open up a middle ground where people learn a bit about each other and their cultures. By closing out this kind of knowledge you're leaving a big gap for the fringe to fill and use against you. The more people we can get involved in this middle ground the smaller the fringe becomes. This will make them less powerful and easier to spot at a distance.
Too many people want to fight tooth and nail instead of finding a common ground to work from. This is a waste of resources.
I am a Catholic guy, but I wasn't raised in the U.S. view's of creationism vs evolution. I am Mexican, and here, they teach us evolution *with* creationism. At church.
At school? They leave the God theories to the church. God has no business in the government schools, and teachers aren't nuns to be teaching kids about God anyway.
The way the Saturday Church classes taught me was that God didn't just create Adam and Eve, but evolved species into Adam and Eve. A simple way to explain it is that God plays Spore on a very big supercomputer with high definition graphics.
I don't get why Christians / Catholics get so pissy about Darwin being a theory and that a maker must've just spawned everything out of thin air. Both theories aren't mutually exclusive. The initial spores could've spawned out of thin air, then evolved into men and women.
And don't get me started with the Big Bang / Genesis thing, as the idea of creating the universe in 7 days is just wrong, but if some dude was shown a fast-forwarded video of the big bang and saw (and wrote) about creation taking place in 7 days, well that'd be a misunderstanding, I think.
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Pay no attention to the troll submitting stories.
Somewhere in America millions are doing something stupid. A percentage of these people are public figures and a percentage of those are in government. This is nothing. This isn't even news. This is a reporter somewhere with search program trolling the press releases and small-town papers for 'senator' & 'evolution'. Whatever turns up both phrases can be sold to someone.
However, there is a sizable contingent of religious people out there who think that religious "freedom" means the freedom for everyone to be Christian, and anything that interferes with that goal is (or should) violate the First Amendment.
Not exactly. They think religious "freedom" means that they have the freedom to teach their kids to believe whatever they want (which is true). But further than that they think it means that they are free from anyone else contradicting those beliefs with their own beliefs which is where they are wrong, they have no so such freedom as it, obviously, severely restricts everyone else's freedom to say and believe what they wish.
I'd love to have a literature elective in high school called "Creation Stories and Mythology from Around the World." It could begin and end with Genesis, but also touch on everything from Coyote sneezing out mountains to examples of new creation stories from modern literature, as well as some of the more out-there science hypothesis such as multiverses and parallel dimensions, and how they are used in speculative fiction.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
I fully support the RIGHT of these states to teach what they want, and even to ban the teaching of evolution. Its their lives, their children, their right.
However, I would ask that my states rights be recognized too.... the right to consider high school diplomas from their state worthless and The right to not fund their educational process at all.
I would be perfectly happy with such an arrangement.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Local control is overrated. I think that if the religious cranks actually end up running the country, the US is doomed anyway. But our government has stood fast against continuous assault by religious cranks almost since its inception, so I'm not terribly concerned. On the other hand, we have plenty of examples to show us that at the local level, it is not at all hard for a small, organized group of cranks to take over school boards and substitute their dogma for science