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Creationism In Texas Public Schools
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.'"
These schools are also in Arkansas and Indiana.
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.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
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
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.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
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, 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.