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Jewish School Removes Evolution Questions From Exams
Alain Williams writes "Religious sponsored ignorance is not just in the USA, a school in Hackney, England is trying to hide the idea of evolution from its pupils. Maybe they fear that their creation story will be seen for what it is if pupils get to learn ideas supported evidence. The girls are also disadvantaged since they can't answer the redacted questions, thus making it harder to get good marks."
Then don't send your kids to a Jewish school. Religious freedom is part of that whole "freedom" idea that some folks are pretty fond of.
"Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes." - Mahatma Gandhi
Wait, so the school decides what questions they want on their exam, and people are complaining?
All the students are sitting exactly the same are they not?
"The examinations body, OCR, says it was satisfied that the girls did not have an unfair advantage. It now plans to allow the practice, saying it has come to an agreement with the school to protect the future integrity of the exams."
"The Department of Education meanwhile has asked for assurances that the children will be taught the full curriculum."
If they're still being taught the stuff, what's the problem. No exam that I've ever done has every single sentence that a teacher has ever said on the exam paper in question form.
And seriously what the fuck up with the UK and this stupid policy? They could learn a thing or two from the French on this - education should be secular. There should be no religious dress, no segregation by sexes, no exemptions from subjects on religious grounds, no indoctrination into religion and no pandering to the sensibilities of religion in any way shape or form. In the long term this will mean far less religious whackaloons which can only be a good thing.
See, the thing is that 500 years ago our ancestors invented FTL travel. Several solar systems were colonized, most with far better planets than Earth. Eventually, Earth was solely inhabited by the Luddites who feared FTL, and therefore they completely erased it from the history books.
Now you want to visit another solar system, but you are told it is physically impossible. There is no way to do it, the means of travel do not exist.
That is pretty much what it's like for the children in these kinds of sects to attempt to get a good education. The very knowledge that good educations exist are essentially kept from them.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
It's spreading, Id rather hoped this kind of shit was going to stay on the other side of the pond :(
Lifesigns: Present Hair: Escaped Age: Increasing
There are religions where one of the central tenets is that the beliefs must adapt to advances in science.
eg. Bahá'í
They really do it, too. It's not just lip service.
No sig today...
Wait, so the school decides what questions they want on their exam, and people are complaining?
Yes because in the UK the exams are not written by the schools but written by a central exam board so that the standard is consistent across the country. The same happens here in Alberta, Canada. By redacting the questions the school is preventing the students from being able to get any marks for those questions. I the exam board produced a paper where sufficient questions were "objectionable" then every pupil at that school would automatically fail the exam.
While the exam board might be ok with it because it offers zero advantage to the students the school inspectors ought to be all over this since it is grossly unfair to the students and may prevent them getting into university. We already have laws which limit religious freedom when it comes to refusing medical treatment for children because it harms them and frankly we should have similar ones when it comes to science education for exactly the same reason.