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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
That's not mainstream Judaism. That's a Haredi institution. They're not just anti-evolution. They're anti-TV, anti-Internet, anti-movies, anti-newspaper reading, anti birth control, anti public library usage, anti knowing the language of the country they're in, anti wearing colors, anti female equality... The sect is set up to give kids no option other than to stay in the Haredi community and overdose on religion for their entire lives.
It's a lot like Shia Islam, down to the beards. There's even a Haredi group in Canada that wants to move to Iran because Canada won't let them abuse their kids.
Don't they know wikipedia exists?
Maybe not - quoting said wikipedia:
The school primarily serves the Charedi Jewish community of Stamford Hill. The Charedi community do not have access to television, the internet or other media, and members of the community aim to lead modest lives governed by the codes of Torah observance.
At the core of evolution is survival of the fittest. The theory of evolution also implies that "man", as in created by God in his own image, is nothing special, only a series of fortunate mutations, migrations and accidents. The Christian Bible basically starts out with a huge lie.
What is really perplexing is the fact that the Catholic Pope has conceded that man is descended from the apes, and there really isn't anywhere else in the first world where this "creationism vs evolution" is even a thing (to my knowledge at least).
... whatever
I find it amusing that through the decades and centuries some fundamentalists, religious groups etc simply do everything they can no to not change.
Resisting change in new and interesting ways. They come up with new counter arguments, new legislation proposals, new interpretations of the same old texts.
That very same behaviour is evolutionary in nature. We need no other explanation to demonstrate that evolution as a fact is quite well grounded in fact.Sure there are gaps in our ability to explain everything but every time we have stepped forward and discovered something, solved what was thought to be impossible etc the arguments against evolution then evolved with the discovery. Much like the "Irreducibly complex" malarkey.
So some sect/faction/aspect/cult of Judaism or some other belief want X removed or have removed it from their school. Good. Evolution at work, they are one step closer to removing themselves from the gene pool. While some religious groups may have 11 - 15 kids per family religion overall is in decline.
We can argue these points on slashdot, religious people can counter argue and millions will read and judge for themselves -all very evolved.
A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
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.
"So yea, if a jewish community who denied evolution would only breed within the jewish community they may eventually split off from the rest of humanity" - the orthodox jewish community are already suffering the consequences of breeding within a small community. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
The differentiation between species is still being defined, but within a species there are many variations and sub-species. It's only when those differences become significant enough do biologists consider it a separate species. Even then, yes, there may be hundreds of descendant species from a single ancestor species, and the more time that passes, the more diversify from their progenitors.
Of course, nature is a total bitch, and a lot of species go extinct for various reasons, including competition from their related species. Of the many species alive now, some have no closely related species that we know of, and others have tons of them.
Now if you're upset about not knowing about the intermediate ones, you're worried over nothing. The fossil record has shown a clear progression of those in many different animals, so it's not like it's some big mystery as the creationists claim, rather it's their ignorance of evolutionary and paleontological studies. In fast replication species, we have a lot more experience with this, and samples of the intermediate forms are stored. Mostly this is bacterial for the simple reason that those suckers multiply faster than Bugs Bunny locked in a room full of viagra with Jessica Rabbit. There are of course other studies with non microbial life, but those have far fewer generations to work with and so aren't as advanced.
Evolution has been observed, tracked, and even experimented with. It's existence is not in doubt among biologists, though they are constantly refining and testing it.
Don't they know wikipedia exists?
Do you know that conservapedia exists?
http://www.conservapedia.com/
Which one is correct? Teach the controversy!
No sig today...
Indeed not. I've only had a little rather indirect contact with those sorts of communities in London, but as I understand it they also tend to shun proper education - university level especially because that's where a lot of people leave their communities - have low income levels and be dependent on state benefits in one of the most expensive cities in the world. Personally, I have no problem funding appropriately limited benefits for people who are unlucky, disabled, not educated properly by their parents and so on....but when a whole community is dependent on forced charity in a self-perpetuating cultural cycle but the problem is considered untouchable because 'religion' then I think it needs to be dealt with a little better. Requiring a proper education would be a good start (and being prepared to help children who want to go to university against their parents' wishes could be a good second thing).
Why don't you try to misunderstand the scientific definition of the word "theory" some more?
A theory is the most accepted, most rigorous, best description of facts that we have that fits in with all evidential proof. It is *proven*. Like "Pythagoras' theory" (which is what we call it, and has been proven beyond doubt countless millions of times).
What you're implying is that evolution is a "hypothesis". A hypothesis is, quite literally, our "best guess" at what the truth is. It's not proven.
If you were taught evolution was a theory, you were taught correctly. Maybe you should have a word with your English and science teachers, though, to establish which definition of "theory" was referred to in a science lesson.
We don't have "laws" by the way. It''s an old-fashioned way of saying theory (in the scientific sense), e.g. Newton's Third Law of Motion, or the Law of Conservation of Energy. Both of which, by the way, are proven theories (subject to the terms of Newtonian descriptions of motion which do not act on the quantum scale, but still - they are proven theories at the levels that they apply to).
And neither are "facts". Facts are indisputable items of information. They do not, in themselves, form an explanation. The explanation of the facts can be a hypothesis or theory, but a fact is just a datum.
Nobody gives a shit what you teach, so long as it's what is required by law. Unfortunately, the Department of Education take a dim view of failing to teach an area of the National Curriculum. If you don't want to teach it, don't run a school. Run a religious group. Or an after-school club. Or a church. Not a school.
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
Of course they're going to ignore the 500 madrassas in England which do precisely the same thing and seek out the only Jewish school they could find than shriek and moan and predict the Evil Jew Menace (tm, BBC) is going to destroy all of civilization. This is what they do every day.
In the mean time the Muslims teach their kids much worse things than creationism. Like children as young as 11 learning that Hindus have ‘no intellect’ and that they ‘drink cow piss, and hatred of Jews and Christians.
But of course it's the one Jewish school that they pick on.
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.
An obligatory disclaimer as an observant Jew, I can think of no one in my social or academic circles who would support or condone such a move. Sadly, the extremists ruin things for everyone.
Keep the faith, share the code
Jewish teaching is all about asking questions. The entire religion is asking questions and challenging the answers. What this school is doing is wrong.
No one has seen what you have seen, and until that happens, we're all going to think that you're nuts. - Jack O'Neil