Freedom of Information Requests Turn Up Creationist Materials In Schools

An anonymous reader writes: In 2008, Louisiana passed a law that was designed to let teachers introduce creationism into public classrooms alongside evolution. Zack Kopplin, a student at the time, decided to fight the law by sending Freedom Of Information Act requests to the schools, asking for anything mentioning creationism or the law itself. While most ignore him, he has received documents showing a clear anti-science stance from school officials. "In one, which appears to contain a set of PowerPoint slides, there's a page titled "Creationism (Intelligent Design)" that refers students to the Answers in Genesis website, along with two other sites that are critical of that group's position. In another, a parent's complaint about a teacher who presents evolution as a fact is met by a principal stating that 'I can assure you this will not happen again.'"

Comments

The Dark Age returns

[Anonymous Coward]

A generation or two of youth that are prejudiced against scientific understanding. Our future leaders.

Re:The Dark Age returns

[Anonymous Coward]

scientifically minded people, who believe in absolute, measurable truths

No, scientifically minded people don't believe in absolute measurable truths. Scientifically minded people believe in the scientific method. The scientific method doesn't measure "truths", just what is the closest thing to it using the method we have. Scientific method, and ergo scientifically minded people, are open to those measurable "truths" to be revised and improved as new discoveries come along.

You're free to now use the scientific method. You're free to try to find answers in other ways. That's not the issue.

The issue here is trying to teach your way, which is at best pseudoscience, in a SCIENCE class. How about we let them teach evolution in church and religion class?

But be honest with yourself and admit what you don't know.

That is closer to what a scientifically minded person would say. Science doesn't claim to know everything, for sure. Science is just saying that this theory [of evolution, big bang, etc] is the best theory we have come up with using what is observable and following the scientific method, and until/less something better comes along, we'll use that to continue our search for answers using the scientific method.

Again, you're free to believe in theories that don't follow the scientific method, and use that as your basis to search for truth. You might even succeed in finding answers that way. That's not the point. The point is to teach that outside of science class. Science class is about teaching people to find answers our through the scientific way.

Re:The Dark Age returns

[KingSkippus]

You don't need to directly observe something in order to prove that it exists. That notion is a load of hooey propagated by someone with no scientific knowledge or experience.

I have never been to New York City. There's a chance that I might never go. But I have seen ample evidence that it exists that I don't need to actually go there to accept as indisputable fact that it is real.

The key there is evidence. I don't reject the evidence of New York City's existence simply because I don't want to believe that it's not there. If, on the other hand, someone were try to believe that the city of Atlanta doesn't exist, I would take strong exception to that because I've been there and I know firsthand that it does exist.

The problem with Creationists--and the reason it has NO place in a science class--is that they expect people to reject all evidence for a universe billions of years old and all evidence that the Theory of Evolution is correct in favor of another idea for which ZERO evidence exists, an idea for which mountains of evidence in fact disproves. That is the antithesis of science.

Re:The Dark Age returns

[Anonymous Coward]

Attacking his every statement with an ad hominem only hurts your argument.

At what point do statements become so ridiculous that they should be ridiculed rather than people wasting time trying to refute them? Does someone who claims the Earth is flat deserve a (time consuming) detailed, rational argument with references to the science? Same goes with someone claiming evolution is not fact. I have no time trying to convince a crazy person that they have not been abducted by aliens - mainly because they are crazy and will never change their mind anyway. Nor do I have time trying to convince religious nuts that evolution is fact, for the same reason.

Re:The Dark Age returns

[jandersen]

There is an old joke, told by Dave Allen (can be found on Youtube):

The Pope is discussing with an atheist, and the Pope says: "You atheists are like a blind man, searching in a dark room for a black cat that isn't there!" - and the atheist replies: "Well, we are not so different, in fact - you Catholics too are like a blind man, search a dark room for a black cat that isn't there; but you believe you've found it!"

Re:The people

[Jason Levine]

I'm not an Athiest (I'm Jewish), but even I don't want religion taught in schools. When people say "teach religion in schools" (outside of some comparative religion/philosophy class), what they really mean is "teach Christianity in schools." Try teaching Islam in a public school and you'll see all of those "we need to put religion back into public school" advocates go crazy.

I might be religious, but I try not to force my religion on others. I'm willing to discuss it with others if they ask questions, but I don't discuss it in a "my religion is so great, you need to convert now or else" manner. To me, religion is a personal matter and definitely not something for public schools to cover in a science class. You want to believe that the Earth was created 10,000 years ago when God sneezed it into his cosmic hanky? Go right ahead. You can even tell your kids that at home. Just don't try teaching MY kids that in public school because you can't deal with your kids learning about evolution.