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

[dave420]

The conclusions of the study in to climate change aredrawn from impartial and objective analysis of the collected data. You thinking otherwise doesn't change that fact, and makes you look like one of the anti-science lunatics you are attempting to attack. Why should anyone respect science when chucklefucks like you feel entitled to disparage an entire field of science because you assume it to be corrupt, due to their discoveries being at odds with whatever political machinery lives in your head.

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

[alexgieg]

The problem is that schools don't teach science. They "proclaim truths" (without actually going to the trouble of step-by-step proving every single one), then require students to repeat those memorized proclamations to "pass". Teaching science is teaching the scientific method, and teaching it in practice.

Want students to learn evolutions for real, to the point of never, even, being ABLE to believe religious bullshit? Here's how: help them discover evolution themselves. First make them know falseability better than their own names, by guiding them through discovering newtonian mechanics or something like that. Then, when they've mastered the scientific method, switch from classic physics to classic biology, presenting them the same raw data Darwin had collected, and require them to figure that one out by following the same standards. And presto: now you have a generation that both embraces the scientific method and cannot deny evolution.

Until educational standards are that high though, sorry, but for the vast majority of people science and religions will remain similar and roughly interchangeable: someone in the pulpit speaking about esoteric stuff, and listeners blindly accepting (or pretending to) it as such "because authority", and because that's what's socially expected from them.

Re:The Dark Age returns

[Sique]

Look at astrophysics again. And really look at it.

While we can't observe a new Big Bang (the last one happened 13.7 billion years ago), we can observe the results from the Big Bang. We can for instance observe the redshift of far away stars and galaxies. We can also observe the cosmic background radiation. The Big Bang gives a very consistent description of what we can tell about the cosmos around us, and no alternative explanation comes even close.

But you would probably also claim that the explosion of the Krakatoa volcano in 1883 is "just untestable speculation passed of as fact", because no one survived who saw the actual magma coming out of the mountain. And the reports of a big smoke cloud, tsunamis and earth quakes could have been caused by something else. And we don't even know if they really happened, because all we have are just written reports, like the Bible, right? And going to Krakatoa and finding large layers of volcanic ash which buried the remainings of people and houses and animals and which look as if they were around 130 years old are so very indirect that the actual volcanic eruption still can be called "speculation" in your world, right?

The same goes for Climate science. We have the daily weather report, but the theories that allow us to predict the weather (yes, the single event, and not just the long term average), are "closer to religion than to science"? We have complete daily weather data (yes, the actual measurements done by real humans with real instruments) for some regions of the world starting in the early 18th century, and for most of the world starting in mid-19th century, and drawing them in a diagram and describing the resulting long term average as going upward is "closer to religion than to science"? Please elaborate!

Maybe what you picture for yourself as science has some serious flaws, but that's the problem with the picture of science you have. Not a problem of the sciences.

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 Dark Age returns

[gnasher719]

It still is. You can stand in the middle of a railway and let a train pass over you. The result won't be a matter of perspective.

Actually, that's where relativity theory comes in. After the experiment, the train is in a relatively better shape than you are.

Re:The Dark Age returns

[gnasher719]

" yet it was never (and likely never will be) directly observed." -

That's totally untrue. There's a kind of butterfly which loves to sit on the trunks of birch trees, and has a colour that makes it practically invisible to predators on that background. There comes industrial pollution and birch trees are not white anymore but more or less gray, with the butterflies clearly visible. Within a few generations, very strong natural selection made them change their colour to a dirty gray. Then things get cleaned up, no unlimited emissions from power stations, birch trees get whiter, guess what: The butterflies got whiter.

Re:The Dark Age returns

[StatureOfLiberty]

First of all, most people don't know what the big bang theory really says. It says the universe is expanding and cooling. It says nothing about how it was created.

Then:
It is not "untestable speculation". Science is about making observations. Then proposing an explanation for those observations (hypotheses). Then testing those hypotheses. These can often be tested by other observations. It happens all of the time. In 1927 an expanding universe theory was proposed based on observed red shift of certain objects in the sky. In 1929 Hubble was able to verify the red shift and show that the further away objects were from earth the larger the amount of shift. Again, this fits with an expanding universe. In 1948 physicists speculated there would be cosmic microwave background noise signature of this expansion. In 1964 Penzias and Wilson happened across this cosmic microwave background noise (which they weren't even looking for). Well, the case for the big bang theory got a little stronger. No test tubes were harmed in the making of this observation.

What has not been found yet is anything that makes the big bang theory incompatible with what we observe.

Can we go back in time and observe the beginning of the big bang? Of course not. Can we duplicate it? No. Can we make observations? Yes Do those observations show that the observable universe is expanding over time? Yes. Do you have a better theory than the big bang theory (one that can be tested)? No.

People act like scientists just get together in a big room and make up theories and present them as fact. No, scientists make observations, create hypotheses to explain their observations and then come up with ways to test those hypotheses. And sometimes those tests simply involve other observations.

Science has it's struggles. Yes there are those who have their pet theories and are willing to fund research that is favorable to their cause. But, in the long run, scientific method takes care of that. In the end, what can be observed will trump what can be bought. The all powerful Roman Catholic Church lost the 'Earth is the center of the universe' argument because of what could be observed. Of course, we later learned that the Sun isn't the center of the universe either. But that did not change the fact that the Earth was not.

Anyone who thinks science is just another religion, doesn't understand science (or religion).

Re:The Dark Age returns

[dave420]

That is not "essentially happening". Let's fleshen out your example:

You are tasked with recording the temperature of every day of 1962, at noon (apparent solar time). Every day you take a temperature measurement, and describe when and how it was taken. You release the data and the description of your method. Good work! You've just given some data to the science community, which is a lovely thing to do, and everyone rightly thinks you're a real hoopy frood.

Now, the years pass and someone wants to use your data, as they are very interested in the temperatures in your part of the world in 1962. They take your numbers, and look at how they were collected. They notice that you used a "Blogg's Perfect Thermometer", which a year after you made your measurements were shown to be poorly calibrated. The researcher then finds the likely amount the thermometer is off by (by whatever method they can - testing lots of those thermometers, etc.), and then uses that to correct your data. Now your data is even more accurate! You should be very happy.

Then, someone else looks at this data, and notices that you took the temperature at mid-day, not apparent solar time. To fix this, they use another source of temperatures to work out the difference on each day apply it to your data. Your data is now even more accurate! Yay! Happy times!

At no point did anyone simply look at your data and go "fuck it I don't like this let's change it" - they saw errors in the measurement methodology, quantified them, and corrected each point. The end result is more accurate data. The most recent climate-related data correction you are probably referring to was the buoy measurements, which showed a difference between ship-born measurements and the buoys' measurements. They're both measuring the same thing, so clearly there is some calibration issue or another problem in the methodology, as they should be returning the same values. They identified the problem and calculated the difference, and could then choose to apply it to the shipping temperatures, or to the buoy temperatures. Either is fine, as they are interested in the change of temperature rather than the actual temperature itself. They chose to change the buoy temperatures as the data set is less. That's it. At no point was anything dodgy done, though I can imagine to someone who doesn't want their findings to be believed would see something shady in it. That speaks more of you than of the scientists :)

Re:The people

[ledow]

There's a way to distinguish between forcing a personal view and allowing a personal view to be arrived at.

NOBODY is running into schools and telling kids there is no God and they must be taught that, and they must write that down in their books, and they must read only textbooks that say there is no God. Nobody. Not even in the science lessons.

But creationists are doing exactly that for their belief, and far outside the scope of religious studies (science is science, maths is maths, geography is geography, religious studies is where you study religions).

Atheists probably value personal choice more than ANY other group of people. Nobody says "You cannot teach that religion" except other religions. Atheists say "You can teach all religions - including atheism and agnosticism and pastafarianism - fairly, inside a religious studies class".

It's like saying that pacifists aren't choosing a side in the war and promoting their countries military. Of course they're not. But neither are FORCING you / your kids to be pacifists too.

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.

Re:Evolution is a theory not a fact

[Jason Levine]

In the strict definition, it is a theory which means it's a "hypothesis supported by facts and evidence which leads us to conclude it's the best explanation for what we experience"

As much of an opponent I was of the Bill Nye-Ken Ham debate (I didn't see any point in Nye "debating" Ham and it just gave Ham publicity), there was one good exchange. They were both asked what it would take for them to change their opinions. For Nye to accept creationism or for Ham to accept evolution. Nye said that it would take proof that the things that science accepts as facts (e.g. atomic clocks can't be reset) aren't true. This would be extraordinary proof to be sure, but it would be evidence that science is wrong. Meanwhile, Ken Ham replied that nothing would change his mind. God himself could shout out "Hey Ken! Evolution is fact" and Ken would pound his Bible and declare evolution wrong.

I've spent time with creationists. They view science's changing theories as a weakness and religion's constant "God did it as explained in the Bible" as strength. In fact, it's the other way around. Science changes theories based on different evidence. It's willing to toss old, once beloved theories aside if the evidence comes in proving it wrong. You want to prove evolution wrong? Find a rabbit fossil from the Triassic. Creationism, on the other hand, is never willing to change*. They just march on in the same direction even if all signs point to that being the wrong direction.

* They are never willing to change, but over the years their interpretations of the Bible passages might change which changes their creationist theories. They will never admit this, though, and just insist that they've always believed this.

Re:Face it America ...

[drakaan]

Entertaining, but incorrect.

There is a vocal minority of people with faith-based beliefs that override reasoned thought. They are not in charge. There are a few elected politicians who are morons, and a larger swath of electorate who share those beliefs, but that's still a minority of the population. The USA has more than 50 states, territories, and outlying areas, each with their own local government structure.

In Louisiana, a similar issue has been dealt with in the courts previously and the federal judiciary seems to have been reasonable enough in deciding that the law is unconstitutional.

This newer law seems to have the same goal as the 1981 law, and will likely face similar challenges. The nation is not made up of morons. It actively recognizes and points them out, which sometimes makes it appear that way, though.

"Several thousand years ago..."

[Dr. Manhattan]

"Several thousand years ago, a tribe of ignorant near-savages wrote various collections of myths, wild tales, lies, and gibberish. Over the centuries, these stories wore embroidered, garbled, mutilated, and torn into small pieces that were then repeatedly shuffled. Finally, this material was badly translated into several languages successively. The resultant text, creationists feel, is the best guide to this complex and technical subject [of origins]." - Tom Weller, Science Made Stupid

Ah, evidence.

[Dr. Manhattan]

It has nothing to do with evolution.

Ah, but it does indeed. It shows that variation does in fact respond to environment. It's only one piece of the puzzle, though. No one claims that the peppered moths, by themselves, prove evolution. There's a lot more to it than that.

Take that variation, for example, and you can link it to speciation - which we can observe today. Heard of 'ring species'? The Larus gulls are several subspecies where variants live in a ring around the Arctic. The Herring Gull in the U.K. can interbreed with the American Herring Gull, and the American can interbreed with the Vega Gull in Russia. And so on, until you come to the Lesser Black-Backed Gull in the Netherlands. It basically can’t breed with the Herring Gull. Hybrids are extremely rare and don't seem to be fertile, like mules.

So, is it a separate species? You could breed it with its relative to the East, and so on. But what if, say, the Vega Gull went extinct? Would you have separate species then?

Now, imagine such variations happening across time instead of (or as well as) space, and you’ve got an idea how species actually do form, instead of the ’saltationist’ strawman that many try to imply.

We have a theory how we think this works but we haven't gotten conclusive evidence.

The thing is, we have so gotten conclusive evidence. Here's one you can partially check on your own body. Lay your fingers on the side of your jaw. Now, trace along the edge up to the very top of the jawbone. Notice how close your fingers are to your ear canal. Inside the inner ear are three bones, the ossicles: malleus, incus, and stapes. They are carefully arranged to transfer sound energy from the eardrum to the cochlea as efficiently as possible. How could such an amazing mechanism arise?

It turns out that a classification of dinosaur called the therapsids had two jaw joints. The therapsids are known (by several independent lines of evidence) to be ancestral to modern mammals... and we have a basically complete fossil record of the gradual transition of one of those jaw joints into the modern bones of the inner ear. Fossils representing over a dozen separate stages have been found. Note that intermediate steps were all advantageous, though not as efficient or optimized. Some transitional forms did help amplify sound energy but didn't work while the animal was chewing. We still have problems with that under some circumstances (try to listen to someone while eating celery) but the separation is far more developed now.

(Note that some have even cited the ossicles as 'irreducibly complex'. The more central figures of the ID 'movement', like Behe and Shermer, haven't done so... but I suspect that's because they know enough of the detailed fossil record to dissuade them.)

Or, my absolute favorite - the twin nested hierarchies! Books used to be copied by scribes, and (despite a lot of care) sometimes typos would be introduced. Later scribes, making copies of copies, would introduce other typos. It's possible to look at the existing copies and put them into a 'family tree'. "These copies have this typo, but not that one; this other group has yet another typo, though three of them have a newer typo as well, not seen elsewhere..." This is not controversial at all when dealing with books, including the Bible.

Now, this process of copy-with-modification naturally produces 'family trees', nested groups. When we look at life, we find such nested groups. No lizards with fur or nipples, no mammals with feathers, etc. Living things (at least, multicellular ones, see below) fit into a grouped hierarchy. This has been solidly recognized for over a thousand years, and systematized for centuries. It was one of the clues that led Darwin to propose evolution. (Little-known fact: Linnaeus, who invented the "kingdom, phyla, genus, species, etc." classification scheme for living things, tried to do the same thin