Texas School Board Stands Up to Science

I'm sorry, Texas

By: Vanessa | Fri, 05/22/2009 - 13:14

I like the sentiment of your comment, but it's not practical. There isn't a middle ground in the debate over teaching creationism as science. If you want to teach a science class it can't be slightly creationist. It's like if you taught a math class that made it clear that some people criticised 1+1 as not actually adding up to 2, and all perspectives on the 1+1 issue were valid ways of looking at the controversy over addition.

I think what is often done, and what was done in my own science classes here in the Godless Liberal land of Massachusetts is to not really teach much about evolution or explain it well in the first place. That way no one is offended. I didn't really understand natural selection until I went out of my way after high school to learn things on my own.

I actually think this not-teaching it approach is a better compromise than Texas's. Better to let people who do go on in science learn it on their own and in college than teach that 1+1 might be anything and no one really knows.

Ar-har.

By: Sihaya | Thu, 05/21/2009 - 12:23

Ar-har. Oh yes, we love you too, Vanessa. Nothing like dragging out stereotypes with random examples from every state's political skulduggery. It makes the world and America a better place - one where we key our neighbors' cars because we don't like their license plates or bumper stickers. One where we act like it's moral to treat some stranger like dirt because we can assume we know everything about him by the cut of his clothes or his accent. It's a rising trend that alarms me. Are we really moving backwards to such strong regionalism?