Comments on: Louisiana School Board Wants to Teach Creationism

By: Kayleigh

Kayleigh — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 19:28:42 +0000

This is my parish. I am so embarrassed by this. There are no words to describe the shame I feel, although I know I shouldn’t take it personally. It’s not like *I* had any choice in the matters of ridiculous school board appointments, being too young to vote at the time. But it still makes me sick to my stomach because my poor little brother is stuck in this parish school system until he graduates. Major facepalm.

By: Geek Gazette

Geek Gazette — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 06:18:08 +0000

@ Ben Z

Your religious studies class, where ID can be taught in public schools does exist. They claim it is just a class that teaches the influence the bible has had on art, literature and world events. While I am a long way from my high school years so I have no first hand experience, but people I know or have spoken with claim to have these classes in their schools. Everyone one of them has said it is obvious that it is there to undermine secular classes and science. Fortunately, the class is mostly an elective. Still even one kid that is taught to belief fantasy and myths over logic and scientific evidence in a publicly funded school is a travesty and a disservice to humanity.

By: Ben Zalisko

Ben Zalisko — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 16:50:49 +0000

This post got me thinking about a new potential problem… I’m pretty sure that judges have only prevented creationism/ID from being taught as science in a science classroom. There is nothing preventing creationism from showing its face in something like a religious studies course, even if this course was to focus on only one religion. I could see creationists trying to get their own class where they simply rip down what students learn in science class. As far as an ignorant student is concerned, each would have their own class, so each idea would be considered of equal value.

On another note, I have often promoted the idea of directly addressing pseudoscientific ideas in science class, such as alternative medicine, creationism, and astrology.

By: Ben Zalisko

Ben Zalisko — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 16:50:49 +0000

On another note, I have often promoted the idea of directly addressing pseudoscientific ideas in science class, such as alternative medicine, creationism, and astrology.

By: jose

jose — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 15:56:24 +0000

I’m sorry, could anyone lead me to some resources so I can learn the basics about how this school board thing works? We have a different system in my country and I was hoping to better understand this problem by learning something about it first. Particularly, how on earth could a bunch of nutjobs like the ones described in this post have been given the power to decide what students should and shouldn’t learn.

By: Bob

Bob — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 14:54:41 +0000

@Geek Gazette:

“You don’t have to pass an IQ test to be in the Senate, though.” — Mark Pryor

It’s more about a grasp of facts and critical thinking ability than raw IQ. I know some pretty smart people who have hopped aboard the Tea Party bus and believe all of the Evil Socialist Plot drivel being sold by FOX News and other slime merchants.

By: Geek Gazette

Geek Gazette — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 13:59:04 +0000

@ Jeff P
I was speaking more of the “their coming to get our guns and turn the country into a godless, socialist, white hating, nazi-like regime that puts people in FEMA concentration camps” liberal conspiracy that Rush and Glen Beck are always going on about. The one that all my working class, religious friends think is true.
To me a working class person that blindly follows the Right’s agenda is like an non-white joining the KKK. It is a self defeating path. Of course a liberal that blindly agrees with the Democrats is in the same boat.
I’m a moderate, so I strongly agree with some ideas, kind of agree with some ideas and completely disagree with ideas on both the Right and Left. Overall both parties disgust me because of the crazy talk, elitism and lies they spread. I know that the agendas of both sides are more important to them than the people of this country, but right now they are all we have. What scares me is the number of people that I know who don’t see it and are hardcore behind one party or the other. Kind of like they are supporting their favorite sports team. Doesn’t matter if they are right or wrong, you can’t persuade them to go against their team. Until we manage to get more political parties, that are not just extreme versions of the existing two, in Congress to keep things in check, we have to pay more attention to what both sides are doing. To keep this country sane the people are going to need to be more knowledgeable and active in the process. Right wing conspiracy, left wing conspiracy, it doesn’t matter. Neither side completely has our best interest or the interest of this country in mind.

I don’t consider the Enlightenment influence on the founders of the country to be a conspiracy. Of course all of the founding fathers weren’t students of the Enlightenment either. There were some Christians in the mix, most of them just weren’t as prominent as people like Jefferson, but they had some influence. Even if it was minor for the most part. That diversity of opinion is what I think made the country great. Something that politicians have spend the past 200+ years destroying. Now everything is about conformity, left or right, red or blue. Bucking the system or having new ideas is political suicide.
I think it is sad that even though it was 200+ years ago, all of the founders seem to be smarter than a majority of the “leaders” of this country are today.

As Arkansas Senator Mark Pryor, who is supposedly affiliated with The Family, said in Religulous:
“You don’t have to pass an IQ test to be in the Senate, though”

How sad is that? These are the people that lead our country now.

By: alex

alex — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 13:28:35 +0000

Of course, they will ignore the fact that way more cultures and religions than Christianity hold a creationist viewpoint. Somehow, I doubt they want to teach the students that the world was created from vomitus and saliva of Ennead, who emerged from the primordial waters and masturbated to relieve his loneliness. After all, this country ain’t founded on none of them Egyptian principles, right?…

By: Jeff P

Jeff P — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 11:49:55 +0000

Geek Gazette Says: A lot of them get their “news” from Fox and actually believe that there is a liberal conspiracy

Technically speaking, there was a liberal conspiracy. It was called the Enlightenment and was a challenge to the theocracies and monarchies of the middle ages. This liberal conspiracy led to the scientific method, great art, educating the masses, the American revolution, and so many other facets of modern life.

The American founding fathers were all Enlightenment liberals who formed a representative system of government where the representatives should be educated enlightened citizens (the best of the best) who can make the best decisions possible for their place and time.

True representative government, though, is were the majority picks the most typical representatives possible which can easily turn out to be reactive uneducated bigots (the worst of the worst).

There is still a bit of the old liberal conspiracy left from the founding fathers. Some people did make a big stink when Palin was running for vice president (heart beat away from president). The liberal conspiracy is much weaker for local elections. In many locations, there is truly representative school board members who have to be reigned in by what is left of the national liberal conspiracy.

Purely representative government can be a scary thing when the majority are bigots and would prefer to drag those with minority views (or tendencies) behind pick-up trucks.

By: Brophy

Brophy — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 10:24:24 +0000

I guess we can thank the ignorant-reinforcing pseudo-science propaganda of Ray Comfort and Ben Stein for these ardent presumptions amongst (make)’believers’.

I would love to hear Dr. Dawkins initial reaction to hearing something like this (lol). With people like this influencing school boards, its easy to see why America’s democratic process has become such a charade.

The funniest thing about the whole measure was that they want to introduce this under the guise of ‘critical thinking’……..the fucking irony