>Bill Payne wrote:
>>
>> Following is the "final" version of the suggested biology textbook
>> insert which may be used in all of the states. Hopefully, this is a
>> statement with which scientists of all persuasions can agree, and
>> hopefully, all of the states will adopt it.
>>
>> Thanks for the constructive comments which some of you offered in the
>> past couple of weeks. All of them were forwarded to a member of the
>> group working on this insert.
>>
>>[SNIP]
>>
> The wording of these warnings - "Although your textbook may
>suggest .... the truth is" (& variations) will be read by many people as
>"Your textbook is lying."
I agree with George.
If you think a textbook is so full of errors, then perhaps it shouldn't
be used. My guess is that the people wanting to place these inserts in texts
have no direct control over textbook adoptions so instead they do an end run
by placing this obnoxious insert in the texts? The young-earth creationists
can't win over the scientific community so instead they attempt to turn
children against them -- the tone of that label is that modern evolutionary
theory is a pack of lies.
The idea of glueing a "warning label" to the inside cover of a textbook is
repugnant to me. The idea of government getting involved in deciding what is
and isn't science based on the pressures of special interest groups
(young-earth
creationists) is a dangerous precedent in my opinion. This whole thing
reminds
me of a story I once heard... An "official" encyclopedia in the Soviet Union
had a glowing article about a high government official but when he fell out of
favor, they mailed out "new" pages to be pasted over that article since the
fellow didn't officially exist any more. I have visions of this happening to
biology textbooks regarding evolution!
Where's the warning label for geology texts?
"WHEREAS, this textbook states that the earth is 4,600,000 years old, it
fails to mention that many evangelical Christians with no training in
science believe it to be only 6,000 years old.
BE IT RESOLVED THAT, we will ignore the knowledge gained by 200 years of
geologic study and paste the address of the Institute for Creation Research
on the front cover of this text so you can contact people who will tell you
the truth which isn't disseminated by all of those egghead atheistic
scientists."
Why not?
- Steve.
-- Steven H. Schimmrich KB9LCG schimmrich@earthlink.edu Department of Physical Sciences Kutztown University 217 Grim Science Building, Kutztown, PA 19530 (610) 683-4437 http://www.uiuc.edu/ph/www/s-schim Fides quaerens intellectum