Allen,
We all know that news organizations often fail to get the facts
straight. Keith Miller has given in his 10:41 am message today the web site
that will allow anyone to compare the two sets of standards. Do that and
you will see that his summary of the facts in his April 4, 10:10 a.m.
message is accurate: evolution, big bang, and other historical sciences were
removed from the creationist standards originally adopted by the Kansas
school board, which would have had the practical effect of greatly
discouraging, and if not eliminating the teaching of these sciences from
most public school science curricula.
Let me add a note from personal experience. It is hard enough for high
school science teachers to teach evolution in local schools when there is a
strong anti-evolution contingent in the community. The first year I taught
a senior seminar, "Science and Faith," at Berea College, I polled my
students to find out how many of the 20 had studied evolution in high school
biology and science courses. Only four had, one of them at a Catholic high
school. (One of the 16 who didn't said that she attended a "Christian
school": "We learned our science from the Bible," she said) The refrain
from the students was, "The teacher skipped that chapter." After hearing
that a few times, I said, "The teacher probably didn't want to get phone
calls from irate parents at 10 p.m., complaining about it, or calls from the
school superintendent yielding to pressure from preachers and parents."
It's a fact of life in largely rural states like Kentucky, where I taught.
Kentucky's state board did a lateral arabesque on the issue by replacing the
word "evolution" in the standards with "change over time." State science
education organizations and the Kentucky Academy of Sciences formally
protested and asked for a meeting with the chair of the board. They got
nowhere. I was indirectly involved in this activity and so I speak from
personal experience.
It was also clear from my teaching experience that my students who
learned about evolution in their churches or Christian schools learned what
amounts to a caricature of evolution. When Gary Parker spoke at a
Creationism Seminar in Berea, he said that he teaches evolution to his
students; but what he described as evolution was also a caricature. It was
all of a piece with the descriptions of evolution I read in creationist
literature. And when people like Parker and Ham and their colleagues give a
"seminar" to local churches, you can bet that the pressure on local science
teachers to avoid the topic of evolution will increase.
The accumulation of evidence and experience leads me to only one
conclusion: YEC activists and other anti-evolutionists will do whatever
they can to reduce or eliminate the teaching of evolution in the pre-college
classroom; and their own presentation of it is inaccurate and tendentious.
I am convinced that they believe that if they can innoculate young people
early enough then they don't have to worry about those university professors
teaching it. I saw that phenomenon at Berea College as well. My colleagues
in the sciences constantly run into students who refuse to learn anything
about evolution; some become
upset at having to sit through lectures on it. Some pass out Answers in
Genesis literature, and then become angry when their professors point out
the errors in these tracts.
Bob Schneider
----- Original Message -----
From: "Allen Roy" <allenroy@peoplepc.com>
To: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Friday, April 05, 2002 11:47 AM
Subject: Who can you trust?
> Glenn,
>
> One of your complaints against Creationists has been that they have
> deliberately misquoted and misled the public, especially the Christian
> subculture, about science and evolution. Me experience has been that you
> will not believe ANYTHING printed or quoted by YECs (including myself)
> unless you check the sources for yourself.
>
> Now my question is, did you check the sources of the News media and the
> press releases from scientific groups and organizations which reported:
>
> 1."elimination of evolution"
> www.wheaton.edu/acg/essays/miller1.html
>
> 2. The Kansas Board of Education rejected evolution as a scientific
> principle
> www.detroitfreepress.com/news/education/qevol12.htm
>
> 3.the Kansas State Board of Education removed biological and cosmological
> evolution from its state Science Education Standards
> www.aip.org/gov/policy7
>
> 4. Kansas Eliminates Evolution From Public School Curricula, By Carey
> Gillam, Reuters Thursday, August 12, 1999; Page A13
>
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A5
> 4598-1999Aug12¬Found=true
>
> 5. In August 1999, the Kansas state board of education raised a firestorm
of
> debate over its revision of high school science standards, which omitted
any
> mention of evolution.
> http://www.edweek.org/context/topics/issuespage.cfm?id=32
>
> 6.World: "Americas Kansas rejects theory of evolution"
> Opponents of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution have scored a victory in
> the United States after the board of education in Kansas voted to drop
> evolution as a subject in the science curriculum.
> The State School Board approved by six votes to four a new curriculum that
> eliminates the teaching of evolution.
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_417000/417996.stm
>
> 7"Kansas restores evolution standards for science classes"
> Reversing a controversial 1999 move, the Kansas Board of Education voted
> Wednesday to restore the theory of evolution to state school standards.
> The 7-3 decision came after November elections that saw three board
members
> ousted after voting to remove Charles Darwin's theory of mankind's origin
> from public school science standards and allowing alternative theories to
be
> taught.
> The 1999 vote never banned the teaching of evolution nor required the
> teaching of the Biblical story of creation. But it dropped Darwin's theory
> from standardized tests taken by Kansas students.
> http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/02/14/kansas.evolution.02/
>
> 8. science deplores the recent decision by the Kansas state board of
> education to remove
> references to evolution and cosmology from its state education standards
> www.aaas.org/spp/dser/evolution/issues/aaas.htm ?
>
> Or did you just assume that Evolutionary Scientists must be correctly
> reporting the facts? Did you go read for yourself the drafts and the
> approved 1999 science standards?
>
> Who can you trust?
>
>
> Allen
>
>
>
>
>
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Apr 05 2002 - 13:44:13 EST