Sorry about the delay concerning this message, but apparently there was
something about the addresses that caused my server to gag on it a couple of
days, before finally coughing it back up.
I considered letting sleeping dogs lie, but since the “Who (sic) can you
trust” thread began, I thought it should be pointed out that the spin
doctoring of evolution/creation debate has probably been going on as long as
the theories have been presented, and as in the case with C.S. Lewis, it
often as not backfires.
Unlike some who claim otherwise, I remember my evolution indoctrination, a
la the 1961 NY State Dept of Education Syllabus, quite well, and, as Paul
Simon wrote later:
When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school
It's a wonder I can think at all…
(Kodachrome, 1973 )
In my case, it was the re-examining of the theory after subsequent exposure
to university and government bureaucracies that has caused me to become
skeptical, not my conversion to Christianity.
Norm
-----Original Message-----
From: Woodward Norm Civ WRALC/TIEDM
Sent: Thursday, April 04, 2002 4:06 PM
To: Shuan Rose
Cc: Asa
Subject: RE: Creationism in the UK (Utley v Dawkins)
I had asked recently about C.S. Lewis’s views on evolution, and was referred
to an upcoming article that will be posted on the ASA site. Being very
curious about the subject, I did a quick search, and what I found was rather
interesting.
It appears that in his early Christian writings, he offered opinions that
were, and are, very supportive of theistic evolutionary thought.
However, in his later years, he became rather skeptical concerning the idea,
to the extent that he wrote the following in a 1951 letter Bernard Acworth,
one of the founders of the Evolution Protest Movement:
“I wish I were younger. What inclines me now to think you may be right in
regarding it [evolution] as the central and radical lie in the whole web of
falsehood that now governs our lives is not so much your arguments against
it as the fanatical and twisted attitudes of its defenders.”
And I tend to agree.
Equating “making optional” with “banning,” and using present tense rather
than past perfect concerning the Kansas law, demonstrates the all-too-common
“fanatical and twisted” mix of hyperbole and hypocrisy that tends to put
all pro-evolution proclamations under suspicion.
BTW, I found the Kansas experiment rather interesting. While advocates
claimed that biology could not possibly be presented without the framework
of evolution, the majority of teachers were more than willing to prove them
wrong. They simply presented the data, and let the students chose among the
possible mechanisms behind them. Apparently, without proper indoctrination,
intelligent design seemed to be more plausible, at least in some
applications.
But intensive organized name calling and ridicule won out, and evolution
returned to the state syllabus, thereby safely reining in academic freedom.
Later,
Norm
-----Original Message-----
From: Shuan Rose [mailto:shuanr@boo.net]
Sent: Thursday, April 04, 2002 12:55 PM
To: Woodward Norm Civ WRALC/TIEDM
Cc: Asa
Subject: RE: Creationism in the UK (Utley v Dawkins)
I I was thinking of Kansas , which tried but did not succceed in banning
evolution. They merely made the teaching of it optional.Local school boards
can decide whether to teach evolution, or the big bang . Read all about
this at
http://www.cnn.com/2000/US/03/08/creationism.vs.evolution/#r
<http://www.cnn.com/2000/US/03/08/creationism.vs.evolution/#r>
-----Original Message-----
From: Woodward Norm Civ WRALC/TIEDM [mailto:Norm.Woodward@robins.af.mil]
Sent: Wednesday, April 03, 2002 1:32 PM
To: Shuan Rose; Asa
Subject: RE: Creationism in the UK (Utley v Dawkins)
(author unknown)
Mr. Colluphid ( a Secular Web moderator from England) is dismayed by the
thought that there could possibly be in cool Britannia a secondary school
that is deficent in the teaching of evolution. He should try living in the
good ol' USA where one state has outright banned the teaching of evolution
in high school and several states are considering such a ban
Does anyone know which state the writer is referring to? I think there is
that “teaching/indoctrinating” confusion is occurring again.
BTW, why is it that us Fundies are always taking the heat about YEC?
Doesn’t the Jewish calendar indicate that we are only 5762 years from t=0?
Norm Woodward
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