Re: Scopes in reverse

From: Chris Cogan (ccogan@telepath.com)
Date: Fri Jul 28 2000 - 01:58:38 EDT

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    Stephen writes:
    >Here are two articles about the Scopes Trial. The first is by IDer Nancey
    >Pearcey, who points out the irony of the fact thatt:
    >
    > "Whereas in 1925 the teaching of evolution was banned from the
    > classroom, in 2000 the teaching of anything but evolution is
    > effectively banned from the classroom."

    Chris
    Is this actually *true*? I doubt it. That is, I doubt that evolution is
    taught, except in the most superficial way (i.e., at about the level of
    Stephen Jones' understanding of it). I would be very interested to find out
    from others on this list what actually *is* taught in our schools regarding
    evolution. I saw a high-school biology text recently that dealt with
    evolution in about one or two pages. Is there someone who has gathered
    information on this issue, to determine if *either* evolution or design is
    being taught, and to what degree? (I know that nearly everyone I've met who
    has exhibited any awareness of it at all has a fantastically shallow grasp
    of it, as if those two pages were all that they had ever seen or heard
    regarding evolution.)

    Also, as I've pointed out before, the issue as a political issue would
    mostly go away if we simply abolished our public school systems and
    released children, parents, teachers, and others to actually get and give
    *education* (which does *not* universally consist of *schooling*). It's
    *obvious* that public schooling does not work. The ability to read and
    correctly understand sentences like "Shake well before using" constitutes
    only the barest form of literacy. It is not something that the public
    school system can point to and say, "See? Our graduates *are* educated."



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