From: Stephen E. Jones <sejones@iinet.net.au>
>http://www.kcstar.com/item/pages/opinion.pat,opinion/3774a282.726,.html
>The Kansas City Star ... 07/26/00 ... Did the state writing committee
really
>believe, when it equated religious values with "superstition," "mystical
>inspiration" and "myths" in its draft, that the faithful wouldn't rise up
out of
>their chairs?
This is just the kind of misrepresentation that warrants the name
"propaganda". The committee did *not* equate religious values with
superstition. Here's the relevant passage:
"In so doing, science distinguishes
itself from other ways of knowing and from other bodies of knowledge.
Explanations based on myths,
personal beliefs, religious values, mystical inspiration, superstition, or
authority may be personally
useful and socially relevant, but they are not scientific."
It should be obvious to any moderately careful reader that these various
sources are being *listed*, not *equated*. The only thing they are asserted
to have in common is that they cannot be used as the basis for scientific
explanations.
Furthermore, one might assume, from reading the Kansas City Star article,
that this passage was one of those deleted or changed by the Board of
Education. It wasn't. The BOE seems to have had no objection to it.
Richard Wein (Tich)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Aug 15 2000 - 06:44:42 EDT