GOOD job to our friends at AU!
Americans United for Separation of Church and State today announced that it has settled a lawsuit over a California school district?s decision to teach a course promoting creationism.Americans United, with assistance from the law firm Arnold & Porter LLP, filed suit against the El Tejon Unified School Districtlast week, seeking to end a course called ?Philosophy of Design? that promoted creationist ideas, including ?intelligent design.? The course, taught at Frazier Mountain High School in Lebec by special education teacher and soccer coach Sharon Lemburg, relied heavily on videos produced by fundamentalist Christian groups that espouse creationism.Under the terms of the settlement, the course will terminate one week early. The district?s board of trustees has also agreed to language stating, ?No school over which the School District has authority, including the High School, shall offer, presently or in the future, the course entitled ?Philosophy of Design? or ?Philosophy of Intelligent Design? or any other course that promotes or endorses creationism, creation science, or intelligent design.?
Hooray to the AU! What was most hilarious about this case was the flip-flop position of the DI, first railing about “Darwinist” censors, then turning against the class themselves when they realized it was pushing a YEC point of view.
Not exactly apropos of this, but I thought folks here might appreciate my little rant over on my movie blog where I ridicule the fundies who have just gone berserk over that horrible homo movie Brokeback Mountain winning the Golden Globe. ID is not the only thing these people lie about. There’s nothing they don’t lie about.
Oops. Address for said rant here.
http://tinyurl.com/dpty7
I also agree that the teachers sounded qualified (note the extreme sarcasm) to teach the class that shouldn’t have existed in the first place.
-J?r?me
Also off topic. I know this isn’t a political board, but I have to say: http://articles.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20060117100509990009&ncid=NWS00010000000001
Go Hillary, finally, a respected political office holder has the guts to say it outright and honestly!
mw66:
I assume that’s your website?
If so, you should be able to enter it into your member profile.
Off topic: Today should go down in history for the Supreme Court upholding the
Oregon law. I thought it was impossible in today’s climate. Maybe this is a dream, because I can’t believe one of these judges isn’t towing the party line. Comments?
Richard of Ventura (wherever that is)
Chief Justice Roberts’ first decision and he sided with Scalia and Thomas against the other six. Thunder on soundtrack.
Thanks, reluctant. Done.
Good decision. Isn’t it telling about the character o the ID leadership. They let the teacher fend for herself and even had the audacity to criticize the curriculum. What a bunch o gutless loons. I’ll bet they didn’t mind selling the course to the shool district. Maybe that teacher will come to her senses and realize that ID is BS. Hopefully she’ll take time to think about how easily her side gave in.
JIM
The reason that the Discovery Institute flip-flopped on this case is because they realized it wasn’t an ‘ID’ class at all – it was clearly a biblically literal, young earth creationism class using the term ‘Design’ simply because it is currently the most successful creationist meme. The DI is trying really hard to at least sound like a legitimate science organization to the lay public, and being linked to the ‘Answers In Genesis’ crowd isn’t going to help their cause. The paradox is that they rely heavily on donations from evangelical organizations and the popularity of their ‘movement’ is clearly dependent on the zealousness of these fundamentalists.
Talk about trying to have your cake and eat it too.
ididnt think this case would last to long i knew it would get shot down quick the yec had no support even from the discovery institiute so not suprised they lost
off topic but what if this happend to you because you dont believe
http://www.kstp.com/article/stories/s13470.html
Now the Utah government is considering a bill that would require state science classes to teach that there are alternative theories to evolution. “Senator Buttars said he decided to sponsor the legislation after numerous phone calls from constituents upset over what their children were learning in school.”
http://kutv.com/local/local_story_017180107.html
This is from the Salt Lake Tribune in UTAH: “A Senate committee voting on party lines Tuesday determined that evolution should be taught in public schools but with a disclaimer. Senate Bill 96, sponsored by West Jordan Republican Sen. Chris Buttars, would require science teachers to specify that the state does not endorse any scientific theory about the origins of life or the present state of man and that scientists are not in complete agreement on evolutionary theory.”
http://www.sltrib.com/ci_3411054
Here is the 2005 State of State Science Standards published by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute:
http://www.edexcellence.net/institute/publication/publication.cfm?id=352
The science standards of the 50 states are given the grades A thru F.
Only 7 states received an A: California, Indiana, Massachusetts, New Mexico, New York, South Carolina, and Virginia.
15 states received a F: Alabama, Alaska, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
“The hidden agenda is to introduce doubt?any possible doubt?about evolution at the critical early stage of introduction to the relevant science.”
Ohio might get their “B” grade lowered to “F” if an intelligent design lesson plan is not dropped:
http://www.daytondailynews.com/localnews/content/localnews/daily/0117flunk.html
well bob at least illinois was on the list and got a b very well could move up i just wonder where iowa would rank
Nice, but the Discovery Institute also put in their .02, requesting the school board remove the class so they don’t set a dangerous legal precedent, and shoot ID down permanently. From DI’s lawyer.
Letter is here:
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2006/01/discovery_institute_statement.html
Pirated from:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/
udonman “well bob at least illinois was on the list and got a b very well could move up i just wonder where iowa would rank” According to the Fordham Institute Iowa is the only state that does not exist.
mxracer, Discovery Institute: “Such a decision would also threaten the scientific research of many scientists who support intelligent design.” I wonder how a scientist would research intelligent design.
udonman, Iowa school districts’ science standards are aligned with the National Science Education Standards.
http://www.state.ia.us/educate/ecese/tqt/tc/prodev/science.html
Excellent! All is not lost then.
Why, that’s a silly question. The answer is clearly through use of prayer, exorcisms, and voodoo dolls, of course.
Well, in Biology today we were studying evolution (yay) and we watched a video. The problem I had was when an evangelist said, quote: “There is no shread of evidence to say that the creation theory is false and that the Earth is more than 6000 years old.” and there was not contradictory statement. Also, a man on the radio described the moose species as “Very charismatic.” How does that work? That was kind of on and off topic…
-J?r?me
J?r?me:
You should’ve raised your hand, & asked which definition of theory was being used.
Hehehe.
A charismatic moose? Was he talking about Bullwinkle?
So what do they say about evolution in Hell?
(what a weird question).
Also off topic but…This site is a joke…Especially this page http://www.landoverbaptist.org/news0100/unsaved.html
I couldn’t breathe because I was laughing so hard (but the bible says if I can’t breathe I will live for up to three days)…
-J?r?me
Ok some of it, causes rage to boil up…but this one (while a little risqu?, it is hilarious and shows hypocrisy) quote: “Pastor Orders Men to Only Think About Jesus While Masturbating” and you have to be 65 of older and single (ack). Usually the thoughts are the main thing during said activity so I guess that shows they want men to masturbate to another man, Jesus or not, that still is odd for an evangelical church to say so…
-J?r?me
The link is disallowed because the genuises who created the site used a word not allowed on this site. but just go to http://www.landoverbaptist.org/beliefs.html then scroll down to the “General Rules” section and click on the link that says “(except for widowed or single men over the age of 65)
I think the second paragraph has just scarred me for life.
Nope, make that the second and the sixth…By the way, the filter should be expanded to the present tense of the disallowed, in context word and I appologize for using it, I wasn’t thinking clearly due to illness.
-J?r?me
Ok I found something much more relevant http://www.landoverbaptist.org/subjectarchive/creationscience.html
These will make you laugh…Or at least smile…
-J?r?me
jerome, I should probably already know this: is your school that shows a video about creationism a public school? Is your school in the usa? What state? Maybe you need to report this stuff to someone, it is against the law and unconstitutional to teach that stuff in a usa public school.
J?r?me:
bob’s absolutely right.
Unless they were slipping it in under the radar as a ‘philosophy class’.
You’re in Texas, aintcha? I forget.
Hope you feel better.
No, we do not view creationist videos, it was a video on the evolutionary theory but there was a random part where this old man was saying “There is no evidence to suggest that the Earth is more than 6000 years old.” Also, Intelligent Design is not mentioned in our books produced by the National Geographic Society (yay) so that is always a plus. Currently teachers are not required to mention Intelligent Design, but our “Intelligent” Governor, approves of forcing teachers to teach it. I’m not sure if he approves banning evolution teaching entirely. Recently I have been looking at the Texas Education Code and here is the official site http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/statutes/ed.toc.htm
It would be a great help if someone could find something that says that theories with no scientific basis that are just an illegal teaching agenda in a lab coat is against the code. I am in Texas if you haven’t figured that out already. Also here is a hilarious site supporting creationism
http://www.parentcompany.com/csrc/basics.htm
One part I’m interested in is the “Since the beginning all men have been without excuse if they have not acknowledged the Creator God, for the evidence is all around them in the created world (Romans 1:19-20). And modern science has revealed a vast web of evidence which supports the biblical record of creation.” What is the supposed ‘web of evidence’ is what I am wondering.
-J?r?me
J?r?me:
By random, I’m guessing there was nothing in the credits, no subtitle, no intro?
Sounds a tad subliminal to me, at least.
Yes there was nothing of the sort. It may have been subliminal
-J?r?me
An excellent post about evolution & creationism:
post 112 on this thread in a christian blog:
http://www.worldmagblog.com/blog/archives/022130.html
Then A Miracle Occurs…
http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/rncse_content/vol24/620_then_a_miracle_occurs_12_30_1899.asp
Then A Miracle Occurs…
http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/archives/2004/04-05-10.html
http://www.harvardmagazine.com/on-line/110518.html
Thus it is surpassingly strange that half of Americans recently polled (2004) not only do not believe in evolution by natural selection but do not believe in evolution at all. Americans are certainly capable of belief, and with rocklike conviction if it originates in religious dogma. In evidence is the 60 percent that accept the prophecies of the Book of Revelation as truth, and yet in more evidence is the weight that faith-based positions hold in political life. Most of the religious Right opposes the teaching of evolution in public schools, either by an outright ban on the subject or, at the least, by insisting that it be treated as ?only a theory? rather than a ?fact.?
Yet biologists, particularly those statured by the peer review and publication of substantial personal research on the subject in leading journals of science, are unanimous in concluding that evolution is a fact. The evidence they and thousands of others have adduced over 150 years falls together in intricate and interlocking detail. The multitudinous examples range from the small changes in DNA sequences observed as they occur in real time to finely graded sequences within larger evolutionary changes in the fossil record. Further, on the basis of comparably firm evidence, natural selection grows ever stronger as the prevailing explanation of evolution.