Who says that evolution isn’t a continuing phenomena? Now, creationists, trying to cut the teaching of evolution off at the knees, are evolving once again.
Opponents of teaching evolution, in a natural selection of sorts, have gradually shed those strategies that have not survived the courts. Over the last decade, creationism has given rise to “creation science,” which became “intelligent design,” which in 2005 was banned from the public school curriculum in Pennsylvania by a federal judge.
Now a battle looms in Texas over science textbooks that teach evolution, and the wrestle for control seizes on three words. None of them are “creationism” or “intelligent design” or even “creator.”
The words are “strengths and weaknesses.”
Starting this summer, the state education board will determine the curriculum for the next decade and decide whether the “strengths and weaknesses” of evolution should be taught. The benign-sounding phrase, some argue, is a reasonable effort at balance. But critics say it is a new strategy taking shape across the nation to undermine the teaching of evolution, a way for students to hear religious objections under the heading of scientific discourse.
This is being orchestrated by the Discovery Institute.
Yet playing to the American sense of fairness, lawmakers across the country have tried to require that classrooms be open to all views. The Discovery Institute has provided a template for legislators to file “academic freedom” bills, and they have been popping up with increasing frequency in statehouses across the country. In Florida, the session ended last month before legislators could take action, while in Louisiana, an academic-freedom bill was sent to the House of Representatives after passing the House education committee and the State Senate.
So, DI believes they have found a phrase that will be easier for people to swallow, and unwittingly inject religion (a particular strain of religion) into the public schools.
But, this should be troublesome to all parents of school-age children.
What happens in Texas does not stay in Texas: the state is one of the country’s biggest buyers of textbooks, and publishers are loath to produce different versions of the same material. The ideas that work their way into education here will surface in classrooms throughout the country.
“ ‘Strengths and weaknesses’ are regular words that have now been drafted into the rhetorical arsenal of creationists,” said Kathy Miller, director of the Texas Freedom Network, a group that promotes religious freedom.
If a parent truly wants their child to learn creationism, it’s place is in Sunday School, or pay the tuition to send your child to a private religious school. What DI and their proponents are all about is pushing a specific religious view on the masses, and that, folks, should be intolerable.
The thing is we must realize we are dealing with spoiled brat children.
Wingers will never give up. They’ll nag and nag about free trade, tax relief for the wealthy, corporate autonomy. They won’t give up until they die or get what they want.
Neocons will never give up. They want the Mid-East and Mid-East oil and will pester until they die or get what they want.
The fundies? Jesus H Christ on a crusade. They will never give up on abortion or homophobia or several other “causes” until they die or get what they want.
Creationists are going crazy.They are trying everything possible to bring Creationism into the curriculum.Weakness is not the right word to use.Rather they could have put it as “Questions to be answered”.It is a pity that the United States is allowing all this non-sense.Let`s hope that things change once Bush leaves the White House.