pseudobug

The stupidity of people in our country amazes...
<a href="http://asp.washtimes.com/printarticle.asp?action=print&ArticleID=20020314-50858765" target="_blank">Illiberal education in Ohio schools</a>

<img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

jhallum

He mentions that there is a section of the "No Child Left Behind" law, where "topics are taught that may generate controversy (such as biological evolution), the curriculum should help students to understand the full range of scientific views that exist."

Wasn't that from a Sense of the Senate vote? I didn't think that those lines actually made it into law.

hezekiah jones

Thanks for the article. I've just begun researching for a paper on the politics of "intelligent design theory." This will come in handy.

Kevin Dorner

Perhaps I have fallen behind or missed an update to this, but as far as I know this goes back to the education bill, mid-Dec. 2001.

Sen. Santorum originally wanted: ""where biological evolution is taught, the curriculum should help students to understand why this subject generates so much continuing controversy."

But what was added as a footnote to the conference report, and not ever voted into law, was:

"The Conferees recognize that a quality science education should prepare students to distinguish the data and testable theories of science from religious or philosophical claims that are made in the name of science. Where topics are taught that may generate controversy (such as biological evolution), the curriculum should help students to understand the full range of scientific views that exist, why such topics may generate controversy, and how scientific discoveries can profoundly affect society."

Source: <a href="http://www.aaas.org/spp/cstc/stc/stc01/01-12/evol.htm" target="_blank">http://www.aaas.org/spp/cstc/stc/stc01/01-12/evol.htm</a>

Please correct me if I am wrong or if this situation was updated.

pseudobug

You might find this to be handy then, hezekiahjones.


<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0262661241/qid=1017094132/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-3945648-4608947" target="_blank">Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics</a>, edited by Robert Pennock.

It is a collection of ~35 essays on the subject of ID from both critics and proponents. Some have been published before in some pretty obscure journals and some have not been published prior to this work.

The first essay in the book is entitled "The Wedge at Work", by <a href="http://www.selu.edu/Academics/Faculty/bforrest/" target="_blank">Barbara Forrest</a>. She goes into quite a bit of detail of the political goals of Philip Johnson and his minions at Discovery Institute. The essay is loaded with references (130)--many of them to online articles--to the chicanary and shenanigans of Johnson.

If you email her (see link above), I would bet that she would probably send you a reprint of the essay or an electronic copy if you don't want to shell out the $$$ for the entire book.

<a href="http://www.selu.edu/Academics/Faculty/bforrest/" target="_blank">Barbara Forrest</a>

Toto

I think you're right. As I recall, that weasily language was a compromise that the ID'ers tried to turn into a major legislative victory.

hezekiah jones

Super - thanks. I just picked up Pennock's Tower of Babel today. It's made me laugh out loud several times already.

Toto

<a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=2&t=000220" target="_blank">earlier thread on the Santorum Amendment</a> (links may no longer work)

<a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=2&t=000224" target="_blank">another one</a>

randman

"Despite a recent poll that shows overwhelming support for including the theory in the new teaching standards, these critics continue to resist its adoption."

What guys advocate is that the overwhelming majority of parent's wishes should be denied because evolutionists do not like to be challenged.

Pomp

randman,

What guys advocate is that the overwhelming majority of parent's wishes should be denied because evolutionists do not like to be challenged.

That might be what guys advocate. Dolls, on the other hand, advocate something else altogether.

Seriously, no one advocates that ID not be taught in schools because "evolutionists do not like to be challenged." If ID-ists want to challenge evolutionists, the proper place for that challenge is in peer reviewed scientific journals. Elementary and secondary schools are not where "challenges" take place, but where the successful theories that survive such challenges are taught. The ID movement is trying to do an end run around peer review and present its argument directly to the non-scientific public. This is not how science is done.