ID/Creationism on NPR right now

[JSFolk]

On Science Friday, Kenneth Miller on right now, Richard Dawkins to show up later.

Listen on www.wbur.org via streaming audio if you wish.

[pupdog]

Shortly before that program aired (2:00 EST), the Dover, PA school board issued a press release here (http://www.dover.k12.pa.us/doversd/cwp/view.asp?A=3&Q=261852) that showed they STILL are clueless about what is science and what is not.

[Bikewer]

Excellent show. One of the panelists said that the problem in many areas is that the school board members themselves are so scientifically illiterate that they don't even understand what the problem is.

Time and time again, we hear people say "Well, shouldn't we teach our children ALL the different theories?"

They don't even understand what a theory is.

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by pupdog
Shortly before that program aired (2:00 EST), the Dover, PA school board issued a press release here (http://www.dover.k12.pa.us/doversd/cwp/view.asp?A=3&Q=261852) that showed they STILL are clueless about what is science and what is not.

I can't believe I read the whole thing. Neither can I believe supposedly intelligent people wrote it. You're right: they have no clue what a "theory" actually is. Neither a "fact." And they are totally in the dark about what science is. This is what happens when the PoMos go to bed with the creationists.

[Anders W. Bonde]

If there were two things that made the US of A great, science and secular humanism were those. Why is it that the USA, from the very top of its government, is currently, and with increasing commitment, actively undermining science and secular humanism? Perhaps the US electorate aught to be nominated for the Darwin Prize (pun intended)...

[pupdog]

And what's worse, the School Board just appointed people to fill 4 vacancies--"...a preacher, a home-schooler who doesn't send his kids to public school because of his religious beliefs and two others with barely any experience in government." The lead IDiot, with a wink and a nod, said the interviewees couldn't be asked directly their views on Creationism, but were asked other questions. See the story here (http://ydr.com/story/main/49718/) .

[Bikewer]

Anders: The fundamentalist/evangelical voice in America has become increasingly active politically, as witness the last election.

There has always been an undercurrent of attempts to challenge Darwin in the public school setting, but mostly localized. They realized that pushing would result in courtroom defeats if the ACLU became involved.

Many school districts around the country just quiety disregard Darwin altogether, purchasing schoolbooks that ignore or soft-pedal evolution. These people show up in odd venues; many year ago when I was in grade school (50s) we had a "lay" teacher who was a biblical literalist who maintained that there were no dinosaurs, as they were not mentioned in the Bible. When I inquired at that tender age where the bones came from, she replied that they might be "plant formations".

Sixty Minutes did a segment some years ago on rural districts in Iowa that completely ignored any mention of evolution in the biology curriculum, with nary a protest from the almost-entirely-Christian communities.

Young people continue to graduate from "Christian" colleges carrying Masters degrees and no notion whatever of contemporary biology.