A School Board's Education
There is a certain sequence that is common to flare-ups involving religious antievolution advocacy. First, there is some starting event, where people raise some form of antievolution as appropriate to insert into a science curriculum in some manner. Second, there is some notice of this. Third, other parties bring those involved up to speed on the state of religious antievolution. Fourth, the initially enthusiastic advocates of religious antievolution desist or are overruled.
Note that I said common. Most of the cases of religious antievolution intersecting with public K-12 education resolve fairly shortly. If they do follow this common pathway, one usually has no more notice of it than that initially given to the problem. It is when a case goes pathological that it may become well-known, as in the cyclical antievolution of the Kansas state school board, the long-term antievolution advocacy of the Tangipahoa Parish school board, or the spectacular self-destruction of the Dover Area School District. Even intermediate cases demonstrate how readily our attention passes on to extreme cases, as shown by the flirtation the Darby, Montana school board had with "intelligent design" creationism a few years back. Darby was set to provide that first lawsuit over "intelligent design" creationism that it seemed the Discovery Institute was spoiling for, but the community had its elections for the school board before a policy was implemented, and the voters elected people who were not amenable to the IDC program.
In North Carolina, the Brunswick County School Board recently demonstrated steps 1 through 3 of the common sequence of religious antievolution advocacy. A speaker before a school board meeting suggested that creationism should be taught in the public school science classes. The members of the school board showed a certain initial enthusiasm for the suggestion. A reporter filed an article laying out how those events happened, plus the useful information that all the school board members favored including creationism in the science curriculum, and that even their legal counsel initially thought that they might do so legally if creationism supplemented but did not displace evolutionary science there. Shortly thereafter, another article reported on the response to those events at the state level, where it was noted that various legal precedents said that the course of action contemplated by the Brunswick County School Board was plainly unconstitutional.
What we don't know yet is whether the Brunswick County School Board case will follow the common sequence and give up the idea of explicit inclusion of religious antievolution in the public schools, or whether this case will progress in a pathological way toward giving certain religious doctrines privilege by government authority.
I go into some of the possible outcomes at the Austringer.
57 Comments
james wheaton · 19 September 2008
The comments sections of the two newspaper articles contain some scary stuff (especially the post from "pastor_donald_smith"). They serve as chilling reminders to me that red states have much power in this upcoming national election, and it is voters like the pastor who fuel much of that power. They will vote for the ticket which is friendly to their world view and we know which one that is. I live in Tennessee and it is just like North Carolina. I become more discouraged and doubtful the longer I live here - I fear that logic and education will succumb to the dangerous world views of the religious right. There is no convincing these people.
lewis Thomason · 19 September 2008
Having been born and raised in North Carolina I can say that School Board and education should never appear in the same sentence.
Oldfart · 19 September 2008
There were a lot of good pro-science comments there too. Probably not local tho.
What one wants to know, however, is how do the pro-science types avoid school board duties? Do these luddites get elected by default? Do all those who support the separation of church and state and believe that science only education should occur in science classes also think that someone ELSE will run for the board? Recently, in Texas I think, a friggin' KNOWN creationist was elected to be president of the State text book board. Mainly because no one else wanted the job? Get a life people. You can't just stand by in this Democracy, you have to be a part of it.
FL · 19 September 2008
It's always good to see school boards openly questioning the way the topic of origins is being taught in their science classes. Good to see them move away from mere spoonfeeding of canned Darwin Dogma Dogfood.
However, right now, the best school board approach is to adopt an already-successful, already-legally-powerful "teach the controversy" gig like the Louisiana Science Education Act.
Science Avenger · 19 September 2008
Slightly OT, but having a new highschooler in the house taking biology, I was very impressed to see a full treatment of evolution, and not a trace of creationism, in his textbook. Far from anything that could be described as spoonfeeding of dogfood, it covered the science in as much detail as one could expect in multiple chapters. I was quie surprised, and very glad, that they won't be wasting his time with any contrived "teach the controversy" nonsense. And this is in Texas no less.
iml8 · 19 September 2008
I like the comments about the semi-humorous "script" that
school boards follow when they start walking down the
Darwin-basher path.
There was a time before the 1960s when the public schools
were at best indifferent to evo science and at worst
blatantly hostile to it, but these days with the "culture
wars", except in the most conservative localities school
boards who give the green light to Darwin-bashing are
GUARANTEED bad press and, if they continue down the
path, a legal challenge.
And they have to think twice before they (a) get themselves
involved in a controversy that makes them look bad to the
public, even to the many who don't care about evo
science, simply because it comes across as a focus on
troublemaking instead of doing the job and (b) find
themselves in a FEDERAL court case that will be expensive,
exhausting, and likely (given the uniformly bad track
record of Darwin-bashers in court) doomed to defeat.
The other amusing thing is that the leadership among
the Darwin-bashers on school boards are never the sort
to be playing DI-style "don't ask don't tell" games.
Nope, they're straight unconcealed outspoken Biblical
creationists, and it's a very good bet they are YECs.
Of course, if we MUST have such controversies, I wouldn't
prefer them to be anything else.
White Rabbit (Greg Goebel) http://www.vectorsite.net/gblog.html
iml8 · 19 September 2008
PvM · 19 September 2008
mark · 19 September 2008
Wheels · 19 September 2008
Eric · 19 September 2008
fnxtr · 19 September 2008
william e emba · 19 September 2008
Eric · 19 September 2008
william e emba · 19 September 2008
iml8 · 19 September 2008
Science Avenger · 19 September 2008
iml8 · 19 September 2008
James F · 19 September 2008
stevaroni · 19 September 2008
Robin · 19 September 2008
Slightly OT, but I believe this could be used to sum up the scientific perspective:
Lunatic fringe
I know you're out there
You're in hiding
And you hold your meetings
We can hear you coming
We know what you're after
We're wise to you this time
We won't let you kill the laughter.
Lunatic fringe
In the twilight's last gleaming
This is open season
But you won't get too far
We know you've got to blame someone
For your own confusion
But we're on guard this time
Against your final solution
We can hear you coming
(We can hear you coming)
No you're not going to win this time
We can hear the footsteps
(We can hear the footsteps)
Way out along the walkway
Lunatic fringe
We know you're out there
But in these new dark ages
There will still be light
An eye for an eye;
Well before you go under...
Can you feel the resistance?
Can you feel the thunder?
iml8 · 19 September 2008
james wheaton · 19 September 2008
eric · 19 September 2008
eric · 19 September 2008
FL · 19 September 2008
James F · 19 September 2008
fnxtr · 19 September 2008
D. P. Robin · 19 September 2008
FL · 19 September 2008
D. P. Robin · 19 September 2008
stevaroni · 19 September 2008
FL · 19 September 2008
Bill Gascoyne · 19 September 2008
FL apparently does not understand the difference between "is fine" and "walks a fine line."
Eric · 19 September 2008
derwood · 19 September 2008
tiredofthesos · 19 September 2008
People are replying to that FL shit again. Just tell him to FO once and ignore him. I can't be bothered to scroll past anything he might say or anything said in reply.
Bye.
D. P. Robin · 19 September 2008
derwood · 19 September 2008
derwood · 19 September 2008
Wesley R. Elsberry · 19 September 2008
OK, that's enough playing with the troll.
MWN · 19 September 2008
In the second linked article discussing the Brunswick County School Board it was stated:
"The Brunswick County school system offers a Bible as Literature course in high school, but it’s not being taught this year because no students signed up for it, according to administrators."
Followed by:
"School board member Jimmy Hobbs expressed outrage on Tuesday about the restriction on Bibles in schools and the teaching of evolution, a concept he deems atheistic, without including creationism."
First, what does it say when the school does offer a Bible as Literature course but NO students sign up for it. Second, someone should ask J. Hobbs how they can teach a Bible as Literature Course without having bibles in the classroom.
MWN
Dale Husband · 19 September 2008
School boards may get educated, but some people never do. Including FL, short for Foolish Liar.
D. P. Robin · 19 September 2008
Dave Luckett · 19 September 2008
The Bible is also taught in Church schools here as a literary text, (so is the Koran, in Islamic schools) but not in State schools. The suggestion that it is literally inerrant is not found even in Church schools, officially, although I have no doubt that there are invincibly ignorant whackaloons in fundamentalist conventicles who'd like to so teach it. We, too, have our share of them, alas.
But the State is rather well aware that teaching one holy book would mean having to teach all of them. A proposed curriculum for a State school unit in "comparative religion" was quietly dropped, probably for lack of qualified teachers.
And I have to tell you that there is no controversy at all about any of that here, any more than exists in science over evolution itself. Having a few crazies of our own doesn't amount to anything like the problems Americans have. Private schools and even home "schools" here are required to teach the State science curriculum, which is non-elective and assessed, at least to a tenth grade level. That curriculum includes a coverage - light, but accurate - of the Theory of Evolution and the lines of evidence supporting it. You learn this, you answer questions about it, and goddidit isn't acceptable in those answers. Period. End of story. You don't like it, go to Arabia or Alabama, and attend an academy for loons and losers there.
Watching Americans having to wrestle with problems like this - and gun crime, and comprehensive State health care, and capital punishment, and lack of political parties as the rest of the world understands them - keeps on reminding me that the US has a different culture to mine. It's more different from mine than continental European cultures are, despite their different languages and histories. It's fascinating, and dreadful.
Why dreadful? Well, it means that the only superpower thinks in terms that I can't fathom about controversies that are moot to me and to my culture. I don't understand where it might go with them, because I don't understand the process. Is it conceivably possible that its political system might throw up people in high executive office who believe that God will create miracles for them? Or who want the world to end? I can't tell. Not being able to tell bothers me.
No offence, but it bothers many people outside America, I think.
Bill Gascoyne · 20 September 2008
Science Avenger · 20 September 2008
Science Avenger · 20 September 2008
Dave Luckett · 21 September 2008
Science Avenger, I too am reluctant to derail the thread. But essentially, political parties as we understand them in the other English-speaking democracies are tightly-disciplined bodies with specific policies approved by majority in the party room, which must be accepted by all their candidates for election. Members of Parliament must therefore vote in the Parliament as required by their party organisers, or "whips". "Conscience" or "free" votes are rare, and any MP who "crossed the floor" to vote against the advice of the party "whip" would face automatic expulsion from the party. This means, essentially, political oblivion. "Crossing the floor" is very rare at the State level, and almost unheard-of at the National level.
The spectacle of the US primary election, where one party's possible candidates must spend months campaigning against each other in public, thereby making it in practice impossible for them to work effectively together afterwards, seems very strange to most outside the US. Even stranger is the idea, apparently the norm in the US, that quite often legislators will vote against most of their own party colleagues, as arranged by "horse-trading" among themselves across the aisle, often on an ad-hoc basis. Speaking personally, I cannot see how this can have any other result than to make US government policy on any issue unpredictable, inconsistent and even incoherent.
iml8 · 21 September 2008
Wesley R. Elsberry · 21 September 2008
Anyone wishing to continue playing with the troll can do so on the Bathroom Wall, where post-caution comments were shifted.
Dave Luckett · 22 September 2008
Greg:
You say "I wonder why anyone would find it preferable that their representatives were forced to follow the party line whether it really served the interests of their constituency or not." For my part, I wonder why anyone would think that legislators in the national legislature should place sectional or parochial interests first. Surely that would imply placing them above the national interest? I can only ascribe my bewilderment with that idea to cultural difference.
As to the teaching of evolution in all schools, not only State schools:
Someone once remarked to the effect that opinion is free, but facts are not. Creationists, as we are woefully aware, are almost impervious to fact. But that is not an argument for not teaching the facts, or allowing schools (or home tuition) not to teach them. You seem to be arguing that creationists, or creationist communities, have the right to shield their children from the facts. I regret to say that if that is your intent, I disagree. Nobody should be shielded from fact. By education, a little progress may be made. And if education is not effective, I have no idea of what the solution might be.
Generally: the essence of trolling is to inject heat where there was none before. There was no heat before you began your post with an inarticulate exclamation of annoyance and followed it up with words like "contrived" to describe an argument you didn't like, then reduced a nuanced statement in favour of compulsory education to “we don’t have problems with Darwin-bashers in the school system in the UK”.
Perhaps they don't, in the UK. I'm not from there - I'm Australian. I know we have problems with them, and said so, but I also know that it's nothing like the problems you have in the US. I ascribe this, as I ascribe the difference in our attitudes to electing a legislature, to cultural differences. To return to my original point, I think there is more cultural difference between my nation and the US than either of us realises. But perhaps we can contemplate those differences without getting off our bikes about it, as we say in my country.
iml8 · 23 September 2008
stevaroni · 24 September 2008
fnxtr · 24 September 2008
Bet O'Weary's gonna go full throttle on that one.
Peter · 30 September 2008
We have a new article and post up now. I've already blogged about it at Forms Most Beautiful.
ent lord · 7 October 2008
One of the speakers identified only as a concerned parent who offered to teach the course in ID is really a fundamentalist preacher with a 501C3 religious nonprofit.
Also, the schoolboard members involved have made several pro ID remarks to the public and press. Lots more going on here than the press is picking up on the surface.