Dumb fundies.
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Board Puts Politics Ahead of Science
September 14, 2006
The Michigan State Board of Education has done a disservice to science
and to high school science teachers by delaying adoption of the science
portion of Michigan's new requirements for high school graduation. The
board voted 6-2 Tuesday in favor of a delay requested by state
legislators who are pushing faith-based alternatives to the theory of
evolution.
This is just another attempt to keep a door open to teaching creationism
or intelligent design. The board should have closed it, as science
teachers requested. Board members get elected to make decisions, not to
defer to political pressure.
The delay was requested by the chairs of the House and Senate Education
Committees to accommodate Republican state Reps. Jack Hoogendyk of
Kalamazoo and John Moolenaar of Midland, who want a key wording change
inserted into the policy. As it stands, the policy directs that teachers
demonstrate how fossil records, comparative anatomy and other evidence
"may" corroborate the theory of evolution. Hoogendyk and Moolenaar are
pushing to have the words read "may or may not."
Sounds innocuous, but this is really about injecting faith and beliefs
into science.
Michigan's new curriculum is supposed to set tough guidelines, not try
to spoon-feed an ideology to students. Teachers who are allowed to,
will, no doubt instruct students in the value of thinking about science
broadly and asking critical questions.
By deferring even this much to the legislators, the state board has
essentially given science teachers a vote of no confidence and deprived
them of a chance to collaborate on classroom strategies. That's because
the board won't vote until Oct. 10, and the science curriculum
guidelines were supposed to be in place by an Oct. 3 statewide
conference for teachers on Earth science, biology, chemistry and physics.
The conference will now use draft guidelines while the state board
decides whether politics is going to figure in the final version.
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http://tinyurl.com/r87l8
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John Hachmann aa #1782
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities"
-Voltaire
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