Religions > Atheism > News: Preach your children well : Christian home-school 'biology textbooks' are riddled with scientific mistakes
| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Michael Gray" |
| Date: |
12 Nov 2006 10:21:17 PM |
| Object: |
News: Preach your children well : Christian home-school 'biology textbooks' are riddled with scientific mistakes |
Home-schooling special: Preach your children well
11 November 2006
NewScientist.com news service
Amanda Gefter
"TO THE unsuspecting visitor, Patrick Henry College looks like a
typical American liberal-arts college tucked away amidst the rolling
green farmlands of Virginia. Its curriculum is far from typical,
however, and anything but liberal. Witness this lecture on faith and
reason in an idyllic red-brick college building reminiscent of
colonial America. As the speaker takes to the podium, several students
silence their cellphones. One puts down his copy of The Wall Street
Journal and takes out his Bible. They bow their heads and pray to
Jesus, then stand up and sing a hymn, belting out "Holy, holy, holy"
with gusto. Eventually, the speaker addresses the crowd.
"Christians increasingly have an advantage in the educational
enterprise," he says. "This is evident in the success of Christian
home-schooled children, as compared to their government-schooled
friends who have spent their time constructing their own truths." The
students, all evangelical Christians, applaud loudly. Most of them
were schooled at home before arriving at Patrick Henry - a college
created especially for them.
These students are part of a large, well-organised movement that is
empowering parents to teach their children creationist biology and
other unorthodox versions of science at home, all centred on the idea
that God created Earth in six days about 6000 years ago. Patrick
Henry, near the town of Purcellville, about 60 kilometres north-west
of Washington DC, is gearing up to groom home-schooled students for
political office and typifies a movement that seems set to expand,
opening up a new front in the battle between creationists and
Darwinian evolutionists. New Scientist investigated how
home-schooling, with its considerable legal support, is quietly
transforming the landscape of science education in the US, subverting
and possibly threatening the public school system that has fought hard
against imposing a Christian viewpoint on science teaching.
Ironically, home-schooling began in the 1960s as a counter-culture
movement among political liberals. The idea was taken up in the 1970s
by evangelical Christians, and today anywhere from 1.9 to 2.4 million
children are home-schooled, up from just 300,000 in 1990 (see Graph).
According to the US government's National Center for Education
Statistics (NCES), 72 per cent of home-schooling parents interviewed
said that they were motivated by the desire to provide religious and
moral instruction.
For these parents, religious instruction and science are often
intertwined. This bothers Brian Alters of McGill University in
Montreal, Canada, who studies the changing face of science education
in the US. He is appalled by some home-schooling textbooks, especially
those on biology that claim they have scientific reasons for rejecting
evolution. "They have gross scientific inaccuracies in them," he says.
"They would not be allowed in any public school in the US, and yet
these are the books primarily featured in home-schooling bookstores."
One such textbook is Science of the Physical Creation from A Beka
Book, a leading retailer of home-schooling books based in Pensacola,
Florida. It argues: "Evolution is a concept that attempts to free man
from God and his responsibility to his Creator." Alters worries for
the students who learn from such texts (see "Book learnin'"). "If they
go on to secular university, home-schoolers are in for some major
surprises when they get into an introductory biology class."
Home-school parents are able to teach their children this way thanks
mainly to a group called the Home School Legal Defense Association
(HSLDA), a non-profit organisation based in Purcellville - like
Patrick Henry College (PHC), which the HSLDA founded. In the 1970s and
early 1980s, the practice was largely illegal across the US. "The
mechanism that was causing home-schooling to be illegal was teacher
certification," says Ian Slatter, director of media relations for the
HSLDA. In 1983 two evangelical attorneys, Michael Farris and Mike
Smith, founded the organisation to defend the rights of home-school
parents. They fought to remove requirements that parents be certified
to teach their own children. Through an impressive run of legal
battles and political lobbying, they managed to make home-schooling
legal in all 50 states within 10 years. "We rolled back the state
laws," says Slatter.
Consequently, there is virtually no government regulation of
home-schooling. "Some states say you need a high school diploma,"
Slatter says. "But we really don't have many problems getting people,
shall we say, qualified." In Virginia, for instance, parents need a
degree to teach at home, but there is a religious exemption, so those
running a home-school for religious reasons don't need a degree. In
contrast, a public high school teacher must have a bachelor's degree,
and in some states a master's degree, plus a state-issued teaching
certificate. Thirty-one states require teachers to take additional
exams to show proficiency in their subject matter.
This lack of regulation may be skewing science education in US homes,
says Alters. "Poll after poll shows that approximately one out of two
people in America reject evolution. They think the scientists,
teachers and textbooks are wrong," he says. An even higher proportion
of home-schooling parents may reject evolution, Alters thinks. "And
they're going to be teaching science?"
Many parents, however, are drawn to home-schooling precisely because
it lets them teach the version of science they prefer. In the recent
court case against the school board in Dover, Pennsylvania, the court
ruled that intelligent design - the creationist challenge to Darwinism
- cannot be taught in a public-school biology class (New Scientist, 7
January, p 8). This is encouraging evangelicals to abandon public
schools altogether. "For some families, it was the straw that broke
the camel's back," says Slatter.
Until recently, most home-schoolers who were learning the evangelical
version of science chose to go on to secular universities because such
institutions tend to be more academically rigorous than Christian
colleges. Many such universities today accept home-schooled students,
although this was not the case a decade ago. To judge home-school
applicants, they rely mostly on standardised tests of factual
knowledge. Such tests cannot, however, reveal whether or not a student
understands scientific method, a compulsory subject in public schools
but not for home-schoolers. "Very rarely do universities dig deep into
the details to see what books a student has used," says Jay Wile, a
PhD in nuclear chemistry from Rochester University in New York who
left academia to write creationist textbooks for home-schoolers.
Evangelical interns
Now evangelical home-schoolers can also opt for a college like PHC.
The school was founded in 2000 to "prepare leaders who will fight for
the principles of liberty and our home-school freedoms through careers
of public service and cultural influence".
It worked. By 2004, PHC students held seven out of 100 internships in
the White House, a number even more striking when one considers that
only 240 students were enrolled in the entire college. Last year, two
PHC graduates worked in the White House, six worked for members of
Congress and eight for federal agencies, including two for the FBI.
"Patrick Henry is something to worry about because these kids end up
in the administration," says Glenn Branch, deputy director of the
National Center for Science Education in Oakland, California, which
campaigns against the teaching of creationism as science.
Home-schoolers are drawn to PHC partly because of its political
connections and partly because, unlike most Christian colleges, it
boasts high academic standards. Besides the focus on creationism, much
of the curriculum is dedicated to rhetoric and debate, preparing
students to fight political and legal battles on issues such as
abortion, stem cell research and evolution. The technique is
effective. For the past two years, the college has won the moot court
national championship, in which students prepare legal briefs and
deliver oral arguments to a hypothetical court, and has twice defeated
the UK's University of Oxford in debating competitions.
No wonder students are flocking to PHC, a sign of the growth in the
home-school movement across the nation. The growth seems set to
continue, as home-school advocates are pushing harder than ever to
convince parents to keep their children out of public schools. "We've
won all the legal battles now, thanks to HSLDA and groups like that,"
says E. Ray Moore, author of Let My Children Go: Why parents must
remove their children from public schools now. "It's time to shift
from defence to offence," he says. "We're encouraging Christians to
become aggressive with home-schooling."
Moore is the director of Exodus Mandate, based in Columbia, South
Carolina, an organisation that urges Christian parents to pull their
children out of public schools. Exodus Mandate has spent the past few
years trying to win over the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), a
Christian denomination with more than 16 million members. Each year
the SBC holds a convention at which members vote on various
resolutions. Last year, Exodus Mandate introduced a resolution asking
SBC parents to conduct a "homosexual school risk audit" of their local
public school, a survey to "make Christian parents and pastors more
aware of the aggressive homosexual activism being sponsored by many
public schools". The resolution was passed. The "risk audit" claims,
among other things, that being homosexual "reduces life expectancy at
age 20 by at least 8 to 20 years" or "substantially increases the risk
of contracting breast cancer".
This year the organisation is pushing for a resolution that will ask
parents to plan for home-schooling their children. The effect of these
resolutions could be momentous. "If the Southern Baptists got on board
and said home-schooling and Christian education is the preferred
method of education, that would be transformational," Slatter says.
"It would easily double or maybe triple the number of home-schoolers
overnight."
Exodus Mandate is urging each home-schooling family to bring one new
family into the movement. If they succeed, several million families
could take to home-schooling over the next several years, Moore says.
"If we could get up to 30 per cent of public-school students into
home-schooling and private schools, the system would start to unravel
and at some point implode and collapse," he says. "The government
would be forced to get the states out of the education business
altogether. It would go back to the churches and the families. It's a
strategy for the renewal of society."
Overthrow of materialism
The phrasing is reminiscent of the Center for Science and Culture,
originally named the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture,
which has been the main promoter of intelligent design in the US and
is part of the conservative think tank Discovery Institute, based in
Seattle, Washington. The institute claims that it "seeks nothing less
than the overthrow of materialism and its cultural legacies". In a
1999 conference entitled "140th Anniversary of Darwin's Origin of
Species - Evolution or Creation", the institute's co-founder Philip
Johnson reportedly announced, "Home-school moms are allies."
However, not all home-school parents have a religious agenda. "There
are probably some wonderful home-school parents, some of whom may be
evolutionary biologists themselves. But I have a feeling after talking
to a lot of home-schoolers that this is the minority," says Alters.
Indeed, evangelical Christians do dominate the home-school movement.
"It's disconcerting, to say the least," he says.
The home-school movement is often described as a grassroots effort,
scattered among a dispersed group of quiet, rural families. The
reality is that the movement is well organised from the top down, led
by groups with strong political ties. Taken together, organisations
like the Discovery Institute, Exodus Mandate, HSLDA and Patrick Henry
College are working to sculpt a new generation of students armed with
the skills and the motivation to fight for their religious beliefs and
their version of science.
"Home-schoolers are going to be leaders in their field," says Wile.
"They are going to change science and how science is done."
.................................
Book learnin'
Biology is not the only science being rewritten in home-schooling
textbooks. Other sciences are also being modified to suit the
creationist perspective that God created Earth about 6000 years ago.
Take for instance this advice on climate change in the book Science
Order and Reality published by A Beka Book: "Because most
environmental scientists see the universe and even life itself as mere
products of chance, it is easy for them to visualise potentially
catastrophic changes occurring on the Earth. As Christians we must
remember that God provided certain 'checks and balances' in creation
to prevent many of the global upsets that have been predicted by
environmentalists." For those who still worry about global warming,
another A Beka book, Science of the Physical Creation, flatly denies
it is happening: "All of the scientific evidence gathered indicates
that there is no danger of a global warming disaster."
Chemistry textbooks argue that radiometric dating is unreliable and
therefore not a concern for those who believe in a 6000-year-old
Earth. And geology books claim that the Grand Canyon in Arizona - a
gorge carved by the Colorado river, exposing 2 billion years of
Earth's history - was formed rapidly during the worldwide Biblical
flood, and all the sedimentary strata visible in the canyon walls were
deposited then.
Even astronomy is being rethought to address what many creationists
consider their most difficult challenge: explaining how starlight from
billions of light years away has reached the Earth in only a few
thousand years. Books like Taking Back Astronomy by Jason Lisle
suggest possible explanations: maybe God created the light already en
route; or maybe the Milky Way sits in a large gravitational well where
the time-stretching effects of general relativity can explain the
anomaly; or - the creationists' favourite - maybe the speed of light
was much, much greater in the past.
.............................................
From issue 2577 of New Scientist magazine, 11 November 2006, page
20-23"
--
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| User: "*nemo*" |
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| Title: Re: News: Preach your children well : Christian home-school 'biology textbooks' are riddled with scientific mistakes |
13 Nov 2006 04:36:50 AM |
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In article <7hsfl21uhs3cenni4n66hlfi6i0evlka6t@4ax.com>,
Michael Gray <mikegray@newsguy.com> wrote:
These students are part of a large, well-organised movement that is
empowering parents to teach their children creationist biology and
other unorthodox versions of science at home, all centred on the idea
that God created Earth in six days about 6000 years ago.
Seems like if you get to the college level with this sort of "education"
your employment opportunities might be a bit limited upon graduation.
There are only so many slots for ignorant cretinists at Discovery
Institute and ICR. One would hope that places that do REAL science would
know better than to hire idiots like this.
--
Nemo - EAC Commissioner for Bible Belt Underwater Operations.
Atheist #1331 (the Palindrome of doom!)
BAAWA Knight! - One of those warm Southern Knights, y'all!
Charter member, SMASH!!
http://home.earthlink.net/~jehdjh/Relpg.html
Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus
Quotemeister since March 2002
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| User: "Greywolf" |
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| Title: Re: News: Preach your children well : Christian home-school 'biology textbooks' are riddled with scientific mistakes |
13 Nov 2006 08:09:59 AM |
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"*nemo*" <nemo0037@earthlink.dieSPAM.net> wrote in message
news:nemo0037-83F43C.05365013112006@news.west.earthlink.net...
In article <7hsfl21uhs3cenni4n66hlfi6i0evlka6t@4ax.com>,
Michael Gray <mikegray@newsguy.com> wrote:
These students are part of a large, well-organised movement that is
empowering parents to teach their children creationist biology and
other unorthodox versions of science at home, all centred on the idea
that God created Earth in six days about 6000 years ago.
Seems like if you get to the college level with this sort of "education"
your employment opportunities might be a bit limited upon graduation.
There are only so many slots for ignorant cretinists at Discovery
Institute and ICR. One would hope that places that do REAL science would
know better than to hire idiots like this.
--
Nemo - EAC Commissioner for Bible Belt Underwater Operations.
Atheist #1331 (the Palindrome of doom!)
BAAWA Knight! - One of those warm Southern Knights, y'all!
Charter member, SMASH!!
http://home.earthlink.net/~jehdjh/Relpg.html
Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus
Quotemeister since March 2002
"Seems like if you get to the college level with this sort of "education"
your employment opportunities might be a bit limited upon graduation."
No problemo. You get hired by employers who share their 'love of the Lord'.
You don't need a degree in science to crunch numbers in Excel. And the
'Lord' will -- through his love of the less than 'wise' and his disdain for
those who would question his existence [whether as the son of himself *or*
the father of himself, *or* that 'other' part of himself that 'possesses'
only believers, or *close* to believers -- *it* can't talk, and the other
two 'God' Gods who make up the only 'true' *one* God, don't 'speak' for
him] -- make sure that those who truly believe in him will absolutely
thrive, don't you know.
Greywolf
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| User: "Liz" |
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| Title: Re: News: Preach your children well : Christian home-school 'biology textbooks' are riddled with scientific mistakes |
13 Nov 2006 05:51:54 AM |
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On Mon, 13 Nov 2006 10:36:50 GMT, *nemo*
<nemo0037@earthlink.dieSPAM.net> in news message
<nemo0037-83F43C.05365013112006@news.west.earthlink.net> wrote:
In article <7hsfl21uhs3cenni4n66hlfi6i0evlka6t@4ax.com>,
Michael Gray <mikegray@newsguy.com> wrote:
These students are part of a large, well-organised movement that is
empowering parents to teach their children creationist biology and
other unorthodox versions of science at home, all centred on the idea
that God created Earth in six days about 6000 years ago.
Seems like if you get to the college level with this sort of "education"
your employment opportunities might be a bit limited upon graduation.
There are only so many slots for ignorant cretinists at Discovery
Institute and ICR. One would hope that places that do REAL science would
know better than to hire idiots like this.
They don't care about science. They want to be PotUS.
Liz #658 BAAWA
Religion may in most of its forms be defined as the
belief that the gods are on the side of the government.
-- Bertrand Russell
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| User: "Michael Gray" |
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| Title: Re: News: Preach your children well : Christian home-school 'biology textbooks' are riddled with scientific mistakes |
13 Nov 2006 07:07:26 PM |
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On Mon, 13 Nov 2006 10:36:50 GMT, *nemo*
<nemo0037@earthlink.dieSPAM.net> wrote:
- Refer: <nemo0037-83F43C.05365013112006@news.west.earthlink.net>
In article <7hsfl21uhs3cenni4n66hlfi6i0evlka6t@4ax.com>,
Michael Gray <mikegray@newsguy.com> wrote:
These students are part of a large, well-organised movement that is
empowering parents to teach their children creationist biology and
other unorthodox versions of science at home, all centred on the idea
that God created Earth in six days about 6000 years ago.
Seems like if you get to the college level with this sort of "education"
your employment opportunities might be a bit limited upon graduation.
There are only so many slots for ignorant cretinists at Discovery
Institute and ICR. One would hope that places that do REAL science would
know better than to hire idiots like this.
Washington is awash with openings for well-disciplined robotic
cretins.
--
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: News: Preach your children well : Christian home-school 'biology textbooks' are riddled with scientific mistakes |
13 Nov 2006 08:33:08 AM |
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On Mon, 13 Nov 2006 10:36:50 GMT, *nemo*
<nemo0037@earthlink.dieSPAM.net> wrote:
In article <7hsfl21uhs3cenni4n66hlfi6i0evlka6t@4ax.com>,
Michael Gray <mikegray@newsguy.com> wrote:
These students are part of a large, well-organised movement that is
empowering parents to teach their children creationist biology and
other unorthodox versions of science at home, all centred on the idea
that God created Earth in six days about 6000 years ago.
Seems like if you get to the college level with this sort of "education"
your employment opportunities might be a bit limited upon graduation.
There are only so many slots for ignorant cretinists at Discovery
Institute and ICR. One would hope that places that do REAL science would
know better than to hire idiots like this.
They're not intended for that. "Universities" like Oral Roberts,
Liberty etc, turn out theology and divinity graduates, but also
accredited law degrees.
So you have lawyers who are also creationists, in the legislature and
the courts - all the way up to the Supreme Court.
.
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| User: "Michael Gray" |
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| Title: Re: News: Preach your children well : Christian home-school 'biology textbooks' are riddled with scientific mistakes |
13 Nov 2006 07:08:03 PM |
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On Mon, 13 Nov 2006 09:33:08 -0500, wrote:
- Refer: <9b0hl2p5qukvt6kj562eg9nqob7lntqpui@4ax.com>
On Mon, 13 Nov 2006 10:36:50 GMT, *nemo*
<nemo0037@earthlink.dieSPAM.net> wrote:
In article <7hsfl21uhs3cenni4n66hlfi6i0evlka6t@4ax.com>,
Michael Gray <mikegray@newsguy.com> wrote:
These students are part of a large, well-organised movement that is
empowering parents to teach their children creationist biology and
other unorthodox versions of science at home, all centred on the idea
that God created Earth in six days about 6000 years ago.
Seems like if you get to the college level with this sort of "education"
your employment opportunities might be a bit limited upon graduation.
There are only so many slots for ignorant cretinists at Discovery
Institute and ICR. One would hope that places that do REAL science would
know better than to hire idiots like this.
They're not intended for that. "Universities" like Oral Roberts,
Liberty etc, turn out theology and divinity graduates, but also
accredited law degrees.
So you have lawyers who are also creationists, in the legislature and
the courts - all the way up to the Supreme Court.
"up"???
--
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: News: Preach your children well : Christian home-school 'biology textbooks' are riddled with scientific mistakes |
13 Nov 2006 04:48:19 AM |
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Michael Gray wrote:
Home-schooling special: Preach your children well
11 November 2006
NewScientist.com news service
Amanda Gefter
"TO THE unsuspecting visitor, Patrick Henry College looks like a
typical American liberal-arts college tucked away amidst the rolling
green farmlands of Virginia. Its curriculum is far from typical,
however, and anything but liberal. Witness this lecture on faith and
reason in an idyllic red-brick college building reminiscent of
colonial America. As the speaker takes to the podium, several students
silence their cellphones. One puts down his copy of The Wall Street
Journal and takes out his Bible. They bow their heads and pray to
Jesus, then stand up and sing a hymn, belting out "Holy, holy, holy"
with gusto. Eventually, the speaker addresses the crowd.
"Christians increasingly have an advantage in the educational
enterprise," he says. "This is evident in the success of Christian
home-schooled children, as compared to their government-schooled
friends who have spent their time constructing their own truths."
http://www.cafepress.com/buy/homeskool/-/pv_design_prod/p_storeid.7149124/pNo_7149124/id_2840068/opt_/pg_/c_/fpt_
Sounds like the guys at Landover are closer to the truth than they
thought. Scary when the real thing is stranger than the parody.
"..Constructing their own truths.."? *Damn* that reality based world!
-Panama Floyd, Atl.
aa#2015, Member Knights of BAAWA!
EAC Martian Commander
Plonked by Kadaitcha Man, Sep 06
"..the prayer cloth of one aeon is the doormat of the next."
-Mark Twain
Religious societies are *less* moral than secular ones:
http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html
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| User: "Al Klein" |
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| Title: Re: News: Preach your children well : Christian home-school 'biology textbooks' are riddled with scientific mistakes |
13 Nov 2006 12:13:05 PM |
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On Mon, 13 Nov 2006 14:51:17 +1030, Michael Gray
<mikegray@newsguy.com> wrote:
Exodus Mandate is urging each home-schooling family to bring one new
family into the movement. If they succeed, several million families
could take to home-schooling over the next several years, Moore says.
"If we could get up to 30 per cent of public-school students into
home-schooling and private schools, the system would start to unravel
and at some point implode and collapse," he says. "The government
would be forced to get the states out of the education business
altogether. It would go back to the churches and the families. It's a
strategy for the renewal of society."
Or, if we get religion out of the White House, the government would be
forced to mandate that the secular part of education be done in
accredited schools.
Biology is not the only science being rewritten in home-schooling
textbooks.
So let's see a country completely dominated with Cretinist biologists
and doctors telling the Cretinists that God will provide, and there's
no need to use atheistic vaccinations and immunizations to ward off
disease. In a century or two fundamentalism will be gone because all
their kids will be dead of polio, TB, AIDS-related illnesses, etc.
--
rukbat at optonline dot net
"The doctrine that the earth is neither the center of the universe nor immovable, but
moves even with a daily rotation, is absurd, and both philosophically and theologically
false, and at the least an error of faith."
- Catholic Church's decision against Galileo Galilei
(random sig, produced by SigChanger)
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| User: "Michael Gray" |
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| Title: Re: News: Preach your children well : Christian home-school 'biology textbooks' are riddled with scientific mistakes |
13 Nov 2006 07:09:34 PM |
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On Mon, 13 Nov 2006 13:13:05 -0500, Al Klein <rukbat@pern.invalid>
wrote:
- Refer: <03dhl29r2tnuocqf7um4c5pppjvg0g28mo@4ax.com>
On Mon, 13 Nov 2006 14:51:17 +1030, Michael Gray
<mikegray@newsguy.com> wrote:
Exodus Mandate is urging each home-schooling family to bring one new
family into the movement. If they succeed, several million families
could take to home-schooling over the next several years, Moore says.
"If we could get up to 30 per cent of public-school students into
home-schooling and private schools, the system would start to unravel
and at some point implode and collapse," he says. "The government
would be forced to get the states out of the education business
altogether. It would go back to the churches and the families. It's a
strategy for the renewal of society."
Or, if we get religion out of the White House, the government would be
forced to mandate that the secular part of education be done in
accredited schools.
Biology is not the only science being rewritten in home-schooling
textbooks.
So let's see a country completely dominated with Cretinist biologists
and doctors telling the Cretinists that God will provide, and there's
no need to use atheistic vaccinations and immunizations to ward off
disease. In a century or two fundamentalism will be gone because all
their kids will be dead of polio, TB, AIDS-related illnesses, etc.
Or evolved into reality resistant super-cretins!
--
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| User: "Al Klein" |
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| Title: Re: News: Preach your children well : Christian home-school 'biology textbooks' are riddled with scientific mistakes |
14 Nov 2006 07:45:21 AM |
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On Tue, 14 Nov 2006 11:39:34 +1030, Michael Gray
<mikegray@newsguy.com> wrote:
On Mon, 13 Nov 2006 13:13:05 -0500, Al Klein <rukbat@pern.invalid>
wrote:
So let's see a country completely dominated with Cretinist biologists
and doctors telling the Cretinists that God will provide, and there's
no need to use atheistic vaccinations and immunizations to ward off
disease. In a century or two fundamentalism will be gone because all
their kids will be dead of polio, TB, AIDS-related illnesses, etc.
Or evolved into reality resistant super-cretins!
We have enough rocks already.
--
rukbat at optonline dot net
"The doctrine that the earth is neither the center of the universe nor immovable, but
moves even with a daily rotation, is absurd, and both philosophically and theologically
false, and at the least an error of faith."
- Catholic Church's decision against Galileo Galilei
(random sig, produced by SigChanger)
.
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: News: Preach your children well : Christian home-school 'biology textbooks' are riddled with scientific mistakes |
13 Nov 2006 01:12:50 PM |
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On Nov 14, 4:13 am, Al Klein <ruk...@pern.invalid> wrote:
On Mon, 13 Nov 2006 14:51:17 +1030, Michael Gray
<mikeg...@newsguy.com> wrote:
Exodus Mandate is urging each home-schooling family to bring one new
family into the movement. If they succeed, several million families
could take to home-schooling over the next several years, Moore says.
"If we could get up to 30 per cent of public-school students into
home-schooling and private schools, the system would start to unravel
and at some point implode and collapse," he says. "The government
would be forced to get the states out of the education business
altogether. It would go back to the churches and the families. It's a
strategy for the renewal of society."Or, if we get religion out of the White House, the government would be
forced to mandate that the secular part of education be done in
accredited schools.
Biology is not the only science being rewritten in home-schooling
textbooks.So let's see a country completely dominated with Cretinist biologists
and doctors telling the Cretinists that God will provide, and there's
no need to use atheistic vaccinations and immunizations to ward off
disease. In a century or two fundamentalism will be gone because all
their kids will be dead of polio, TB, AIDS-related illnesses, etc.
--
rukbat at optonline dot net
"The doctrine that the earth is neither the center of the universe nor immovable, but
moves even with a daily rotation, is absurd, and both philosophically and theologically
false, and at the least an error of faith."
- Catholic Church's decision against Galileo Galilei
(random sig, produced by SigChanger)
The Roman Catholic Church, at that time, had accepted the then
prevalent scientific idea of geocentricity, that had been promoted by
Ptolomy, a very clever mathematician, but in moving from the ideas of
Aristrachus, about 400 years before him, that the sun was the centre
of the solar system, he put astronomy at a stand-still for about 1300
years until the time of Copernicus and Galileo. Galileo had the
advantage of the invention of the telescope and with it could confirm
the calculations made by Copernicus.
Evolutionists will clutch at any idea with which they think they can
demolish the ideas of the Creation Scientists, some of whom have
degrees at the same level as the evolutionists and who had to study
evolution in their own scientific studies.
If, from their studies and research they contend that evolution DID NOT
HAPPEN, surely they should have a right to give that information to
children and to the public.
Gladys Swager
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: News: Preach your children well : Christian home-school 'biology textbooks' are riddled with scientific mistakes |
13 Nov 2006 01:17:14 PM |
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On 13 Nov 2006 11:12:50 -0800, wrote:
Evolutionists will clutch at any idea with which they think they can
demolish the ideas of the Creation Scientists, some of whom have
degrees at the same level as the evolutionists and who had to study
evolution in their own scientific studies.
What do you imagine you achieve by lying through your teeth like this?
If, from their studies and research they contend that evolution DID NOT
HAPPEN, surely they should have a right to give that information to
children and to the public.
Evolution happened (and still happens) whether you like it or not. The
most you can offer is that something else happened in some cases - but
you have to prove this before "giving that information" to children
and to the public.
Gladys Swager
That explains it. How did you get out of the kill file?
<plonk> again.
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| User: "AZ Nomad" |
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| Title: Re: News: Preach your children well : Christian home-school 'biology textbooks' are riddled with scientific mistakes |
13 Nov 2006 01:36:41 PM |
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On Mon, 13 Nov 2006 14:17:14 -0500, <> wrote:
On 13 Nov 2006 11:12:50 -0800, wrote:
Evolutionists will clutch at any idea with which they think they can
demolish the ideas of the Creation Scientists, some of whom have
degrees at the same level as the evolutionists and who had to study
evolution in their own scientific studies.
What do you imagine you achieve by lying through your teeth like this?
If, from their studies and research they contend that evolution DID NOT
HAPPEN, surely they should have a right to give that information to
children and to the public.
Evolution happened (and still happens) whether you like it or not. The
most you can offer is that something else happened in some cases - but
you have to prove this before "giving that information" to children
and to the public.
Gladys Swager
That explains it. How did you get out of the kill file?
<plonk> again.
You don't KF all of google-groups?
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| User: "Al Klein" |
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| Title: Re: News: Preach your children well : Christian home-school 'biology textbooks' are riddled with scientific mistakes |
13 Nov 2006 03:47:01 PM |
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On Mon, 13 Nov 2006 19:36:41 GMT, AZ Nomad
<aznomad.2@PremoveOBthisOX.COM> wrote:
On Mon, 13 Nov 2006 14:17:14 -0500, <> wrote:
<plonk> again.
You don't KF all of google-groups?
There are some intelligent people posting from Google (even though
that would seem to be an oxymoron).
--
rukbat at optonline dot net
I cannot conceive of a god who rewards and punishes his creatures
or has a will of the kind that we experience in ourselves. Neither
can I nor would I want to conceive of an individual that survives
its physical death; let feeble souls, from fear or absurd egotism,
cherish such thoughts. I am satisfied with the mystery of the eter-
nity of life and a glimpse of the marvelous structure of the exist-
ing world, together with the devoted striving to comprehend a
portion, be it ever so tiny, of the Reason that manifests itself in
nature.
- Albert Einstein, as quoted in _Billions and Billions_, Carl Sagan.
(random sig, produced by SigChanger)
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| User: "Al Klein" |
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| Title: Re: News: Preach your children well : Christian home-school 'biology textbooks' are riddled with scientific mistakes |
13 Nov 2006 02:15:47 PM |
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On 13 Nov 2006 11:12:50 -0800, wrote:
On Nov 14, 4:13 am, Al Klein <ruk...@pern.invalid> wrote:
On Mon, 13 Nov 2006 14:51:17 +1030, Michael Gray
"The doctrine that the earth is neither the center of the universe nor immovable, but
moves even with a daily rotation, is absurd, and both philosophically and theologically
false, and at the least an error of faith."
- Catholic Church's decision against Galileo Galilei
(random sig, produced by SigChanger)
1. Notice the word 'random'.
The Roman Catholic Church, at that time, had accepted the then
prevalent scientific idea of geocentricity, that had been promoted by
Ptolomy, a very clever mathematician, but in moving from the ideas of
Aristrachus, about 400 years before him, that the sun was the centre
of the solar system, he put astronomy at a stand-still for about 1300
years until the time of Copernicus and Galileo. Galileo had the
advantage of the invention of the telescope and with it could confirm
the calculations made by Copernicus.
And it took them how many hundreds of years to accept what science had
already proved to be true?
Notice the RCC's decision - not that it wasn't true, but that it
conflicted with their beliefs and, THEREFORE, couldn't be true. Truth
doesn't change because the Church believes something.
Evolutionists
We're talking about astronomy, not evolution.
will clutch at any idea with which they think they can
demolish the ideas of the Creation Scientists
There's no science in creation science - it's just Christianity under
a different name.
some of whom have
degrees at the same level as the evolutionists
A degree in theological science from a diploma mill is a worthless
piece of paper to anyone but a religious fundamentalist of the same
religion.
Would you give any weight to someone with a degree in Muslim
Chemistry? Or Jewish Biology?
and who had to study evolution in their own scientific studies.
The only reason a creationist school teaches ANYTHING about evolution
is to teach students arguments against it.
Which is totally ludicrous - to teach students how to contradict an
observed FACT.
If, from their studies and research they contend that evolution DID NOT
HAPPEN
You can't "contend that" something "didn't happen" when it's an
observed FACT.
surely they should have a right to give that information to
children and to the public.
Since evolution is OBSERVED FACT, that's what should be taught to
'children' (of college age - genetics is, as least, an ADVANCED high
school subject). Teaching, as scientific fact, that a religion claims
that something that happens (and it continues to happen, all the time)
in the real world 'didn't happen' is wrong, child abuse, against
national interest, a lie and mixing science education with religious
belief - just for starters.
Now, go and learn exactly what 'evolution' means - AS A SCIENTIFIC
DESCRIPTION OF AN OBSERVATION - before you start arguing with me. It
has nothing at all to do with Darwin or with monkeys turning into men,
so any of the Creationist arguments is going to get exactly what it
deserves.
--
rukbat at optonline dot net
"I received your letter of June 10th. I have never talked to a Jesuit
priest in my life and I am astonished by the audacity to tell such lies
about me. From the viewpoint of a Jesuit priest I am, of course, and
have always been an atheist."
- Albert Einstein to Guy H. Raner Jr, July 2, 1945,
responding to a rumor that a Jesuit priest had caused Einstein
to convert from atheism. Article by Michael R. Gilmore in Skeptic
magazine, Vol. 5, No. 2, 1997
(random sig, produced by SigChanger)
This signature was made by SigChanger.
You can find SigChanger at: http://www.phranc.nl/
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| User: "MarkA" |
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| Title: Re: News: Preach your children well : Christian home-school 'biology textbooks' are riddled with scientific mistakes |
13 Nov 2006 03:53:37 PM |
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On Mon, 13 Nov 2006 14:51:17 +1030, Michael Gray wrote:
Home-schooling special: Preach your children well 11 November 2006
NewScientist.com news service
Amanda Gefter
And just when I was starting to feel a little optimistic after the
voters kicked the Repubs out of office!
--
MarkA
(still caught in the maze of twisty little passages, all different)
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