Ignorance in Kansas
Those Kansans, creationists, idists, and proids who welcomed the anti-evolution and anti-cosmology decision of the Kansas Board of Education did so at the expense of education in both science and in critical thinking of the schoolchildren of Kansas.
ScienceWeek: "KANSAS, EVOLUTION, AND IGNORANCE IN AMERICA
Concerning the recent decision by the Kansas (US) State Board of Education to purge evolution and cosmology from the science curricula of all Kansas public schools, R.B. Hanson and F.E. Bloom (_Science_) present an editorial, with the authors making the following points:
1) The authors suggest that two aspects of 'this
intellectual cleansing atrocity' are most troubling: a) No political leaders from either party have as yet elected to step forward and challenge the lunacy of removing from the educational opportunities of the future voters of Kansas two of the best established theories of our era. 'Such reluctance emphasizes a growing public ignorance of the methods by which scientific observations are formulated into testable hypotheses and, when sufficiently strongly supported, are elevated into... theories.'
b) Second, and more troubling, is the shrewdness of the strategy used by the creationists in achieving their ends. No longer are they attempting to overturn the series of court decisions that have banned the teaching of creationism as a science. The new strategy, representing a far more threatening menace to future generations, is not only not to teach evolution and cosmology, but to undermine the solidity of their scientific acceptance."
Comment: Politicians care about one thing, and one thing only, and that is to ensure that they are re-elected to public office. When a politician's constituents include a vocal minority of religious fundamentalists and a large number who know nothing of science and care little for scientific truth, then few politicians would care to step forward on the side of knowledge, science, or logic. The battle against ignorance has since been brought to the courts by parents who are concerned about the education of their children. Keeping up with the Jones decision
ScienceWeek: "KANSAS, EVOLUTION, AND IGNORANCE IN AMERICA
Concerning the recent decision by the Kansas (US) State Board of Education to purge evolution and cosmology from the science curricula of all Kansas public schools, R.B. Hanson and F.E. Bloom (_Science_) present an editorial, with the authors making the following points:
1) The authors suggest that two aspects of 'this
intellectual cleansing atrocity' are most troubling: a) No political leaders from either party have as yet elected to step forward and challenge the lunacy of removing from the educational opportunities of the future voters of Kansas two of the best established theories of our era. 'Such reluctance emphasizes a growing public ignorance of the methods by which scientific observations are formulated into testable hypotheses and, when sufficiently strongly supported, are elevated into... theories.'
b) Second, and more troubling, is the shrewdness of the strategy used by the creationists in achieving their ends. No longer are they attempting to overturn the series of court decisions that have banned the teaching of creationism as a science. The new strategy, representing a far more threatening menace to future generations, is not only not to teach evolution and cosmology, but to undermine the solidity of their scientific acceptance."
Comment: Politicians care about one thing, and one thing only, and that is to ensure that they are re-elected to public office. When a politician's constituents include a vocal minority of religious fundamentalists and a large number who know nothing of science and care little for scientific truth, then few politicians would care to step forward on the side of knowledge, science, or logic. The battle against ignorance has since been brought to the courts by parents who are concerned about the education of their children. Keeping up with the Jones decision
Labels: biological evolution, creationism, education, fundamentalists, ignorance, intelligent design, Jones decision, Kansas, Kansas State Board of Education, politician, scientific theories of evolution
posted | 10/13/2007 11:10:00 PM
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