In reporting on the recent article in the Atlantic on Darwin in the schools, David Klinghoffer, a nicer person than News (we reported yesterday), says,
Usually these articles obediently quote Glenn Branch of the National Center for Science Education, swallowing everything he says, and fail to interview anyone from Discovery Institute. I have seen this so many times. But you know what? This piece by Ms. Khazan is a cut above. She quotes Discovery Institute’s John West and Sarah Chaffee, accurately. This could be because they conducted the interview by email. (See below for the full text.)
And while she naturally also talked with Glenn Branch, she notes that she is a “little skeptical” of something he says (about how not learning about human evolution “might make it harder for, say, doctors to understand superbugs, or for farmers to understand the nuances of agriculture,” as she paraphrases him).
David Klinghoffer, “From The Atlantic on Teaching Human Evolution, a Bit of Rare Honesty in Reporting” at Evolution News and Science Today
What? She actually thinks that Darwinian claims should be subject to skepticism like any other? Something’s changing for sure.
Of course Branch’s claim is bullocks but imagine someone writing for a traditional medium actually considering that possibility… wow.
Meanwhile,
Hint: Yes, while the fallout falls out, Chaffee should stick to e-mail.
Hint 2: Khazan should look into horizontal gene transfer, a swift but non-Darwinian mechanism for rapid changes in virulent bugs.
See also: A cry from grievance culture: She never learned Darwinism in school. If Darwinists had been in charge of Khazan’s education, she would mainly have a bunch of stuff to unlearn. As it is, she can start with Suzan Mazur’s Darwin Overthrown: Hello Mechanobiology and Michael Behe’s Darwin Devolves. Steve Meyer’s Darwin’s Doubt is good on the Cambrian explosion…
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Perhaps, as a journalist concerned with discovering what is actually happening, Khazan should have asked why her high school science teacher did not address human evolution. Perhaps the teacher was one of the approximately 60% who choose not to mention it for fear of a hostile reaction from students and parents, in other words, intimidated into keeping his or her mouth shut by Christian creationists. Or maybe the teacher was one of the 13% who openly teach creationism in the science classroom in clear breach of their ethical and contractual obligations as teachers and the US Constitution.
Seversky @ 1, it’s been a while since I had to put together a formal lesson plan, but in any ORGANIZED block of instruction the instructor is GIVEN a list of “key teaching points” and a list of knowledge, skills, and abilities the student is supposed to demonstrate at the end of the block of instruction.
So I gotta wonder about individual teachers in publicly funded schools simply CHOOSING to present classes that ignore or diverge from the specific knowledge REQUIRED to pass the course.
The American Army got this down to pretty much a science back in the post-Vietnam period, and also informed instructors to flat out TELL the students that certain factoids were “true for TEST purposes”. That is, you can believe whatever you want in your heart of hearts, but if you wanna pass THIS course and you encounter the question: “Humans are descended from apes”, the correct answer is “Yes/True”.
@Vmahuma@2
Interesting little detail there, thanks.
Reminds me of the Caine Mutiny part where the young ensign had to give the Test answer to the use of submarines (for defence, when Allied shipping was clearly an offensive target.)
Seversky holds that to teach ‘creationism’ in science classrooms is a violation of the establishment clause of the constitution. What Seversky fails to realize or mention, (since Darwinism is far from being religiously neutral), is that to teach the false doctrine of Darwinian evolution in the science classroom is also a violation of the establishment clause of the constitution.
In the following articles, Casey Luskin, who has a law degree, reveals that it is indeed constitutional to teach evidence against Darwinian evolution in public schools:
Needless to say, no theory in science should ever be above critique from the scientific evidence. That Darwinists would try to protect their theory from critique from the evidence by appealing to the constitution is yet another sure clue that we are dealing with a pseudoscience, even a religion for atheists, instead of dealing with a real, testable, science.
And to repeat what I said yesterday, Darwinists will often falsely claim that to teach Intelligent Design in school is to teach religion in school (and claim that ID therefore violates the establishment clause of the constitution). What they fail to mention, (besides the fact that all of science itself is based on the Theological presupposition of the universe being rational and that we, being made in the image of God, can understand that rationality), is that Darwinian evolution, since it has no real time scientific evidence supporting its sweeping claims, is itself crucially dependent on faulty Theological presuppositions in order to give the false appearance of being scientific. That is to say, to teach Darwinism is schools is, ironically, to teach a false religion, (i.e. a false set of beliefs about God), to your children in public school.
It might further surprise some to learn that Darwin’s book “Origin of Species” was far more of a theological argument than it ever was a scientific or mathematical argument (In fact there was no mathematics or experimental work in Darwin’s book)
Darwinists, with their vital dependence on misleading Theological presuppositions, instead of any actual substantiating scientific evidence, in order to try to deceive people into believing in Darwinian evolution, (besides violating the establishment clause of the constitution), are as Cornelius Van Til put it, like the child who must climb up onto his father’s lap into order to slap his face.