From the Templeton Foundation we learn that the big crackdown paper, taking dead aim at aimed at science teachers who have enough sense to doubt Darwinism has morphed into a Templeton-funded book.
Think anti-evolution teaching is confined to schools in certain regions? Think again. Plutzer says he and Berkman find that “active proponents of creationism as science can be found in every state, even in fairly cosmopolitan school districts.” While it is true that those who reject evolution tend to find jobs in more socially conservative school districts, where they receive parental backing, it’s also the case that teachers who experience the most pressure teach in districts with large and clashing constituencies of conservative Protestants and pro-evolution opponents. Says Plutzer, “In these districts, there is no easy path for teachers to teach in accord with local opinion, because local opinion is polarized.”
The path of least resistance—one taken by 60 percent of high school biology instructors—is a pedagogical middle road, in which teachers remain non-committal about evolution, especially if they lack confidence in their own understanding of the science behind it. While politically safe, Plutzer says this approach “undermines the legitimacy of science and the weight of empirical evidence.”
Translation: A teacher with enough sense to see through the textbook Darwinist codswallop, documented, for example, here had better polish up the skills of lying, cringing, and pretending to be too stupid to have ever guessed.
Isn’t that what teachers are paid to do?