Kansas School Board OKs Science Standards

[David]

Originally Posted by Jyqm

What's the matter with Kansas indeed. This is simply a disgrace. And if it were just some nominal issue, like displaying the ten commandments or something, I'd probably just roll my eyes and move on, but these people are taking the first steps toward destroying the education of millions of children here, and that's just despicable.

I'd like to believe that primary education should be left in the hands of local and state officials, but if this is the **** they're gonna be pulling, there needs to be some kind of federal override option in place. We need to have some kinds of standards here.

Jyqm, I recommend reading Richard Mitchell's essay "The Other Ignorant Army," from Volume V, No. 6 (September 1981) of The Underground Grammarian. I steal from this quite a bit.

The upshot here is that, given the choice between the incompetence of government schooling & the ideologic damage of the Christianist schools (& these may be public schools on paper, but they're Christianist in practice), it's better to go with the former.

[sparky]

Next it will be the flat earth theory.

[amber]

Originally Posted by sparky

Next it will be the flat earth theory.

And in medical school they will teach bloodletting so doctors will be able to drive the demons out of people when they get sick.

[UnwindedDreams]

That is ridiculous!

[UnwindedDreams]

Originally Posted by amber

And in medical school they will teach bloodletting so doctors will be able to drive the demons out of people when they get sick.

[Jyqm]

Originally Posted by dissention

Check this out.

Evolution in the bible, says Vatican
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117...-13762,00.html

THE Vatican has issued a stout defence of Charles Darwin, voicing strong criticism of Christian fundamentalists who reject his theory of evolution and interpret the biblical account of creation literally.

Cardinal Paul Poupard, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, said the Genesis description of how God created the universe and Darwin's theory of evolution were "perfectly compatible" if the Bible were read correctly.

His statement was a clear attack on creationist campaigners in the US, who see evolution and the Genesis account as mutually exclusive.

"The fundamentalists want to give a scientific meaning to words that had no scientific aim," he said at a Vatican press conference. He said the real message in Genesis was that "the universe didn't make itself and had a creator".

This idea was part of theology, Cardinal Poupard emphasised, while the precise details of how creation and the development of the species came about belonged to a different realm - science. Cardinal Poupard said that it was important for Catholic believers to know how science saw things so as to "understand things better".

His statements were interpreted in Italy as a rejection of the "intelligent design" view, which says the universe is so complex that some higher being must have designed every detail.

I must say, it's a pretty interesting time in history when suddenly the Catholic Church is the sensible wing of Christianity.

Shame on that website for the idiotic and misleading headline, though.