DonDueed left a comment on our latest ACE atrocity post that reflects thoughts I had when I first started our Adventures in Christianist Earth Science Education series:
creationism
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Adventures in ACE XII: Wibbly about Water
I know, two ACE posts in a row. And our Adventures in Christianist Earth Science Education installment is a whole day early! Don’t you all feel like lucky duckies?
It’s about time we finish with the risible ACE PACE 1086, and the subject matter segues nicely into the chapters on oceans we have coming up in our other “science” textbooks. Besides, after last week’s installment, I’m sure you’re all on the edge of your seats wondering if the Loyaltons are about to go splat against a mountain. So let us continue our flyover with them, and see where we end up. Continue reading “Adventures in ACE XII: Wibbly about Water”
Adventures in ACE XI: Tommyrot About Topography
We are, at last, almost at the end of the breathtaking inanity that is ACE Science* PACE 1086. So far, we’ve seen a really inept drilling project, watched them mutilate Mount St. Helens and other volcanoes, suffered through their igneous ignorance, had to spend two posts on their sedimentary nonsense, and dealt with their metamorphic misconceptions. At times, it’s seemed like we’ll never get through debunking this unfathomable ignorance. But we’ve only eight pages and two topics to go! Racer and his dad are finally flying home! Stick with us and we’ll get there – if the Loyaltons’ plane doesn’t crash. Continue reading “Adventures in ACE XI: Tommyrot About Topography”
God’s Old Earth Curriculum Chapter 1: In Which the Earth is Introduced
Welcome to The Old Earth Ministries Online Geology curriculum! I hope your attention spans are nice and short today, because this first chapter is only about 1,370 words long. And it’s meant to last all week. According to the instructions, we’re to read all the words today, do some research tomorrow, take quiz the day after, then review, then test on the final day. Easy-peasy as long as you’re a quick reader.
I know you’re all burning to know: is old earth creationist curricula just as god-soaked as our young earth texts? Judging from the opening paragraph: you betcha! Continue reading “God’s Old Earth Curriculum Chapter 1: In Which the Earth is Introduced”
Everyone Combating Creationism Needs to Read The Devil in Dover
It’s been almost a decade since the Kitzmiller vs. Dover Area School District trial put Intelligent Design on the witness stand and unmasked it as the religion-lite pseudoscience it is. The repercussions still resonate. It’s very difficult for this nonsense to get footing within schools when an actual Republican judge appointed by none other than George W Bush hisownself has declared it foolishness. You expect blatantly religious claptrap to get struck down by courts no matter the figleaf it wears. But to have a conservative Lutheran judge demolish it sans mercy, issuing an opinion that gave it an unrestrained verbal flailing worthy of the most godless heathen – that was divine.
How the heck did that happen? Continue reading “Everyone Combating Creationism Needs to Read The Devil in Dover”
Adventures in Christianist Earth Science Education V: Wherein We Map for God
Honestly, you’d think something as prosaic as mapping could avoid Godification. SPC doesn’t even bother with a chapter on cartography: maps are maps, and they’ve nothing to say about them.
ES4, however, devotes a whole chapter to the subject. And yeah, it gets goddy.
The chapter starts out fine: instead of a creationist cartologist, we get a nice demonstration of the power of maps, using, of course, Dr. John Snow’s cholera map. And the BJU staffers who wrote this chapter, at least, aren’t completely anti-vax. They discuss how government agencies use maps to track down areas with high disease rates, and say that targeting vaccination programs toward “areas with high rates of infections” is “far more effective and costs less than vaccinating a whole population.” Which may be true with rare or not easily transmitted diseases, I suppose, but I do wish their emphasis had been on getting everyone vaccinated for the common stuff. Herd immunity is an important thing. Still. At least they’re not taking this opportunity to say never vaccinate. Small mercies.
They do a fine job explaining what maps are, and scale, and perspective. But for some reason, there’s a textbox on Progressive Creationism right smack in the middle. I have no idea why. It’s nothing to do with maps, and they don’t even try to relate it. They just yammer. And it’s obvious they don’t like those progressive creationists, no sir. You can tell from this question: Continue reading “Adventures in Christianist Earth Science Education V: Wherein We Map for God”
Liberty University Pumping Creationists Into Public Schools
Sometimes, I wonder if my obsession with debunking Christianist textbooks is rather ridiculous. After all, how many truly committed creationists are there, really? Aren’t there more important causes I should be investing my time in? Surely I could be doing more on the feminist front, f’r instance. I could be pouring my time and energy into meatier posts about the magnificent science of geology. And I feel vaguely guilty that I let myself get distracted by the latest creationist outrages in textbooks that are foisted upon a mere fraction of the world’s children.
But then, I read survivors’ stories, and yes, I do think of the children: all those bright and curious minds stunted by the ignorant adults around them. I hope at least a few of them stumble upon this series, and find themselves jolted out of the confining creationist box and launched on an epic adventure in the science of their choice (even if it’s not one of the geosciences, although of course I think those are the best).
And there’s the fact we all learn some things about the earth sciences along the way, in what I hope is an entertaining fashion.
Not an inconsiderable consideration for me is that I’ve found so few women* debunking creationist nonsense, so it helps me feel like I’m doing my bit for diversity in the creationist nonsense debunking community.
Besides, Jonny Scaramanga recently said why creationism and the debunking thereof matters, so that’s told me this quest is not quixotic.
But when it really comes down to it, the main reason why I feel it’s bloody damned important to keep you guys informed as to what creationists are teaching their kiddies is because their kiddies are growing up ignorant, and then spewing that ignorance all over our public schools: Continue reading “Liberty University Pumping Creationists Into Public Schools”
New at Rosetta Stones: The Story of Wallace’s Woeful Wager
Well, you knew I couldn’t resist doing up a post on that subject, right? Of course! I looked up some of Wallace’s writings on the subject, did some digging round inside Flat Earth and the net regarding his nemeses, and wrote you up a little something. All right, it’s not little, it’s actually a bit long. Not like novella length or anything, but nice and meaty. Settle yourselves in and enjoy the tale! Continue reading “New at Rosetta Stones: The Story of Wallace’s Woeful Wager”
Flat Earth: An Astonishingly Good Book About a Very Bad Idea
When I’m reading creationist textbooks, one thing I’m grateful for is that they’re not written by flat-earthers. One wonders why they’re not: after all, a literal reading of the Bible points very much to the idea that the earth is, indeed, a plane rather than a sphere. But some ideas are so difficult to sustain in the face of plain scientific evidence that even people who, in all seriousness, claim that every living thing on Earth descends from the inmates of a single wooden boat which survived a violent global flood, can’t bring themselves to believe it. Really, did anyone post-Renaissance ever seriously believe that nonsense? Continue reading “Flat Earth: An Astonishingly Good Book About a Very Bad Idea”
Adventures in ACE X: Misinformed About Metamorphic
There comes a point when, during the perusal of an ACE science PACE, the brain bluescreens. The system shuts down for self-protection. It’s usually at about the point where you’ve encountered the umpteenth wrong thing in as many sentences, and you begin wondering how any adult can be so bloody fucking ignorant. You suddenly realize that more than one bloody fucking ignorant adult was involved in writing this pablum. And you begin to consider that some of the children being subjected to this shit will never recover, but will someday regurgitate this shit with updated pictures and errors, then expect a whole new generation of kids to lap up their intellectual vomit. This is about the point where the brain crashes.
It’s hard to get through without multiple system failures, is what I’m saying. Continue reading “Adventures in ACE X: Misinformed About Metamorphic”
Good points! So let’s talk a bit about homeschooling first, then I’ll hit everyone with the map that will make you choke. Continue reading “We’re in Deep, Deep Trouble Indeed” →