At least Ohio kids seem smarter than their school board


You sure can spot the creationists by their use of slogans — “teach the controversy,” “strengths and weaknesses,” “teach both sides,” “think critically about controversial subjects” — and they’re all on display at an Ohio school board that is currently debating opening up the curriculum to creationism. The parents and students are resisting, at least.

Please. There is no controversy here. Evolution happened, teach it.

The best argument that one student provided is that “I don’t feel like the people here are educated or prepared enough to deal with it.” Yeah, that describes most school boards.

Comments

  1. Rev. BigDumbChimp says

    Here local courts and ACLU, let me hand you a significant portion of our school budget in legal fees.

    Signed Springboro Community City School District

  2. anteprepro says

    If I heard a creationist say “think critically about controversial subjects” I don’t think I could stop chortling.

  3. ADK says

    I’m deeply ashamed of my city’s suburbs right now. Well, more ashamed than usual, I suppose.

  4. raven says

    AFAICT, the creationists crept on to the school board in that Ohio district and don’t really care if they wreck the school system. Wrecking the school system is a feature to them, not a bug.

    At Dover, the fundie head home schooled her kids and openly despised public education.

    I can see how it happened. In my local school board election, hardly anyone voted. It was 13% or 20% or something really low. Some of the candidates were unopposed. No one campaigned because they didn’t have any money or organization.

  5. says

    Funny, they never teach critical thinking in their churches, let alone their schools.

    Do you suppose they’re not serious about critical thinking? Do you suppose they even know what critical thinking means, other than supposing that it involves their ignorant criticisms evolution?

    Glen Davidson

  6. anteprepro says

    They reeeeaally like the word “controversial” don’t they? I somehow doubt that these people would approve of teaching anything “controversial” other than Biblical pseudoscience. Transparent dishonesty.

    The best argument that one student provided is that “I don’t feel like the people here are educated or prepared enough to deal with it.”

    I loved that he also called creationism “subjective”. Not the word I would use to describe it, but it comes pretty damn close to encapsulating the problem with creationism as a subject in a way that isn’t directly insulting.

  7. scienceavenger says

    I loved the line “We want honest debate” of these subjects. Honest debate from a creationist, now there would be something different.

  8. stanton says

    I loved the line “We want honest debate” of these subjects. Honest debate from a creationist, now there would be something different.

    “Honest debate” translated from creationism means “stifling and or lying about Evolutionism/Darwinism without opposition”

    More rarely, it sometimes translates into “discussing how to brainwash more children for Jesus”

  9. Thumper; Atheist mate says

    “What we want from this policy…” is to brainwash children into believing our bullshit, because Gawd and ‘Merka.

  10. unclefrogy says

    It just amazes me how self-destructive humans can be. I can see very little chance that if they get that policy enacted that it will have any positive outcome.
    The legal expenses would be significant even if they won the court cases. If they did win the negative aspects to their children’s education would be expensive to re-mediate. If there is one thing we do not need more of is ill-educated undereducated people in the work force.
    too sacrifice the future of yourself , your children, and your society to a mythological being, at least they can feel morally justified in relinquishing the leadership of the world and becoming a dependent nation but god loves them now!
    uncle frogy

  11. says

    I wrote a response discussing about how people learn to perceive Reality and how that creates divisions among people, could Epistemology be properly taught to school children, yada yada yada, just trying to “be fair” to the Forces of Darkness. Then I scrapped it.

    With deference to the excellent responses of this Ohio group, if I were in a position to judge the merits of this agenda, I would ask the creators to be specific about their goals and demand that those goals advance science and knowledge. If there’s an “alternative” lurking somewhere, it should be classroom-ready as science.

  12. lopsided says

    What I really hate about creationists is the LYING. The breathless, shameless mendacity of co-opting scientific terminology and using those exact same phrases to undermine science. It’s not possible to do that accidentally or sincerely.

  13. rrhain says

    I’m not the originator of this plan, but I do like it:

    Each time a curriculum analysis is carried out, we do a survey of all the various journals regarding a particular subject for the past 10 years. We then break down the subject based upon those findings. If, say, 80% of the articles in biology journals support evolution and 20% support creationism, then 80% of the time spent in biology will be focused on evolution and 20% will be focused on creationism.

    I’ve never seen a creationist take me up on that policy. And given the fetish over the word “controversial” with this board, I’d make an amendment: Any subject that has 95% or more of the publishers in that field agreeing with a certain viewpoint indicates that the subject is not “controversial.”

    Let us not confuse the opinions of those who know nothing with the opinions of those who have studied. A subject is not “controversial” simply because those who are ignorant have an emotional investment in a particular result.

  14. hypatiasdaughter says

    #11 unclefrogy

    If there is one thing we do not need more of is ill-educated undereducated people in the work force.

    But that is what these guys want. Seriously.
    Think of an ignorant medieval peasant, unthinking, unquestioning and cowered by the fear of God into obedience to the Church and the noblemen who wielded power over them. Replace nobleman with business owner you have the modernized version of what they want.

  15. paulburnett says

    See how long “Teach both sides” lasts when the kids want to talk about both sides of whether teenagers should be having sex, or using birth control, or whether or not Adam and Eve (or Noah’s Ark) actually existed.

  16. steve78b says

    Which creation story are they going to teach? Hebrew, Hindu, Navajo, Flying Spaghetti Monster, Norse?????

    We need to keep asking that question. Teach all or none.

    I say teach fact…… evolution.

    Steve in OK

  17. DLC says

    A Creationist telling me to think critically might just be entirely too close to being the Deadly Joke. I’d probably die laughing.

  18. John Pieret says

    Is it any surprise that Kelly Kohls, the board chairperson, was both a teabagger and less careful when this came up two years ago?

    “My input on creationism has everything with me being a parent and not a member of the Tea Party,” she said. “We are motivated people who want to change the course of this country. Eliminating God from our public lives I think is a mistake and is why we have gone in the direction of spending beyond our means.”

    http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/news/local/a-push-for-creationism-gains-in-springboro/nMs9D/

    That’s right! The failure to teach creationism is why we have a deficit … not the Bush tax cuts along with not one but two (count ’em) wars at the same time!

    The stupid party lives in Ohio.

  19. archimedes109 says

    Look at the still pic of the video before you push play…look at the first guy in the second row…the face-palm says it all…

  20. says

    On Through the Wormhole I saw a biologist claim that human embryos can’t neurologically feel pain until 25 weeks, and another say that people aren’t fully self-aware until they’re about 5 years old. Take that, RTLers!