There is a nest of creationist fruit loops scattered across Wisconsin, and they do try to get on school boards. The latest is David Weigand, a candidate for the board of education in the West Bend school district. Seriously, do not vote for this kook. Here’s his statement on evolution.
WITH REGARD TO TEACHING EVOLUTION OR CREATION IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
In a nutshell, this is what I believe:
1. Origin studies, (whether Creation or evolution) and the idea of “millions of years” does not belong in the science classroom because these are not testable, repeatable or observable; they are philosophical and accepted by faith.
2. If evolution is taught in school, students should be taught the truth about it and the scientific data surrounding it. Ideas that were once championed by evolutionists are no longer valid, much like the false science behind man-made global warming. Students deserve the truth.
You can spot an acolyte of Answers in Genesis from a mile away — that mantra of “millions of years” is a theme they recite over and over in their “museum” and website. They regard the phrase as a dead giveaway that one is not a true Christian out to destroy America.
The relativism is also AiG baloney. They love to whine that all ideas are equal, that it’s all just opinion, so their clown circus values are just as valid as science. It’s not true. The age of the earth has been repeatedly tested and observed using multiple methods, and it always comes up old, old, old…no faith required, and the science actually crosses the boundaries of individual faiths. Their young earth dogma, though, is built on nothing but faith, and has been actively refuted by experiment and observation.
That last paragraph is just kook-sign, a symptom of religious derangement syndrome. I’ve found that people who reject the science of evolution also have a tendency to be avid denialists of all kinds of other science, from climate change to the HIV cause of AIDS.
David Wiegand. Your wingnut ignoramus candidate. Vote for him if you hate science and education, too.
Crank magnetism.
llewelly @ #1: I wonder if a big enough crank magnet could be mounted onto an airship and flown over these states to sift them out?
It would need to include denial of evolution, climate change, vaccination and HIV.
The scenes would be a bit biblical, now that I come to picture it…
Creationists running for school board in MY backyard? Hell no.
Davidpj | February 1, 2010 4:06 AM:
You know … I’ve always wondered about the mechanism behind the rapture …
Next up: everyone who disagrees with me, vs. me, waving my dick around and flipping the bird. On Both Sides.
And policemen should not arrest killers. Indeed, they generally cannot prove they are killers, since they generally did not observe the crime themselves and cannot repeat it.
And I always wonder why they deny the testability of sediments and radioactive dating. Obviously it’s more than just being “not quite sure wether it’s scientific or not,” it’s intentional denial and ignorance to those things already proven.
Argh, makes me angry…
Hoping for an evolution of human minds!
“2. If evolution is taught in school, students should be taught the truth about it and the scientific data surrounding it. ”
Well absolutely. I suppose this guy has a different idea about ‘truth’, though.
The upside: once Florida* goes under, they will all deconvert.
* I bet they don’t care about Bangladesh.
You mean they are looking for True Christians who are out to destroy America?
You mean they are only looking for True Christians who are out to destroy America?
That’s the clincher for me, as far as being fairly sure that this guy is AiG livestock. A demonstrably false and idiotic statement made with absolute certainty as if her were stating “ice is cold”.
It takes an AiG acolyte to be so authoritatively stupid.
My rebuttal to this guy is the new SMBC video:
Both sides!
That’s just so not even wrong…
I wonder what belongs in the “science” classroom in the mind of this kook then, bible studies ?
How do these people live with themselves ?
I’m from Wisconsin, and have family in West Bend. For the most part its a normal town. It’s conservative, but not uber-conservative. It isn’t a hot bed of nuttery. There is only a small faction of truly crazy people there. (The normal people send their kids to West Bend West, and the crazy people go to West Bend East). I am surprised that this isn’t happening in Janesville or Brookfield. I would except more nuttery there than in West Bend.
However, the strangest thing I have ever seen in Wisconsin was in West Bend. There was a small confederate flag rally in the parking lot of one of the gas station. There were about 15 to 20 people, with all sorts of confederate flags. This was happening about the same time as South Caroline that was debating moving the confederate flag from the capitol. I wanted to run up this people a scream, “You know that side lost?” and “Wisconsin was on the winning side! We were a part of the union!!!”
Pac-Devil
This guy seems very highly qualified to be on a school board. He went to high school (probably cut biology class) no mention of college (probably never went) and runs a construction company (again nothing to do with education). How can he even be considered a viable candidate for a school board? Or am I being an elitist liberal by demanding a board member actually be educated?
I’m trying to work out how ideas that were, evidently, “valid” once cease to be so.
Does he mean that evolution was true once, and no longer is?
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
No, your being anti-AmericanTM by insisting the candidates be qualified for the job.
I partially agree with the guy!
1) ‘studies’ that are not testable, repeatable, observable and are accepted on faith and faith alone, do NOT belong in our science classes.
2) If evolution is taught in school, students should be taught the truth about it and the scientific data surrounding it.
No problem there.
Some of the other points he makes, however, I DO have a problem with.
*sigh* s/your/you’re in my #18
Scratch a creationist or AIDS denialist and climate denialist bleeds. Anti-science uses the same tactics everywhere–and they’re getting stronger and meaner.
I’m depressed to say that is my hometown. Went to West Bend East High School. Guess I’m getting involved.
Last summer this same West Bend crowd tried to remove from the public library any teen books that mentioned teh gayz.
A well-known Wisconsin political blogger claims there’s “substantial legal precedent about the teaching of the Christian belief of creation”. He’s often taken seriously. He has a newspaper column, regularly appears on Milwaukee political talk shows, and speaks at Americans for Prosperity events. I think he needs more visitors to help adjust his beliefs.
There’s a far better Wisconsin law and science blogger who’s covering the reality-based end of this news.
Holytape,
Isn’t handy that West Bend East and West are in the same school building so the normal ones don’t have to identify themselves. West Bend elects Glenn Grothman for the State Senate and James Sensenbrenner for the US House. If Michelle Bachmann were running, she would easily be elected. Sanity is not something voters in that town seem to care about.
steve – David Weigand’s Blogger Profile says he is a college dropout (one semester short of a degree) who was majoring in elementary ed.
John – I couldn’t tell from Owen’s column whether he thought that the case law is so clear that even the wingnuts wouldn’t waste taxpayer money on attempts to teach creationism or that he didn’t care about the constitution. If he thinks he did a thorough fisking of Mark Peterson’s column, I would have to conclude that he doesn’t understand the law, what ID/Creationism is or why it isn’t allowed in a science class.
I do not think ‘scientific data’ means what you think it means.
He had me at “the idea of millions of years.” Hilarious!
That last paragraph is just kook-sign, a symptom of religious derangement syndrome. I’ve found that people who reject the science of evolution also have a tendency to be avid denialists of all kinds of other science, from climate change to the HIV cause of AIDS.
You forgot the “Moon landing conspiracy” PZ, last week I was arguing with a believer about how the scientific evidence is better than their experience to know the truth about the existence of god, and he answer me “Ha! like the fake moon landing!”…
My response was my best exercise of self-control in my life.
Free Lunch, you are correct. Owen avoids stating his own position. He ridicules Mark Peterson’s column, then disingenuously avoids admitting that Weigand clearly does not believe in evolution and would prefer that “the truth” be taught about it, and it’s not far-fetched to assume that by “truth” he means his own belief that evolution isn’t true.
Owen says “which is why nobody but the like of Peterson are even talking about this issue” but a paragraph before, he was links to the candidate survey that was distributed by the Eagle Forum through book-burner Ginny Maziarka.
Owen also claims “Nobody, sans Peterson and some zealots, give a rat’s balls about whether or not we teach alternate forms of creation in West Bend’s schools in science class or elsewhere.” By “zealots” is he referring to the Eagle Forum?
At this post in 2005, Owen’s wife (for what it’s worth) states “Frankly, I don’t want creationism taught in school. I would love for there to be a single sentence in the science books that states that many people believe that the world was created by a larger being (you know, God). But I don’t want a teacher who doesn’t understand creation to present it to students. I was always taught—in public and private schools—that evolution was a theory. I don’t see anything wrong with that.”
But this isn’t about Owen and Wendy. It’s about Weigand and what he’d do if elected to the school board.
Where are all the atheist-buts to tell us this guy’s religious beliefs won’t necessarily affect his job performance?
Creationists frame science as “what you can observe for yourself,” and then interpret this in the most literal way possible. If you weren’t there, you can’t know what happened.
There are forms and disciplines of abstract thought and reasoning which apparently come very hard to some people: as soon as their emotions are aroused, they apply the default mechanism, and act as if they’re dealing with a social situation where different people are telling you different things about who said what to whom, so you are forced to trust someone’s word. And that’s what the other people must be doing, too.
West Bend isn’t far from me … but not in my voting district, so I don’t get the satisfaction of voting against this guy.
tsg –
Most of the time, religious beliefs are not used as an excuse to violate the law. Normally, people running for school board don’t talk about how they think that scientific theories are not scientific or that their religious doctrines are worthy of consideration.
Regarding the whole “the moon landing(s)were faked” thing;
Wasn’t it Fox that broadcast some nutbar show along these lines a few years ago? Wouldn’t it be considered somehow anti-Amarican to deny one of the United States’ greatest accomplishments? I could see this sort of thing if the Russians had landed humans on the moon first, but why would Fox piss on this American triumph of ingenuity, polotical will and technical virtuosity?
Not that Fox is logical or anything.
Just askin’.
@Free Lunch #31
I was being facetious.
“1. Origin studies, (whether Creation or evolution) and the idea of “millions of years” does not belong in the science classroom because these are not testable, repeatable or observable; they are philosophical and accepted by faith.”
Because all of the testing methods used by scientists aren’t actual tests. They are philosophical musings, formed by a band of merry conspirators out to ruin America and apple pie. Goodness.
Does this guy actually realize what the so-called Climategate emails actually say? Does he realize that even if Rush/Glenn’s allegations there were true (which they aren’t as far as I can tell) that you could look at the faith community and see a gabillion MORE examples of malfeasence? I mean, shoot, off the top of my head you have: Hovind (tax evasion), Haggard (hooking up with a male prostitute and using meth), Swaggert (similar deal), Comfort (just being a fool and smearing Origin with wildly dishonest nonsense), Falwell and Robertson (being pompous windbags with no sense of decency, though their own Lord tells them to), and most recently Roeder (who shot a guy in church mind you for performing legal medical procedures).
My points are these:
1. The dude has never even bothered to follow the relevant science, he’s just shooting off at the mouth.
2. HIS side has been guilty of MUCH worse offenses than the non-offenses of the non-conspirator climate scientists.
Please tell me this guy doesn’t have a shot, right?
Since I’m not in his district he cannot be my candidate for anything but, by golly, that does not lessen my admiration for his pure ass-hattedness. I wish we had wingnut ignoramuses of that caliber in our elections. I’ve missed the whimsical element that they provide.
@ 24
I stand corrected, but that’s still not exactly a point in Weigand’s favor, is it?
When I read this, I couldn’t help but summon to mind the MST3K episode where the team is watching some abysmal-quality science fiction film and one of the robots (can’t remember which) sarcastically quips:
“We have worm sign!”
Still learning,
Robert
“In a nutshell” indeed!
If you can’t use past events as evidence because they are past and not open to immediate inspection; doesn’t that leave the door open only to Last Tuesdayists?
And if faith is the only worthy basis on which to assemble a world view, isn’t my pantheon as valid as any creationists?
Jehovah created by
Larry the first meta-god created by
Moe the second meta-god created by
Curley
etc.
And the lord said, “Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk, you numbskulls!”
Still learning,
Robert
It does.
It also calls their whole religion into question.
Did jesus exist? Was he really crucified? Did he rise from the dead?
Were you there? Did anyone alive today actually see it?
We don’t even have any eyewitness accounts of any of the NT. The gospels were all written anonymously many decades after the fact by people who had never actually met jesus.
@39 Exactly the point. Its all belief and faith, the faitheists would like science on the same ‘footing’ as religious beliefs.
Not repeatable, testable or observable eh?
Are you going to take that from a man that is a matter of days old?
B
That’s actually not a bad way of putting it.
I had a terrible week trying to explain science to a relative of mine who prefers to ignore the advice of his doctor because somehow “he knows better.” It seems people really want to cling to their gut feelings about issues even in face of hard evidence. I get this sad feeling sometimes that the antiscience movement will gain so much traction it will be hard to have rational discussions with the average person. I hope we don’t take this lightly.
Reading this news about a “true believer” running for a school board in my home state really bums me out. It is nice to think all the kooks live in Kansas or Texas
This has been brewing in West Bend for some time. About 4-5 years ago there were parents petitioning the school board for a review of the curriculum, because there was too much evolution. They recommended a biology book by Merrill whose main distinction was its “least unfavorable” rating by Institute for Creation Research because it said the least about evolution. When Laurie and I reviewed textbooks for our article “Why Teach Evolution”, the Merrill text scored a 0 (out of 40) for inclusion of contemporary thinking about 10 concepts in evolutionary sciene (the average was about 8 and the best books close to 18). (books got a 1 for a mention and a 4 for a detailed explanation.)
The science department and administration were firm and united in opposition; and the school board stood its ground, despite a long, rambling, and poorly informed presentation by David Menton (who was in town on an AiG junket). Even after the loss, the parents kept coming to school and sitting in on classes, critiquing the lessons. Still, the school held firm; evolution is one of the fundamental themes in the WI state standards, which means that it is to be woven into ALL life sciences lessons; it is not a separate, pull-out unit (a fact that has confused critics and, IMHO, unjustly condemned WI’s treatment of evolution).
So, this is just another episode in the continuing saga of anti-evolutionism in Wisconsin. And it is everywhere!