Top home-school texts dismiss Darwin

Post Reply New Topic

Actually, the overwhelming majority of Conservatives including Tea Party Members agree with you and myself that the Bell Curve is a load of garbage.

Then that's something that good people on the left and right can agree on.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Willful ignorance is quite unattractive and the waste of a mind.

Religious beliefs are delusion and superstition.

Scientific inquiry is the only path that leads to some understanding of reality.

Even though I believe intelligence got some genetic components, those who talk about some races be smarter that other are simply justifying their racist mindset using bad science. There is a lot of environmental and cultural factors that explain the difference in the tests between "races" without having to talk about genetics difference. It's not because populations are differents genetically on some minor physical features that there is enough differences in the genetic of their brains to make them more or less intelligents that other populations.

Except for the fact that one of the reasons I think judging people by skin color is a load of bull, is actually because I'm a Christian and believe in God. So what if someone has a different colored skin from mine, they are still a human being.

Studies that poke fun at the disparities between different "ethnics" of the SAME RACE should be completely dismissed, as unless someone wants to fulfill an agenda or the sort, those kinds of research do not help science whatsoever or further its cause, nor do they have any positive practical use.

There's also a clear ethical component that should have been grave enough to deny funds if an ethics committee was responsible for giving them out.

There are sites on the internet that, while being good sources for anthropology, have idiots posting not only racist claptrap about non-Caucasians, but also delve into outdated pseudoscience that maintained that not all whites were even equal. Such theories maintained that the round headed alpine type Europeans were inferior to the long headed, lanky Nordics, and the broad faced, broad shouldered Faelids. Racist so-called scientists even tried to prove that there was some sort of intellectual and personality difference between what they termed European "races." Even though this idiocy had all been disproved, there are still people on those particular forums who readily buy into it.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

hrm, let me think back to grade school, hrm. let's see, i did get anything out of it other than how to do basic math and read. edit that, i learned how to read at home. then i went onto college and graduated with a high GPA. when i think back on it i realize that i could have skipped all of grade school and still have done that.

no, people need to be home schooled. that way they're parents can teach them something of actual use. does it really matter whether or not they believe in a certain religion? no. is the religion of Darwinism better than that of creationism or vice versa? i don't know. it's a matter of opinion. and why do they even have to be mutually exclusive? do the people arguing about these things even know that much about them?

maybe it would be better to avoid the issue entirely as it isn't even relevant to the lives of anyone other than a handful of scientists.

and why is this debate the one by which home schooling is judged?

knowledge is just ignorance refined.

rationalism and science both fail at their limits and both have things they can contribute to each other.

the failure of these things is not the problem.

the problem is that people on both sides do not realize their own hubris and ignorance.

the problem is that they're both idiots and wish to press their idiocy upon each other.

I tend to see Darwin as writing fascinating observations ( read the account of the aggressive Vinchuca bug!), but debatable conclusions. I believe he meant well, but his work is not the last word in anthropology. What's being dug up right now is what matters.
A parallel would be insisting that Thor Heyerdahl's books be put into science curriculums He was a wonderful explorer, his books are enthralling reading, but his key theories were wrong, disproved by mitochondrial DNA evidence. At one time, his books WERE the last word, as were Darwin's books. Their time has passed, as science, so has Darwin's. His value is that he started anthropology and observation of progression of change. His books are no longer textbooks, any more than Heyerdahl's. Second point: 'school' is not only what is formally taught or presented in the classroom, y'all are ignoring the human part of it. One of my male teachers once explained to my English class that 'There is no such thing as rape', I believe his terminology was 'you can't hit a moving target'; the boys laughed...the guy was serious. The sheer number of student/teacher sex, whether consensual, coerced, or forcible rape has to appall any parent. The bullying, racial and sexual harassment, weapons and drugs ALWAYS found in the schools is horrifying. I would either have a kid in Chriistian school or home schooled, simply because current public schools are dangerous cesspits, not necessarily because of disapproving of any 1 or 2 items on the curriculum . Sylkat...no, I don't have kids

Top home school texts also put down Copernicus. It clearly says in the Bible the Earth is unmoved.

ruveyn

I would think that that particular teacher was probably a one in a a million imbecile, and not representative of the whole teaching profession.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

How about the teacher that decided to play a classroom version of Survivor, and kick out an autistic kid and have each student insult said kid (if I remember correctly the boy was a kindergartner).

The truely autistic person, in that situation, would've refuted every insults / comments being made at him that was unjust or false, and would have countered with embarassing but accurate descriptions about others. ^.-

I'm unaware of that situation, but that teacher should have been fired that that heartless stunt.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

At the centre of this whole issue is a conservative evangelical doctrine that I call direct divine dictation:

Direct: No intermediary between God and the traditional author of the Biblical text, so nothing contaminates the teaching. This is useful polemically against Islam: A conservative evangelical can say that because to Koran was given to the Prophet through the archangel Gabriel, any teaching in the Koran is inevitably and irreparably contaminated by the personal biases of the archangel.

Divine: Perhaps the most important point in this discussion. The Bible is God's word neither because it is addressed to God nor because God is its central character (standard mainline Christian positions). Rather, the traditional perfections of God (including divine omniscience) guarantee that any clause in the Bible which purports to be a statement of fact actually is a statement of fact and must be read as a statement of fact. Otherwise, say conservative evangelicals, the Almighty Godself lied to his worshippers.

Dictation: With regard to the texts used by the translators of the King James Version (in conservative evangelical practice) or the "original autographs" of the Hebrew and Greek texts (where the KJV documents are challenged by outsiders), exactly those words and exactly that wording constitute the inspired text of the Bible. By inspired text, conservative evangelicals mean the sole text of the Bible that benefits from the the traditional perfections of God for the purposes of divine as presented previously.

Here's one consequence of this doctrine: If God created the universe during six days, as stated in Genesis chapter 1, any science that suggests otherwise suggests that God lied and is thus automatically wrong. Another consequence: Psalm 104:5 speaks of God "who laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be moved forever." As ruevyn correctly points out, "top home school texts also put down Copernicus." As far as conservative evangelicals are concerned, any suggestion that the Earth does not remain unmoved forever once again suggests that God lied to His worshippers.

Conservative evangelicals will say till they're blue in the face that mainline Christians refuse to see that Christianity depends on whether God lied to His people or not. If he ever lied to his people about Creation, or about the fact that the Earth is stationary, how can we trust God when the Bible speaks of Jesus?