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Evolution in Canadian Schools

BTMO said:
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Like I said, it was the 1970s, it was the first time I'd really been exposed to the ideas and it was amusing rather than worrying. We were pretty cynical kids. The teacher involved was primarily the agricultural science teacher at the high school I was attending at the time. And it was one of the elective / enrichment type of topics rather than core science.

We'd never have considered complaining about it back then and to be fair (to him) he really didn't push it down our throats. It was more a case of "consider this". We did.

And then we decided he was wrong.

Had it had happened in biology or replaced real science, there'd have been an uproar, I suppose. Again, late 70s. Who knows...

;)
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That's pretty interesting. Actually the first place I'd ever even heard of "creationism" was around the time you did and it was from an Oblate Father I was learning about videotape editing from. He said it was all perfect nonsense. That was around the late Seventies, too. I don't think I've ever met anyone who took the Genesis stories as scientific.
 
BTMO said:
I spent 4 weeks in Calgary a couple of months ago. I quite liked it. It looked a LOT like a huge, outdoor gaybar during the Roundup (lots of very sparkly cowboy outfits...), but I genuinely like the place. I'd go back tomorrow.

:)
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The Calgary Stampede is more than a little bit camp.
 
D'rok said:
The Calgary Stampede is more than a little bit camp.
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Ah yes. Stampede, not Roundup. I realised the error too late to change it - and was just going to let it quietly slide.

It was actually a hell of a lot of fun. We went, we watched, we ate stampede food, we photographed mounties near horses, I put my hand up a fake cow's arse to see if it had a fake calf inside of it....

:D
 
I got it taught to me in grade 11 biology in Scarborough Ontario in 1984. It was taught very well by Mr. Gluck (awesome teacher BTW) as we looked at all the theories of how humans were here, for some reason this is a vivid memory for me.
 
"Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding; which have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not." Jeremiah. 5:21

"And have Google but use it not" Gord_in_Toronto. 1:1
 
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Is religion in schools supposed to be a no no in Canada??

gph said:
What Christianity makes of evolution is irrelevant to what is taught in Canadian schools.
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Is religion in schools supposed to be a no no in Canada??
 
My father was a Biology teacher for several decades. He taught in Alberta. I can confirm that evolution is part of the material taught, and there was NO mention of ID at all.

Personally, i wasn't even aware of ID until after I had finished High School.

Also, no nonsense about praying in school etc. No prayers were said, and I never heard a peep about it from anyone.

-PbFoot
 
PbFoot said:
Also, no nonsense about praying in school etc. No prayers were said, and I never heard a peep about it from anyone.

-PbFoot
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I have to disagree here. I went to elementary school in Southern Alberta and I remember two teachers who made their class recite the lords prayer every day after the National Anthem. We also learned about evolution and I too did not even really know about fundamentalism/creationism until I went to University.
 
Gord_in_Toronto said:
Funny. That's not what cows say.
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When I came to Canada, I tried to explain bags of milk to my relatives in the States. It was like that old (and I mean OLD) joke from vaudeville:

Hey, whatcha got in the bag?
Milk!
You can't cary milk in a BAG!
Cows do!

When they came to visit, they were befuddled about how to get the milk out of the bag. It never occurred to them to take milk from the PITCHER that was in the fridge. You know, "it's what you're used to."

As for public funding of religious education, Canada seems to me to be somewhat two-faced. (And my opinion, like the reactions to bags of milk, is in large part what I'm used to.) As it was explained to me, some Catholic schools have a sweetheart arrangement with the government, an arrangment that other religious schools want but can't get.

At the university level, secular status was part of the deal. In a recent story in the Waterloo Record, the story was told how Waterloo Lutheran University became Wilfred Laurier University:
Waterloo Lutheran University needed a new name.

The 62-year-old college was starving for public cash. To get it, the religion had to go, the province ruled. You want cash? Lose the Lutheran.
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Laurier (for those outside Canada who likely have never heard of him) was one of the most influential prime ministers in Canadian history. His image is on the Canadian $5 bill. And it was a very happy coincidence that, by changing the name from Waterloo Lutheran University to Wilfred Laurier University, the school could keep the initials WLU!
 
gph said:
At some point there won't be any time to teach anything but "the controversy". How much is too much introduction to woo? Where do you draw the line?
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To be fair to the creationists it does not take up much time to say 'god did it'.
 
Well here in rural new brunswick in the 90's we had the choice to take biology in high school where evolution was taught at least a little bit. I took it my sister didn't.

When I went to UNB I stayed a dorm where there was a guy taking a taeching degree after he got a degree in geography at U of T and it counted as a science degree and he didn't beleive in evolution. His big counter argument to anything I said was I am from Toronto and know better. Also heard this argument for using the rhythm method of conception from someone else. In the biology class the prof read off Genesis and then said well lets see what science has to say about it.
 
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