Arkansas more backwords than I thought

Just out of curiosity, is the evolution an issue in any European countries?
 
Perhaps you would like to correct your statement by saying that the Arkansas EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM, or those who run it, is/are more backwards than you thought. ;)

Be careful about pigeonholing all those people. You may need someone from AR to help you out someday.

Besides, the US educational system is failing anyway so none of that nonsense will stick. Right? ;)
 
Americans tend to make every irrelevant thing the mainstream political issue. It's a wonder we're still a country.

In local news, our state governor has gone on record as saying he thinks there is some truth in intelligent design and feels that it should be taught in schools. At least (so far) there is no movement to stricken a word from the scholastic lexicon!
 
IMO, there is a place for ID in public schools. It would be a great topic to discuss in civics and government classes, so the kids could talk about why these sort of things get traction, how curricula are determined, etc. Knowing how it gets decided what they're going to be taught is a good thing.

Now in private schools or a public school class about religionS (plural), no problem there. Discussing religions is a good thing. Indoctrinating is not. Drawing the line between discussion and indoctrination is even harder.

But science it ain't. I can think of quite a few ways you could discuss ID and its associated issues in a public school but teaching it as science is just wrong, even if we didn't have freedom of religion in this country.
 
RSLancastr said:
Arkan, it looks better, when talking about how "backwords" others are, to spell backwards correctly. :D
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Considering I posted pre-coffee this morning I'm surprised that's the only grammatical error. And since I can't edit the thread title there's no point in worrying about it now.
 
Red Siegfried said:
Perhaps you would like to correct your statement by saying that the Arkansas EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM, or those who run it, is/are more backwards than you thought. ;)

Be careful about pigeonholing all those people. You may need someone from AR to help you out someday.

Besides, the US educational system is failing anyway so none of that nonsense will stick. Right? ;)
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It's a public school. It's a reflection of the community and government where it resides. Show me where this is a minority making these decisions in AK and I'll consider revamping my statement.
 
You know, the pseudointellectual elitism on this board is really starting to get to me.

Just because you're a skeptic and an atheist doesn't mean you're better than other people, it just means you know something that they don't. But it's always easier to ridicule and group people than it is to try to change them, isn't it?

The level of discussion here has really gone down hill in the last year, IMO. I don't know, maybe I need to just start putting more of the skeptical bigots on ignore and take the bad with the good.

And there is a lot of good here.
 
Darat said:
There are a few pockets of this modern nonsense but nothing of significance. It is certainly not a mainstream political issue.
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not yet anyway. The indication seems to be that creationism is a growing force in the UK. And none of this ID nonsense, full on 6 day creationism.
 
Arkan_Wolfshade said:
It's a public school. It's a reflection of the community and government where it resides. Show me where this is a minority making these decisions in AK and I'll consider revamping my statement.
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Consider that the abbreviation for Arkansas is AR, not AK.

Consider that you're painting with a broad brush.

Consider that you're prejudiced, but then again, aren't we all in some way.

Consider that you don't seem to think that's a bad thing.

Consider that I have you on ignore; I don't have time for bigots.

And no, I'm from Wisconsin, not Arkansas.
 
Hmm, I grew up in small town Arkansas, and I don't recall talking about Evolution in Biology in highschool. But, I had a Student Teacher for half the year and didn't learn a damned thing.

WTF the point of that was, I have no idea. I would have much rather been taught Biology, rather then teach a student teacher.
 
Red Siegfried said:
Just because you're a skeptic and an atheist doesn't mean you're better than other people, it just means you know something that they don't. But it's always easier to ridicule and group people than it is to try to change them, isn't it?
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It's not my job to try and change people, sorry. I'm busy trying to change myself.
 
Red Siegfried said:
Perhaps you would like to correct your statement by saying that the Arkansas EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM, or those who run it, is/are more backwards than you thought. ;)
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Perhaps you would like to correct your statement by saying that the Arkansas educational system is just responding to the pressure being put on it by the people of Arkansas.

Perhaps you might also like to hear what the Governor of Arkansas, elected by the people of Arkansas, has to say about evolution:

I’m not familiar that they’re dodging it. Maybe they are. But I think schools also ought to be fair to all views. Because, frankly, Darwinism is not an established scientific fact. It is a theory of evolution, that’s why it’s called the theory of evolution. And I think that what I’d be concerned with is that it should be taught as one of the views that’s held by people. But it’s not the only view that’s held. And any time you teach one thing as that it’s the only thing, then I think that has a real problem to it. [source]
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Red Siegfried said:
Be careful about pigeonholing all those people.
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Are all the people of Arkansas are backwards? No, of course not. But apparently, based on the views of their elected officials and the amount of pressure being put on the educational system to not even mention the word "evolution" in science classes, the brush they're being painted with isn't quite as broad as you'd like to have us believe. And, as a result of this pressure, the children of Arkansas are getting a vastly inferior education with regards to evolution, so this situation is going to get worse, not better. So, even if this brush is rather broad now, it won't be in the future.
 
tsg said:
Perhaps you would like to correct your statement by saying that the Arkansas educational system is just responding to the pressure being put on it by the people of Arkansas.

Perhaps you might also like to hear what the Governor of Arkansas, elected by the people of Arkansas, has to say about evolution:

Are all the people of Arkansas are backwards? No, of course not. But apparently, based on the views of their elected officials and the amount of pressure being put on the educational system to not even mention the word "evolution" in science classes, the brush they're being painted with isn't quite as broad as you'd like to have us believe. And, as a result of this pressure, the children of Arkansas are getting a vastly inferior education with regards to evolution, so this situation is going to get worse, not better. So, even if this brush is rather broad now, it won't be in the future.
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That's the crux of the issue. We can't really get a very good idea of the political climate there from the news article. It certainly implies, given that those being hushed aren't bypassing the school officials and going higher up the education administration foodchain, that the issue is wider spread than a given school system.

I'd certainly like to think that Darat is correct in that this is not a mainstream standing in that state, but the cynic in me has its doubts.

Were my statements broadsweeping and biased? Sure, it was a rant, not an editorial for the paper, or a letter to someone in the school system in an effort to elicit change. Were there typographical/semantical errors? Sure, again it's a forum, not a published paper, and a typo is hardly equivalent to poor public policy.

Then again, someone will have to let me know if Sieg says anything worthwhile in reponse as I thought he did have a good idea, in adding him to my ignore list. (at least Huntster will have some company now)
 
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