Textbooks under siege in Louisiana

[Thorum]

And the USA Is supposed to be an advanced, rational society?

"Some proposed high school biology textbooks are under fire because critics say they put too much credibility in the theory of evolution," the Baton Rouge Advocate (November 9, 2010) reports (http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/106937789.html). Barbara Forrest, a professor of philosophy at Southeastern Louisiana University and a cofounder of the Louisiana Coalition for Science (http://lasciencecoalition.org/), charged that the criticisms were orchestrated by the Louisiana Family Forum, a religious right group with a long history of promoting creationism and attacking evolution education in the state. 'They had their people going through the books, writing up complaints and sending them,' Forrest said.

"'What has happened,' Forrest told the newspaper, 'is that the Louisiana Family Forum is attacking the process of textbook selection" in the hope of forcing disclaimers to be added to the textbooks (as in neighboring Alabama), requiring the revision of their treatment of evolution, or encouraging the use of supplemental classroom materials that dispute evolution. (In 2002, the LFF attempted to convince the state to include evolution disclaimers in biology textbooks, as Forrest noted (http://www.hammondstar.com/articles/2010/07/26/opinion/letters/9055.txt) in a July 26, 2010, letter to the editor of the Hammond Daily Star.) Moreover, several critics of the textbooks were reported to complain specifically that the textbooks under consideration lacked information about 'intelligent design'."

[Grey]

The Advocate is always such a depressing read (Very shitty newspaper, BTW). But I have noticed that, if not the majority, the more vocal Louisianians (of all races) are really annoyed at evolution being taught at school. Sometimes I feel like I'm on the planet of the apes down here.

[Magister Eckhart]

And the USA Is supposed to be an advanced, rational society?

"Some proposed high school biology textbooks are under fire because critics say they put too much credibility in the theory of evolution," the Baton Rouge Advocate (November 9, 2010) reports (http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/106937789.html). Barbara Forrest, a professor of philosophy at Southeastern Louisiana University and a cofounder of the Louisiana Coalition for Science (http://lasciencecoalition.org/), charged that the criticisms were orchestrated by the Louisiana Family Forum, a religious right group with a long history of promoting creationism and attacking evolution education in the state. 'They had their people going through the books, writing up complaints and sending them,' Forrest said.

"'What has happened,' Forrest told the newspaper, 'is that the Louisiana Family Forum is attacking the process of textbook selection" in the hope of forcing disclaimers to be added to the textbooks (as in neighboring Alabama), requiring the revision of their treatment of evolution, or encouraging the use of supplemental classroom materials that dispute evolution. (In 2002, the LFF attempted to convince the state to include evolution disclaimers in biology textbooks, as Forrest noted (http://www.hammondstar.com/articles/2010/07/26/opinion/letters/9055.txt) in a July 26, 2010, letter to the editor of the Hammond Daily Star.) Moreover, several critics of the textbooks were reported to complain specifically that the textbooks under consideration lacked information about 'intelligent design'."

No fan myself of Darwinism, I cannot help but feel like efforts like this are in fact doing more to advance belief in Darwinistic evolutionary processes than scientism ever could, simply because of how incredibly pig-headed and anti-intellectual these Christians are. If Intelligent Design were approached intelligently it might have value, but the fact of the matter is that it has become nothing more than a code word for Biblical Creationism and evangelical anti-intellectualism, for use by the Christian Right in their battles with the heretics.

Textbooks in this country do need a massive, far-reaching revision and replacement; not just science, but history, literature, language, geography (if that still exists), grammar, & al. These books simply do not serve the purpose for which they should be intended: educating the masses in a way that will maintain a stable society. After all, with only 20 per cent. of Americans holding Bachelor's Degrees, it is clear that the vast majority of students in school go on to live the life of proletarians (as they should; there should always be fewer on top and more on the bottom). This being the case, and recognising the pivotal role the mob can play in destroying nations and civilisations, it is absolutely necessary that they be educated in a way that will create a sense of unity and tradition, but also not encourage them to turn on the proper ruling caste of intellectuals and warriors.

Therefore, education in Darwinian scientism is certainly not going to sustain a society, but the anti-intellectualism of evangelical Christianity is no less a threat that needs to be expunged from our nation.

[Aemma]

No fan myself of Darwinism.

May I ask why, out of curiosity? :)

[Magister Eckhart]

May I ask why, out of curiosity? :)

The spiritual ramifications of Darwinistic evolution are a rejection of epoch-making events and the presence of destiny and myth which form the core of a vibrant, living culture. Darwinism is a mark of the crystallisation of our vibrant and living culture into a dead and decaying civilization, and will eventually destroy us by denying human life any higher purpose.

It is not the denial of the Christian God, but the denial of any sort of Great Driving Force and of anything but the aloof scientific "god" watching a gradual development of animals running about on the Earth's surface and doing animal things. It has, as scientism in general has, denied Western man of his soul, and turned him into alternatively a mere beast or a machine. In this way, Darwinistic scientism has played a central role in the absence of great heroes in the West in the ages subsequent to The Origin of Species. All of our contemporary "Great Men" represent a senile, pacifistic drive, and even these come not from the bosom of the Occident, but from foreign places: the Indian Gandhi, the Negro King, the Mongoloid Guevara. The Occident no longer produces great men because it no longer has a soul: atheism, scientism, and their progenitor Darwinism have killed it.

[Psychonaut]

If Intelligent Design were approached intelligently it might have value...

I agree, but the only way to do that is to ask meta-scientific questions which are far outside the domain of a high school science classroom. There are more than a few variants of panentheism and panpsychism that posit models of a self-determining universe which is, being a subject, the source of its own telos; this fulfills the Intelligent Design drive to treat cosmology teleologically, but doesn't do so in a crass way that posits a telos imbuing subject who is external to the cosmos. But, all of this is so far outside what these Young Earth Creationists are talking about that it hardly bears comparison.

[Loddfafner]

Darwin's theory is simply a mechanism for the modification and differentiation of species through natural selection, implying common ancestry. As a theory, it has been strengthened beyond all reasonable doubt by biological and geological research. It has no bearing whatsoever on spirituality one way or another. It neither needs nor precludes it.

Darwinism as a metaphor for human processes that take place more rapidly than natural selection is a different concept altogether, and should not be confused with Darwin's actual theory. The array of metaphors that one might call Darwinism have no more place in a biology class than intelligent design: the questions they raise are distractions and obstacles in basic science education though they do have their place in the humanities and, arguably, the social sciences.