Worland WY to allow evolution (and creation) teaching | Billings Gazette

[Ediacara]

Worland to allow evolution teaching
Associated Press

WORLAND, Wyo. (AP) - School board members want theories other than evolution - such as creationism - taught in science classes and only sexual abstinence - not how to use contraceptives - taught in health classes.

The board voted this week to present the policy changes to the district's Policy Committee for consideration. More than 100 people attended the meeting.

The recommendation for sex education reads: "It shall be the policy of Washakie County School District No. 1, when teaching sex education, the curriculum shall be based on abstinence only."

Also endorsed was a recommendation for teaching biology: "It shall be the policy ... when teaching Darwin's theory of evolution that it is only a theory and not a fact. Teachers shall be allowed in a neutral and objective manner to introduce all scientific theories of origin, and the students may be allowed to discuss all aspects of controversy surrounding the lack of scientific evidence in support of the theory of evolution."

More at the Billings Gazette

[HereSince1628]

1. Don't throw your pearls in front of swine.

They tend to look on them as hominy...

If you ARE going to do this, you should substitute plastic...it passes through the intestines and emerges unaltered.

[Ediacara]

2. wha?

[Ediacara]

3. this is an interesting snippit

Kitsy Barnes, head of the high school science department, said Wyoming teachers are mandated by the state to teach the state science standards.

"Science teachers are prohibited from teaching creationism due to the Supreme Court ruling Edwards v. Aquillard, which states that teaching creation science is a religious idea and thus an illegal violation of the church-state separation.

"Science is a way of understanding the world, not a mountain of facts. Before anyone can truly understand scientific information, they must know how science works. Science does not prove anything absolutely - all scientific ideas are open to revision in the light of new evidence. The process of science, therefore, involves making educated guesses - hypotheses - that are then rigorously tested."

I suspect these new guidelines will be thrown out by the first court appealed to, and the wording war is just political posturing.

[Skittles]

4. isnt creationism already taught in Sunday schools

LEAVE IT THERE WHERE IT F***ING BELONGS

[tah]

5. creationism

> Teachers shall be allowed in a neutral and objective manner to >introduce all scientific theories of origin,

Well if they are only going to teach "scientific" theories that will exclude creationism.

[Ediacara]

6. ya... all scientific theories of origin

account to just one theory, evolution.

[Journeyman]

7. If creationism is to be taught as a "scientific theory". . .

then it should be treated as all scientific theories and discussion of it must proceed from the hypothesis that it may be incorrect. . .

[HereSince1628]

8. So what do you expect?

School boards and local communities think that the curriculum should be subject to democratic inputs.

Although science works by consensus that consensus is also based on critiques of the congruity of theoretical/interpretive conceptualizations and empirical reality.

Unfortunately, this is, by and large, a country illiterate about modern arguments concerning phylogeny.

The US is a place where three times as many people believe in the immaculate conception and virgin birth of Christ as believe in "evolution" (I think this means macroevolution, but it is possible that for some this also includes microevolution).

In this country when curricula are subjected to "democracy" you can be assured that ideology will trump empiricism. It is one of those awe-inspiring realities of democracy...irrational ideas can, and often do win more votes, than rational ideas.

[SharonAnn]

9. But they don't teach Virgin Birth and Immaculate Conception

except in religious schools. They don't teach in public schools.

[HereSince1628]

11. You can slam public education, but wherever the US gets irrational ideas

really doesn't matter.

When the majority believes it has the truth it will construct an environment that enforces its beliefs at times even if this means the misuse of "democratic" means to force the majoirty view down the throats of everyone else regardless of the veracity of said beliefs.

Democracy is a good thing in many (most?) societal endeavors, and one would expect that at any time the "current best understanding" would be held by a majority consensus of scientists, but majority opinion isn't a valid test of scientific value. It can't be relied upon to be the arbitor of empirical truth.

[schultzee]

10. congradulations to the fruit cakes and their downward evolution

back to the pre-science age. I am so sick of these nuts.

[TahitiNut]

12. Pitiful.

Rather than focus on the gift (theology of love, compassion, husbandry, generosity, community, and service), these cretins focus on the wrapping (parables and constructs provided as mere containers). Because they've insanely emphasized the specious anthropocentric notion that (contemporary) humans are themselves the very purpose of all else in G*d's creation (rather than a creature handicapped with the hallucination of some Other), they cannot mentally entertain that what we now see as humanity may not be what it evolves to at some time in the far future. After all, could Jesus some day ever be viewed as we now view Neaderthals? Thus, committed to inherited ignorance, they attack the acquisition of knowledge (opening the gift of Creation itself), and the evolution it may suggest. Like any shrewd market player, they hedge their bets by repeatedly predicting "end times" and Armageddon. Better to affirm the destruction humanity itself than even hint at a more evolved being as a part of the "Divine Plan" rather than the Sole and Ultimate Center of such a Plan. Hubris.

[Mal]

13. Added evidence for all I ever believed

about the scientific literacy and religious dogmatism of the common American, and is a reassuring sign for the future of your country.
Reassuring for me, that is.

[booksenkatz]

14. Great news

That means that they will be able to teach MY version of creationism that MY religion believes in. You see, I believe in the divinity of giant styrofoam grasshoppers, and I believe that the world came to exist after a very large grasshopper, Hoppy, belched fire and magma into a round ball he christened "Earth." In MY religion, the creation took 14 1/2 days as opposed to 7 in the Christian religion.

What, are you saying that my religion isn't a true religion? Are you saying that my religion is a "gutter religion?" Who is to say which religion is true and which is false? Is it the government's place to make such a decision, to tell me that the Christian religion is better than Styro-Hopperism?

My goodness, maybe it isn't the government's place to do that after all.

:o

[Skittles]

15. lol.....................patsified

I really did Laugh Out Loud ! :D