Online Creationist Textbook Proposed In Texas

[n2doc]

— By Josh Harkinson| Wed May. 11, 2011 4:08 AM PDT

An online biology textbook up for approval by the Texas State Board of Education is drawing fire from scientific and education groups for tacitly pushing creationism. Created by the obscure, New Mexico-based International Databases LLC, the textbook seeks to justify the existence of a higher being while avoiding direct mention of God or the Bible. The Texas Freedom Network, which monitors the religious right in Texas, said in a press release that its adoption by the SBOE would be "a shocking leap backward."

The textbook's "Origin of Life" chapter details lab experiments that have failed to create life from inorganic materials, concluding that there is a huge gap between "life" and "non-life" (as crudely illustrated in the photo at right). But from there it makes the considerable leap that biological explanations for the origin of life are discredited. "he legitimate scientific hypothesis," it argues, is that "life on Earth is the result of intelligent causes."

The notes to teachers accompanying the chapter leave little doubt that pushing a belief in God is the ultimate goal.

more

http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2011/05/online-creationist-textbook-proposed-texas

[hatrack]

1. Ironic, isn't it? You'd think it would be written on papyrus scrolls in blackberry juice . . .

But no! It's online, with lots and lots of tech-nah-luh-gee.

:eyes:

[Fumesucker]

5. Pretty close to my own thoughts..

I was thinking cuneiform on clay tablets..

[benld74]

2. Oh, Anonymous???? Come Hither please?????

[Angry Dragon]

3. The force be with you

[callous taoboy]

4. International Databases initials are I.D. = Intelligent Design

Dover, PA ruling will squash this like a bug, hopefully. Why do these ignoramuses think that being a continual nuisance is going to make us all God-happy. Quite the opposite is happening, in my opinion.

[DetlefK]

6. Stanley Miller produced amino-acids from non-life in 1953...

H2, H20, NH3, CH4 boiled up into vapor, some lightnings to get electrochemical reactions going, condensate back into liquid. Keep going for some hours, et voilà.

Question: Are viruses life or non-life? There is such a HUGE gap...

[gtar100]

7. "We haven't discovered the answer. We have made some experiments that fail. Therefore...

God exists and the Bible is all true." Heck, sound reasoning any conservative fundamentalist can sign on to. No flaws in that logic.

[Thor_MN]

8. Doesn't need much of a site to say "BuyBull says so."

[sakabatou]

9. How many gaps can they hide their god in?