Re: Speaking Of Kansas ...
From: art fougner, md (evsono@pipeline.com)
Tue Feb 13 20:11:42 2007
Dean
Someone heard you.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02/13/tech/main2472481.shtml
Art
At Tue, 13 Feb 2007, Dean Huffman . wrote:
>
>..
>
>NY Times
>
>http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/02/13/god-vs-evolution-in-kansas-again/
>
>God vs. Evolution in Kansas … Again
>
>By Tom Zeller Jr.
>
>Tags: culture, education, politics, religion, science
>
>Can't we all just get along?Evolution and religion are facing off in Kansas once
>again today, as the board of education there — for the fourth time in eight
>years — decides just what students should be taught about how things came to
>be.
>
>In 2005, conservative members of the board sent scientists reeling by developing
>teaching standards that questioned the validity of evolution and called it
>incompatible with religious doctrine.
>
>As a result of the 2005 action, Reuters noted today, both the National Academy
>of Sciences and the National Science Teachers Association refused requests from
>Kansas to use copyrighted material in the textbooks that the state was
>developing to teach the “new” curriculum.
>
>A more moderate board, elected in November [2006], is promising to overturn
>things today.
>
>The reigning philosophy has been something of a yo-yo over the last decade in
>Kansas. From Reuters:
>
>[S]ome were cheering the board's move to restore standards that anti-evolution
>forces rewrote in 1999, only to be followed with a rewrite by evolution
>supporters in 2001 and then the anti-evolution board in 2005.
>
>"I'm very much hoping that history repeats itself -- and the 2007 school board
>makes the right decision for Kansas students to restore the valid standards,"
>said National Center for Science Education executive director Eugenie Scott.
>
>"These are standards that reflect science, rather than a politicized curriculum
>that miseducates students."
>
>The repeated changes have left schools and teachers scrambling to keep up.
>Educators say some aspects of a curriculum change can usually be implemented by
>the next school year but some, such as buying new textbooks, can take years.
>
>Beyond the issue of evolution, an "intelligent design" group has also charged
>that the current Kansas board is trying to whitewash science history.Meanwhile,
>an odd sideshow has developed in the tug-of-war this year. The moderate Kansas
>board, in seeking to strike non-scientific parts of the science curriculum, has
>proposed chunks for excision on topics like the Nazis, early 20th century
>experiments in the forced sterilization of the mentally ill, and the infamous
>Tuskegee experiment of the 1930’s, in which black men with syphilis were
>falsely told they were being treated, so that scientists could study the
>ravages of the disease.
>
>Proponents of intelligent design, which says an "intelligent cause” is the best
>way of explaining the development of the universe, have charged that the Kansas
>board is now “whitewashing history."
>
>"It is only by studying these past abuses that students–our scientists of the
>future–can learn about the critical importance of science operating within
>ethical standards," said Dr. John West of the Discovery Institute, an
>intelligent design organization, in a press release.
>
>But the current board has countered that the passages on Nazis and syphilis were
>never in the science curriculum before they were added by the conservative 2005
>board.
>
>"That was never in the science standards until the intelligent designers
>inserted it," Steve Case [NOT the Steve Case from AOL], an associate director
>of the Center for Science Education at the University of Kansas, told the
>Associated Press. "Introducing that was just a way to get at their attack,
>'Scientific knowledge is bad.'"
--
art fougner, md
"May The Wings of Liberty Never Lose a Feather." - Jack Burton
