Texas Public Charter Schools Are Teaching Creationism
Texas Public Charter Schools Are Teaching Creationism:
When public-school students enrolled in Texas largest charter program open their biology workbooks, they will read that the fossil record is sketchy. That evolution is dogma and an unproved theory with no experimental basis. They will be told that leading scientists dispute the mechanisms of evolution and the age of…
Do you know that wonderful scene at the end of The Verdict, when Frank is giving his summation to the jury? And he tells them the law is “not some book… not the lawyers… not the, a marble statue… or the trappings of the court. See those are just symbols of our desire to be just. They are… they are, in fact, a prayer: a fervent and a frightened prayer.”
It’s a little ironic that I’d think of that scene in connection with this story, since he was using a religious metaphor to make his point. But it was a good metaphor. I’m not sure whose it was: screenwriter David Mamet’s or novelist and lawyer Barry Reed’s. Hm. I should read the book, shouldn’t I? Then I’d know.
But to get back to the point: The public school system’s science classrooms, the test tubes and the chalkboards (whiteboards?) and the textbooks, are not the teaching of science. They’re a prayer, a fervent and frightened prayer, that the teaching of science will take place.
And the law is on its side, as Kitzmiller v. Dover made clear. But sometimes that isn’t enough. It takes people with faith: faith in justice, and in the truth, and in themselves. And a willingness to act.
Reposted from http://ift.tt/1at4mCJ.
Tags: creationism, science education, the verdict.
