This is a map of all the American schools that are officially teaching creationism with the full permission of the state educational system, either through voucher programs or state laws that allow nonsense to be taught (Louisiana and Tennessee stand out as gangrenous spots, don't they?).
It minimizes the problem. Minnesota looks pure and clean, but that's because our laws expressly forbid teaching creationism here…but that doesn't mean that it isn't snuck under the table. About a quarter of our teachers give instruction in creationism without state endorsement.
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I think you should change the colors of the dots. … Green has some connotations of good healthy living for the environmentally concerned.
I just do not want any one to be touched with a subliminally good feeling looking at that gaping wound in the body of the U.S.A.
Also on the colour (On a lighter note- but it makes my blood boil too that they are getting away with it) I'm colour blind and the graphic looks like the Ishihara Colour Test! Sure I spotted a 666 in there somewhere!
So much unconstitutionality!
PZ didn't make the map. The link under the map leads to the source.
The colours are entirely segregated by state. Only Louisiana and Tennessee are green, and every dot in them is; Texas and Arkansas are red; the others are orange (Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Oklahoma, Georgia, Florida, Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, and what may be Maryland or DC).
I understand the uproar about teaching creationism in public schools without permission, but what if there is a type of permission?
For example: what if the children would be sent home with permission slips before-hand, would you still have a problem with this?
if so, why?
@David Marjanović
They were just joking - Sarcasm
Jonathan - That's fine if I as a resident paying property taxes am sent a permission slip so that I can specify whether or not I want my tax dollars to be used to indoctrinate my state's students into an extreme form of a religion to which I do not belong. (I say an extreme form because many Christians do not feel that they are obliged to believe in creationism.) I do not have any kids in public school, but I have the potential to be harmed, scientifically or perhaps one day personally, if my state's children are taught to revile those who do secular science.
Parents and/or administrators can also pressure teachers to minimize or ignore evolution, which really is just as goddamned bad.
I know you have no control over the map, but I have read that Wisconsin should have a few red dots, too. Friends in Madison are complaining about creationist charter schools.
I also have my doubts about some counties here in California.
About the permission slips, if those would be a "Yes"" or "No" choice ..."Yes" meaning you want your kid to be taught creationism ... what happens to the kids whose parents choose "No"? In many parts of the country they would be a minority, and vulnerable to bullying...and worse. Just removing them from the classroom during the lesson makes them targets.
I must admit I'm shocked by the density of Creation Color in Tenn. & Lous.! I attended public schools growing up and Creationism was mentioned as a theory, but Science / Evolution was STUDIED.
@SCaliff: You shouldn't be. TN and LA currently allow the teaching of creationism in public schools; therefore, every public school in those states gets a green dot.
This is not the first time Louisiana has tried to pull this kind of thing. There was a similar law passed in the 1980s, which was slapped down hard by the federal courts. The relevant ruling stated, in so many words, that creationism is not science. Therefore, your schools were wrong to present creationism as a theory. Creationism makes no falsifiable predictions, and the young-earth variations further require large chunks of physics, astronomy, chemistry, and biology to be wrong.
interetsing correlation: http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/07/09/study-people-tweet-more-about-…
Tennessee looks no different in 2014 than it did in 1925. I wish H. L. Mencken was alive to further add his vitriolic bombast to this sorry state of religion drenched morons. Our great country is being mired in religious insanity at the sanctioned hands of the idiots in charge. And they all reap the benefits and reason of science. If there was just some way to deny them this adjunct to their insuffrable existence and have them rely on their non-existent god for their insane withal. Brain dead by religion, but not dead as they so deserve.
Sure ok, lets teach the controversy, so long as we teach them all! Flat Earth, Demons cause disease, reptoid royals, chemtrails, fake moon landing, xenu and the thetans, and so forth: http://controversy.wearscience.com
Perhaps Natural Selection will correct this problem. What we need is another pandemic. Here is a Canadian perspective:
http://m.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/health/the-vaccina…