Scrape off those stickers! AP reports that a judge has ruled that those goofy "Evolution is just a theory" stickers must be taken off of textbooks in Georgia. Now, how about those "Continental drift is just a theory" stickers on the geology textbooks?
More like this
Things are very busy here at the AAAS Annual Meeting, so much so that I haven't had a chance to sit at a computer and write anything. Hopefully, if I get some time together tomorrow, I'll blog on a session on grassroots activism and science education. For now, I'll just note the following:
Eugenie…
When I first heard about an attack ad in Alabama charging that gubernatorial candidate Bradley Byrne was in favor of evolution, I didn't even bother blogging it. Of course Roy Moore â famously removed from the state judiciary for unconstitutionally forcing religious symbols into public places â…
The AP has a story about the string of problems Georgia has had with evolution recently and how it has hurt people's view of the state:
First, Georgia's education chief tried to take the word "evolution" out of the state's science curriculum. Now a suburban Atlanta county is in federal court over…
Casey Luskin, intrepid Upchucky also-ran, is aflutter. Last week's New York Times story about creationists and global warming deniers partnering up has the whole Disco. 'Tute in something of a tizzy, but Casey's outrage is of a special sort.
Casey, you see, thinks the the Times misdescribed Selman…
The stickers are absurd in that it presumes an incorrect meaning and status of the word "theory".
This is the real problem to me. I would hope that anybody reading a well-informed book about such subjects would revise their notion on "theory", if they had held the more popular notion that "theory" merely suggests an explanation of phenomenon and in no way means scientific "fact"
If there is to be a sticker let it explain what "theory" itself means. People need education, not beliefs thrust on to them.
Mr. Sylva is correct. Some of my Cobb County neighbors don't know because they don't want to know. You can take it to the bank that the Bible literalists look at this as a temporary setback and you haven't heard the last from them, yet. Their attitude is, "a loud argument beats the facts any time!"
I don't have as much of a problem with the stickers as scientifically incorrect textbooks. Any kid with more than a room temperature IQ will see the sticker message as bogus. An textbook based on quackery like ID or incorrect science is much more difficult to deal with...
I disagree that intelligent people will always see through such things. When everyone around you is utterly convinced of something, it is *extremely* difficult to have contradictory beliefs--and worse yet, beliefs that those around you think make you immoral. I have a friend here at Stanford who is above average even for a student here, who was a Creationist until quite recently. It is very important that we take such pressures in education seriously, even if it seems like no one could possibly believe them.
(Sorry about the invalid email address, I hate spambots)