1. Wait till AFTER the 2012 rave settles down. Even though people claim to not believe in it, they still play the "what if" card just in case Santa comes to town. People might be more willing after this fear is relieved and they understand how silly it was. 2. Alternative Community Outlets. ALLOT of people don't care for the truth per se, they simply want friends, relationships and support groups. It's easy to find this with religion and not be rejected (if your willing to sell your soul). People are often ignorant for the sake of family and friends. 3. A worthy cause. some people want an excuse to stand up for something that gets them out of their seat. 4. Baby Steps. Attacking this head on will push people to make even more argument rather than discovery. Creationism is actually progress, if you look at it in the right light. It's from the children that are born and chained into a religious family and while carrying that family with them, these children are also reaching for the stars. It's a better kids story than we had the day before, if you know what i mean.
At one time not so long ago that idea would have been considered unfathomable but when it is looked at in the light of burgeoning education costs and the declining quality of education in public schools today it is a proposal with some merit. At least in terms of simple cost per student versus test scores, which currently favors private schools by a more than insignificant margin. But ..... public schools offer one vitally important aspect to a society that any given private school may or may not offer: policies derived from multicultural considerations. You may word this differently, but the point is that no one can accurately predict how a society segmented into what are effectively isolated socioeconomic or culturally aligned groups by privatizing its educational system in this manner, would conduct itself.
Is this thread about creationism, or about creating a theocracy. It seems like a monumental leap to go from one to the other, specially when you put the word "But" next to a worthy ideal like freedom of expression. I believe McCarthy used some verys similar wording as he drummed up support for dealing with the "Red" threat. These types of statements are littered throughout this thread. Like their right of religious expression? What rights are they exactly ignoring? I would be curious to know exactly what evidence you have that shows the creationists have been at all successful over the last 25 years, or that such success can be proven to be causal in the failure of our science students. Just a few weeks ago, I attended an event where Eugenie Scott spoke, a crusader on this particular issue. According to her, the creationists have been losing this war for a very long time, though they never stop trying to get ID into the text books. Can we as first world societies, continue to carry the dead weight of people who refuse to work beause our social safety nets subbordinate and encourage lethargy? Carrying the weight of free speech is part of our constitution. Carrying the weight of a welfare nation is not. What percent would you find reasonable? 90%? 80%? Or is that the amount you would attribute to anti-science religious beliefs. Our textbooks and schools are gradually being purged of all things religious, including christmas, yet our school years and classroom hours get shorter, the vacations get longer, the tests get watered down, and the need to deliver results as a teacher has all but disappeared. Let me answer based on the assumption you aren't trying to you be dismissive based on some narrow definition of socialism. What I am referring to is the way Unions, and more specifically, government unions, consider employment a right, as if it was some sort of social safety net. Employment is not a right. Employment and advancement need to be based on merit, not on time served. Teachers unions across this country, and speciicially in California have put their "right" to employment ahead of our children's right to receive a decent product for their tax dollers. Their right to employment comes ahead of our right to fire them for failure or even inappropriate behavior. When standardized test scores all come back lower and lower, they tell us that tests do not indicate the success or failure of their teaching skills. Nothing can be put ahead of their right to employment. Darn. I was really hoping you would show me your halls of power. I guess I'm not one of the special people. This quote makes me think I went to far in lending you the benefit of the doubt regarding where you are trying to take this conversation. Derailing a conversation to argue over the exact definition of the word "socialism" while offering up a red herring to cover up the failings of our socialized education system, and its socialist caretakers in the public employee unions is a standard left wing tactic which I view with the same disdain I have for someone handing me a bowl of feces and trying to tell me it is chocolate cake. If you truly want to argue over the definition of Socialism, I would direct you to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism. There you will find a myriad of definitions and explanations, with context for each. Its a conversation that really doesn't even need my input. I'm not for eliminating public schools, but I do think they will have to be completely dismantled, institutionally speaking, to be fixed. I can't see how we can fix what we have without first firing everyone involved. And here there are facts it seems we can both agree on. I have to ask, in your opinion, how much of that is due to a creationist agenda, and how much of that is due to teachers unions? The answer seems obvious. Many, if not most people in America, would call that another handicap for the public schools. Striving to be multi-racial or multi-ethnic is one thing. Striving to be multi-cultural many would call suicidal. The US department of education wasn't formed until 1979, coinciding with the serious decline in quality of education in the US. One could argue that America has a century and a half of data to show exactly what such a system would produce. I'm still not for it. By the way, you never answered my question.
Sorry man, I just don't have time to respond to such a lengthy post but I will say the following: Not once in this thread have I stated that the creationist agenda is the only problem faced by North American schools systems. Threads such as this will wander off topic but after introducing so many unrelated topics yourself do you really have an objection? You may want to read my comment concerning socialism again, I though I clearly stated that I was not going to jump to any conclusions until you had a chance to clarify. As for your imagined objection to my use of a caveat after stating that I felt that freedom of religious expression was a worthy ideal, just suffice it to say that you missed the point on that one. Really, all US schools were privatized prior to that date? That is what you are implying with this comment but we do agree on the slippery slope school boards can find themselves on if they attempt to accommodate all cultures but unfortunately that wasn't the point I was making. The point was that public schools by virtue of their open admission quite often provide students an exposure to other cultural perspectives, affording young minds the opportunity to develop the inter social skills necessary for life in a diverse society. Private schools by virtue of their selective admission process may or may not provide this opportunity. As for the creationist agenda not being successful? Are you not aware that an often quoted study suggests that nearly 50% of the US populace believes in the validity of creationism over evolution and that those results are entirely unique to the US? No other first world nation comes close to those numbers. How can that be considered failure? . . . creationists may not have met all of their goals in terms of imposing intelligent design on all targeted school curriculum but they will continue to hammer away. That is all the time I have: Interesting links: HERE and HERE
No, in fairness you haven't. This is where I repeat my position that the creationist agenda isn't even in the running for title of serious problem, and I have yet to see you present any facts that substantiate the idea that it is. I didn't feel my comments were unrelated. Perhaps an offhanded dismissal of my points as unrelated is why your opinion remains unchanged. You didn't press the definition issue so I'll take you at your word that it wasn't a derail. I can agree that the socialist threat is overused, perhaps as overused as the creationist threat. Perhaps I am turning into Glenn Beck. You watch enough news, you start to see the devil popping up in most news articles and posts. I will say this. Watching Eugenie Scott dismantle the most seemingly innocuous wording in text books as pro-creationist tells me I'm not the only one who sees a threat in seemingly benign offhanded remarks. I don't see religious freedom of speech has having any caveats, so long as aren't calling for violence against someone. Elvis lives, is your savior, and will be collecting souls in a flying coup d'ville 5 years from now. Good fodder for the comedy circle as well. They weren't, but our public education system didn't appear overnight. Locally controlled public education and private schools, but nothing like what we have today. And yet if we did away with public education, which again I don't support, there would have to be enough private schools to cover everyone. Hard to call that overly selective, but I would agree that people of shared backgrounds would school together. It might look something like the demographic maps of the US, which already show people of shared ethnicity live together. Not sure why it would be all that impacting. How can it be considered a success? For that matter, what does it have to do with public schools, other than perhaps a failure of our teachers unions to do their job. Another stat which is entirely unique to the US among industrialized nations is the high percentage of religious people. 74% Christian if I recall correctly. Had you stopped to consider that people are picking up their creationist dogma at church, and our public school teachers just suck? Regarding the "damage" being done at our churches, mosques, and synagogues, those people attend of their own free will. Nobody is forcing them to be indoctrinated with intelligent design. I'm hard pressed to call it worse than the idiocy being poured into the heads of people who watch tv 6 hours a day, with little or no moral or parental guidance to shape them into decent people. Church may not be the only source of morals, but it seems that many people without church replace their moral guide with..... nothing at all.
I took a few minutes to check out the link you provided and found the article rather interesting. The text book being reviewed and the fairly balanced editorial comments of the article's author; I feel are an illustration of some of what the "creationist problem" encompasses.
Well...After a brief review of this area of the Forum, I have concluded NEVER to come back here again...There is a tremendous amount to anger and hate in these comments.
Really, you see a tremendous amount of anger and hate in a relatively benign thread such as this one? There is no denying that discussions of politics and religion in a public forum generally tend to inflame passions and more often than not will act as a venue for those wanting to belittle opinions divergent to their own but there is one undeniable value to these types of discussions: Human beings tend to instinctively gravitate towards those of like mind, subsequently most of us live our lives predominantly influenced by people of similar ideology and belief systems to our own. A venue such as this affords a glimpse into the minds of those who may not think as we do, for better or worse. Admittedly it is necessary to develop a cyber skin to deflect that which we may find objectionable and beyond this insight into the thought processes of others, little else is accomplished but that in itself can be an important avenue of personal growth for some.