creationists R us

[frobzwiththingz]

a recent entry in n0ire's lj (about a bill in committee in in Florida) got me wondering yet again about the whole "Evolution-vs-Creationism-in-the-Schools" issue that this country can't seem to get rid of. Every time i hear about another fundamentalist press to get Creationism taught side by side with evolutionist theory it's invariably accompanied by an equal or greater group of scared secularists screaming "NFW" from the other side of the fence. And they've won, so far, but it seems that the battle never goes away. Each time i see it i become more convinced that the only way to get rid of the creationists once and for all is to Let Them In.

If I were a science teacher in the public schools, I'd be perfectly happy to allow one of those folk time in my classroom to explain their theory. I mean, really, how much time would it take? How long can it possibly take to let them read Genesis 1:1-31? Put it in ascii and it's less than 5Kbytes. There's more than enough wasted time in any high school science class to burn a day letting a creationist state their case in front of my students. I say go for it. Here's what i see as a one possible result:

Me: "Today we have a special guest lecturer, Mr. Fun D. Mentalist from the Institute for Creationist Research. We've agreed to let them send a representative of their research group come in and explain to you how the Earth and the universe was created. Please give Mr. Mentalist your full attention and respect. Thank you. Why don't we just delve right in: Mr. Mentalist, how did we come to be here today? How was the earth created?"

FDM: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." (Genesis 1:1)
[insert Genesis 1: 2-19 here. no need to quote it to you all.]

[silence]

Me: "Um, OK. what about all those plants and animals? how did they get there?"

FDM: [insert Genesis 1:20-31 here]

(By this point we might have taken up a whole 15 minutes. Horrors.)

Me: Wow. Thats pretty awesome. How did he do it?

FDM: [blank stare] "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth."

Me: I didn't ask you *what* he did. I asked you *how* he did it. Since you're the guest lecturer today, we're willing to take *what* he did as a matter of faith. We're interested in the details. I had to pull a lot of strings with the school committee to let you speak here. In fact, they thought i was a bit nuts. But in the interest of Truth, all alternate explanations of how the universe was formed really should be examined. So please, tell us. how did God create the earth and the creatures on it?

FDM: [more blank stares]

Me: Did he use power tools? Advanced nanotech? Something else? Did he watch reruns of "This Old House"?

FDM: You really shouldn't be so disrepectful.

Me: Sorry. I'll rephrase that. Does your scripture give you any clues as to how God accomplished those seemingly miraculous tasks?

FDM: Um, no.

Me: Don't you want to know? We scientists do.

FDM: It was not meant for us mortals to understand such things.

Me: Um, actually it was. The ability to seek out such knowledge was freely offered to us. The price for gaining that was to become mortal. And possibly understand far more than we really wanted to [Genesis 2:16]. And, according to your doctrine, that decision was made for us quite a while ago [Genesis 3:1-6]. I dont have a time machine, and thus i cannot go back and vomit up that fruit.
Mr. Mentalism, this is a science class. it's entire point is to figure out how the universe works and how it got there. If you have any information that could help us out, we'd really like to have it. I was really hoping you had some divine revelation for us; some *big clue* we havent dug up yet. If you would rather argue whether we *should* be trying to figure out how it was done, I can arrange some time for you to speak in Mr Hartley's "Religion and Ethics" class down the hall. Would you like that?

FDM: [more blank stares.]

Etc. Honestly, i can't see Mr. Fun D. Mentalist getting any better result than this, and i dont understand why the secularist folk are afraid to let it happen.

Comments

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

it's that they don't want "a day". they want equal time at least. repetition is the key to learning, and you can repeat a whole lot of genesis a whole lot of times in the same time it takes to teach, say, the second-messenger-protein dance.

[frobzwiththingz.livejournal.com]

to which i still say, What The Heck. Let them. One of three things will happen:

a) Mr FDM will be reduced to a filibustering fool, in the eyes of even the most devout Roman Catholic student, as he continues to repeat Genesis 1:1-31 over and over (and over... and over...) in response to my previous days lecture on vector operations, or

b) He will be forced to start openly teaching *religion*, which is precisely what they are claiming that they aren't going to do.

c) He'll actually try to use lame arguments against the evolutionary record, which is a perfect way to examine what the current record *is*, what it's current holes are, and why it is currently the best model for what we see out there.

Any of these helps us.

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

it's not that it wouldn't work, though i'm not sure about that, not having seen the curriculum (and remembering always that repetition is the key to learning).

it's that it takes up time, and it's not like students' time, attention, or interest is a limitless resource. i remember being pissed off because i had to take (among other things) social studies, algebra, mishna, and sewing -- i can't imagine how much more of a toll it would have taken on my respect for and willingness to participate in the school process if i'd had to take creationism as well.

[frobzwiththingz.livejournal.com]

i do agree with you there. But the real point i have is that "creationism" really doesnt take long to explain. I'll give FDM equal time if he can actually show to the school board that there
would be "creationism" content to fill it. As a Math teacher, i couldnt get away with taking 6 months to explain, say, vector addition. A curriculum like that wouldn't get approved. I see nothing wrong with letting FDM have the same sort of curriculum standards applied to whatever they want to say, and i dont see them really getting much time approved on that basis.

[frobzwiththingz.livejournal.com]

remembering always that repetition is the key to learning
In math terms, i'd say that condition is "necessary but not sufficient". there are certainly cases where repetition isn't enough. How about "Just Say No to Drugs" as one such case?

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

it's not that you *believe* it. otoh, i must point out that you do in fact *remember* it.

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

*shrug* on that basis, they've already been found to be worth no time whatsoever.

[marmota.livejournal.com]

There is also a fun d. mental idealogical difference about what 'education' is. You're talking about teaching children how to ask questions and think for themselves. What they want is rote memorization and teaching children to shut up and think what they're told. Sadly, their view IS more in line with how the public school system is envisioned as a tool for turning out passive drones, not activists... which is why they keep seeing the battle as winnable, and why it keeps coming up over and over again. Dig deeper, you haven't hit the roots of the problem yet?

[marmota.livejournal.com]

*grumble*grumble*proofread before hitting send*grumblegrumble* ideOlogical.

[deguspice.livejournal.com]

I wonder how the Christian Right would respond if a school board said "we'd be happy to have you come in and talk about the Christian view of how the World came to be. We'll just need to squeeze you in with the other major religions."

[noire.livejournal.com]

I love your version. Don't I just *wish.*

[lightfixer.livejournal.com]

LOL that was great :)

[infinitehotel.livejournal.com]

The thing that makes me nervous about opening that particular door is once you open it, you ain't getting it shut again.

There's an awful lot of money floating around the fun.d camp and while they're frequently portrayed as as redneck morons, they're smart enough to ally with various other factions of the right and trade off agendas to get what they want. So what does the school do when Fun.D (who now has equal time) says

Hey, your schoolbooks are rotting. Here's ours! Free! Teach from it, and it's yours. Now the creationism section is a lot longer and we've carefully gone through and stripped most of the major talking points out of evolutionary theory, but surely it's better than no book at all...Right?

Plus, there's that whole separation of church and state thing, which, overall just seems like a pretty nifty idea.

[frobzwiththingz.livejournal.com]

Now the creationism section is a lot longer
What could they put in that section to make it longer, that woudn't expose them as clearly teaching religion? They only have 2 places to go, given that they have *no alternate model* beyond "God did it"; criticizing the current evolutionary model (which, unfortunately for them, requires *discussing* it), or going off into bible study.

but surely it's better than no book at all...Right?
If the content of the book is really that bad, then
"Thank you for the kind offer, but actually, no book at all really is better."

[rmd.livejournal.com]

it's a lovely converstaion. i would love to see that happen, actually. unfortunately, they don't just want a chance, or even equal time -- they want to punt evolution from the classroom and install only their version, from all of their stuff i've read.

"Thank you for the kind offer, but actually, no book at all really is better."

this is why they're working to get people on school committees so they can control what books get bought. the state of texas, since it orders books statewide rather than individual school districts in the state doing so, has *huge* pull with the publishers, for instance.

[whitebird.livejournal.com]

Yes, and books country-wide have been dumbed down because of that.