Not long ago, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal received praise for a speech after the Republican defeat warning fellow Republicans that, if they want to win again, “We’ve got to stop being the stupid party.” He seems to have forgotten that particular reform in comments this week supporting the teaching of both creationism and intelligent design in public schools as part of teaching “the best science.”
Jindal has joined other GOP leaders in treating creationism as a science. He insisted: “Bottom line, at the end of the day, we want our kids to be exposed to the best facts. Let’s teach them about the big bang theory, let’s teach them about evolution – I’ve got no problem if a school board, a local school board, says we want to teach our kids about creationism, that people, some people, have these beliefs as well, let’s teach them about ‘intelligent design.’”
He asked “What are we scared of?” Well, Governor, we are afraid that in the midst of widespread failing schools and dropping science scores, we will be now teaching religion as science.
Source: Salon
Brian Harris. et al.: I knew what Professional Engineer and the initials were. But I was not sure. Be careful with the dogma word. We had a long dialogue on here about dogma and dogpaw for that matter. I know too about the Stockholm effect. Back in the days when I was a human in a prior life I ran with three Swedish girls in Egypt and later in Amsterdam. I tell you, three in one night can have an effect on anyone. They were from Stockholm and tried not to act like it. We got down to the fundamentals, like you mention above, but they did not seem to traumatize me in the least. Of course we kept the religion out of it. The Swedish woman’s traumatizing effect had to involve the parting of the waters when we got to the Red Sea. One of the three, who will remain nameless, parted the waters with a waive of the hand. None of the rest of us went in because we thought we would drown in an Egyption Second. We thus avoided doctrinaire, fundamentalism, dogmatic experiences of the third kind. And your advice about the Utube, and doctor scary, should be well taken by others.
Elaine,
I just read one of your school articles (Driving Forces). Very interesting.
In my county (in New Jersey) there is something of a taxpayer move to stop charter schools because they would be “boutique” schools that take money from the public schools but take so few students that the public schools couldn’t make any economies of scale. I’m conflicted about that because I can see where really motivated parents in this area would have a sincere and reasonable desire to have a non-private local option. The local high school is 3,000 kids; it was just awful. My daughter hated high school. The school does very well on test scores but its a pretty affluent suburb so thats to be expected.
To nom de plume CNEyeDog:
The word, “doctor,” as in doctor of philosophy in bioengineering, is a Latin word, derived, so it has been said, from the Latin verb, “docere,” meaning, auf Englische, “to teach.” This, a “doctor” in its original meaning, is a “teacher.”
The suffix “P.E.” indicates being licensed as a Registered Professional Engineer. My research work, in bioengineering, is focused on accurately understanding the mechanism(s) of human destructive violence, such as the Boston Marathon bombing, and understanding the mechanism(s) well enough to be able to design and develop, as a bioengineering-based model, a process that will effectively, eventually, eradicate such atrocities of human conduct from the future of the human condition.
My work, along with the work of many other scientific researchers, points toward an aspect of the childhoods of a vast majority of people in “Western” cultures having experienced severe to shattering childhood abuse as part of what is deemed normal socialization.
This seeming abuse seemingly is so severely damaging to children as to result in a sizable majority of adults having some form of childhood experience amnesia.
This seeming trauma may well account for the observations of physiologist Benjamin Libet, as presented in his book, “Mind Time,” Harvard University Press, 2005, to the effect that socially normal adults make a decision unconsciously about 500 milliseconds prior to becoming aware of the decision consciously, and, upon becoming consciously aware of the decision already unconsciously made, confabulate having made the decision consciously after the fact.
For folks not particularly aware of recent work in the science of neurology, the following presentation on YouTube by neurologist Robert C. Scaer, “How the Brain Works in Trauma,” may be usefully informative:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Vr7lsIXazp8
As science is an approach to understanding phenomena which challenges its findings, perhaps the best evidence for evolution is the evolution of science itself.
Consider that dogma and doctrine may be the main hallmarks of religious authoritarianism, and associated religious coercive indoctrination. Consider that religious coercive indoctrination is inextricably trauma-generating. Would that help explain “the Stockholm effect,” whereby abused people tend to identify with their abusers, and is trauma, such as is present in the Stockholm effect account for the oft-damaging fervor of religious fundamentalism?
To what extent are people, whether liberal, conservative, or else, who bash others in an effort to build themselves up not acting out prior traumatizing experiences?
If the work of Dr Scaer, as presented in his YouTube video, “How the Brain Works in Trauma,” is scientifically accurate, can any form of dogmatic and doctrinaire fundamentalism ever be anything other than a sign of the trauma of severe to shattering abuse?
“Sister Conchetta told us about a boy who didn’t really believe the sacramental host was the body and blood of Jesus.” — nick spinelli
Again, from The Golden Bough: a Study of Magic and Religion, by Sir James George Frazer (1922):
Or, in a verse stanza from:
Ritual cannibalism. What thing to teach young American children in their “Scientism” classes.
From The Golden Bough: a Study of Magic and Religion, by Sir James George Frazer (1922):
The article about Governor Jindal does not make clear which animistic mythological fable he wishes the students of Louisiana to learn in their Republican Party “Scientism” classes. Does he want them to learn the “multitude of invisible animals” creation fable or the “one enormous and prodigiously strong invisible animal” creation fable?
So what are we afraid of?
Short answer: Animistic political morons meddling with the scientific education of America’s children.
Elaine,
For all we know, Jindal could be talking about Social Studies class, that the students should know that “some people have these beliefs.” “Some people have these beliefs” — doesn’t sound like he’s talking about a science class.
I don’t have a religious bone in my body but I wish they would teach the kids about whats in the Bible because there are so many references to the Bible that you run across in life.
I think that pseudoscientific thought is kind of like Scientology and religion. Scientific thought can be thoughtless. Freud guys are beanless.
How can there be human biologtical evolution? We got put on the planet and it has only been a few thousand years and no one seems any evolved in my lifetime? Somebody explain this one.
Intelligent design was the Planetarium building in Saint Louis. Unintelligent design was the O’Hare Airport.
J. Brian: You got a Ph.D. in Physical Education? What is P.E.? Is not psychotic a larger realm of schizophrenia? If actual intelligence may yet become an actually tangible possibility then would not unintelligence become more common than intelligible and therefore it is impossible for there to be an intelligent design for something impossible to occur.
What is intelligent design?
Intelligent design is a name for a fantasy aspect of human biological evolution, based on the (psychotic?) (schizophrenic?) implicit premise that actual (not merely hypothetical) intelligence may yet become an actually tangible possibility.
What is intelligent design?
Intelligent design is way beyond our so called intelligent designs. Our intelligent designs use what our intelligent minds could never make.
God made Dog on The Eighth Day. The rest of that apCray about Creationism is a Hollywood theme. Perhaps the public schools could build a theme park for Bobby and call it Jesus Christ Super Star. And to cater to the Latinos they can pronounce it HeyZeus Christ Super Star and to make things better for RepubiCons they can offer franchises called Jesus Christ Super Store. But wait, there is more. Bobby is running for President on the Creationist Party Ticket. Be there or be square. Lobby Bobby for Creationist Day.
Lobby, lobby bo bobby, bannan fanna fo fobby, Bobby!
And to think, that people of all persuasions go to Louisiana for Mardi Gras to worship such notions as a Fat Tuesday only to have Lint Fall On Them on Wednesday. Then there are the Wild Tchoupotulous who stay way up town and are gonna stomp sum rump. And now this other kind of Indian who is gonna teach Science to the masses. Jocky mo phen na yeah, ….
What if the eventual benefit of teaching creationism in parallel with evolutionism were to turn out to be school children learning to more effectively and efficiently identify religious thought, pseudoscientific thought, and actual scientific thought?
Teaching a thesis, its antithesis and its diathesis just may happen to become a very effective way to facilitate the recognition of misunderstandings which have become deeply buried within the implied social contract of the evolution of the creation of human society.
What better way to learn what happens to people such that some people act out aspects of what happened to them in horrible ways?
How else to learn how to effectively prevent such happenings as Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, the Boston Marathon bombings, Roger Boisjoly, as I heard the story, leaving the room because it was better to think management than engineering so that the vote to send the Space Shuttle Challenger could be unanimous,
How else other than abusing children is it possible to learn what child abuse actually is, and what child abuse leads abused children grown to adult age to sometimes do as a way of telling of their actually experienced abuse?
What if there is an actual relationship of abuse with psychosis, and an actual relationship of some forms of psychosis with violent impulses, not all of which are acted out and not all of which are not acted out?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=wyL0jjI93OI
What better demonstration that evolution is real than the directly observable evolution of the methods true believers in creation science employ in their efforts to deny that their methods are evolving?
The methods of creation science and creation scientists are evolving? Evolving toward extinction, methinks…
“Well guess what. THAT belief, is ……. STUPID. No, things don’t spontaneously generate out of nothing (no mater how many x-billion years) and a pineapple is NOT related to a porcupine.”
O.k. here’s my deal with you. If you can come up with a testable theory that predicts the world we we see with the same degree of accuracy that Evolution does, I won’t complain when you call it science.
That bit about the testability is key though, Evolution makes predictions, these predictions are proven again and again. For instance, if you take a population, and put pressure on it so that only members of the population that are more resistant to say, a poison survive, then you’ll get a population that’s genetically more resistant to that poison. Thus (wait for it), the anti-biotic resistant bacteria that started popping up in hospitals. Or here’s another one, if some sort of pressure is removed from the population, traits that were previously selected against will start showing up in a larger percentage of the population. Which is exactly what happened with larger head sizes in Homo Sapiens when the survival rate of C-sections increased.
Now, it’s your turn, just remember you have to be able to predict, not just explain.
Mike A.,
“What is particularly maddening to me is the manner in which the media always permits the debate to shift from the morality of torture to its efficacy, as though that makes a difference.”
I have found it maddening, too. It’s not about what is moral and the right thing to do. It’s about the ends justify the means.
What next, “war is peace”?
Elaine, the MSM have taught me pay even less attention to them. Trust is no longer even an quaint sentiment. Only verify.
Malisha, The nuns were Dominican and Sisters of St. Joseph. The former were just plain nasty, the latter were tough and some of the best teachers I ever had. The Dominicans were the scare stories purveyors. When I was preparing for my First Communion Sister Conchetta told us about a boy who didn’t really believe the sacramental host was the body and blood of Jesus. So, he wrapped it up in a kleenex instead of swallowing and took it home. When he got home he cut it open w/ a kitchen knife. It started bleeding all over the table and floor. His mother called the parish priest but this was above his pay grade. So, the BISHOP..THE BISHOP I TELL YOU, was called in to deal w/ this sacriledge. The bishop had to soak up the blood w/ special sponges, squeeze the blood into his chalice, and drink it. These sisters could have written screenplays for horror movies.
Elaine:
You are correct regarding the MSM. What is particularly maddening to me is the manner in which the media always permits the debate to shift from the morality of torture to its efficacy, as though that makes a difference.