
Texas Public Schools Are Teaching Creationism - Frostine
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2014/01/creationism_in_texas_public_schools_undermining_the_charter_movement.html
======
tokenadult
I had to digest after reading this article for a while. (I've also shared the
link among my Facebook friends, so that they can help me digest this.) On the
whole, I like the author's take that charter schools are a good idea, a good
enough idea that while Texas limits the number of charter schools to 300
statewide, it is important to make sure that each charter school offers a
sound curriculum. And I think the author is correct that the Responsive Ed
charter school curriculum is simply unsound both as to science and as to
history.

Regulation of schools is the job of state governments in the United States by
default. Political forces in the state legislature in Texas make it hard to
fix this problem solely by state legislation, because the Responsive Ed
curriculum does represent the point of view of some highly motivated and
politically active Texas voters. The article author points out that federal
constitutional principles ban teaching religious doctrine in the guise of
teaching school curriculum content, so that is one possible response to the
skewed curriculum in these charter schools. Another, too little considered in
most articles about school choice in general, is simply for other schools to
boldly proclaim that their curriculum is better, and explain why it is better.
The Responsive Ed schools surely find agreement among some parents shopping
for schools in Texas, but they would also be embarrassed to have to defend
point by point all of the ridiculous things they say in their curriculum. In
particular, it would be good for other schools to specifically mention the
many lines of evidence for macroevolution[1] as they promote their
curriculums. Comparative advertising is still an under-used tool for promoting
school reform, even in states like mine with pervasive public school open
enrollment.

I think John Stuart Mill got the policy balance correct more than a century
ago, when school attendance was not compulsory in Britain nor in most parts of
the United States: "A general State education is a mere contrivance for
moulding people to be exactly like one another: and as the mould in which it
casts them is that which pleases the predominant power in the government,
whether this be a monarch, a priesthood, an aristocracy, or the majority of
the existing generation in proportion as it is efficient and successful, it
establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by a natural tendency to one
over the body."

John Stuart Mill _On Liberty_ (1859)

[1]
[http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/](http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/)

~~~
mschuster91
Allowing home schooling is even more sick than that kind of bullshit these
Texans are doing.

In public schools one at least _knows_ what the teachers are teaching. Home-
schooled kids are not protected from anything ranging from creationist crap to
domestic violence (you as a teacher can spot if a pupil turns up beaten every
other day).

Not to mention the fact that home-schooled kids are far, far behind "ordinary
schooled" kids in terms of knowledge. How should they be other, after all?

Edit: for all those who down-vote, I'm writing this from a German point of
view. Here, nearly every non-state/church-schooling effort has been plagued
with _massive_ problems: inadequate knowledge of teachers, sexual harrassment,
violence scandals. Name the problem, you've had it.

~~~
lukethomas
I was homeschooled growing up. My brother graduated high school with 36
college credits (dual enrollment), I graduated with 23, and my younger sister
graduated with 26. It was like we went to college for a semester before even
graduating.

Somehow I managed to graduated university with high honors (sister is in civil
engineering on a full-boat scholarship, top of her class, brother got a full
boat as well.)

Lastly, my other younger sister (14 years old) is going to be a sophomore next
year, is currently teaching herself Python/Ruby, and takes senior-level math.

Homeschooling was the best thing that happened to me: I learned to love
learning.

~~~
mattgoldman
Hey Luke, that's awesome :-) how were the social aspects? How did you guys
make friends along the way? Via sports/activities?

~~~
lukethomas
Growing up we went to the local public school and took art and physical
education.

In high school, I played varsity soccer, and ran track at nearby public
school, so I knew most of the kids there.

I also worked often, and met quite a few people that way.

If I could change anything about my social activities, it would be to live
closer to where things actually happened. Growing up in the middle of nowhere
in Maine gets boring :)

------
dclowd9901
I've come to the realization not too long ago that some things -- even things
that appear to be very influenceable -- you cannot change.

A school, especially a charter school, teaching an agenda that parents don't
oppose is one of those things. Just like wages, unemployment or gas prices,
there are larger, more primordial forces directing these things.

So what's the point of this article? A naive answer would be "pure
exposition." But surely there's an agenda to focus on these institutions, and
all it will do is further divide a country where each half thinks the other is
evil.

~~~
kordless
Christianity brings a methodology to this part of our society. At a glance it
encourages equal treatment of others, guides for parenting, finding happiness
and even tips on raising children. I think the primary problem with it is that
it fails to expose the underlying rationalizations and rule set for why these
are good things to teach to people. At times that can cause issues, especially
where intent or fears are misaligned with the goal of understanding.

Understanding we don't understand how the universe works takes a lot of brain
power, so someone somewhere just has to have faith why that statement is true.
Unfortunately this also opens up the possibility of someone who, for whatever
reason, wants others to have faith that a supreme being created us 6,000 years
ago out of thin air. By that same logic, one other individual could state we
need to have faith a supreme being created all of this just this morning at
6:34AM EST, just like you see it here and stuck us all in it with our existing
memories.

I was raised in a fairly religious household, but thankfully I also had time
to think outside the box. If I had to label myself as practicing anything
nowadays, it'd be Buddhism. It's much more applicable for me because it maps
well into what I believe about the nature of the universe. That's not to say
it's a completely accurate representation, but it serves me well enough.

------
cobrausn
So, as someone who went to a private (Catholic, even) high school in Texas
that taught evolution, I'm often pretty frustrated by this. Aside from just
waiting for those who set these kinds of policies in place to fade away, is
there any specific voting pattern that would stop this? I don't live in areas
that vote in people who set these policies, so I'm not sure I can actually
even affect this.

~~~
stonemetal
If you are still in Texas you have some control. The state board of education
determine Curriculum and instructional materials. Board members are elected so
your vote and campaign contributions would have an effect.

~~~
singlow
I don't think that board's decisions are directly affecting this charter
school though. The decisions they make effect the curriculum used by public
schools.

While this school receives public funding, it operates largely as a private
school, with curriculum chosen by its own board. There are certain mandates
that they must fulfill, and a general plan which must be approved by the state
education board in their initial charter. In order to rescind their charter,
the board would need to determine that their curriculum does not meet the plan
outlined in their charter or that the students are not be prepared adequately
for college. It appears from the information in the article that the science
of evolution is taught and the students would, presumably, be able to answer
test questions regarding it. They just aren't asked to believe it is fact.

------
thejteam
I went to a very good public school system in Maryland. More than one math
teacher taught me that while we suspect that there are an infinite number of
prime numbers, we can't prove it. I found out later that there exists a
relatively simple proof known to Euclid. Lots of college students honestly
believe that 0.999… (repeating 9's) is NOT exactly equal to 1. My upper level
analysis teacher spent an entire class period dispelling this myth. We were
all taught the wrong answer by multiple public school teachers in many
different districts. Now, is the teaching of creationism any worse than
teaching wrong math? If public school teachers can't get cut and dried math
facts right, how many are going to be able to understand the nuances between
"hypothesis", "theory", "law", etc?

~~~
tmzt
Do you have any reference/proof/etc. for 0.999... === 1? As one of those
taught to believe it is not, I would like to see it.

Unfortunately, text books conserve non facts for very interesting reasons.
Some good examples are at
[http://www.textbookleague.org/](http://www.textbookleague.org/)

~~~
thejteam
A very informal proof:

Let X = 0.999… Then 10X = 9.999…

10X - X = 9.999… - 0.999… = 9 = 9X Therefore X = 1.

Being able to do the subtraction infinitely is a little hand-wavy, but should
suffice as a demo for middle and high schoolers.

More formal proofs involve limits that one wouldn't normally encounter until a
course in real analysis.

Wikipedia has a whole page devoted to the topic:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/0.999..](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/0.999..).

------
FrankenPC
How does one "teach" creationism? Answer: you don't. Simply reciting "god did
it" over and over is sufficient. No, this is Christian apologetics that they
are teaching. In other words it's a religion class, NOT a science class. If
this school is taking public money, those funds need to be withdrawn until the
curriculum is properly labeled.

~~~
fnordfnordfnord
As an Atheist, I am not generally opposed to a religion class, even a
compulsory one. Religion is a reality, and ignoring it is as bad as ignoring
any other reality. Teaching creationism is worse than a mere study of religion
because it promotes rote memorization of demonstrably incorrect ideas as
facts.

~~~
stephenhuey
A fellow Christian and scientist named Dr. James Tour explained that many
creationists do not understand the limits of the scientific method. Dr. Tour
concludes, "I am sympathetic to the arguments on the matter and I find some of
them intriguing, but the scientific proof is not there, in my opinion."

[http://www.jmtour.com/personal-topics/the-scientist-and-
his-...](http://www.jmtour.com/personal-topics/the-scientist-and-
his-%E2%80%9Ctheory%E2%80%9D-and-the-christian-creationist-and-
his-%E2%80%9Cscience%E2%80%9D/)

So in response to people clamoring for creationism in the classroom, he
suggests this:

"So what should be taught in schools regarding evolution? As I wrote, I am not
a proponent of Intelligent Design for the reasons I state above: I can not
prove it using my tools of chemistry to which I am bound in the chemistry
classroom; the same tools to which I commensurately bind my evolutionist
colleagues. But I think that a better approach might include more teaching
about evolution, namely coverage of legitimate scientific criticisms of neo-
Darwinism and disputes about the origin of the first life. That would be more
balanced."

~~~
FrankenPC
That sounds like a fair and lively scientific discussion to have. It's a shame
that won't happen.

------
bdfh42
Don't panic - I was taught all sorts of daft stuff in school - when I think
back on it a staggering proportion of (say) history or geography was
completely untrue. It helps in a way that some of it was so crazy it got me
questioning the basis for the rest. Thats when you stop being taught stuff and
start researching and learning.

Not suggesting that every pupil taught creationism will respond in this way -
many are probably pre-programmed by the religious affiliations to believe it
anyway - but the intellectual health of the pupil body is not a lost cause.

~~~
GotAnyMegadeth
How do you know you have re-learned all of the stuff that you were taught
wrong and not just a portion of it?

~~~
sophacles
The answer is the same as if you were taught strictly the correct stuff:

Constantly learn more. Re-evaluate your knowledge in the light of new facts.
Find the places where pieces don't fit and investigate further. This is the
only sane and rational policy on knowledge one can have for them-self.

Heck even when teaching someone "correct" things, it is impossible to avoid
this. There have to be abstractions and almost-but-not-quite generalizations.
There is so much knowledge in the world that you have to build a general
foundation to bootstrap better understanding. People are pattern machines, so
patterns need to be presented, for easier consumption, then revised later.

------
jswinghammer
Given that public schools can barely teach reading, writing, or math I don't
really worry too much about what they are teaching children about much else.
It also does not matter what schools anywhere teach if your children do not
attend that school.

~~~
uptown
"It also does not matter what schools anywhere teach if your children do not
attend that school."

How do you figure? These people eventually enter the workforce. Maybe they
become politicians, and base their political direction on misinformation. Even
if they remain in the private sector, someone that is the product of a
misguided education will lack the tools necessary to impact society in an
informed way, and will have an artificial ceiling on their potential due to
lack of knowledge. Education has a massive impact on the world around those
who are educated. Considering knowledge to be an isolated, personal thing
isn't remotely accurate.

~~~
jswinghammer
I know a lot of successful people who don't know anything about the current
state of evolutionary biology. I'm guessing you do too. It's totally
superfluous to most occupations.

~~~
subsection1h
I don't think a lack of an understanding of biology is the problem; the
problem is a disregard for empirical evidence.

Whenever the evolution vs. creationism debate comes up in the context of a
presidential election, some people argue that it doesn't matter whether the
POTUS understands biology. But as I wrote, a lack of an understanding of
biology isn't the problem; the problem is a disregard for empirical evidence.
If a presidential candidate has no regard for empirical evidence in the
context of biology, they likely have no regard for empirical evidence in the
context of other subjects, including important subjects such as health
economics. That's the problem.

So while you're correct that a person can lack an understanding of biology and
still be successful, a successful person who has little regard for empirical
evidence is a threat to civilization.

~~~
jswinghammer
So if Miley Cyrus doesn't believe in empirical evidence she's a threat to
civilization? Damn. We're in trouble.

~~~
uptown
Sure. Anyone with an audience, the financial resources to promote a message
has the potential to inflict harm on a societal level. I realize this example
is potentially politically divisive - but take the Koch brothers, and their
position on climate change.

------
rayiner
I obviously don't support teaching creationism as science or anti-feminism. At
the same time, I think articles like this are a pointless move in the culture
war. In the U.K. Christian-oriented religious education is not only allowed in
state schools, but mandatory. Everywhere! Apparently, until recently, it was
the only mandatory part of the curriculum. Yet we haven't seen British society
crumble into ruin as a result.

~~~
tptacek
Well, on the other hand, the UK doesn't have a 220-year-old Bill of Rights
that literally opens with a prohibition on laws pertaining to religion.

And, while it doesn't seem to have caused the UK's culture to crumble (and
indeed it doesn't seem to have done much of a favor to Christianity's
influence in the UK), you don't think it's a little batshit to have a national
law mandating that schools teach the primacy of Christianity among all
religions practiced in the UK?

~~~
gadders
What, in a Christian country? No.

When I was in my teens, I resented the fact that I went to religious
assemblies at school and couldn't opt out. Now I'm older and look back on
these assemblies, they taught moral lessons that could be applicable
regardless of your opinion of the supernatural.

------
vezzy-fnord
Although this is a heinous butchery of education, it's been practiced for a
long time and I do believe that all private schools (including charters, who
have higher control of their curriculum despite receiving public funding) have
the right to teach whatever inanity they decide.

It's depressing that such a primal culture of anti-intellectualism and deceit
like this is thriving in the Deep South, but given the deeply ingrained
religious paleoconservative culture, it's unavoidable and only likely.

It does however teach one that formal schooling cannot be trusted and should
not be used as an accurate descriptor of intelligence and knowledge. The
parents who support this have ideological agendas. If these institutions
didn't exist, they would stick to homeschooling, as many of them already do.

It's a shame, too. Homeschooling is a viable alternative to the mess of public
schooling, but too many people pursue it for wrong reasons.

~~~
poorelise
"I do believe that all private schools (...) have the right to teach whatever
inanity they decide"

In a way I agree, because it's kind of like free speech.

On the other hand, shouldn't a society be responsible for protecting children?
Schools teach children, after all. It's different from somebody voluntarily
picking a topic to learn about.

Seems to me children being taught Creationism might be seriously
disadvantaged.

Then again, by what standard? For example, what if being immersed in some cult
brings total happiness, even if it looks insane from the outside? Should it be
disallowed to raise kids as devote cult members?

~~~
gress
I went to one of the top 5 private high schools in the country. Evolution was
split out into a separate class, and alongside it, there was a creationism
class. Parents could choose one or both classes.

I can guarantee you the kids who did the creationism only track were not
'disadvantaged' compared to 99% of kids in public school who were taught
evolution.

~~~
poorelise
Maybe they sere not disadvantaged because general standards are low?

Actually the topic is a can of worms, we could go on about the purpose of
school. I suspect teaching critical thinking is not what schools really want -
they want to provide the industry with willing workers. In that context
creationists perhaps aren't worse off much, but that doesn't mean much.

~~~
gress
Right - my point is that you can only talk about people being 'disadvantaged'
by creationist teachings when other more important factors have been resolved.

------
kordless
Hacking biases to establish pools of control. Humans are exceedingly good at
this.

------
Glyptodon
These charter school conservative 'Christians' are essentially attempting to
destroy the US and turn it into a theocratic state without modern medicine or
technology. Forget Snowden and Manning. It's these America-hating hacks who
should be charged with sedition and treason for attempting to overthrow the
Constitution and replace with mandatory religious practices.

------
jostmey
Evolution is a theory that is almost self-evident. I hope that the pupils in
these classrooms can determine the truth for themselves.

~~~
jtbigwoo
>> Evolution is a theory that is almost self-evident.

I wish that were the case. To give one example, housecats are so vastly
different than monkeys that initial observation wouldn't necessarily point
toward a single primitive mammal ancestor. The theory of evolution gets so
expansive when you consider billions of years that it's easier to believe in
intelligent design.

In a clever twist, many creationists have started claiming that they accept
micro-evolution (e.g. the idea that bird beaks would change over generations
like Darwin observed) while denying that macro-evolution happens. Thus they
can account for the high-school-science-class information that most people get
while still clinging to creationism as the overarching truth.

~~~
jostmey
Sure, it is difficult to initially understand how a house-cat and a monkey
once shared a common ancestor. Understanding this fact requires a great deal
of knowledge about biology.

But the basic underlying assumptions of Evolution are self-evident. Just
assume that you have something that makes copies of itself but does so
imperfectly. This means that mutations may form during the copying process.
Selection will then act to favor those mutation which are beneficial, and
disfavors those mutations which are fatal or detrimental. These basic ideas of
how evolution works, which apply to all objects that make (imperfect) copies
of themselves, is almost self-evident.

~~~
freehunter
But the underlying assumptions of creationism hold true as well. If I have a
RepRap that's making imperfect copies of itself and evolving, who created the
RepRap in the first place? It certainly didn't spawn from nothing.

Sure it's a devil's advocate argument, but that's the issue. Saying something
that sounds reasonable to an uneducated person will leave that person
believing it's true, because it certainly sounds plausible. If you don't
_also_ teach the scientific method and critical thinking, you're not teaching.

------
DanielStraight
I really think _both sides_ get this issue very wrong.

Creationism is not valid science, obviously. But that's because it isn't
science at all. It is a religious belief, which is by definition non-
scientific.

Here is where the science side gets things wrong. Creationism is a NON-
scientific belief, not an ANTI-scientific belief. It's not anti-intellectual
or stupid or backward either. It's a choice to believe in the supernatural.
Lots of people, even non-religious people, believe things on grounds other
than science. Science is an excellent way of explaining the world, but it
isn't the only way. People have the right to inform their beliefs with a
source other than science.

Here is where the creationism side gets things wrong. Same basic principle,
creationism is not a scientific belief. Christians, even those who accept
evolution, believe a lot of things which are clearly not scientifically sound.
Bodily resurrection from the dead is perhaps the most obvious and most
fundamental. It's absurd to accept the resurrection of a deity without seeking
scientific evidence and then try to make scientific evidence support
creationism. Even if you convince someone that creationism is scientific, you
aren't going to convince them that a deity being bodily resurrected from the
dead is scientific. Given that Jesus' resurrection is the fundamental belief
of Christianity, it's silly to make such a big deal of something that is
comparatively non-important.

So my suggestion, teach evolution in science class without mentioning
creationism at all. But require at least one class in religion/philosophy so
students understand that there are other ways of understanding the world. I'm
not saying to teach the beliefs of any particular religion, just to explain
some of the ways other than science that people have historically and continue
today to understand their world.

The overwhelming majority of people on Earth today are at least nominally
religious. Schools shouldn't teach students to _be_ religious, but they should
teach them to understand religion... and not just as a cute, prehistoric way
of explaining things that science now has exclusive domain over. Religious
beliefs, as non-scientific beliefs, are non-falsifiable. Students need to
understand this. Modern science does not falsify religious beliefs. It
provides an alternative based on empirical evidence. But there is no
requirement that everyone on Earth only accept things based on empirical
evidence. It may seem odd to you to deliberately choose to believe something
which isn't based on empirical evidence, but many people do (knowingly at
that) and that is their right. Students should understand that science is not
a tool for disproving religion, it is a tool for explaining the world in a
different way than religion does.

~~~
thirdtruck
I'm not clear on what is left to know that falls outside the reach of science.

We can trace the very sense of "I am me" to the brain, as seen when it and
other anthropocentric systems fail, which leaves the idea of a "soul" in
doubt.

We can ask "why" something exists instead of nothing, but advances in quantum
physics suggests that "nothing" lacks a correlate at that level. If we want to
ask "why" the quantum foam exists, in turn, the non-scientific inquirer must
explain how this potential for infinite regress is anything more than a
shortcoming of language.

If any "big" questions exist that physics or neuroscience can't explain, let
us know. If not, the burden lies with the non-scientific explanations to offer
more complete, repeatable, and actionable insights.

~~~
fnordfnordfnord
>I'm not clear on what is left to know that falls outside the reach of
science.

Ethics. Morality. Art. History. Politics. Philosophy.

~~~
thirdtruck
All covered by anthropology, psychology, neuroscience, etc.

On that same point, I've never encountered a claim for "subjective" that
amounted to more than "the decision requires information not consciously
available to the specific individuals in the example."

~~~
fnordfnordfnord
Well, you found a scientific discipline that mentions "art" and I agree that
one may do so for any subject, but I don't agree that the scientific approach
is adequate to answer all important or interesting questions.

------
piokoch
The funniest this is that's creationism is a side effect of a strange, but
very popular view of "tolerance". We are told that tolerance means that
various points of view on any issue must be accepted, regardless if they make
sense or not.

As a result with hava a wide stream of various absurdities comming from "the
left" (gender people claiming that there are no differences between boys and
girls) and from "the right" (creationism) are propagated instead of radiculed
and thrown away. The same with Homeopathy and countless other things.

Another interesting thing is what happened with protestant churches. Once they
were seen as progressive and modern (in Calvin, Luther times). Now they are
either bunch of annoying old bishop-ladies ignored by everyone, who think that
having gay priests is the most important thing on the World (Church of
England) or radiculous morons who claim that earth was created 6000 years ago.

BTW it's somehow incorrect to call them Christians. They do not follow
tradition and intellectual heritage of Roman Catholic Church. I guess that
Thomas of Aquin and other great Christian philosophers are rolling in their
graves seeing such widespread grow of stupidity among people who call
themselves Christians.

~~~
dkuntz2
BTW it's somehow incorrect to call practitioners of the Roman Catholic Church.
They do not follow the traditions and intellectual heritage of the Early
Christian Church.

Fuck off. Christianity split multiple times, not just Roman Catholic and
Protestant, but also the Early Christian church into the Roman Catholic and
the Orthodox Catholic (more commonly called the Eastern Orthodox church)
churches. Claiming that because someone doesn't follow the Roman Catholic
church they can't possibly be a Christian is ridiculous. The Roman Catholic
church elevated the Bishop of Rome above the other bishops, something that
wasn't done in the Early Christian church, and still isn't done in the Eastern
Orthodox churches. The Eastern Orthodox churches are closer to "traditional
Christianity" than the Roman Catholic church.

Learn you some Christian history if you're going to try to argue about it. And
I say this as someone who doesn't affiliate with any religion.

------
grifpete
This is beyond depressing. The idea that the USA, currently the world's
leading first world country, hosts this kind of medieval nonsense is just
depressing.

~~~
robmcm
"the USA, currently the world's leading first world country," citation needed.

------
izzydata
And Texas continues to be the most backwards state and least progressive. Not
really news though.

~~~
angersock
Tell that to my openly lesbian mayor. Or go look at the AP computer science
results from 2013--most diverse.

Way to just parrot nonsense though!

------
xname
The essence of the story is that liberals cannot wait for the progressive
change in culture. Modern liberals do not believe progressivism, they believe
extremism, revolutionarism. They want to destroy bad tradition as soon as
possible. They just cannot wait. They hate people who are different from them
(read: stupid).

BTW. I am a science person. I think creationism is trash, but I am OK with
other people to believe creationism or whatever. I know there are billions
year ahead of human evolution and cultural evolution. I don't expect to see
all these changes in one night. I don't believe use government to impose
cultural change to its citizens is a right thing to do!

As for the "public" school thing. That's simply because people do not have a
choice. The dominance of public school in pre-college education destroyed the
education market and made private schools hard to exist. That's why many
religious people want to change the so called "public" schools, which is the
only place they can send their children to. I do not blame them. This is just
a minor collateral damage of the centralized education system. There are many
much worth things in public education.

Public money? Come on, that's also their money. Where do you think those money
come from?

