Melody teaches the controversy
For those of you in the USA with high school kids with biology teachers called Melody, you might want to see if this is the same “Melody” that opined on the Discovery Institute’s recent Darwin vs Design conference-like thing in Knoxville and Dallas:
Thanks – awesome info. That will really help me as I teach both sides fairly in my high school biology classroom.
Melody
My emphasis, but word to the wise is all. *touches nose*
(Hat-tip to Hell’s Handmaiden for the link)
April 21st, 2007 at 8:24 pm
This is the fault of the “everyone and everything is equal” mindset. You see this in Norwegian schools too. While they thankfully don’t teach both sides “fairly”, there’s very much the idea that everyone is equal. Of course, everyone is not equal, and treating unequal people equally is of course never fair. This seems to be the logical extension: not only are all people equal, so are all ideas! So long as anyone believes it, it should be taught as an alternative view!
I wonder if this Melody teaches Pastafarianism as an alternative to Christian intelligent design theology.
“Teach the controversy” is clearly ID rhetoric. I wonder if they’d be satisfied if the controversy was taught as religion? “There’s some controversy among fundamentalists that oppose all of modern science in order to maintain their literal interpretation of the Bible. Now, this is clearly bullshit, so let’s move on.”
April 21st, 2007 at 11:05 pm
Phrases like “teaching the controversy” and “teaching both sides” really do get my back up. I wonder if Melody also thinks that the alternative theories of gravity should be taught and what stretch of her crazy creationist (should be banned from teaching now) mindset sees two sides to the debate?
If she really wants to be “fair” then she needs to teach all the opposing theories, obviously she is not concerned about the science content of the theory, so I assume she sets aside equal time in her lessons for aliens and the like…
April 21st, 2007 at 11:18 pm
I must admit that it was my choice to use the words “teach the controversy” for the post title, but it should be obvious from Melody’s quote that that is precisely what she intends to do.
Just in case there was any confusion.
April 22nd, 2007 at 12:00 am
When I said the terms annoyed me, I didn’t mean the “general usage” of them, but rather when the crazy fool creationists and theists trot them out as a reason to teach nonsense!
Re-reading my comment, I don’t think I made that all too clear :-)
April 22nd, 2007 at 12:05 am
Gotcha.