Wow! Newsflash!
The Background: On Saturday, an AP reporter wrote a story on the “outrage” of a secular homeschooling mom who thought her 10-year-old daughter was going to “have a coronary” when she encountered passages in her biology textbook which disputed Darwin’s theory of evolution. The mom had bought Apologia’s biology textbook on the recommendation of a friend.
I have two reactions to the first part of this story. One: The mom didn’t review the textbook before her 10-year-old began using it? Two: The underlying/implied premise of the story seems to be that these textbooks just shouldn’t be allowed. So should the government ban them? Censor them? Ah, tolerance – extended by the liberal main-stream media to every imaginable political, religious, or sexually deviant interest group, except conservative Christians. America, what a country!
But the story gets worse.
In part two of the AP story, they sent copies of the biology textbook by Apologia and one by Bob Jones University Press to Professor Jerry Coyne of the University of Chicago and to emeritus Professor Duncan Porter of Virginia Tech.
Professor Jerry Coyne also runs the blog WhyEvolutionIsTrue. Professor Porter is also the director of the Darwin Correspondence Project at Cambridge University.
And. . . SURPRISE! The two evolutionary biology professors don’t like the creationist biology textbooks from Apologia and Bob Jones. Wow. Did NOT see that one coming.
Porter said he would give the two texts an “F”. Coyne said they were both “full of lies.”
There is an encouraging close to the AP story, and really they should be complimented on at least the last two paragraphs. They found an intelligent, rational homeschool mom, who had used the Apologia biology text to teach her son, who plans to pursue a career in marine biology. The mom, Polly Brown, points out that her son is familiar with both sides of the argument. He has studied the theory of evolution AND the evidence for creation. Which is more than can be said for the students in the government schools.
As of this evening, the story shows signs of going wider. MSNBC has picked it up on their website. They are also running a poll with the provocative question, “Is it OK for home-school textbooks to dismiss the theory of evolution?” As of 9:15pm central time, 67% of the 13,000 who have responded, voted “NO.” This does not bode well for the homeschool community.
I predict this story will be followed in relatively short order by a call to force home-school biology texts to teach the theory of evolution. I also predict a call for colleges & universities to refuse to recognize high school science credits unless they taught the theory of evolution as a scientific fact.
How tolerant of them.
Rob, I think you made a very fine analysis of this situation. Thanks for sharing! I hope all your readers will vote for truth.
God bless you and yours,
Tina Farewell
http://www.BobandTinaFarewell.com
To “drop” evolution from homeschooling textbooks is a false accusation. It IS included, but with disclaimers such as: “There is NO empirical scientific evidence to validate evolution it therefore must be accepted by faith and is therefore a religion.” And such is the case. There is still NO empirical evidence. Every missing link is still MISSING. Ida and company have ALL been disproved as their missing link.
The foolishness of “gill slits” in unborn baby humans was discredited many years ago and the deceitful evolutionists have somehow been able to keep those lies in the school books. Maybe the USA should follow the Law of the land and only put FACTUAL info in our school text books….Ya think!
Rob,
I’ve tried to keep answering other posters on the AP website, but the system seems to be having trouble handling all the traffic!
I thank you for alerting others to situations that affect Christian Homeschoolers.
<, Elizabeth
Contrary to what Rob Shearer predicts, I don’t think the article will lead to a any significant effort to force certain texts on home schools, nor will colleges change their admissions procedures. The majority of evolutionary biologists want creationism out of textbooks, but that is just the way it is and will be. An article pointing this out is just s blip in the public’s minds. And colleges can already ask about home school books in the admission process, and if they see anything they don’t like they can refuse admission or ask the student to make up the work on a conditional admission. That happened to us with an art class.
I guess six months from now, we can look back and decide whose predictions were best — mine or Rob’s.
I read the article on the FOXNews website a couple of evenings ago. I saw the title, and (sarcastically) thought “Homeschoolers prefer a creationist approach in their science books? Now THERE’s news!” Like you, I read through the whole thing wondering when they would quote someone from the other (our) camp; glad they at least put a token reference in there at the end.
I did forget, however, to have our 13 year-old son read the article. Will do that now!
I don’t see an issue with dismissing the THEORY as fact, but I wouldn’t exclude the discussion from the textbooks. Presenting both sides of the argument, yet coming out on the side of the biblical worldview, should provide for a more well rounded and grounded student.
Parents will continue to teach their children as they please…. whether anyone agrees or not. You cannot put a ban on what we talk to our kids about. And, remember parents’ influence is the greatest influence in a child’s life.
Thank you for this post. Once again, Christianity is excluded from the religions, groups or beliefs that America is to tolerate. How sad.
I pray your predictions are wrong. But I fear you’re right.
We’ll see how fast this takes off with the media.
Surely at a much more rapid pace than, say, photos of our President praying with Muslims.
Yet Evolution has not been proved. Sir Arthur Keith, a famous British evolutionary anthropologist and anatomist, confesses, “Evolution is unproved and unprovable. We believe it only because the only alternative is special creation, and that is unthinkable.” In fact, it seems that the Theory of Evolution is contrary to established science. George Wald, another prominent Evolutionist (a Harvard University biochemist and Nobel Laureate), wrote, “When it comes to the Origin of Life there are only two possibilities: creation or spontaneous generation. There is no third way. Spontaneous generation was disproved one hundred years ago, but that leads us to only one other conclusion, that of supernatural creation. We cannot accept that on philosophical grounds; therefore, we choose to believe the impossible: that life arose spontaneously by chance!” (“The Origin of Life,” Scientific American, 191:48, May 1954).
Secular Humanism is an attempt to function as a civilized society with the exclusion of God and His moral principles. During the last several decades, Humanists have been very successful in propagating their beliefs. Their primary approach is to target the youth through the public school system. Humanist Charles F. Potter writes, “Education is thus a most powerful ally of humanism, and every American school is a school of humanism. What can a theistic Sunday school’s meeting for an hour once a week and teaching only a fraction of the children do to stem the tide of the five-day program of humanistic teaching?” (Charles F. Potter, “Humanism: A New Religion,” 1930)