In the crush of the last couple of days, we didn’t have time until now to read through this essay by evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne at the University of Chicago about the debate over evolution and science in Texas public schools. Prof. Coyne wonders just how far to take the “strengths and weaknesses” (or the “teach all sides”) debate over evolution:
What’s next? Since there are many who deny the Holocaust, can we expect legislation requiring history classes to discuss the “strengths and weaknesses” of the idea that Nazis persecuted Jews? Should we teach our children astrology in their psychology classes as an alternative theory of human behaviour? And, given the number of shamans in the world, shouldn’t their views be represented in medical schools?
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That could be a possibility. Hopefully they don’t. I imagine McLeroy, Dumbar, Mercer, Cargill holding hands in a circle singing to the tune of the wizard of oz “If we only had a brain!!”
Maybe that’s why the Board didn’t want to create TEKS for the Bible course. How about the strengths and weaknesses of Genesis, for example?
Jerry Coyne says,
–Since there are many who deny the Holocaust, can we expect legislation requiring history classes to discuss the “strengths and weaknesses” of the idea that Nazis persecuted Jews? –
Well, official holocaust history does have strengths and weaknesses. My own position is that a “systematic” Jewish holocaust was impossible because the Nazis had no objective and reliable ways of identifying Jews and non-Jews. My blog has two “Holocaust revisionism” post-label groups and two “Darwin-to-Hitler” post-label groups –
http://im-from-missouri.blogspot.com/
The post-label groups are listed in the sidebar of the homepage. The reason why there are two post labels per topic is that my blogging software limits me to a maximum of 20 articles per post label.
We need to be open-minded about everything.
Larry said, “We need to be open-minded about everything.”
So, Larry, are you open to the idea that your thoughts might be controlled by Satan?