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From: mmm@cup.portal.com (Mark Robert Thorson)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Creationism in our schools and the Anti-Dogma statement
Message-ID: <13338@cup.portal.com>
Date: 9 Jan 89 01:43:14 GMT
References: <8558@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> <2630002@hpcilzb.HP.COM>
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 46

>What is Mark's point? I don't understand why Mark is concerned about the
>wording of the anti-dogmatism statement, or how a parent of school-age
>children in Germany in 1933 would be offended, or if they were, why I should
>care.
>
>Maybe I have missed the point, but it seems to me that the Germans of the 
>30's could have benefitted from an anti-dogmatism statement in their schools.
>Of course, the Nazis could claim (and did) that their views were scientifically
>supported, but I doubt an anti-dogmatism statement would have hurt.

Perhaps I focused too much on the last two paragraphs, the part denying
a place to alternative views in the schools and the part denying the option
of refusing to take in such views.  I happen to agree with the strong position
on scientific education taken by the NCSE, but I can easily see how others
could feel attacked.  What if you didn't believe in the science pushed
by your government?  Germany and Russia have pushed theories as scientific
fact which conventional wisdom now deems to have been politically inspired.

If you like the proposed Anti-Dogmatism statement, I suggest you subscribe to
Bookwatch Reviews, the newsletter of the NCSE.  $15 for 9 issues.  Their
address is in my previopuus posting.  They review recent science textbooks.
Lots of dingbat stuff in those books.  Here's some quotes:

[referring Heath Life Science 1987]

"On page T418, they ask the students to compare the human skeleton with that
of -- what?  A frog?  A cat?  No.  An arthropod!  And so the writers abandon
the chance to introduce the evolutionary concept of homologous bones.  They seem
to insist that they must give no hint at all of any evolutionary relationships."

"In the chapter about ectothermic vertebrates, for instance:  "Some scientists
believe that strange animals with dry, scaly skins roamed the earth 225
million to 65 million years ago.  These animals were the dinosaurs."  Some
scientists?  The only people who deny the history of the ancient dinosaurs
are the fundamentalist preachers (and their followers) who call themselves
"creation-scientists," but those people are not scientists at all."

"The student who uses a science text will consult its glossary and index
frequently.  In Heath's book, the index is minimally satisfactory, but the
glossary is inadequate and sometimes ridiculous.  It sometimes seems to be
a lampoon written by Dr. Science and Rodney ...
... abdomen:  the body region of arthropods that is farthest from the head ...
... jawless fish:  a class of fish that do not have jaws ...
... birds:  warm-blooded vertebrates with wings ...
... species:  the smallest classification of living things ...
... identifying:  the naming of something ..."