Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Texas Public Schools Are Teaching Creationism

slate.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 185 posts

Re: Texas Public Schools Are Teaching Creationism

#171

Post by cobrausn »

dkuntz2 wrote: post #164
cobrausn wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, first of all, 'vaccinophobia' isn't often directly related to religion. A lot of 'naturalists' reject vaccine science. Second, I find it sad that your solution to existential threats to 'free and open society' is fascism. Your logic applied to 'terrorism' results in where we are now.

Compulsory education is fascism? Teaching truths which can be replicated is fascism?

Is that what you picked up from that comment? The OP was not suggesting teaching A) in an attempt to supplant B), he was saying that the existence of certain ideas is an 'existential threat' to a 'free society', i.e., thought-crime. To me, the existence of a free society comes along with a lot of baggage, including people who will not believe you no matter how logical you and your arguments are. They get to be citizens too.

Re: Texas Public Schools Are Teaching Creationism

#172

Post by freehunter »

thedufer wrote: post #162
freehunter wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every study I've seen contradicts this common sense argument. Combined with the fact that home schooled students still must take and pass state standardized tests means the students have to be at least meeting the minimum educational requirements. I have a family member in Texas with a home schooled child. They attend group teaching sessions, sit in on other classes, and use the many reference books that are provided…

> Every study I've seen contradicts this common sense argument. Can you provide some of these studies? I've never seen one that was written by someone who understood why its important to control for race/financial status/etc, which makes them fairly meaningless.

Why does that make the study meaningless? I don't think I've ever read a study that says "homeschooling only works if you're white" or "public schools are only for the poor". Are we supposed to believe that the effectiveness of education is dependent on skin color?

Re: Texas Public Schools Are Teaching Creationism

#173

Post by dkuntz2 »

cobrausn wrote: post #171
dkuntz2 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compulsory education is fascism? Teaching truths which can be replicated is fascism?

Is that what you picked up from that comment? The OP was not suggesting teaching A) in an attempt to supplant B), he was saying that the existence of certain ideas is an 'existential threat' to a 'free society', i.e., thought-crime. To me, the existence of a free society comes along with a lot of baggage, including people who will not believe you no matter how logical you and your arguments are. They get to be citize…

Yes, because I didn't take the OP as saying that those were though-crimes. The way I took it was more that because those ideas are a hindrance and harmful to moving a society forwards.

I believe that people should be free to have those thoughts, but I also think they're detrimental to moving society forwards, which is how I read the OP's comment, it just uses a more absolute phrasing.

Re: Texas Public Schools Are Teaching Creationism

#174

Post by DanBC »

michaeldhopkins wrote: post #126
DanBC wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You point about abuse is incorrect. Abuse (physical, sexual, or emotional abuse, or neglect) is more likely to happen in the home, perpetrated by a family member. I'm not sure why it's a reason to avoid home schooling. Schools are not great at spotting and reporting abuse.

I think that you misunderstood me. The majority of child abuse happens at home (~72,000 parents vs. ~58,000 known non-family [0]), but it happens in broken homes, second marriages, etc. Most homeschooling parents are together and in their first marriage, so they, just going by the statistics, aren't likely to abuse their children. For a source on the uneven distribution of abuse by family members, I would suggest to…

Thank you for the correction, especially for the detailed links.

Re: Texas Public Schools Are Teaching Creationism

#175

Post by poorelise »

gress wrote: post #130
poorelise wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 disadvantage…

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.

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.

Re: Texas Public Schools Are Teaching Creationism

#176

Post by 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?

Re: Texas Public Schools Are Teaching Creationism

#177

Post by jswinghammer »

fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #142
jswinghammer wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So maybe you want to live in a society where public policy has nothing to do with the age of the universe. Let's do that. That sounds good.

I don't think I understand your reply, but, not basing public policy on ideas about our world which are clearly wrong is important to me.

I meant to say that maybe having public policy that even remotely relates to these topics is a huge mistake.

Re: Texas Public Schools Are Teaching Creationism

#178

Post by jswinghammer »

subsection1h wrote: post #154
jswinghammer wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.…

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

Re: Texas Public Schools Are Teaching Creationism

#179

Post by jswinghammer »

sentenza wrote: post #143
cobrausn wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, I don't disagree entirely, but I did go to college with a home schooled guy who was one of the most pleasant, hardworking, and intelligent people I met. I have no idea if religious reasons were part of the reason he was home schooled, he didn't really talk about it, but these blanket labels aren't really helping - home schooling sometimes seems to turn out positive results. If one were to read your post cynically…

I am with mschuster on this and I am also German. I am certain that many home-schooled children in the US recieve an excellent education. Also, I am failry confident that I could teach my children (yes I have them) better than public schools in quite a few subjects. Nonetheless, I am glad that public education is compulsory here. Forcing all children to go to the same schools is essential if you want children to have…

Responding to these points.

1. A chance but a good one? What promise do you have that bad families want to keep their children home anyway? Even making that choice suggests a lot of love for their children-it is a sacrifice after all.

2. How? Students in the US routinely score poorly and the system continues, teachers aren't fired, nothing changes really.

3. Why is this necessarily a good thing? Just having a degree doesn't make you qualified to do anything useful. I've interviewed enough software engineers with degrees from great schools who can't seem to program at all to say this is true.

4. On what basis? Also shouldn't parents be more aware of than you?

5. Parents can expose their children to that in any number of ways.

I don't homeschool but these arguments are naive at best. My guess is that in Germany the average school is better than in the US but freedom means people potentially make choices that you don't like. That's part of the package.

Re: Texas Public Schools Are Teaching Creationism

#180

Post by jswinghammer »

gms7777 wrote: post #56
jswinghammer wrote: post #10

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.

The whole principle behind public schooling is that having an educated public is beneficial for society as a whole. These are the people that eventually work and contribute to the economy, they vote, they become politicians and dictate policy, etc. As such, it matters quite a great deal what schools are teaching, even if you have never met a single person that attends those schools.

This is part of why I'd advocate for limited government. That way if everyone around you is acting foolish then the amount of damage they can do is fairly small.
Post reply on HN