School board chairwoman in Minnesota questions teaching of evolution

[yortsed snacilbuper]

The chairwoman of the Brainerd, Minn., school board this week questioned the teaching of evolution and suggested that it’s incompatible with Christian beliefs.

“I did have a question about evolution,” Sue Kern said at a Monday board meeting after a presentation about the planned biology curriculum at Brainerd Senior High School.

“You know, Darwin’s theory was done in the mid-1800s and it’s never been proven,” Kern said. “So I’m wondering why we’re still teaching it.”

link

dumb sh!t

[rockfordfile]

1. Idiot

[defacto7]

2. Education run by the uneducated.

To make such a statement she must knowingly and purposely ignore facts.

[Atticus]

3. Yeah, evolution IS just a theory---like gravity. nt

[Caliman73]

12. Oh no, no, no... those are Law...

This is the problem with how language gets used in everyday society. Someone posted down thread that people use Theory to mean "hunch", "guess", or "hypothesis". They do it out of ignorance or intentionally to confuse people who are not versed in the differences and what the term actually means within the scientific field. Newtons "Laws" are as you said, Theories.

[DFW]

4. Who the F*** cares whether or not it's incompatible with Christian beliefs???

The first amendment means we are free from having religious nuts tell us that our schools must have curricula that are only compatible with certain religious beliefs.

"The dinosaurs died out because God wanted them to" is NOT an acceptable alternative to natural selection.

[Caliman73]

11. My sentiments exactly.

So the hell what? The government isn't in the business of providing a religious view point. It is in the business of preparing children for participation in society with the best information about the natural world that can be provided based on observation, study, and experimentation.

And in true ignorant fashion from people dominated by religiosity, she says that Darwin's Theory has not been proven showing that she has no understanding of what a Theory is. If she were talking about a hypothesis, then she might have something but a Theory is a set of statements that explain scientifically established facts. Darwin's Theory is currently accepted as proven, until someone comes along and falsifies the results of all of the experiments that support it.

[exboyfil]

5. Kern is a registered nurse

My daughter who is a nurse is just going to love this. She had to have two biology courses and two courses in anatomy and physiology. How could this woman not understand the basic concept behind evolution?

[SoCalNative]

7. I'm guessing

Jesus?

[lunatica]

13. I may be really wrong, but I've never heard of Jesus refuting evolution.

But I’m pretty sure these people eschew his message of love and tolerance all the time.

[TreasonousBastard]

6. It is incompatible with some Christian beliefs, but not all...

It is also incompatible with some Jewish and Islamic beliefs, but again, not all.

It is, however, quite compatible with almost all Buddhist beliefs. It is also compatible with most Hindu belief systems.

So, if we are to take religion as somehow defining our belief in evolution, we must take it as accepted. Unless, of course, we insist that only a minority of Christians decide things.

Or, more simply, someone who does not understand what a theory is has no business being involved in education.

[GeorgeGist]

8. So she'd rather teach the...

Abracadabra theory?

[riversedge]

9. ..Minnesota courts have upheld the teaching of evolution. In 2001, the state Court of Appeals upheld

;.......Minnesota courts have upheld the teaching of evolution. In 2001, the state Court of Appeals upheld the removal of a Faribault biology teacher, Rod LeVake, who argued that teaching evolution violated his Christian beliefs. He was reassigned to teach science in a lower grade, where evolution wasn’t part of the curriculum.

Randy Moore, a biology professor at the University of Minnesota, called evolution disputes “a common theme in virtually every school district. It’s been controversial throughout the country, and not just in the South, for 100 years,” he said.

Moore has done regular surveys of Minnesota teachers and consistently found that at least a third of them either downplay evolution or don’t teach it at all, despite state requirements.

“They are afraid of it — either the topic or the consequences,” Moore said. “Either for religious or local political reasons, it’s just not worth it.”

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

10. No, lady, Darwin did not symply hypothesize evolution and leave it at that.

He came up with that idea after looking at a lot of evidence. And in the century and a half since it's become glaringly obvious that evolution is real.

And in science, "theory" does NOT mean "wild-assed guess" which is the way most people use it, when they should be using the word hypothesis instead.

Modern geology came about when religious people in the 19th century started looking for proof of the Biblical flood. They didn't find a worldwide flood, but they did find that the planet is vastly older than originally thought, and now understood to be about 4.5 billion years old. The Rocks Don't Lie by David R. Montgomery is the book to read here.

[hunter]

14. The god of the creationists is a bumbling asshole...

... who created man while binge drinking.

[struggle4progress]

15. "Newton's theory of gravity dates to the 1600s! Why are we still teaching it?"

[nuxvomica]

16. I would have argued 1 Corinthians 13

This is the part of the Bible that basically says you shouldn't accept everything in the Bible as fact because you cannot know perfect truth in this mortal plane before you meet your maker and those who think they do are cases of arrested development. Basically, it says stop worrying about all this and just show everybody some love and you'll do fine.

1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.

3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.

4 Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,

5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;

6 Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;

7 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

8 Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.

9 For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.

10 But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.

11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

[Captain Stern]

17. Sue Kern....taking the 'Brain' out of Brainerd.

Nice job, Sue.

[Buckeyeblue]

18. And where has god been all of these years?