Ga. Schools to Appeal Evolution Ruling

[CottonBear]

Ga. Schools to Appeal Evolution Ruling

From the Associated Press

link: <http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-4740067,00.html>

Ga. Schools to Appeal Evolution Ruling

Tuesday January 18, 2005 1:01 PM

MARIETTA, Ga. (AP) - Members of a suburban district's school board plan to challenge a federal judge's order to remove stickers in science textbooks that call evolution ``a theory, not a fact.''

In a 5-2 vote, the Cobb County school board decided to appeal last week's ruling. Board members said U.S. District Judge Clarence Cooper's order to remove the stickers immediately ``amounts to unnecessary judicial intrusion into local control of schools,'' according to a statement.

Monday's decision came after board members met with lawyers for three hours in a closed session.

``We have to make our best judgment based on the facts,'' said Curt Johnston, a member who was chairman when the board adopted the disclaimers in 2002.

more...

OK. I am just amazed at these folks. They just don't quit, do they? The amazing thing is that Cobb County is an upper-middle class area. I suppose money and education do not equal an understanding of the scientific method and theories. This is the same county that had an olympic event venue yanked because of the official anti-gay policy of the county government..

[McKenzie]

1. "all things bright and beautiful...

all creatures great and small, all things scabbed and leprous, the Lord God made them all". If creationism is scientifically accurate (it's not I seem to recall) then God must have made a few bodge jobs. I mean, all the mis-shapen humans, all the defoprmed kids, all the foul diseases...maybe he made those ones on a Friday afternoon.

Yup, God made us all in his own image. Hmmm....he must have a lot of images given that we are all different colours.

You are right...scientific method seems to be a term the appellants are unfamiliar with.

[underpants]

2. This is Cobb County

From what I know about it:
-This is Newt Gingrinch's old district (before that Ben "Cooter" Jones-a Dem)
-They were supposed to host the volleyball comeptition in the '96 Olympics but turned it down because it would require mass transit to be built out to their precious little corner of the world....and you know WHO might take that mass transit out there from the city of Atlanta don't you ;-)
-Oh they also turned down the volleyball because ....well you know.....one of the athletes might be one of them HOMOsexuals.

Racism AND homophobia.

[Freebird12004]

3. ?

now - I know why I feel like I 'escaped' - I grew up down there.

[RebelOne]

11. I can't escape. I work in Cobb County.

But I live in Cherokee County, which is worse in my opinion.

[CottonBear]

15. I work in a very red, fundie county but live in Athens.

I breath a sigh of relief every evening when I cross the county line and head home. Not that Athens is perfect but it is a progressive island in a red sea. We did have that problem of the Cedar Shoals High School principal reading a "prayer" over the intercom but that was really an isolated incident. After desegregation, most racist fundies quickly established private religious schools for their fundie spawn to (not) learn at. The kids in the A-CC school system are very diverse and receive a well rounded, scientifically-based education.

I know someone from a nearby red county (Madison) who said that all discussion of evolution was avoided except for a brief mention that it is a theory. That's how they get around the issue: they ignore it. I wonder what happens when these kids go to college and have to take biology or another life science? How do they even begin to deal with a rational and intellectual discussion of the scientific method and theory?

[Spider Jerusalem]

23. Ah, yes...Cherokee County...

still home to the occasional KKK rally, isn't it?

Cobb is probably worse, though. At least the racist scum in Cherokee County let you know what they are.

[ladjf]

4. If Thomas Jefferson or Benjamin Franklin were alive today

, they wouldn't be allowed to teach in the schools of Cobb County Georgia. There is no doubt that many parts of America have retrogressed philosophically by about 350 years. Well, considering that some forms of pop music have retrogressed by 800 years, we should be glad that music is going backwards faster than philosophy.

Ignorance is becoming a terrible epidemic all over America and particularly in the "red" states.

[primavera]

5. Well, per a strictly scientific definition of theory...

... by which a theory is a hypothesis which has been tested upside down and backwards and has been confirmed in every testing, but which cannot be known absolutely to be a fact, well, then evolution is a theory, even as gravity remains a theory, just one that is so well established as to be as close to fact as science is ever prepared to admit. So, if creationists would like to include their discussion of creationism in a comparative literature course with prominently displayed stickers explaining that creationism is "a myth, not a fact," then I for one don't have a problem with identifying evolution as a theory.

[TahitiNut]

6. It's not that they don't quit - it's that they don't learn.

It's a kind of insanity that persists in denying abundant observable phenomena in favor of a cartoonish myth fully repudiated over a century ago.

The obsessive anthropocentrism that cannot even begin to accommodate the notion that humanity is not at some evolutionary dead end - that 'man' is, by Gawd, already as perfect as he'll ever become - is a massively neurotic malady.

[jarab]

7. I heard a call-in show (Royal Marshall)

on WSB a few days ago on this very subject. Some of the arguments were real hoots.
...O...

[QC]

8. Ignorance and prejudice aren't limited to the working class.

I'm amazed that so many people here assume they are, given the many examples the Bush regime gives us of blue-blooded, Ivy League cretins and bigots.

[RT Atlanta]

9. My rant on this...

I read the article about this morning in today's AJC and the most disturbing part of the article was this quote:

``amounts to unnecessary judicial intrusion into local control of schools,'' according to a statement.

This is what 4 years of Bushco have done to this country - people are now effectively ignoring the rule of law. The court based its ruling on the application of existing law to the facts. Those fuck-monkeys (is that an applicable evolutional term to those assholes?) just "don't get it" (to borrow one of their favorite phrases).

Another kicker from the AJC's article discussed the fact that those stickers were placed on the books after a petition drive by a fundie who collected on ~2700 signatures, which apparently is all it takes up there to have the school board jump at the opportunity to preach the "good word" up there to all the students.

THat county is scary.

[LWolf]

12. "unnecessary judicial intrusion into local control of schools????"

This from the authors of the most blatant federal incursion into control of local schools during my lifetime, if not during the existence of public education?

If we don't want federal incursions, they'd damned well better repeal NCLB; it's rampant with them.

[Hamlette]

10. the stickers are fine, IF they require similar ones on all Bibles. n/t

[RebelOne]

28. I agree with that, but we know that will never happen.

[GOPFighter]

13. Cobb Countian

The first and only time I ever flew first class (upgrade for giving up my seat on earlier flight) I sat next to a wealthy Cobb Countian. He totally ruined my flight. (Did you know that Jesus Christ was not the "blessed are the meek" wimp liberals make him out to be? Hell no, he was a MAN, a fighter, who loved winning, yada, yada, yada!) I wanted to open the emergency exit and give him a shove.

Okay, not all Cobb Countians are religious nuts I'm sure, but the one I met was a piece of work!

Oh yeah, back to the topic: ``We have to make our best judgment based on the facts,'' said Curt Johnston, a member who was chairman when the board adopted the disclaimers in 2002.

FACTS? FACTS? And what is your background, Mr. Johnston? Insurance? Shoes? Did you attend college? Take an Anthropology class? The FACT is, Mr. Johnston, 99% of the experts accept evolution as fact, yet you are certain you know more than they do? I assume you do your own surgery, too, since you're smarter than all the experts.

[CottonBear]

16. That statement was the real kicker. Geez.

Georgia is devolving before our eyes! Just this morning the RW fundie state rep from Madison County (Ralph Hudgens) was on Athens AM radio talking about implementing the 24 hour abortion waiting period. I'd like propose that all fundie men must wait 24 hours before emergency heart surgery and see how they would feel about that! Get your laws off my body fundies!

[Arkana]

14. "That's right, folks...

...if this isn't proof that no one in Georgia has evolved, I'll be a monkey's uncle!"

[CottonBear]

17. It's proof of their devolution. n/t

[yellowcanine]

18. So they are going to spend public school dollars on lawyers to promote a

religious agenda? And these people call themselves conservatives?

[Bozita]

19. Appeals are costly. Cobb students lose again.

The appeal will NOT be handled by a rural Georgia lawyer who just fell off the turnip truck.

[Southern Dem 2005]

21. No cost for the appeal--the law firm said they would handle it for free

[Southern Dem 2005]

20. Cobb Resident and Church-goer

I live in Cobb Co., my kids attend public schools there, and we are members of a local church. My impression of the county is that it is a little slice of white suburbia, minors need not apply. I like living there because it is (a) safe and (b) has the best public schools in Georgia. The downside is that it is very, very upper-middleclass white and VERY Republican/conservative. In local voting this year almost all the offices had Republicans running unopposed. We moved here from another state. When I asked my oldest son, who is in middle school, how he liked the schools he said they were ok except "there is a lot of racism." That doesn't really surprise me. Right-wing conservatives control the local public offices, including the school board. I will say I enjoy the church we attend--there is no discussion of politics and it seems pretty open. There are some mega-churches in the area that might have less open-minded congregations. Oh, and I think it is ridiculous that the school board is challenging the judge's order.

[CottonBear]

24. How is the racism manifested?

My stepdughter goes to school in Gwinnett County. Her school is very integrated: white, black, Hispanic, Asian and East Indian. One of her best friends is a black guy. I have heard her refer to other schools as "ghetto" schools (mostly black) which disturbed me. I asked her about it. She's not racist but I think she hears cetain words and phrases from other kids. I went to an exclusive, private all girls prep school for 6 years so I know nothing about "regular" high school.

[Southern Dem 2005]

26. I think in the way students talk

He wasn't really clear, just said they "say things." I know one of the kids in the neighborhood told him they "don't like Jews around here." The schools in our area are over 90% white.

[RebelOne]

32. You say almost all the offices had Republicans

running unopposed. Well, here in Cherokee County, all the offices had nothing but Republicans running. There were no Democrats on the ballot at all.

[Dinger]

22. If Kids Want A Good education, They Need To Stay Away From The South

Better known as Jesusland

[Southern Dem 2005]

25. Untrue. Sort of.

There are good public schools all across the South, they are just very limited. I imagine the public schools in Cobb County would fare pretty well against other systems across the nation. The public school that my son attends in Cobb County has an average SAT score of 1128, which is pretty good. This is higher than the average in almost every state. Comparing state scores to local scores isn't a very good indicator though. If you compare state-to-state averages then the schools in the South score low, although Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi have higher average SAT's than Colorado, Ohio, Oregon, Washington, or New Hampshire, among others.

[Dinger]

27. Sorry

I shouldn't have branded the entire south. I really didn't mean to.

[DaDeacon]

29. I live in Cobb County

Thank GOD my kids don't go to school yet (ages 1, a baby 2 to be born next month feb 17th). I want to run...damn that will, I WIll run for school board this foolishness must end.

[Southern Dem 2005]

30. I agree that these stickers should not be on the textbooks

But I think maybe you are overreacting a little to their importance. The schools in Cobb County are very good, probably the best in Georgia. These stickers relate to a discrete issue (evolution) in 1 class (science). I think the teachers probably do a fine job teaching their classes, and it appears that the students come out of the Cobb schools with a very good education. That said, this whole issue makes Cobb schools look very backasswards. The stickers should NOT be on the books.

[DaDeacon]

33. Not the point....

This to me is the very root of my outrage. When you see this the only thing you see is Cobb = Back wards rednecks! For people outside of the area we look foolish to have the stickers and even more so to keep fighting to keep them! I grew up in DeKalb county now live in Cobb, the south is my home, actions like this make it so hard for those of us who work in medical or science fields. My sister who is at MIT told me that other students often throw cases like this around to justify old myths of the south. "If you want change make change"!

[DaDeacon]

34. The mouth-breathers are at it again.(see what I mean)

[Dulcinea]

31. The mouth-breathers are at it again.

(sigh)

[DebinTx]

35. This is another back door attempt to spread the word

and it's happening in more places than Georgia. In Texas, several school districts are fighting the intelligent design people. They keep snipping away at counties (in Texas, at least) that don't have the funds to keep dragging the courts into the frey. Eventually, the districts lament. So far, they've not been successful but they keep coming back.

[Sandpiper]

36. Debating issues that were settled among civilized people decades ago

Is just one reason why I never plan on living in the south again.