Evangelical Indoctrination of Children

Bill Thwaites and Frank Awbrey at San Diego State University. Having just pulled out my copy of the class notes (was for sale from the bookstore), the copyright is 1981. They gave half the lectures and leading creationists, mainly from the then-nearby Institute for Creation Research (ICR), gave the other half. The Christian clubs on campus hated that class and kept protesting and applying pressure until the administration finally cancelled it.BTW, that was the class where Duane Gish's bombadier beetle claim was disproven in public and in his presence, so he had to admit publically that they were wrong (he blamed somebody else's mistranslation from a German article). However, both he and other creationists continued to use that false claim.

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PS
Other (in)famous "balanced-treatment" classes include Ray Baird's 5th-grade class in Livermore, Calif, in 1981. It was documented in the PBS documentary, Creation vs Evolution: Battle in the Classroom, KPBS-TV, airing 7 July 1982, and Barry Price devoted an entire chapter to it in his book, The Creation Science Controversy (Sydney, Australia: Millenium Books, 1990).From Price's book, edited for brevity:

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Finger's son Eric took the unit in 1979. On the first page of Eric's notes for the class is a statement of the Genesis account of creation. According to Eric, his teacher emphasized the mutual exclusiveness of the two models. "He said that either both were wrong, or one, but not both, could be right," Eric says.

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Eric says that at the end of the unit, the teacher conducted an anonymous vote in which the students had to choose between evolution and creationism. According to Eric, six students out of a class of about 30 voted for evolution; the rest voted for creationism. The teacher presented a tally of the votes to the class.

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"Most of those for evolution were among the gifted students," Eric says, who is himself among the gifted students. "I thought a lot of the others were maybe influenced by how Mr. Baird presented it. I don't know if that's true, but it could be."

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Eric and the rest of the gifted students were given extra assignments in the class: They were required to view filmstrips over again in the library.

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Those filmstrips were blatantly religious, according to Sheila Karlson, another of the mothers. "One of them started out by saying, and this is almost a direct quotation, that 'Either the Bible is true or evolution is true. You must make a decision.' It goes on from there to give this very distorted picture of evolution and this glowing picture of creation.

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The protesting parents ... say Baird's course was slanted to creationism and his presentation of the issue conformed to the ICR's teachings, in particular its doctrine that the choice between creationism and evolution is a choice between God and atheism. The parents also contend that Baird was fully aware of the content of the materials, some of which had been in his classroom since last year. (The Independent, 7 January 1981)

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The point overlooked by both Baird and parents is that these materials or their equivalents from the ICR are the only ones he could have used. They are designed and published for schools and without them there would have been no course. He would have been doing no more than standing up in the front of the class voicing his own opinion.

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There is more than a little doubt that Baird gave equal time to evolution and creationism.

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"I think it's true he gave more time to evolution, says one parent. "He spent 40% of the time telling the kids why creationism is good and the other 60% telling them why evolution is bad."

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Another parent, whose child observed Baird teaching this subject three years ago, relates that while Baird succeeded in winning some converts to the creationist view, other students, including her own child, were so appalled that they completely rejected religion in their own lives. According to this mother, all the teacher really accomplished was to polarize the class into two camps, the believers and the nonbelievers. (The Independent, 7 January 1981)

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One of the mothers writes:

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The most dangerous information to the scientific creationists was the fact that the gifted students could see how bad the science was and that they were voting evolutionism which was, in the context of the course, the same as voting atheism. Some of the gifted students voted evolutionism because they could see the fallacy of the either-or approach. Some actually, in anger, did give up religious belief. (Finger, 1988)

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From the PBS show, JP Hunt, one of Baird's students said:

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Someone that I know has become an atheist because of this class, because the creationist theory was so stupid, he thought. Well, if religion requires me to believe this, then I don't want to have any part of it.

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There's also Roger DeHart's high school class. The Discovery Institute tried to make him a poster child of discrimination against ID. From an email from a parent of one of his students:

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{deHart} had been teaching creationism for 11 years before the aclu was called in and broke the news in the papers. The reason this happened was DH developed a teaching technique out of his arrogance and self-righteousness, and demonstrates his Achille's Heal. (spelling?)

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When he presented his creationist portion of his class, if a student would point out it was creationism and stand up to him, he singled that person out and made the next two weeks hell for the student. Basically, he used the student to put a face on the false evolution science and got the whole class laughing at the poor person. It was the students who were so laughed at, who approached the aclu.

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When the news hit the newspaper, I went to see a like-minded friend to see what he thought. He told me, I should talk to his daughter, she hated DH's guts. He said she stood up to him and for 2 weeks DH "mocked and humiliated" her.

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Right after that, I contacted the aclu. I was talking to the woman in charge of this situation and she told me a story of the first student to approach them about DH. The aclu woman said the student stood up to DH and for 2 weeks he led the class in " mocking and humiliating" the student.

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I said, I guess you talked to my friend, Jeremy?. She said, who's Jeremy? This student had a single mother and the child was a young man.

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Two sources, didn't know each other both used the words, "mocked and humiliated". That is not a coincidence. We found a 3rd student who say it's true.

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Basically, DH is a mean SOB, he's got God in his wallet.

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Not only would he himself mock and humiliate the student, but he would lead the class in mocking and humiliating him/her and would even stage a "debate" which pitted the entire class against that student.So much for creationists' claims that they want the students to question what's being taught.

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PPS
While looking for something else, I found the site that had tracked the Roger DeHart case in Burlington-Edison High School. Their page is still at ScienceormythAt the time (2002), I also read a CNN transcript on the case (still up at CNN Transcript - CNN Newsstand: Hackers Shut Down Several Internet Sites; Bush Wins Delaware Primary; McCain and Bush Exchanging Attacks in South Carolina - February 8, 2000, with the DeHart story starting about 2/3 of the way down the page). In a 2002 email to a British parent encountering creationist activities over there, I first presented the Ray Baird case and then the DeHart case, to which I provided this quote from that transcript:

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COLLINS: But former student Emma Height (ph) says she was troubled by DeHart's class. She says he made them choose either evolution or intelligent design, and then defend their decision in an essay.
EMMA HEIGHT, FORMER STUDENT: A couple kids around me turned to me and said, well, I'm pretty confused. I believe in evolution, and you know, I think there's probably some evidence out there, but I believe in God, but I have to choose which one. I have to choose, you know, between God and science. And that really was the turning point for me.

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The point I was making was that in 20 years, their methods and tactics had not changed. And I was specifically pointing out their persistent goal of compelling students to adopt their beliefs as a contrast to the actual goal of education, which I provided in this quote:

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State Board of Education Policy on the Teaching of Natural Sciences, adopted 13 Jan 1989 [emphasized in original]:
"Nothing in science or in any other field of knowledge shall be taught dogmatically. A dogma is a system of beliefs that is not subject to scientific test and refutation. Compelling belief is inconsistent with the goal of education; the goal is to encourage understanding."
(Science Framework for California Public Schools Kindergarten Through Grade Twelve, 1990, pg 206)

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Since the goal of teaching creationism is to compel belief, it is therefore inconsistent with the goal of education.Edited by dwise1, : PSEdited by dwise1, : Added NosyNed's qsEdited by dwise1, : PPSEdited by dwise1, : added HRs

Todd, S.C., correspondence to Nature 410(6752):423, 30 Sept. 1999:

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The lesson to be learned from the events in Kansas is that science educators everywhere must do a better job of teaching evolution. It must be made clear that the evidence supporting the mechanism of evolution is empirical and proven, but that speciation and natural history are derived from the admittedly weaker evidence of observation. The fact that one cannot reproduce the experiment does not diminish the validity of macro-evolution, but the observed phenomena supporting the theory must be presented more clearly.

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Additionally, one must question the interpretation of the observed phenomena and discuss the weaknesses of the model. Honest scientists are far more inspiring than defensive ones who scoff arrogantly at the masses and fear that discussing the problems of macro-evolutionary theory will weaken general acceptance of it. On the contrary, free debate is more likely to encourage the curious to seek solutions. Most important, it should be made clear in the classroom that science, including evolution, has not disproved God's existence because it cannot be allowed to consider it (presumably).

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Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such an hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic. Of course the scientist, as an individual, is free to embrace a reality that transcends naturalism.

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Now you see what Dr. Todd really wrote. Now you can see that Dr. Todd was not expressing resistence to recognizing the existence of God -- as was suggested by the creationist who had lifted that quote out of context -- , but rather he was saying the same thing as you yourself did in your opening paragraph: Similarly, my signature includes a quote from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle which says the same thing yet again:

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Of course, if Dr. Mortimer's surmise should be correct and we are dealing with forces outside the ordinary laws of Nature, there is an end of our investigation. But we are bound to exhaust all other hypotheses before falling back upon this one.
(Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles)

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As well as another quote from the conclusion of an article on Gentry's halo "evidence":

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Gentry's case depends upon his halos remaining a mystery. Once a naturalistic explanation is discovered, his claim of a supernatural origin is washed up. So he will not give aid or support to suggestions that might resolve the mystery. Science works toward an increase in knowledge; creationism depends upon a lack of it. Science promotes the open-ended search; creationism supports giving up and looking no further. It is clear which method Gentry advocates.
("Gentry's Tiny Mystery -- Unsupported by Geology" by J. Richard Wakefield, Creation/Evolution Issue XXII, Winter 1987-1988, pp 31-32)

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In other words, resorting to "God of the Gaps" kills science. Faced with a mystery, we need to work on solving that mystery rather than just throwing up our hands saying "goddidit" and giving up. As we can now see, that is not what Dr. Todd said, nor did he express attachment to philosophical naturalism but rather the opposite. Your misinterpretation is understandable since it was guided by the creationist misquotation, but now you know better. Now was he talking about "positive evidence of God", but rather all the data pointing to the conclusion of "God", as in "indicating". The reason why we cannot accept such a conclusion when doing scientific work is because doing so would be succumbing to the trap of "God of the Gaps", which you yourself agreed must be avoided.

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{When you search for God, y}ou can't go to the people who believe already. They've made up their minds and want to convince you of their own personal heresy.
("The Jehovah Contract", AKA "Der Jehova-Vertrag", by Viktor Koman, 1984)Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote the world.
(from filk song "Word of God" by Dr. Catherine Faber, No webpage found at provided URL: http://www.echoschildren.org/CDlyrics/WORDGOD.HTML)Of course, if Dr. Mortimer's surmise should be correct and we are dealing with forces outside the ordinary laws of Nature, there is an end of our investigation. But we are bound to exhaust all other hypotheses before falling back upon this one.
(Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles)Gentry's case depends upon his halos remaining a mystery. Once a naturalistic explanation is discovered, his claim of a supernatural origin is washed up. So he will not give aid or support to suggestions that might resolve the mystery. Science works toward an increase in knowledge; creationism depends upon a lack of it. Science promotes the open-ended search; creationism supports giving up and looking no further. It is clear which method Gentry advocates.
("Gentry's Tiny Mystery -- Unsupported by Geology" by J. Richard Wakefield, Creation/Evolution Issue XXII, Winter 1987-1988, pp 31-32)It is a well-known fact that reality has a definite liberal bias.
Robert Colbert on NPR

The message was directly in reply to NosyNed's needing to know about Thwaites and Awbrey's two-model class. The postscripts were then added to mention two other notable two-model classes.If it is to be removed, shouldn't at least the first part be retained because it's tied in with NosyNed's implied question? {I don't clearly see that this message is on or off-topic, but it does seem to be pretty marginal to the topic theme. I thought that the information is more appropriate to the other topic. I have no plans of removing this message from this topic but it probably would be best to pursue this line of discussion at the other topic. Or something like that. - Adminnemooseus}Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Red note.

Not trying to speak for him, but I think Coyote should have worded that as saying that those results are counter to the evangelicals' theology, to their sectarian interpretation of revelation and scripture.My own blasphemous view is that theology is Man-made, being fallible humans' doomed-to-failure attempts to delineate in detail the nature and intentions, etc, of supernatural beings and forces that are completely outside our ability to deal with and completely outside our ability to verify in any way. To further that blasphemy, my view is that when that fallible Man-made makes pronouncements about the physical universe, which we can verify, and those pronouncements are found to be wrong, then (and here's perhaps my greatest blasphemy) the fault lies with that theology and not with the universe. In that case, that theology needs to be re-examined and corrected. Attacking science instead is nothing but self-delusion.When one's theology does not conflict with reality, then in that case they should feel no conflict with science.

But you forget that everybody builds their own theology. Sure, they take some established "official" theology as their starting point, but then they only partially learn it (it is, after all, impossible to instantly learn an entire complex system, but rather that would require years of intensive study), imperfectly understanding (and even misunderstanding) many parts of what their teachers present of their own partial and imperfect understanding/misunderstanding of that official theology -- of course, one of those teachers is their minister through his sermons and other communications. Then they develop their personal theology further as they incorporation new ideas and as they try to harmonize the every-day real world with their imperfect understanding.The room for misunderstanding of the official theology becomes greater when it's learned as a child, whose potential for imperfectly understanding what he's being told is far greater (like the young child who was afraid of the Pledge of Allegiance because of the witch, as in "for witch it stands"). Many people's religious understandings don't mature as they themselves mature, so many adults still hold childish ideas about God.So, is it the official theology that everybody believes and tries to live by? Or is it really their own personal theology? Should they blindly hold to their personal theology and denounce the universe for not complying to it? Or shouldn't they examine that theology and seek to correct that which proves to be wrong?