The Livingston, Louisiana Parish School Board has decided not to push creationism into the curriculum this year. They have decided injecting creationism into the science classroom would lead to expensive litigation and that they would likely lose in court. But for some reason, they are still considering adding it next year. Here is a quote from School Board Member David Tate:
"We don’t want litigation, but why not take a stand for Jesus and risk litigation?"
So I guess he's ready to drag is Parish down the financial toilet "for Jesus".
He also said this, which demonstrates how deep his profound ignorance of the way science works:
"Creationism is another thought of how things came into being,” he said. “Give every theory due time” in the classroom.
This is a common theme among creationists: scientists are being unfair by not allowing opposing ideas to be heard. Why not just teach both theories and let the students decide? Well, here's the thing - science is not democratic. It's based on testing and observation. Scientific theories are tested by making predictions based on the theory, then testing those predictions using experiments or observed data. Evolution has survived this process and has emerged as the theory that best explains the data. None of the alternatives can claim that, and therefore, don’t deserve a place in science classrooms.
Once again, we have a great demonstration of why it's so important to teach basic science and critical thinking to our young people.
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