Christian School Textbook Claims Loch Ness Monster Disproves Evolution

Great Debates
#1

You cannot make this stuff up! Reports in various media show that one of the biology texts for the Accelerated Christian Education claims that the Loch Ness Monster exists, is a plesiosaur, and that this is evidence that Creationism is correct and evolution is invalid. Also, that Japanese fishermen caught a dinosaur years ago.

Read it and weep … with laughter.

Now what brings this into Great Debates territory instead of just point 'n laugh territory is that some of the private Christian schools in Louisiana that carries this piece of shit excuse for a textbook, are expecting to receive school voucher funds … i.e., tax funds diverted from public schools to private schools … so their student can learns this SHIT excuse for SCIENCE.

Now we see what school vouchers are REALLY about … getting kids brainwashed and funding butt-ignorant religious fanatics to scrawl their weird fantasies and have them passed off as textbooks.

Yeah, it’s about choice … but if I were a taxpayer in Louisiana, I’d be steamed red as any crawfish in a kettle at this pathetic use of my taxes.

Voucher advocates, go hide your heads in shame, you have promoted the spreading of ignorance.

#2

Not only is it silly to believe in Nessie, I can’t imagine it doing anything but supporting evolution. It’s like bringing up the coelacanth as evidence against evolution. Really??

“Here’s a living dinosaur, which used to be plentiful on earth millions of years ago but is no longer, due to a catastrophic extinction event and the eventual rise of us mammals. And that’s why Genesis is historical fact.” :smack:

#3

This particular variant of Creationism, Young Earth Creationism, does not accept that the world is older than about 6,000 years, I believe. And that human and dinosaurs were contemporaries. And so the existence of Nessie (sigh) is proof that dinosaurs and men were contemporaries.

The stupid, it just keeps burning!

#4

I don’t think it should be the government’s business to subsidize or support religous dogmas, superstitions, heresies, or ridiculous fantasies/fabrications/stupidity/lies.

No vouchers, no subsidies, no funds. ONLY pointing and laughing.

#5

So what’s the debate here? I can’t see one emerging.

#6

I said that this text was being used in schools that had school voucher students, and that thus our tax money is being used to spread ignorance through the school voucher program. And I invite any school voucher advocates to defend the program against these charges.

I do no know how they will make a defense, but some Dopers would seem comfortable defending mass-murdering cannibals. If the mods wish to move this to IMHO or the Pit where it may simply serve as point n laugh fodder, I will understand.

#7

They’re just teaching the controversy.

#8

One of my co-workers constantly rants: *They won’t teach creationism in schools, but they’ll teach global warming as if it were real. *

#9

Hmmm. Your cite only offers proof that this is being taught in schools in the UK:

There is some indirect evidence that this is being taught in the Louisiana school, but nothing direct.

That being said, I think that any schools receiving government voucher money should have to meet minimum curriculum standards, one of which would be the teaching of Darwin’s theory of evolution and the exclusion of creationism from science classes. However, since religious schools typically teach religion as a separate subject, I’m not really sure how you deal with that. My sense is that as long as the vouchers can be used at any school, religious or otherwise, and as long as the bulk of the education is non-religious in nature, then the Lemon test says it’s OK.

#10

From the school in question’s web site:

Emphasis added. While not completely incriminating, that would strongly imply that religion was a primary aspect of the curriculum at the school, and that would not pass the Lemon test. But a court case would have to look at the actual details of the curriculum and not just some fuzzy wording in the school’s mission statement.

#11

Sorry for the multiple posts, but my position on this is “evolving”. (How’s that for a meta pun! :slight_smile: )

Relavent SCOTUS ruling.

So, it looks like everything is A-OK in LA.

#12

On the other hand, one big open secret is that a good number of protestants do not have a beef with science, several actually have a beef with politicians that are constantly attempting to twist the science to match the policies that they want to follow.

http://www.ethicsdaily.com/news.php?viewStory=14084

#13

Here’s what I tell myself: My children will be competing with other children who believe in dragons. My kids will be millionaires for sure.

#14

America seems to be full of people with wacky beliefs and loads of money. Some of them have been presidents. Then there’s Donald Trump. It seems to help plenty of people in the Republican Party.

#15

Wait, Nessie is a principle from the Bible? Because they are basing their curriculum, in part at least, on Nessie.

#16

There are all kinds of references to beasts of mythical sorts in the Bible.

However, it’s unclear to me how a dinosaur discovered living today would disprove evolution or prove creationism. We find animals all the time that we thought were extinct. It isn’t like evolution lives or dies on the extinction of dinosaurs. And surely Christian Creationists realize that some species have gone extinct. The fact that one might not have is neither here nor there.

#17

I’m just looking for some kind of silver lining. There are certainly plenty of obscenely rich Bible thumpers, but a whole lot of them were born into it. The theory (wishful thinking?) I operate under is that self-made people have to be better critical thinkers to get ahead. That’s what I tell myself, anyway.

As whacko as Donald Trump may be, I’m pretty sure he knows that humans didn’t keep cute, purple mini-brontos as pets.

#18

Fair to say. You’re probably OK while your billionaires can still tell the difference between reality and The Flintstones.

#19

Also, a plesiosaur isn’t a dinosaur, it’s a marine reptile. They really need to check their facts!

#20

[quote=“Evil_Captor, post:1, topic:626390”]

You cannot make this stuff up! Reports in various media show that one of the biology texts for the Accelerated Christian Education claims that the Loch Ness Monster exists, is a plesiosaur, and that this is evidence that Creationism is correct and evolution is invalid. Also, that Japanese fishermen caught a dinosaur years ago.

If you actually read the article that you link to, you’ll see that it doesn’t actually say that any school in Louisiana uses, or is planning to use, this textbook.

You just did make this stuff up.

Please provide a cite to back up this claim.

Somebody should be hanging–not “hiding”–his head in shame. It isn’t voucher advocates.