# Medieval ignorance rears its head in Jawja **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 30, 2004, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medieval-ignorance-rears-its-head-in-jawja/226754 "2004-01-30T15:01:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2004, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medieval-ignorance-rears-its-head-in-jawja/226754/1 "2004-01-30T15:01:33Z")
CNN [reports](http://www.cnn.com/2004/EDUCATION/01/30/striking.evolution.ap/index.html) that the state superintendent of schools for Georgia, Kathy Cox, has recommended that the word “evolution” be removed from the state curriculum and replaced with the phrase “biological changes over time.” On the plus side, Ms. Cox has said that the concept of evolution would still be taught, that teachers would be allowed to use the word, and that the state would not be required to buy new textbooks. So what’s the problem, you ask? Simply this. There is no reason whatsoever to cave even one millimeter to the knuckle-dragging, Bible-beating troglodytes who want to impose their Mesopotamian mythology on the vulnerable minds of their children. Moreover, it’s a useless proposal–it’s not enough to please the creationists, who are upset that the idea will still be allowed in the classroom. To the fundies reading this: A cosmology that worked for Bronze age nomads has no utility in the 21st century. Adam and Eve are figures from Mesopotamian folktales, not real people. God didn’t make people out of dirt 6,000 years ago, there was no universal flood and no ark, and the “kind” is not a taxonomical classification. You can ignore the wealth of evidence we have on the real origins of humanity and persist in your pitiful embrace of motheaten mythology, but kindly keep your assheaded ignorance away from children. And that big building with all the scary books? It’s called a library (ly-BRAR-ee)–go get yourselves cards and let the sunlight of knowledge burn away the fog of unknowing. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2004, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medieval-ignorance-rears-its-head-in-jawja/226754/2 "2004-01-30T15:09:58Z")
> [@gobear](#): > > God didn’t make people out of dirt 6,000 years ago, Funny how people get insulted at the idea of being related to apes, but have no problem being related to dirt. Also funny that what these same people want included in a science class has not succeeded in scientific journals, and can only be included by force of law and peer pressure. Fucking troglodytes. ---
**Author:** ![Kinthalis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kinthalis/32/16084_2.png) [@Kinthalis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kinthalis)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2004, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medieval-ignorance-rears-its-head-in-jawja/226754/3 "2004-01-30T15:19:31Z")
Don’t know what else I can add to this worthy pitting except my righteous indignation! Backwards assholes. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Arky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/87869e/32.png) [@An\_Arky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Arky)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2004, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medieval-ignorance-rears-its-head-in-jawja/226754/4 "2004-01-30T15:25:05Z")
There will be no peace until the last Fundamentalist is strangled with the entrails of the last Hawk… ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2004, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medieval-ignorance-rears-its-head-in-jawja/226754/5 "2004-01-30T15:35:31Z")
I almost posted this in GD a few days ago, but didn’t think it was such a GD. If you were a science teacher, and really really needed your job, and some fucknut legislator made it illegal to teach evolution (or to fail to teach ID), would you risk your job by breaking this law? How would you handle the situation? ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2004, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medieval-ignorance-rears-its-head-in-jawja/226754/6 "2004-01-30T15:36:02Z")
A friend of mine who worked in a nature museum told me the tour guides decided to avoid potential trouble with fundie guests by replacing the word “evolved” with “adapted”. Thus making sure all their comments were FC. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Sweetums](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Sweetums](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sweetums)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2004, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medieval-ignorance-rears-its-head-in-jawja/226754/7 "2004-01-30T15:49:08Z")
> [@gobear](#): > > And that big building with all the scary books? It’s called a library (ly-BRAR-ee)–go get yourselves cards and let the sunlight of knowledge burn away the fog of unknowing. ``` Oooh, I'm a librarian, can I use this as my sig? ``` Sweetums ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2004, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medieval-ignorance-rears-its-head-in-jawja/226754/8 "2004-01-30T15:53:20Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > If you were a science teacher, and really really needed your job, and some fucknut legislator made it illegal to teach evolution (or to fail to teach ID), would you risk your job by breaking this law? How would you handle the situation? Just get Clarence Darrow to defend you against William Jennings Bryan. Oops, wait, that didn’t work, either . . . ---
**Author:** ![Metacom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecae2f/32.png) [@Metacom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Metacom)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2004, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medieval-ignorance-rears-its-head-in-jawja/226754/9 "2004-01-30T16:16:59Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > If you were a science teacher, and really really needed your job, and some fucknut legislator made it illegal to teach evolution (or to fail to teach ID), would you risk your job by breaking this law? How would you handle the situation? No, I wouldn’t risk my job. If I’m a teacher, _my job is to teachthe curriculum determined by the appropriate local and state authorities_. If that curriculum teaches that humans sprang from the entrails of a Burmese mountain vole slain by Thor, then so be it. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2004, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medieval-ignorance-rears-its-head-in-jawja/226754/10 "2004-01-30T16:28:35Z")
Gotta go with **Metacom** on this one. I **am** a teacher, and my job is to teach the curriculum. I do try to get The Truth out there whenever possible, but my job is to do what the School Board tells me to do. I live in a town that is 50% Mormon and 50% Baptist. Luckily, they tend to cancel each other out, and we can teach science without fundie interference. ---
**Author:** ![diku](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4af34b/32.png) [@diku](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/diku)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2004, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medieval-ignorance-rears-its-head-in-jawja/226754/11 "2004-01-30T16:31:29Z")
You know, I’m from the south. Born and raised here. Born in Kentucky, living in Tennessee. I love it down here. I try to convince people that we’re not the stereotypical yokels. I hate it when on football broadcasts from Nashville they show people with cowboy hats listening to country music. I want people to look at us differently. And then shit like this comes along. Sigh. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2004, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medieval-ignorance-rears-its-head-in-jawja/226754/12 "2004-01-30T16:42:12Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > my job is to teach the curriculum. I would have such a hard time giving any weight to ID with a straight face. I would probably smile enough to agree to teach ID, then ignore such a directive. Unapologetically. I would tell my students “The class is called science. In it, we learn about science. ID is not science, it’s horsehocky. We will not be covering it. Let them fire me, let them jail me, but do not let them force me to teach hairbrained fairytales and call it science. Now, can anyone tell me what punctuated equalibrium is?” Of course, this is coming from a non-teacher thinking in purely theoretical terms, who risks nothing in fantasizing about taking the high road. YMMV. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2004, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medieval-ignorance-rears-its-head-in-jawja/226754/13 "2004-01-30T16:42:40Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Gotta go with **Metacom** on this one. I **am** a teacher, and my job is to teach the curriculum. I do try to get The Truth out there whenever possible, but my job is to do what the School Board tells me to do. I live in a town that is 50% Mormon and 50% Baptist. Luckily, they tend to cancel each other out, and we can teach science without fundie interference. What if the curriculum required you to teach that black people are inferior to whites? Is there any point at which you’d draw a line? Would you really lie to children for money? Because that’s what you’d be doing if you taught creationism. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2004, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medieval-ignorance-rears-its-head-in-jawja/226754/14 "2004-01-30T17:11:25Z")
> [@gobear](#): > > There is no reason whatsoever to cave even one millimeter to the knuckle-dragging, Bible-beating troglodytes who want to impose their Mesopotamian mythology on the vulnerable minds of their children. I like this sentence. It’s got a beat, and you can dance to it. _–thumbs up–_ Oh, and yeah, fundamentalist activists suck. Anyone who’s thinking about trying to defend this shit, you suck too. You have the right to believe in whatever nomadic thoughtspackle you like, but that right ends at the boundary of your own atrophied brain. ---
**Author:** ![photopat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e95f7d/32.png) [@photopat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/photopat)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2004, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medieval-ignorance-rears-its-head-in-jawja/226754/15 "2004-01-30T17:33:26Z")
I’m not a teacher, although my sister has just become one. I’d like to think that, given the directive to teach “alternative theories” of cosmology or the development of life I would teach them as _mythology_, not as fact. "Here’s the deal kids. I’m supposed to tell you about this thing called Intelligent Design. That’s just a different term for Creationism, which is something I can’t teach because it’s religious in origin and this is a public school, and we’re lucky to have a concept in our country called “separation of church and state.” Creationism is also wrong. It’s a myth from a time when people didn’t even understand the concept of evolution and had no scientific basis for explaining much of anything. Now we know better. Here’s why. And then go on to explain how things really work. But again, I’m not a teacher so this is just what I think I would do. ---
**Author:** ![chique](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@chique](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chique)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2004, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medieval-ignorance-rears-its-head-in-jawja/226754/16 "2004-01-30T18:25:57Z")
If I were a teacher? I’d tell the kids they need to learn about things in which they don’t believe as well as things in which they do believe. Heck, every intelligent evolutionist reads everything possible about creationism in order to refute it; intelligent creationists should do the same regarding evolution. ---
**Author:** ![Doomtrain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/0ea827/32.png) [@Doomtrain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doomtrain)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2004, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medieval-ignorance-rears-its-head-in-jawja/226754/17 "2004-01-30T18:28:27Z")
> [@gobear](#): > > And that big building with all the scary books? It’s called a library (ly-BRAR-ee)–go get yourselves cards and let the sunlight of knowledge burn away the fog of unknowing. Shit, even that won’t work, they’ll just stick to Left Behind and ignore all the evil devil books. I love this state, but I fucking hate some of the idiots in it. ---
**Author:** ![Doomtrain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/0ea827/32.png) [@Doomtrain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doomtrain)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2004, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medieval-ignorance-rears-its-head-in-jawja/226754/18 "2004-01-30T18:31:56Z")
> [@gobear](#): > > And that big building with all the scary books? It’s called a library (ly-BRAR-ee)–go get yourselves cards and let the sunlight of knowledge burn away the fog of unknowing. Shit, even that won’t work, they’ll just stick to Left Behind and ignore all the evil devil books. Or, worse, they’ll read the evil devil books, then librarians’ll have to put up with them and their “JAYSUS hates HARRY POTTER!” bullshit. I love this state, but I fucking hate some of the idiots in it. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2004, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medieval-ignorance-rears-its-head-in-jawja/226754/19 "2004-01-30T19:02:12Z")
> [@](#): > > _OP_ > Adam and Eve are figures from Mesopotamian folktales I thought the story originated on the southeastern shores of the Mediteranean. Could you please be so kind as to offer a cite? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2004, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medieval-ignorance-rears-its-head-in-jawja/226754/20 "2004-01-30T19:25:49Z")
> [@grienspace](#): > > I thought the story originated on the southeastern shores of the Mediteranean. Could you please be so kind as to offer a cite? The Genesis story as a whole has a lot of parallels to the much older [Sumerian creation myth](http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze33gpz/sumer-faq.html#A1.6). Note the “lady of the rib” connection between Ninti and Eve among the other obvious parallels (the fashioning of the first man from clay, for example). The flood story also has a precursor in the Sumerian _Epic of Gilgamesh_ which is about 3000 years older than Genesis. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medieval-ignorance-rears-its-head-in-jawja/226754.md?page=2)