Perhaps it’s proof that God loves the secular homeschoolers, too–or at the very least, humors us–that a friend of mine should pass this link along to me just in time for a Secular Thursday. Pharyngula, a blogger at ScienceBlogs write about his dismay over the way a “science” textbook published by Bob Jones University presents the topic of electricity. I am equally dismayed.
You can view the scanned page here or at ScienceBlogs, but here’s the text:
Electricity is a mystery. No one has ever observed it or heard it or felt it. We can see and feel and hear only what electricity does. We know that it makes light bulbs shine and irons heat up and telephones ring. But we cannot say what electricity itself is like.
We cannot even say where electricity comes from. Some scientists say that the sun may be the source of most electricity. Other think that the movement of the Earth produces some of it. All anyone knows is that electricity seems to be everywhere and that there are many ways to bring it forth.
How would you have to change the way you get ready for school if you did not use electricity?
“The voice of thy thunder was in the heaven: the lightnings lightened the world: the earth trembled and shook.” Psalm 77:18
Ok, what in the happy crap is that? I’ll tell you what it’s not: Science.
Did the person who wrote that book ever read an actual science text? Do they actually know anything about electricity? Have they ever even bothered to look up electricity on Wikipedia? We do, in fact, know what electricity is and where it comes from. It’s generated by a myriad sources. It isn’t, as Pharyngula points out, “something like oil, a substance lying in large deposits that must be harvested and poured into your hairdryer to make it work,” as the BJU text’s author seems to think.
Obviously, BJU’s presentation of things like the origin of life and changes in species is going to be significantly different from that of secular science. While I think their presentation is based on an entirely non-scientific premise, I acknowledge that said premise is going to lead to a certain way of presenting certain topics. Fine. I won’t teach that to my kids, but if you think people lived with dinosaurs and the earth is only 6000 years old, you feel free to teach that to your kids.
There is NO excuse, however, for completely misrepresenting topics like electricity. Really, how is explaining about particles and currents not compatible with creationism? Can someone explain that to me? Does electricity have to be dumbed down and falsified and just…just…stupid-ized purely for the sake of making it different from secular science? What is the purpose here?
I’m absolutely baffled, is what I am. Can’t you teach your children a creationist viewpoint without screwing up the rest of science? DO you have to distill it down to something, as Pharyngula points out, worthy of the Insane Clown Posse [if you aren't familiar with ICP, please be warned, anything related to this band contains EXPLICIT LANGUAGE]?
I just find it hard to believe that Christian homeschoolers really want their children to be dumber than a Juggalo. Why would they tolerate this insulting level of pseudoscience?
