Smrt Lernins

What do the Rosetta Stone language curricula have to do with creationist pseudo-science?

Yeah, my first answer would have been “nothing,” too, but now, if you “like” Rosetta Stone Homeschool on Facebook, The Old Schoolhouse magazine will be happy to send you free creationist e-books to befuddle, mislead, and indoctrinate your children into the glorious world of creation non-science. All you have to do is email gena@tosmag.com and you’ll be sent a list of The Curiosity Files e-books from which to choose*.

Personally, I’m having a hard time choosing. Which burning scientific inquiry do I most need answered?

Does the dung beetle really “bring glory to God?”
What does the Bible tell us about MRSA?
Were blue diamonds sent as a special gift to us?
Is the blue-footed booby an “evolution stumper” that “defies the theory of natural selection?”
Can these handy curricula can help hammer home the important fundamentalist idea that “male and female roles [are] very different?”

So hard to choose! *sigh*

Seriously, folks. Pseudo-science like this is insidious. It’s dressed up in fun little packages, but the stuff inside is designed to lead children away from real, evidence-based science. I genuinely pity children who are taught to blindly accept creationism, rather than developing a truly scientific mind and learning to discern fact from fancy, evidence from belief, and science from religion. Let faith be faith and science be science.

*A friend told me about this giveaway, with no info as to the name of the curricula that would be given away, just that it was science. Yes, I suspected that any science e-books given away by TOS would be creationist. However, I was under the impression that Rosetta Stone was a secular curricula, so I’m curious why the “reward” for liking their company’s homeschool curricula branch is a decidedly religious curricula.

Good news for those of you who might ever have to deal with a pharmacist who thinks his/her personal beliefs outweigh your right to have your prescriptions issued as written. The Obama administration has rescinded the Bush administration regulations that allow the refusal of treatment or refusal to fill prescriptions on moral or religious grounds.

If you can’t do the job, get a new job. A pharmacist’s job is to fill the prescription as written and counsel the patient on possible drug interactions or side effect (evidence-based only, no speculation). Plain and simple.

I’m calling this one a triumph of individual rights and secular sense over the religious dogma that has been running rampant in this country.

A commenter on my post about the pro-creationist bill introduced in Oklahoma seemed to think I was getting my panties in a twist over something he dismissed as a “crackpot bill.” Whether or not the state senator introducing the bill is a crackpot isn’t the issue here, however (though I agree that he is, in fact, a crackpot). The problem isn’t that one guy in Oklahoma thinks teachers should teach creationism in the classroom. The problem is that so many teachers already do.

LiveScience reports that data collected from 926 nationally representative participants in the National Survey of High School Biology Teachers shows that fewer than 30 percent of teachers teach an adamantly pro-evolution biology curriculum, while 13 percent of these teachers advocate creationism in their classrooms. An overwhelming majority (close to 60%) didn’t take an in-class stance on the issue at all, opting to skirt the issue by talking about genes or “teaching the controversy.”

So, yeah. I’m concerned when a senator introduces a bill that would give that 13% of teachers state support. I do think it’s a big deal and I expect better for and from our public schools.

Growing up in an affluent, yet very conservative, county in GA, the potential for creationism popping up in my high school science classrooms was high. Luckily, I instead had Dr. Wes McCoy, who is both a devout Christian (Presbyterian) and a vocal proponent of evolutionary science. He was also a 2006 recipient of the AAAS Award for Scientific Freedom and Responsibility. He is a member of the Broader Social Impacts Committee of the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History’s Human Origins Initiative, which explores the question of “What does it mean to be human?” in part through relationship between science and religion.

That Dr. McCoy holds a strong belief in God and is an active member of his church was never an issue in the classroom. It didn’t interfere with the evidence-based teaching of evolutionary science. On the contrary, Dr. McCoy himself has said, “My understanding of evolution does nothing to diminish my faith in God. In fact, my connection to God is deepened when I contemplate the intricate beauty of evolution.” A man of profound faith, but also a man of science, Dr. McCoy has staunchly fought for high science standards for our local school system and against such anti-evolutionary nonsense as the “evolution is a theory, not a fact” stickers in the county’s science texts.

This man set my standard for scientific excellence in the classroom. It wasn’t until I had my own children and had to start looking at potential pitfalls in their education that I came to realize that Dr. McCoy, while an exemplary teacher, is not a particularly accurate example of the type of science teacher I could expect for my children throughout their years in school. They would be twice as likely to have a teacher who pussy-foots around the topic of education as they would be to have one like Dr. McCoy. Their odds of having a teacher with a creationist or “intelligent design” approach to education is unacceptably high. The desire for my children to have a sound, accurate education in evolutionary science is one of many reasons why I have chosen to homeschool them. When I look at the numbers from the National Survey of High School Biology Teachers, I have it reconfirmed for me that this choice was a very wise one.

It’s easy to dismiss concerns about inappropriate religious influences in the classroom and on our laws as “tilting at windmills,” but saying it doesn’t make it so. Conservative (“evangelical” and/or “fundamentalist,” if you prefer) Christianity still significantly impacts laws and policies relating to education, healthcare, marriage, and other areas of our lives. Even if, as some numbers show, the overall % of people in the US who identify as Christian is decreasing (and even that is debatable, as more people are becoming disenchanted with organized religion and identify as religiously unaffiliated, which doesn’t mean they have don’t still share specific conservative religious views), those who remain become more and more polarized into an extreme way of thinking. That impacts the lives and education of my children and makes it a topic worth addressing here.

Where the wind goes whipping down the plains…full of people living w/ dinosaurs?

Oklahoma Republicans have introduced a bill that would allow for the teaching of creationist pseudoscience in public school classrooms. You can read the details of the bill here.

The bill specifically states that teachers can teach the “scientific strengths or scientific weaknesses of controversial topics in sciences and that “scientific information is not excluded from this definition solely on the basis that it coincides with the tenets of some or all religious beliefs or doctrines.” It also says that “this section only protects the teaching of scientific information and specifically does not protect the promotion of any religion, religious doctrine, or religious belief” and “this definition does exclude information based solely on religious writings, beliefs or doctrines,” so at least “the Bible says so” won’t be an acceptable reason to teach it in science class, right?

Of course, all it takes is one piece of “evidence” for “intelligent design” or one argument from one of those so-called creation scientists to justify teachers presenting faith-based fancy, which has absolutely no basis in real evidence or scientific theory, as a perfectly valid alternative to actual science. Under this law, school systems would not be allowed to prevent teachers from teaching creationism or the even more insidious “intelligent design” as scientifically on par with neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory. Teachers could not be disciplined for teaching tripe as fact, as long as they can fabricate some small claim that what they are teaching is based in any way on something that might sorta-kinda resemble a fact.

In other words, teachers in Oklahoma would be able to place their religious beliefs above doing the duties of their job, just like some pharmacists are doing. Instead of taking a job where their skewed morality is welcome (a religious school, perhaps?), they are going to spew it into public schools. Nothing like an impressionable group of young students to sew the seeds of ignorance and religious fervor.

We choose not to send our children to public school. Our family situation allows us the freedom and ability to homeschool our children. If that changed, however, and I had to send my children to public school, I should be able to do so with the expectation that they will not be taught that the world was created 6000 years ago, that people lived with dinosaurs, that God is a fact (whatever our personal spiritual beliefs), or that the Bible is true. Separation of church and state should mean your religious beliefs aren’t being impressed upon my children. It should mean that, in order to teach science in a public school, you should actually — call me crazy here — teach evidence-based science.

Incidentally, if you doubt the intent of the bill as anything other than anti-evolution, the state senator introducing it was very clear that this was his goal.

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?

Daisy asks, “Should I join a homeschool advocacy group like HSLDA (Homeschool Legal Defense Association)?”

In a word, no.

Please forgive me if I become too wordy or impassioned, but this particular topical splinter has been digging into my brain for a while now. What comes out might not be pretty. As a secular homeschooler, I’m not ever going to be on board with the HSLDA. As a liberal homeschooler, I’m not ever going to be on board with the HSLDA. Honestly, as a homeschooler in general, I’m not ever going to be on board with the HSLDA.

HSLDA is a religious group and has, in my opinion, some rather sinister ulterior motives that go much further than protecting or extending the rights of homeschoolers. It’s not just “rah rah, homeschooling!” but a lot of unpleasant cause mixing — they’ve either directly worked against, encouraged members to work against, or celebrated legislation outlawing/limiting gay marriage, gun-free school zones, abortion, and more. Not only does this stand against things I believe in, ethically/morally and politically/legally speaking, but really crosses the line from supporting homeschool to intervening in the lives of others — ironically, the very thing they seem so convinced the government is set on doing. A 2004 article in the Boston Globe addresses many of my concerns with the organization and what I feel is an exploitation of homeschooling families and homeschooled children to push the HSLDA’s ultraconservative agenda.

When I think of major legal or social issues that might impact homeschooling, gay marriage isn’t something that springs to mind. The HSLDA seems to think it’s terribly relevant to homeschooling, however, as they sent an email to their mailing list asking if members would support amendment to ban gay marriage and later posted a Q&A page on the importance of a federal ban on gay marriage. I haven’t yet had someone else’s marriage, gay or straight, in any way affect my ability to homeschool my children, but I guess it’s possible I’m missing something. Does the mythical Gay Agenda now include “outlaw homeschooling” along with “destroy the sanctity of your marriage” and “corrupt your children” “go to work,” “raise a family,” and “live my life?”

What does abortion have to do with homeschooling, exactly, outside of the topics of health or religious belief? The HSLDA has an entire page on their site celebrating “partial birth abortion” ban. HSLDA president Michael Farris hopes, in his own words, that “homeschooled young people will help reverse Roe v. Wade.” Again, I’m curious as to what Roe v. Wade has to do with mathematics, science, language arts, or any other aspect of home education. How is Roe v. Wade, or abortion in general, an issue that should be addressed by a homeschooling organization?

Why does an organization charging around $100/year in membership dues, supposedly to pay for legal defense for homeschooling issue, instead shunt that money into stopping abortion or gay marriage, or championing non-homeschool-related political causes in general? HSLDA funds the National Center for Home Education, which is a lobbying organization, and Generation Joshua, which is designed to indoctrinate homeschooled students into the Farris’s specific set of conservative beliefs and recruit them for conservative grassroots movements.

Additionally, the HSLDA, champion of the “rights” of homeschooled parents, is also absurdly afraid of children having rights of their own.

You’re better off knowing your own rights and retaining your own counsel, IMO, unless you want to fund the above. Obviously, I’m addressing a general “you,” or more specifically, answering the question of whether I would join the HSLDA, because I certainly wouldn’t want to fund the above. Even some of my politically conservative, Christian friends won’t join the HSLDA, because they feel uncomfortable with the degree of political involvement and the related pressure on member-families. Sadly, the HSLDA presents itself as the only game in town and the only group standing between homeschoolers and terrible, crushing demise at the government’s hands. Yes, homeschoolers do have it pretty rough in some states, but the intrusive, rabidly conservative approach of the HSLDA strikes me as a way to worsen, rather than improve, conditions for homeschoolers.

Daisy also asked about joining the HSC (Homeschool Assoc of CA). This group appears to be inclusive and to genuinely focus on advocating for the rights of homeschoolers. If you really feel that joining a legal/advocacy group is important, the HSC sound like a much better bet to this [Smrt] Homeschooler.

Do you have a question for the [Smrt] Homeschooler? Email them to
smrtmama@smrtlernins.com

I hate defining myself by what I’m not, but in the case of secular homeschool curricula, especially science curricula, it often really does come down to finding something that is not-religious. The options for homeschool science are pretty much all either religious or the supposedly neutral curricula that are really anything but. The issue is that there is no such thing as neutrality about science — you should be as impartial (in your methodology and interpretation of data) as possible, you can be avoidant (get around that pesky evolution issue by just not mentioning it) of those issues that are the source of dissent — but you can’t really be neutral when it comes to the issue of scientific theory versus religious doctrine.

If you discuss biology (though many Christian curricula call it “life science” or “zoology”) without mentioning evolution, you’ve made a decidedly un-neutral choice. If you present both the theory of evolution and the doctrine of creationism, you’re still making a choice that isn’t neutral — you’re presenting both as equally valid options, two “beliefs” of equal weight between which to choose, and which involves having made the choice to place religious dogma on the same level as evidence-based science.

Once you’ve made your choice, stick with it. Creationism and evolution are incompatible. Literal 6-day creationism and evolution, even less so. Either God made the Earth and its inhabitants in a divine wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am or not. Either the Earth and its inhabitants evolved over time, or they didn’t. Your science text needs to take a stance one way or the other. Anything less is hypocritical and a little bit condescending. A secular science text shouldn’t even address the topic of creationism (or it’s half-assed, fence-sitting cousin, “intelligent design”). There’s no need to bring it up in order to dispute it, because if your text is evidence-based and scientific, religious doctrine has no bearing on it.

Let your argument for your belief stand on its own merits, instead of basing it on how mine is wrong. There’s a time and place for the refutation of fallacies, but I don’t need to see the points of creationism discredited one by one in my child’s science text. The same should go for the creationists, who seem to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to discredit evolution. The wrongness of someone else’s belief isn’t argument enough for the rightness of yours. What I want is evidence, not faux neutrality. I want rigorous, secular science that addresses real scientific theories, rather than ignoring them to appease both sides. I’d like to have my scientific chocolate peanut butter free of any theological chocolate. That’s decidedly hard to come by in the world of homeschool materials.