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Topic: Intelligent Design causes Russian IQs to Plummet. (Read 533 times) |
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Hermit
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Intelligent Design causes Russian IQs to Plummet.
« on: 2006-12-14 01:19:25 » |
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Russia Teen Sues Over Evolution Teaching
First England was infected by this virulent American meme, now it seems that Russia is under seige as well.
Source: AP
Authors: Not Credited
Dated: 2006-12-13
Dateline: St Petersburg, Russia
A Russian court on Wednesday held hearings in an unprecedented lawsuit brought by a 15-year-old student who says being taught the theory of evolution in school violates her rights and insults her religious beliefs.
Maria Shreiber sued the St. Petersburg city education committee, claiming the 10th-grade biology textbook used at the Cervantes Gymnasium was offensive to believers and that teachers should offer an alternative to Darwin's famous theory.
"The biology textbook generally refers to religion and the existence of God in a negative way. It infringes on believers' rights," she said in comments carried by Russian television stations.
[Hermit: Somebody kind might point out to these losers that their problem isn't really just with biology books, but with the fact that reality is negative to the existence of gods, and possibly prescribe them a course of appropriate anti-psychotropic agents.]
Shreiber could not be immediately located for further comment.
Her father, Kiril Schreiber, who represented her in court Wednesday, said he wants the biology textbook revised.
School officials, meanwhile, were dismissive of the suit. Principal Andrei Polozov said he doubted Shreiber had "serious religions beliefs."
"It seems to everyone that this is stupid and serves no purpose," he said of the lawsuit in televised comments. "Pupils and teachers are more amused than concerned about it."
Deputy Principal Olga Makarova told The Associated Press that the biology teacher had mentioned alternative theories to evolution.
"When starting the course on the matter, the biology teacher said that there are other versions of humanity's origin," she said.
The suit is the first of its kind in Russia.
In the United States, several lawsuits challenging the theory that says humans descended from apes have been filed in courts, with many anti-evolution groups pushing an idea known as "intelligent design" which holds that living organisms are so complex they must have been created by some kind of higher force.
[Hermit: Many of them writing on wordprocessors that are so far beyond their capabilities that the act of writing reinforces their delusions.]
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Walter Watts
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Re:Intelligent Design causes Russian IQs to Plummet.
« Reply #1 on: 2006-12-14 15:43:16 » |
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<snip>
"Maria Shreiber sued the St. Petersburg city education committee, claiming the 10th-grade biology textbook used at the Cervantes Gymnasium was offensive to believers and that teachers should offer an alternative to Darwin's famous theory."
<snip>
Yes, they should offer an alternative for those that insist on lighting up those dead-end, neural "dump-bucket/substitute for rational thinking", specialty circuits.
And they should apply the proper course-name taxonomy to this "alternative".
Then place it in its proper place right next to the Mythology 101 textbook.
Walter
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Walter Watts
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No one gets to see the Wizard! Not nobody! Not no how!
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Bass
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Re:Intelligent Design causes Russian IQs to Plummet.
« Reply #2 on: 2006-12-16 23:17:20 » |
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In late news, currently in the UK, there's a quiet little debate raging over whether or not religious schools should be allowed.
Should Muslims, Christians and Jews be given the oppertunity to go to religion-specific schools, where the beliefs of their particular religion are taught as the truth?
Personally, I think this would only increase what is already a spreading and malignant wave of segregation. Will it teach children just to stick with people like them, and that everyone else's beliefs are wrong? They will, after all, prospectively be in an environment where they will receive nothing but reinforcement of their own beliefs.
But then again, isn't it a parent's right to have that choice? In fact, should it be the parent's choice at all? They are the ones with the power to teach their children as they see fit. If they want that to be a religious school, shouldn't that be available?
Perhaps all children should just attend non-denominational schools, and keep religion at home? But there are things within standard and arguably rational education systems that bother them - explaining Darwin as the truth over the seven days story. Conversely, if God or Allah's tale was told as science, as some religious people no doubt wish, there would be an outcry.
Can the devout religious be taught what they wish in the same place as the non-believers, or should religion stay within the church, mosque, synagogue and the home?
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Hermit
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Re:Intelligent Design causes Russian IQs to Plummet.
« Reply #3 on: 2006-12-20 01:44:25 » |
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If (conventional) religion has a place in the modern world, surely it is in anthropological studies, abnormal psychology and such-forth. As I previously quoted, "For surely it is folly to preach to children who will be riding rockets to the moon a morality and cosmology based on concepts of the Good Society and of man's place in nature that were coined before the harnessing of the horse! And the world is now far too small, and men's stake in sanity too great, for any more of those old games of Chosen Folk (whether of Jehovah, Allah, Wotan, Manu, or the Devil) by which tribesmen sustained themselves against their enemies in the days when the serpent could still talk." -- Joseph Campbell, from "The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology"
And that is why, if society permits parents to teach their children lies, then children should have the right to sue their parents for the damages caused to them by their parents doing so.
Regards
Hermit
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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