Should Evolution be Taught in High School?? Pageant contestant answers...

[liveonearth]

This video is a composite of answers to this question by candidates for the Miss USA Crown. The vast majority don't believe in evolution, but most seem to think that both evolution and creationism should be taught in school. The California girl that got the crown is a science nerd! Yeay!! Miss Kentucky (~5:30ish) represents the south painfully well.

Comments

[ford-prefect42.livejournal.com]

Whose children are they? Are they yours? Why do you get to make the decision on what they get taught(over the objections of their parents and themselves)? Do you have to have the arguments with them when you are trying to teach them moral behavior and they keep insisting that because the school says one thing and you say another that your word is meaningless? Do you have to drag them kicking and screaming to community functions because they reject your religion because their school said that humans evolved? What gives you the right to make these decisions not just for your own children, but for mine as well? Whose responsibility is it to raise your children?

You *do* realize that if you surrender to the state the power to teach a specified subject over the objections of the parents, that that *absolutely will* one day be used for something you *don't* agree with? It may be that christians will take the majority of the elected positions, and they will *insist* that all public schools *must* teach creationism to all students. Don't laugh, these things happen, and they always happen based on what has been mandated in the past. Say "it's better to have riots than remain ignorant" now and you open the door for all future people with *any* agenda to push. How sure are you that evolution is worth it?

Yes, I am suggesting that biology could be clipped from the "core curriculum". I am saying that it's better to permit the ignorant to remain ignorant than to trample parents rights, degrade the overall culture, and create yet another division in this country to no particular gain. I am saying that if biology were made an elective course (and taught with evolution as integral) that the problem would be irrelovent.


Now, you also realize that you've contradicted yourself. You said before that evolution is inseparable, but here you said that it is a mere chapter in the course. If it's a mere chapter, then it could easily be dropped from the *core* course (the mandatory one) without significant damage to the knowledge imparted, if it's integral, inseparable part then in order to not teach evolution the only possible way would be to not teach biology. Care to clear up the confusion?


As I said, I love evolutionary biology, it does make a lot of things make much more sense, but necessary? That's questionable at best.

[liveonearth.livejournal.com]

You remind me so much of someone I hold dear. There is no need to carry on this discussion any further. You win. =-]

[ford-prefect42.livejournal.com]

You know another abrasive, paranoid, hyper-logical know-it-all? Cool, I was worried that I might be the only one!

I do like that you can have these discussions and not take offense.

[liveonearth.livejournal.com]

Funny you should describe yourself that way. My sweetie might get offended. =-] It's all cool, my friend. I appreciate that you are willing to take a position and defend it. Far better than all the wishywashiness out there.