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

Re: what is the purpose of education?

[liveonearth.livejournal.com]

I can totally imagine schools wanting the kids to come in with plenty to learn. Nothing worse than sitting through classes on shit you already know... Though kids can get bumped forward when their skills exceed their classmates.

"Rights" are certainly a touchy issue. I personally believe that we only have "rights" when we decide as a society that we are going to allow each other to have. For example, I don't see that we have any inherent right to life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness. Rather, we agree that we value these things and want everyone in our nation to share in them. In this way we could decide that we want everyone to share in some kind of education, or retirement plan, or healthcare, etc. A "right" is not inherent, it is a social contract.

Re: what is the purpose of education?

[ford-prefect42.livejournal.com]

For myself, I am a big believer in "negative" rights, meaning that your "right" to life means that it's not okay to murder you, your "right" to liberty meaning that no one can imprison you without due process. Where I have a *huge* problem is in saying that anyone has a "right" to anything that must be created by another person. "Positive" rights seem to lead rather directly to slavery. To say that a person has a "right" to food is to say that the farmers are enslaved. To say that a person has a "right" to medical care is to enslave the doctors. A "right" to education enslaves the teachers. Now, it *can* be done differently, by enslaving uninvolved parties to pay the doctors to provide the meidcal care, or whatever, but it still comes back to the same thing, whenever something is provided as a "right", it is taken by force from another.

Now, a just society will probably try pretty hard to provide, as a kindhearted service, medical care, education, and food, but for every person that avails themselves of those services, the overall society is due thanks, not condemnation for the instances of failing to deliver them.

The school that instructs parents to *not* teach their children is a failure. Completely and utterly.