In Lebec, California (which is about ninety miles north of downtown Los Angeles) a suit has just been filed charging the school board with teaching so-called "Intelligent Design" under a new name: Philosophy.
According to the story by Henry Weinstein in the LA Times (reg. required):
An initial course description, which was distributed to students and their families last month, said "the class will take a close look at evolution as a theory and will discuss the scientific, biological and biblical aspects that suggest why Darwin’s philosophy is not rock solid. The class will discuss intelligent design as an alternative response to evolution. Physical and chemical evidence will be presented suggesting the earth is thousands of years old, not billions."
The course, which began Jan. 3 and is scheduled to run for one month, is being taught by Sharon Lemburg, a special education teacher with a bachelor of arts in physical education and social science, according to the lawsuit.
The suit adds that Lemburg "has no training or certification in the teaching of science, religion or philosophy," and is "the wife of the minister for the local Assembly of God Church, a Christian fundamentalist church, and a proponent of a creationist world view."
Lebec is a small town in an area known mostly for camping, fishing, hunting, and snow in the winter in Southern California. The school board approved this "philosophy" class by a 3-2 decision. The school administration did not defend the decision when a reporter called, saying the Superintendent was out of town, and no one else could speak on the record. The suit was filed by eleven parents, one of whom is a scientist at the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena and commented:
I believe this class undermines the sound scientific principles taught in Frazier Mountain High School’s biology curriculum and is structured in a way that deprives my children of the opportunity to be presented with an objective education that would aid the development of their critical thinking skills."
But most interesting to me was the suit’s contention that:
the course relies exclusively on videos that advocate religious perspectives and present religious theories as scientific ones — and because the teacher has no scientific training, students are not provided with any critical analysis of the presentation.
How convenient is that? I think it’s part of a deplorable trend. Anyone who has a kid in school knows how much "teaching" comes to students these days via videos and movies. Usually when these cause controversy, it’s related to content; for example, teachers who show R-rated movies to junior high classes. (Probably not so much because these teachers want to corrupt kids, but just because they’re lazy.) But if you want kids not to question the Biblical claim that the planet is just a few thousand years old, and to believe that life didn’t evolve from single-celled organisms, that the glaciers didn’t sculpt the mountains, that dinosaurs never trod the earth, and so on, how clever to show them videos encapsulating your point and then take no questions!
I wonder where these videos come from…
Kit Stolz 