Quotable: “U.S. Schools as Islamic Madrassas”

Thursday, 2 October 2008 Clay Burell Print This Post

Call me crazy. I care that science not be confused with superstition in schools.

That’s why I like this riposte to Sarah Palin’s “teach them both theories” nonsense about creationism/intelligent design in science classrooms:

[N]ext time you hear this innocent sounding, ever so reasonable, “teach both sides” proposition . . . from . . . Sarah (did she really think her father had his own theories of evolution?), ask yourself where you would draw the line. Where would they draw the line? Either kids learn the results of the scientific understanding of the world, or we turn all schools into “madrassas”, differing only in the brand of religion with which the students are being indoctrinated. And we head back to medieval times, the monks running the schools, needing a whole new scientific revolution to repeat history, and get us back to where we were before this religious insanity re-emerged in the late twentieth century. [emphasis added]

You can read the rest, including a very nice catalogue of other discredited religious teachings about science we may as well resurrect along with Genesisology, in the nicely titled “Geology. Palinology.”

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Of related interest, see here for a good digest of Palin’s record and positions. All supported with links/references.

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Tags: election08, palin Print This Post

The entry 'Quotable: “U.S. Schools as Islamic Madrassas”' was posted on October 2nd, 2008 at 5:45 pm and last modified on October 2nd, 2008 at 5:47 pm, and is filed under politics, religion, school reform, science. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Quotable: “U.S. Schools as Islamic Madrassas””

JazzyBlueTeach writes:
No. 1 — October 2nd, 2008 at 8:04 pm
Once again, with these series of election themed posts, you amaze me with your brilliance. I have sent all the links to the ill-informed among me, hoping to at least give them food for thought. I am just hoping it does not become food for their recycle bin.

Have I told you lately that I love you? You have to be my favorite and most forwarded blog.

I am finished Gilgamesh, btw, and have moved on to Enuma Elish. I had probably the most interesting ideas about Gilgamesh in the course thanks to you. Of course, I had the more…hmm… interesting version to work with.

I wish my kids could have had you as a teacher. I wish I could have had you as a teacher.

Keep the politico manifesto coming. I cannot wait to see what you have to say about the debate.

Karen

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JC writes:
No. 2 — October 2nd, 2008 at 10:08 pm
Ugh. I can’t believe this controversy is still sprouting up in the 21st century. The basis of science is empirical testability. The keystone concept of intelligent design, namely that creation is designed and guided by some kind of intelligent cause rather than by an undirected process, is FUNDAMENTALLY untestable! I don’t think that it should be taught at all, but if people insist upon it, it belongs in a philosophy class, not in a science class!

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