The Many Effects of the Warfare Thesis
Kevin Williamson must be helping out at the local ABC affiliate in Dallas-Ft. Worth, WFAA Channel 8, which when reporting on the Texas textbook controversy this week informed its audience that “Texas law bans the mention of evolution in textbooks.” This level of ignorance would be amusing if it wasn’t so tragic. Evolutionary misinformation has journalists confused even about basic facts:
Next WFAA misinformed its audience that former chairman of the State Board Don McLeroy supports teaching creationism:
After all, McLeroy wants the facts about evolution, that must mean he wants creationism in the classroom. Finally there always is the appeal to science, which leaves no doubt that the biological world spontaneously arose:
Given that federal judge John Jones actually wanted to see Inherit the Wind a second time in preparation for the Dover case because, after all, the film puts the origins debate into its proper “historical context” (Jones later explained that “I understood the general theme. I’d seen Inherit the Wind.”), then perhaps it is not too surprising that journalists also have their heads spinning from evolution’s misinformation.
After all, McLeroy wants the facts about evolution,...
ReplyDeleteDoes he? I'm sure they've been presented to him many times now but, to paraphrase the old saying, you can lead a creationist to data but you can't make him think.
What we have is a dentist with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering who believes he understands evolution better than professional biologists. Of course, it's alway possible he's highly knowledgeable for a layman but how do we know?
Put it another way, if you suspected that you or a loved one might have a cancer would you go to your plumber to get it checked out or consult an oncologist, preferably several. Of course, there's always the possibility your plumber might have an amateur interest in oncology but who is more likely to be right, the plumber or a group of oncologists?
McLeroy might be well-versed in the science but if the majority of professional biologists tell me he doesn't know what the hell he's talking about then I know which I'm inclined to believe.
Given that federal judge John Jones actually wanted to see Inherit the Wind a second time in preparation for the Dover case because, after all, the film puts the origins debate into its proper “historical context” (Jones later explained that “I understood the general theme. I’d seen Inherit the Wind.”), then perhaps it is not too surprising that journalists also have their heads spinning from evolution’s misinformation.
Where did he say he wanted to see it a second time?
And before you get too carried away with the fact that Inherit The Wind was not a documentary on the Scopes Trial it did give some historical context.
Tennessee's Butler Act of 1925 did ban the teaching of evolution in publicly-funded schools and universities:
That it shall be unlawful for any teacher in any of the Universities, Normals and all other public schools of the State which are supported in whole or in part by the public school funds of the State, to teach any theory that denies the Story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals
And while the fictional "Matthew Harrison Brady" may have been something of a caricature of the real-life William Jennings Bryan, not all of the attitudes were. Bryan, for example, thanked Tennessee governor Austin Peay for the Butler Act as follows:
The Christian parents of the state owe you a debt of gratitude for saving their children from the poisonous influence of an unproven hypothesis.
The play and movie of Inherit The Wind may not be an historically accurate account of the Scopes Monkey Trial in all respects, that's allowable in a fictionalized version if the authors make clear that's what it is, but it still embodies a lot of historical truth.
Cornelius Hunter
ReplyDeleteNext WFAA misinformed its audience that former chairman of the State Board Don McLeroy supports teaching creationism:
Oh dear, our brave little culture warrior caught in another blatant prevarication.
McLeroy Urges Texas SBOE to Destroy Evolution
" During a Texas State Board of Education public hearing over changes to public school biology books this afternoon, former board chair Don McLeroy flatly told his former colleagues to, “strike a final blow to the teaching of evolution,” and support the Bible, putting to rest any questions that McLeroy, a hotly controversial past member of the Board, sought to inject creationism in Texas schools…
McLeroy, a young-earth creationist, Sunday school teacher and dentist from Bryan, appeared elated to deliver his testimony before the board—this time talking as a citizen and not a member—saying he had been waiting four years to do so and was “excited” to finally be given the chance. “Even units on evolution support what the Bible says,” said a bubbling McLeroy, who was appointed SBOE chair by Gov. Rick Perry in 2007."
McLeroy's speech attacking evolution
Lie after lie after lie...sigh.
DrHunter,
ReplyDeleteNext WFAA misinformed its audience that former chairman of the State Board Don McLeroy supports teaching creationism:
By your logic he does, if an acknowledged fictional movie single viewing renders one a fanatic, then how can one withstand a creationist site without even a more profound result?
McLeroy said that while "some of the material was taken from the creationist site"
Therefore McLeroy is a creationist, and secretly rejects evidence of all the lies of creationism, and uses all his efforts as a public Offical to support creationist lies. He probably considers the Bible as a " historical context"
So very wrong. Reporters are liberal and progressive. That means that they must be secular. And we all know that evolution is the religion of secularism. To advance secularism we must keep religion out of the public sphere. Evolution is the tool to do this. So CH, it is not ignorance, but deliberate propaganda that supports the ideology of secular progressive journalists. And the amusing part of all this is that the journalists, brainwashed by their journalism professors, believe that what they are doing is for the best. But then, they wouldn't have passed their courses if they couldn't be brainwashed by their stupid progressive journalist professors. The warfare thesis is nothing more than secular propaganda - get it.
ReplyDeletePeter Wadeck: And we all know that evolution is the religion of secularism.
DeleteWe do? How do we know that?
Since you hold a religious-based origin of biological complexity, any alternative theory biological complexity that intersects your belief must be religious as well?
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ReplyDeletePeter:
DeleteWell going back to the Williamson piece, he says:
There is a very good case — in my view, a winning one — for incorporating the study of Christian thinking and texts into every school curriculum as a matter of literacy, if not moral instruction.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/358500/texas-texts-kevin-d-williamson
Hey peter, cornelius, and the rest of you god pushers, do you want ALL religions and every version of all religions to be preached in public schools and equally supported in the "public sphere" or just the version of the religion that you believe in?
DeleteNo, TWT. We want lies about the putative correspondence between cladistics and known mutational effects stopped. And we want lies about the putative correspondence of fossils and their currently known stratigraphic ranges to known mutational effects stopped. And we want lies about the falsifiability of naturalistic UCA stopped. That would be a good start. No instruction in theism, deism, or any religion is necessary at all. Just talk about what is empircally known and analogically extrapolable from the known. Is that too hard for pathological liars like you?
Delete