{"id":6942,"date":"2006-03-24T10:31:19","date_gmt":"2006-03-24T15:31:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=6942"},"modified":"2006-03-24T10:31:19","modified_gmt":"2006-03-24T15:31:19","slug":"more-concerned-with-the-rock-of-ages-than-the-ages-of-rocks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/more-concerned-with-the-rock-of-ages-than-the-ages-of-rocks\/","title":{"rendered":"More concerned with the rock of ages than the ages of rocks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sometimes, it’s hard to believe it’s the 21st century and teachers in too many communities are still instructed to suppress modern science<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the fall of 2004, I received an e-mail from an old friend back in Arkansas, where I was raised. She was concerned about a problem her father was having at work. “Bob” is a geologist and a teacher at a science education institution that serves several Arkansas public school districts. My friend did not know the details of Bob’s problem, only that it had to do with geology education. This was enough to arouse my interest, so I invited Bob to tell me about what was going on.<\/p>\n

He responded with an e-mail. Teachers at his facility are forbidden to use the “e-word” (evolution) with the kids. They are permitted to use the word “adaptation” but only to refer to a current characteristic of an organism, not as a product of evolutionary change via natural selection. They cannot even use the term “natural selection.” Bob feared that not being able to use evolutionary terms and ideas to answer his students’ questions would lead to reinforcement of their misconceptions.<\/p>\n

But Bob’s personal issue was more specific, and the prohibition more insidious. In his words, “I am instructed NOT to use hard numbers when telling kids how old rocks are. I am supposed to say that these rocks are VERY VERY OLD … but I am NOT to say that these rocks are thought to be about 300 million years old.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“Bob” asked why it was necessary to limit these kids’ education and his supervisors explained that irritating some religious fundamentalists in the area could lead to budget cuts.<\/p>\n

Lately, when I hear another one of these breathtaking examples, I think about the president’s recent State of the Union address<\/a>, in which Bush insisted that American students need “a firm grounding in math and science” or the nation will lose its competitive “edge.”<\/p>\n

Of course, it’s the same president who tacitly supports the problems faced by science teachers like “Bob” who aren’t even allowed to talk about the age of the earth or use the “e-word.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes, it’s hard to believe it’s the 21st century and teachers in too many communities are still instructed to suppress modern science. In the fall of 2004, I received an e-mail from an old friend back in Arkansas, where I was raised. She was concerned about a problem her father was having at work. “Bob” […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6942\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}