Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

No True Scotsman!! Loch Ness monster to feature in Louisiana private school science textbook?

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In “Loch Ness monster cited by US schools as evidence that evolution is myth” (The Scotsman, 25 June 2012), Claire McKin reports,

THOUSANDS of American school pupils are to be taught that the Loch Ness monster is real – in an attempt by religious teachers to disprove Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.

Pupils attending privately-run Christian schools in the southern state of Louisiana will learn from textbooks next year, which claim Scotland’s most famous mythological beast is a living creature.

Thousands of children are to receive publicly-funded vouchers enabling them to attend the schools – which follow a strict fundamentalist curriculum.

The Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) programme teaches controversial religious beliefs, aimed at disproving evolution and proving creationism.

So far it hasn’t been identified as a hoax and UD’s query to ACE got no response.

Hot potato: Schools teaching that the Nessie hoax is a fact (and relevant to evolution) may get public funds (vouchers).

Of course, not getting government funding wouldn’t make it okay. But getting funding drags the government into it.

Note: This has nothing to do with the recent controversy over Louisiana’s public schools being allowed to teach weaknesses, as well as strengths, of evolution theories:

[The LA law] “requires the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, upon request of a local school board, to allow and assist teachers, principals, and other school administrators to create and foster an environment within public elementary and secondary schools that promotes critical thinking skills, logical analysis, and open and objective discussion of scientific theories being studied including evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning.”

I don’t think we can get Nessie listed under “critical thinking skills.” So this’ll have to do, for the stretch break:

Comments
Wait a minute! WE creationists are AGAINST NESSIE as real?! I demand a vote! Are we presuming Nessie is a myth? I heard about Ness all my life and now its not true!!!!!! If we put in some exotic fish and play with selection actions surely we could, with mutations aplenty from somewhere, make a bigger and better Nessie. Summer project and don't forget peer review. The peers being other monster makers and not other monsters.Robert Byers
June 27, 2012
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