Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Intelligent Design and Canada

The Star has a story about the rise of Intelligent Design in Canada. Brian Alters is the director of the Evolution Education Research Centre at McGill University. Apparently:

Alters says informal research by his centre has found that about one-third of teachers report pressure from parents to teach creationism or intelligent design, the theory that God directs the development of life, in the class as an alternative to evolution.

Most respond by teaching neither evolution nor creationism, leaving students with the impression that the two are of equal merit, he says. Others tiptoe around the issue, acknowledging that people of some faiths believe in creationism.

Alters, if you recall, sought to do a study to determine whether or not ID was gaining ground in Canada and was his grant proposal was turned down. As the story relates:

The committee reviewing his application said there was inadequate "justification for the assumption in the proposal that the theory of evolution, and not intelligent design theory, was correct."

Read the whole thing, especially for the mind-boggling comments by Kent Hovind (Dr. Dino).

5 comments:

  1. Did the Star send reporters into Federal Prison to interview Hovind?

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  2. Anonymous11:46 PM

    Canada and the USA have the same problem, Christian extremists harassing biology teachers. When biology teachers throw out evolution to avoid the harassment, the students are cheated. Evolution is what makes biology so interesting. These teachers are intentionally making their classes boring. What a great way to make students hate science.

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  3. Is Hovind in prison??? How'd I miss that.

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  4. They certainly learn to hate biology. What is astounding to me is the level of vitriol that is leveled at the very thought that evolution might be taught. It is almost as if the mere mention of the word drives people stark, raving mad.

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  5. Anonymous12:33 AM

    National Post has retained one letter on-line:

    http://people.uleth.ca/~dan.johnson/letter_National_Post_Feb2306.htm

    ReplyDelete