April Fool’s Day. This is a good time to write bout the way American citizens have been hoodwinked into providing funding for the teaching of creationism and pseudoscience in religious and private schools. Nearly $1 billion in public funds in fourteen states will be handed to hundreds of private schools that teach creationism as science this year. These schools promulgate the ideas that the earth is less than 10,000 years old and that mankind existed simultaneously with the dinosaurs. Students are told that accepted scientific doctrines regarding evolution and biology, “big bang theory” and other information related to cosmology and geology, are a pack of lies and not to be believed.
Unfortunately, in addition to current funding, movements are afoot to expand these programs so that more students will be exposed to this misinformation and will not be taught basic scientific principles necessary to understand the modern world. In fact, those students who do not absorb fundamental scientific information will not be prepared to compete in today’s society.
Though public schools are prevented from teaching creationism or intelligent design after years of court challenges, these doctrines can be instilled in students in private schools that are sustained with government subsidies. Many of these faith-based schools teach the biblical story of the six days of creation as established fact, and inform students that scientific theories such as evolution are highly speculative. Their teachers are contemptuous of the secular world, the scientific method, and mainstream science in general. One might imagine these schools as being aligned with the madrasses in Pakistan, and providing students with ideas that were popular five hundred years ago, before the major body of scientific knowledge was discovered.
Many states are now considering increasing voucher programs with public funds to allow more students to attend these schools or to opt out of their public school science classes to receive instruction from teachers or tutors versed in teaching creationism and biblical doctrine. Students would also be able to use vouchers to buy “scientific” textbooks that promoted these religious ideas as scientific fact.
There are two major concerns about these pseudo-scientific programs being supported with tax-payer funds. The first is that the constitutional doctrine of separation of church and state is being ignored. In this instance, religious ideas are being disseminated through the voucher system with taxpayer dollars. If religious adherents wish to teach these doctrines, it should be done after regular school hours, and teachers should not be paid, nor textbooks bought, with public funds, to be certain that separation of church and state is maintained. Many of the people supporting the voucher system to teach religion are also fighting against insurance companies having to pay for contraception, believing that government should not be forcing businesses to act contrary to their owners’ religious beliefs. Well, I believe that government on all levels should not be using tax dollars to promote any religious ideas or creationism.
The second concern is that students are being given false information about scientific doctrines at ages where they are susceptible to new ideas and not sophisticated enough to challenge information they are given by authority figures (teachers). They should be taught accepted scientific information in school and can then be provided with contrary religious ideas in after school hours if their parents desire this. Today’s American students must be prepared to compete against students from all over the world who are learning proper scientific doctrine. Young Americans must be made ready to use what they have learned in science and math in their fields of employment. Those who accept creationism or the biblical story of creation as literal fact will never be part of America’s scientific work force and will not contribute to the advancement of scientific knowledge or the nation’s economy.
Resurrecting Democracy
www.robertlevinebooks.com
Political junkie, Vietnam vet, neurologist- three books on aging and dementia. Book on health care reform in 2009- Shock Therapy for the American Health Care System. Book on the need for a centrist third party- Resurrecting Democracy- A Citizen’s Call for a Centrist Third Party published in 2011. Aging Wisely, published in August 2014 by Rowman and Littlefield. Latest book- The Uninformed Voter published May 2020