High School Field Trip to Creation Museum

Matt,

So did I, and so did NCSE. I posted the entire text here:

http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2009/06/a-bit-more-hope.html#comment-188437

New Jersey is noted for having very good secondary schools, but I find this more than a bit distressing since Kearny is a suburb of Newark, which is a mere 30 minute subway ride (via PATH - the subway system run by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey) from lower Manhattan.

This merely shows how we must all remain vigilant.

I remember seeing a map of the United States that Ken Miller showed during his private NYC talk two weeks ago, and I was amazed that within the last few years, in 44 out of the 50 states, there has been anti-evolution activity at least at the local, if not state, level.

Appreciatively yours,

John

Someone from the school might reasonably ask why they couldn't just visit a local museum. It would be much less expensive, and surely just as educational. But the answer to this question might be informative as well.

Are you saying the center of evolution belief is in Newark? Or Manhattan?

Didn't Kent Hovind debate at Rutgers a while ago?

Don't think for a second that creationist crap is for the hicks in Kansas.

So did I, and so did NCSE. I posted the entire text here:

If you noticed, I did attribute it to the Center for Inquiry, but I thought it was sufficiently newsworthy to post in full.

paul fcd said: Are you saying the center of evolution belief is in Newark? Or Manhattan? Didn't Kent Hovind debate at Rutgers a while ago? Don't think for a second that creationist crap is for the hicks in Kansas.

It’s been alive and well amongst some alumni of that bastion for “conservative” and Fundamentalist Protestant Christian thought, Brown University

harold said: John Kwok -

It’s been alive and well amongst some alumni of that bastion for “conservative” and Fundamentalist Protestant Christian thought, Brown University

I believe that the "Brown phenomenon" is probably an example of the tendency of some creationists to "pretend to believe" science for a few years in order to get a respectable degree, in the hopes that this will make their preconceived biases more respectable. (It must take a high tolerance for cognitive dissonance to accomplish this. Then again, "high tolerance for cognitive dissonance" and "hypocrisy" are not easy to differentiate between.) No doubt they choose liberal Brown to send the message "I studied evilution at the most liberalist and fanciest east coast school ever, and I still believe in a literal Noah's ark, so Genesis must be literally true!"

School officials initially approved the trip, which suggests to CFI that they were “asleep at the wheel.”

"a public school teacher with strong religious convictions and a record of proselytizing is being allowed to serve as the advisor of a religious club and use his position to have a public school approve a patently religious-based fieldtrip."

Oh my, that is horrifying! To think that he might even read the Bible to them on the way is too much to even fathom ...

Quick, change the constitution so that's illegal and lock him up!!!

Do you have an argument to make, Whatisyourproblem, or are you just here to be a smug asshole again?

paul fcd said: Don't think for a second that creationist crap is for the hicks in Kansas.

who is your creator said: "a public school teacher with strong religious convictions and a record of proselytizing is being allowed to serve as the advisor of a religious club and use his position to have a public school approve a patently religious-based fieldtrip." Oh my, that is horrifying! To think that he might even read the Bible to them on the way is too much to even fathom ... Quick, change the constitution so that's illegal and lock him up!!!

"While at the high school, whether he is in the classroom or outside of it during contract time, Peloza is not just any ordinary citizen. He is a teacher. He is one of those especially respected persons chosen to teach in the high school's classroom. He is clothed with the mantle of one who imparts knowledge and wisdom. His expressions of opinion are all the more believable because he is a teacher. The likelihood of high school students equating his views with those of the school is substantial. To permit him to discuss his religious beliefs with students during school time on school grounds would violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Such speech would not have a secular purpose, would have the primary effect of advancing religion, and would entangle the school with religion. In sum, it would flunk all three parts of the test articulated in Lemon V. Kurtzman, …".

John Kwok -

I offer you an explanation of Bobby Jindal. Of course, it's just my hypothesis.

He finds it convenient to claim to be a creationist. He may have internalized this to some degree, or he may just outright lie in public; it's irrelevant which.

He came to that decision before attending Brown.

He went to Brown with every intent of going through the motions, passing his biology courses, but then going back to claiming to be a creationist as soon as the saps at Brown had printed his diploma and handed it to him.

Why didn't he just go to Liberty U? Because he wanted the greater respectability that a Brown degree provides, even if he did have to lie a little to get it.

One potential benefit is that, when in closed quarters with creationist supporters, he can pander to them by saying "those eastern evilutionist scientificalists don't know what they're talking about. I should know, I studied right there at Brown University, and I'm a creationist".

Do you have an alternate hypothesis that can explain his behavior?

harold said: John Kwok - I offer you an explanation of Bobby Jindal. Of course, it's just my hypothesis. He finds it convenient to claim to be a creationist. He may have internalized this to some degree, or he may just outright lie in public; it's irrelevant which. He came to that decision before attending Brown. He went to Brown with every intent of going through the motions, passing his biology courses, but then going back to claiming to be a creationist as soon as the saps at Brown had printed his diploma and handed it to him. Why didn't he just go to Liberty U? Because he wanted the greater respectability that a Brown degree provides, even if he did have to lie a little to get it. One potential benefit is that, when in closed quarters with creationist supporters, he can pander to them by saying "those eastern evilutionist scientificalists don't know what they're talking about. I should know, I studied right there at Brown University, and I'm a creationist". Do you have an alternate hypothesis that can explain his behavior?

John Kwok said: I arrived at Brown as a staunch conservative and befriended members of the campus chapter of the Campus Crusade for Christ. I often attended their meetings and became their resident skeptic. I graduated from Brown, still a conservative, and still accepting evolution as valid science. Then why am I different from Jindal?

Stanton said:

John Kwok said: I arrived at Brown as a staunch conservative and befriended members of the campus chapter of the Campus Crusade for Christ. I often attended their meetings and became their resident skeptic. I graduated from Brown, still a conservative, and still accepting evolution as valid science. Then why am I different from Jindal?

Because, unlike Mr Jindal, you feel that a) rabid, unthinking devotion to religious dogma is not a prerequisite for party loyalty, b) you're aware of the stereotype of Conservative American politicians either being religious maniacs who consider good science a mortal sin, or are financed by religious maniacs who consider good science a mortal sin, and that c) relying solely on religious dogma is a recipe for disaster?

Flint said: Someone from the school might reasonably ask why they couldn't just visit a local museum. It would be much less expensive, and surely just as educational. But the answer to this question might be informative as well.

I wouldn't agree that this particular teacher ought to be visiting a local museum either, unless it was known that he could keep his own religious views out of his commentary with public school students.

John Kwok said: That could be challenged as an infringement on one's First Amendment rights:

I wouldn't agree that this particular teacher ought to be visiting a local museum either, unless it was known that he could keep his own religious views out of his commentary with public school students.

For example, each weekend, Jehovah's Witnesses sends groups of its members to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where its officially sanctioned "tour guides" lead tours in which they reinterpret all of Ancient Near East and Egyptian archaeology according to Old Testament scripture. The Metropolitan Museum of Art hasn't challenged their right to do so (But I've gotten a good laugh or two at the expense of the Jehovah's Witnesses.). I have read that at the Denver Museum of Science, local Fundamentalist Protestant Christian churches have conducted tours of its paleontological halls, reinterpreting everything on display in the context of Young Earth Creationism. Needless to say, this activity is regarded as a great nuisance by the museum's curators, but they are legally powerless to act, unless, for example, the church groups damage the fossils on display.

To be entirely clear in my attempt at a correction above, I should have the word "PUBLIC" in front of the word school where ever that appears.

In addition to the possibility of independent tour guides as given by John Kwok above, written Creationist handbooks are available for a wide variety of public venues and parks. So if you are planning a trip to the Grand Canyon say, the group next to you could very easily be explaining it from the perspective of Noah's flood.

Gaythia said: In addition to the possibility of independent tour guides as given by John Kwok above, written Creationist handbooks are available for a wide variety of public venues and parks. So if you are planning a trip to the Grand Canyon say, the group next to you could very easily be explaining it from the perspective of Noah's flood.

Dave Luckett said:

Gaythia said: In addition to the possibility of independent tour guides as given by John Kwok above, written Creationist handbooks are available for a wide variety of public venues and parks. So if you are planning a trip to the Grand Canyon say, the group next to you could very easily be explaining it from the perspective of Noah's flood.

But... but... you can't! Dozens of separate strata, all quite clearly different and definite, all lying in orderly progression, each containing different fossils, from different biospheres, of different lifeforms, sorted not by size or density, but by organisation and degree of difference from current lifeforms, the simplest and most different on the bottom, and sometimes separted by clearly volcanic lava flows. How can you explain that by one almighty flood?

Dave Luckett said:

Gaythia said: In addition to the possibility of independent tour guides as given by John Kwok above, written Creationist handbooks are available for a wide variety of public venues and parks. So if you are planning a trip to the Grand Canyon say, the group next to you could very easily be explaining it from the perspective of Noah's flood.

But... but... you can't! Dozens of separate strata, all quite clearly different and definite, all lying in orderly progression, each containing different fossils, from different biospheres, of different lifeforms, sorted not by size or density, but by organisation and degree of difference from current lifeforms, the simplest and most different on the bottom, and sometimes separted by clearly volcanic lava flows. How can you explain that by one almighty flood?

Gaythia said: Maybe (Dave Luckett) is a Grand Canyon Handbook writer?

Dave Luckett said:

Gaythia said: Maybe (Dave Luckett) is a Grand Canyon Handbook writer?

No, not at all. But I have seen it, once. It was awesome and wonderful. The only other place I've ever been like it was the Bungle Bungles, in the West Australian Kimberley. Same unmistakeable orderly stratification, same distinct and discrete banding of dozens of layers, and same scale - not vertical in the Australian case, but horizontal, because those ranges cover an enormous area with dozens of canyons, or gorges as we call them here. There is simply no way that it could have been made by a single flood. Anyone who could look at it and say it was, is dreaming.

Dave Luckett said:

Gaythia said: In addition to the possibility of independent tour guides as given by John Kwok above, written Creationist handbooks are available for a wide variety of public venues and parks. So if you are planning a trip to the Grand Canyon say, the group next to you could very easily be explaining it from the perspective of Noah's flood.

But... but... you can't! Dozens of separate strata, all quite clearly different and definite, all lying in orderly progression, each containing different fossils, from different biospheres, of different lifeforms, sorted not by size or density, but by organisation and degree of difference from current lifeforms, the simplest and most different on the bottom, and sometimes separted by clearly volcanic lava flows. How can you explain that by one almighty flood?

I'm missing something here. This creationist teacher, formerly called to the carpet, is advising a student club (presumably meets after school), and is chaperoning them to that embarrassment to the nation on the border of Ohio. The trip is apparently taking place during summer vacation, not on school time. Presumably these are christian fundamentalist students. What's the constitutional problem? How is this different from the activities of a Flat Earth Society Club, or FSM club for that matter? Yes, these students, and that teacher, are on the cutting edge of the nation's failure to "get" science, but don't they have the right to do this so long as its not on school time?

You may have to read a little between the lines, but if the school board had to approve the trip, then it was originally an official school trip, and the original departure time was evidently during school hours. LaClair, remember, got the departure time postponed till after school. In the end, the students must have traveled to that embarrassment on their own time and without school board approval, but I do not think that was the original plan.

The policy of the local school district with which I am most familiar has, I believe, language to the effect that student initiated and led religious organizations must not be directed by outside persons, and must be supervised by a school staff person, but only in a non-participatory capacity.

So I believe that your description of a chaperone could work.

Based on my reading of the item as posted above, it sounds as if of the CFI is (or was) concerned that this teacher was not remaining neutral.

Of course, if the trip is completely independent of the school, then the policy would not apply.

I have emailed all of the leaders of the school board, principals and local newspapers telling them how illegal and wrong it is to allow this admitted liar to prosletize at a public school.

who is your creator said: "a public school teacher with strong religious convictions and a record of proselytizing is being allowed to serve as the advisor of a religious club and use his position to have a public school approve a patently religious-based fieldtrip." Oh my, that is horrifying! To think that he might even read the Bible to them on the way is too much to even fathom ... Quick, change the constitution so that's illegal and lock him up!!!

Daxx-Terry Green said: I have emailed all of the leaders of the school board, principals and local newspapers telling them how illegal and wrong it is to allow this admitted liar to prosletize at a public school.

Mike said: The trip is apparently taking place during summer vacation, not on school time...What's the constitutional problem?

The school claimed the ability to punish a student for speech that occurred off school property at a public, non-sponsored event.

Frederick’s argument that this is not a school speech case is rejected. The event in question occurred during normal school hours and was sanctioned by Morse as an approved social event at which the district’s student-conduct rules expressly applied. Teachers and administrators were among the students and were charged with supervising them. Frederick stood among other students across the street from the school and directed his banner toward the school, making it plainly visible to most students. Under these circumstances, Frederick cannot claim he was not at school.

So now we're refusing to allow differing opinions into the Public Sewer System? Are you so afraid that children will see the logic of Creation and realize the fallacy of evolution that you refuse to allow them to study different viewpoints? That's brainwashing, not education.

MC1171611 wanked: So now we're refusing to allow differing opinions into the Public Sewer System? Are you so afraid that children will see the logic of Creation and realize the fallacy of evolution that you refuse to allow them to study different viewpoints? That's brainwashing, not education.

MC1171611 said: That's brainwashing, not education.

Cue the "atheism is religion" canard in 3, 2, 1...