Dover statement bombs, even in Canada - York Daily Record

Dover statement bombs, even in Canada - York Daily Record: "The judge sustained the objection, and we never got to learn whether Spahr cared about hurting Buckingham’s feelings.

And speaking of hurt feelings, you had to feel bad for Dover Supt. Richard Nilsen and the rest of the defendants, sitting in the gallery — on the defendant’s side of courtroom No. 2 — when Brian Alters, a professor of science education and expert in teaching evolution, started talking.

It got ugly.

The defendants appeared to be relieved when Alters took the stand and said he taught at McGill University.

McGill is in Montreal.

That’s Canada.

You could almost sense the relief among the defendants. Canada? How bad could it get?

And then, the good doctor started testifying and in so many words, accused the school board and administrators, essentially, of child abuse.

And he was right.

Teaching intelligent design creationism in science class wasn’t just a bad idea, he said. It wasn’t just bad teaching. It was “probably the worst thing I’ve heard of in science education.”

And it got worse.

He went through the four-paragraph statement that an administrator reads to drowsy kids at the beginning of their exploration of evolution and, line-by-line, tore it apart.

Let’s see. Consulting my notes, I see the words “terrible,” “dead wrong,” “wrong.” It went on and on.

He read statements from leading science and science education organizations, rejecting the notion of teaching intelligent design creationism, a nonscientific idea, as an alternative of the theory of evolution, one of the most well-supported theories in all of science.

Suggesting that intelligent design creationism is a viable alternative to evolution does the opposite of what the defenders of Dover say. It does not promote critical thinking, Alters said. It does not teach students to approach topics with an open mind. It does not contribute to student’s education in any way.

If anything, it reinforces misconceptions students may have about the subject of evolution.

It does, essentially, the opposite of educating. It contributes to ignorance.

Now, they may have some different ideas about education up in Dover, but I don’t think that’s one of them."