Stealth Creationist Play Shot Down in California
Wed, Aug 13, 2008 at 5:54:15 pm PDT
Yet another stealth creationist play was shot down by the courts yesterday in California. The Association of Christian Schools International, Calvary Chapel Christian School, and parents attending the Chapel School filed suit against the University of California, after UC ruled that several courses taught by the Christian schools did not meet admission requirements.
The reason for UC’s decision? You guessed it. The courses taught by these schools were full of creationist and anti-science rubbish.
The Questionable Authority has more: Quality Education Wins Again in the California Creationist Case.
For most of us, the rejection of the courses was nothing more than the natural consequence of the Christian schools’ decision to reject reality and teach fantasy. From their perspective, it represented an unconstitutional attack on their freedom of religion. The court, obviously, did not agree. To see why, we really need look no farther than the introduction to the biology textbook used in one of the rejected courses:
The people who prepared this book have tried consistently to put the Word of God first and science second...If...at any point God’s Word is not put first, the authors apologize.That should be enough right there to explain why UC didn’t think that the plaintiffs were teaching a reasonable approximation of a college prep biology class. If it’s not enough, I wrote several posts examining the “textbook” used in some of the rejected biology classes last year. It’s very clear that the schools involved are teaching the worst kind of creationist garbage, and trying to pass it off as biology.
UPDATE at 8/13/08 6:32:04 pm:
And look who turns up again on the side of the creationists—Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Michael Behe: NCSE Resource — Victory in California creationism case.
Michael Behe, a proponent of “intelligent design” creationism, served as an expert witness for the plaintiffs, but his defense of the textbooks were unavailing. In his ruling, Judge Otero wrote, “Plaintiffs offer little admissible evidence to the contrary. Plaintiffs’ Biology expert, Dr. Michael Behe, submitted a declaration concluding that the BJU text mentions standard scientific content. ... However, Professor Behe ‘did not consider how much detail or depth’ the texts gave to this standard content. ... Therefore, Professor Behe fails to refute one of Professor Kennedy’s primary concerns that the nature of science, the theory of evolution, and critical thinking are not taught adequately. Accordingly, there is no genuine issue of material fact as to this issue. Defendants had a rational basis for rejecting Calvary Baptist’s proposed Biology course.”
