11 Eye-Opening Highlights From a Creationist Science Textbook
Coming to a voucher school near you…..
11 Eye-Opening Highlights From a Creationist Science Textbook
A few months ago, I was reading about homeschooling, because I do things like randomly reading about homeschooling. I read an article that mentioned a family using science textbooks produced by Bob Jones University. (If you’re not familiar, that’s a large, for-profit, evangelical Christian university in South Carolina.) I had to see what one of those textbooks was like. I bought one for a few bucks on Amazon and a few slow shipping weeks later, I had my answer.
I purchased a copy of Science 4 for Christian Schools, an evangelical-written and -approved science textbook published in 1990. According to the stamp on the inside cover, my copy was previously owned by The Country Church & Country Christian School in Molella, Oregon. So, thanks guys!
I read through the entire thing (it’s quite short) and picked out these 11 pages and excerpts to share. Let’s call this an adventure in anthropology. Here are 11 highlights from an evangelical-written science textbook, written and approved by the Bob Jones University young-Earth creationism team.
A couple of low-lights (see link for the other 9 points):
How old is the Moon?
I want to pick this apart, I really do — but all I could think of when I saw this one was the famous Who Wants to be a Millionaire? screenshot…
This Cargo cult explanation of electricity is my favorite too, taking stupidity, deception, and superstition to a whole new level:
Magnets — how do they work?
I saved this page for the penultimate point because it’s my favorite in the book. Let’s ignore the weird, weird photo of the girl for a second and focus on the text. “Electricity is a mystery. No one has ever observed it or heard it or felt it … We cannot even say where electricity comes from.”
The reason this page bugged me is because it doesn’t come back to “God created it.” I would actually accept that. This one is just misinformation for misinformation’s sake.
We know exactly where electricity come from. Scientists don’t disagree. And no one’s saying electricity comes from the planet/universe being millions of years old or from dinosaurs or from the spirit generated by the Earth’s religious diversity. This page is just the evangelical textbook equivalent of trolling.
Although, in their defense, perhaps if they make our heads explode that will generate electricity.
