Henling, Lawrence M.
May-20-93 07:08PM
Vista Creationists launch attack on science

Organization: California Institute of Technology
From: lmh@celia.caltech.edu (Henling, Lawrence M.)
Message-ID: <20MAY199320084813@celia.caltech.edu>
Newsgroups: talk.origins

The LA Times of Thursday May 20 has an update on the Creationist
dominated school board in Vista, a 76,000 population residential
city 45 miles north of San Diego. Last November, three Creationists
were elected to the 5 person board which also has one incumbent
Creationist.

An January, the board promised not to push a pro-Creationist
slant to teaching. (Many conservatives also realize that this
will lead to expensive lawsuits.)

After the January meeting, new member John Tyndall tried to
include "Of Pandas and People" [author ?] in the science
curriculum. A teachers group voted unamimously against this
book, which is pro-Creationist (ie, anti-evolution).

Now the school board is considering a Policy No. 6019 which would
forbid teaching science "dogmatically" and support teaching
"weaknesses that substantially challenge theories in evolution",
[whatever that means]. [Evolution is a fact; evolutionary theory
describes the fact of evolution.]

Board president Deirdre Holliday claims that adding Creationism
does not break her vow in January of making no radical changes
in science teaching. She also adds "We're trying to accomodate
everyone, without shutting anyone out, and I defy our opponents
to make the same claim" and "I do know that a lot of people are
getting really worked up over everything, and that's absurd".

The ACLU will attend tonight's meeting.

Saddest comment from Marilyn Cook, 47, whose three children
have graduated from Vista schools, (Creationists) "have a valid
point. ... To leave it out for fear of trying to create Christians
in schools is ridiculous. It's no better than saying we're
creating atheists by teaching evolution."

larry henling  lmh@shakes.caltech.edu

[Why didn't Vickers save me the bother of typing this?]