Text book censorship

Kargyle · Post by **Kargyle** » May 3, 2003, 1:26 pm

http://www.suntimes.com/output/kisor/sh ... sor20.html

I always knew that they were carefull about what goes into text books for schools, but I never realized just how bad it had gotten. Children should be learning events the way they actually happened, not the way we want them remembered. And I don't think it is write to go changing some authors words because he no longer falls into the guidelines of political correctness. The school system needs to stop churning out drones that are programmed to just accept what they are told, and damn free thought. There's a few people on this board that are probably guilty of that themselves.

murr · Post by **murr** » May 3, 2003, 3:04 pm

You'd be surprised.
I write for my high school newspaper, which is in a fairly liberal county in Georgia (near Atlanta..in this state it seems like intelligence level drops exponentially the farther out you go in a radius from Atlanta) and I've done a few stories on stuff like this. Cobb County (read: conservative Christian rich county) tried to remove evolution from biology textbooks, or at least lower its credibility.. they got shot down for the most part with bad press but managed to put in disclaimers reading:

Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered.

My favorite quote from an entire year of articles had to be from a parent at a Cobb County school board meeting, who said, "Separation of church and state is a fallacy promoted by the liberal press. We're a Christian Nation." IF that guy grew up in Cobb County, something's *definitely* wrong with the school system. I've had quite a few teachers who either don't use the book at all, or make sure to point out the fallacies in what we're reading.. science and math books are safe, surely, but history texts definitely get butchered. I'm in AP Literature this year and according to our teacher, they haven't 'modified' any of the selections in our current book, but who knows what they intentionally left out.

Kelshara · Post by **Kelshara** » May 3, 2003, 4:01 pm

It happens in college as well. It is quite fascinating to read about an event in an American college book and then in a Norwegian book. The angling of the event is so differently it is almot like reading about two different things. Quite scary, really.

Pherr the Dorf · Post by **Pherr the Dorf** » May 3, 2003, 4:10 pm

Where I live, they tried to remove the Lorax from schools and public libraries because it was too harsh on loggers... I couldn't decide if I wanted to laugh at them or puke.

Xzion · Post by **Xzion** » May 3, 2003, 4:36 pm

censorship in the biggest problem in america. I believe in 0 censorship of any kind, fuck them

Vetiria · Post by **Vetiria** » May 3, 2003, 8:35 pm

This happens in pretty much every country. You'll learn in school what your government wants you to learn. In Japan, for example, the students are still taught that what the Japanese were doing in WWII was heroic (which goes to the Japanese mindset -- militarism and old samurai/warrior mindsets). No text book in Japan mentions the Rape of Nanking, etc....

And before someone jumps on me, no this is not a justification for censorship in text books. There is some stuff, however, that I believe should not be tought until upper high school to college levels, just because of how sensitive children can be at younger ages.

Metanis · Post by **Metanis** » May 3, 2003, 8:56 pm

I'm not pointing fingers at anyone. We have this thread about censorship going on right next to this thread about racism. Look at the all the debate over the use of certain words. It's easy to see how censorship can evolve even among people who consider themselves "enlightened".

Regarding one of the conservative slants on censorship, I'm saddened by the movement on the right to insist that the Bible is the be-all and end-all document regarding evolution and the beginning of creation. For example, the Bible may state that God made everthing in 6 days. But, why would anyone insist that a "day" to God is the same 24-hour period that we know currently as a day? I expect that God moves at his own pace... not at mine. I also expect that God had some problems trying to explain cosmotology to the person he selected to write Genesis. Perhaps God chose to "simplify" his explanation to match his audience? In other words, I choose not to require the Bible to be "the literal truth" but a higher Truth. Consequently, I believe the scientific proof of Evolution can peacefully coexist with Biblical Truth.

Of course the problem with this "selective" interpretation of the Bible is that you rob it of it's meaning if you don't adhere really closely to it's literal wording. For a Christian this is the slippery slope issue up close and personal. Many Christian fundamentalists decide the only way to solve that issue to to believe the exact literal wording of their translation of the Bible. And then they feel obligated to crusade to have contradictory evidence squashed. And the cycle continues.

Xzion · Post by **Xzion** » May 3, 2003, 11:46 pm

some people do not believe in the bible. The U.S is not a christian country, but conservatives seem to think it is, freedom of religon, it is an insult to see christianity shoved down peoples throats

Akaran_D · Post by **Akaran_D** » May 4, 2003, 10:35 am

Agreed.. it should be somthing you come to and welcome, not be forced. I think the Romans tried this.. worked great.. for a while.

I personally beleive the entire school system is beyond repair atm, and nation wide needs to be scrapped, redone, take a year off, and do it over from scrach.. and MOST importantly, DONT put the people who were taught under it IN CHARGE OF IT.

murr · Post by **murr** » May 4, 2003, 12:09 pm

I think the Bible (Old Testament) would have made a really good work of fiction, with some edits.

Spangaloid_PE · Post by **Spangaloid_PE** » May 4, 2003, 2:17 pm

murr durr wrote:I think the Bible (Old Testament) would have made a really good work of fiction, with some edits.

i think that book has already been published. correct me if i'm wrong, but i think it's called "The Book".

Sueven · Post by **Sueven** » May 4, 2003, 3:54 pm

Akaran: How do you propose running an education system without utilizing people who were educated in that system?

Akaran_D · Post by **Akaran_D** » May 4, 2003, 4:02 pm

Hoenstly I wouldn't mind bringing in people from a country that has a system that is / has been proven to actually work. Barring that, there are several hundred thousand individuals that have been educated outside of the public education system, or ones that have had the benifits of being schooled overseas that live within our borders today..

Would be my top two choices. /shrugs

Kelshara · Post by **Kelshara** » May 4, 2003, 4:02 pm

Research an education system in a country that works well, hire in some consultants from that country to help establish a brand new system in co-operation with American experts, let this group of people lead it until it is firmly established.

Somali · Post by **Somali** » May 6, 2003, 10:10 am

For those of you in high school if you are looking for a school that doesn't sit within the confines of the US school system. Check to see if you have an IB program near you. They don't have the constraints on what books you can or cannot read. You'll be required to be fluent in at least 1 foreign language by the time you leave and if you graduate, you'll have your standard HS diploma plus one from Switzerland which will net you 30-36 creidts going into college.

masteen · Post by **masteen** » May 6, 2003, 10:55 am

Somali, I didn't know kung-fu was a real language. Your tiger style is still no match for my dragon style!

Voronwë · Post by **Voronwë** » May 6, 2003, 11:17 am

the whole Cobb Co thing w/ creationism made me want to puke a couple of years ago. I grew up there, and many of you who have heard of Newt Gingrich, that was the heart of his congressional district.

just to clarify something that Murr quoted from the Bible beaters:

Evolution is NOT a theory.

Evolution is a fact.

Natural Selection is a theory that explains how evolution occured. This is a common misconception. Because you hear people say "Darwin's Theory of Evolution". Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection explains evolution.

We now know there are many forms of selection at work in evolution, Natural Selection being one of them. But evolution is a fact simply because, there are animals that exist now that arose from animals that no longer exist.

Don't bother refuting this unless you can disavow radioactive decay, specifically of carbon isotopes.

but most likely if you believe in creationism you also believe that dinosaur bones were put on the earth by God for some reason (so museums would have cool exhibits, and kids would recognize what Barney was?). It is also curious why God would have created the background microwave radiation in such a fashion as to make the universe appear to be expanding and 10-12 billion years old, when anybody knows it is only 5600 years old. duh. (that was sarcasm).

i have a sore spot for tribalism, and legislating the teaching of "creation science" is nothing more than one ethnic/religious group attempting to brainwash both its future constituency as well as those of other children to maintain the political power base of that ethnic group.

Marbus · Post by **Marbus** » May 6, 2003, 1:39 pm

<Cheer Voronwe!>

That same subject comes up in Arkansas about ever 5 yeras or so, you would THINK that people would get the picture.

I'm against censorship as well, however I feel very strongly that certain details should not be added until a certain grade level. In other words a 5th grader does not have the mental capacity to understand things a 9th grader does in most situations. That is just brain maturation. When kids are young they should be taught the basics to help them understand the arguements on both sides as they get old.

One last point though, which is more of a feeling bases on numerous studies rather than hard data - I don't think there really is an "good" data on it, I the the majority of Americans (60%+) would consider themselves "Christians." MOST of those aren't FREAKS though, most of them understand that evolution is a fact and work that into their beliefs etc... The difference in America though is that we cater to the extremeist not the majority. Those being the freak'o christians to the freak'o athiest. Virtue is a mean and a lot of people just need to learn to deal with people's differences and STFU IMHO

If the extremeist on all sides would chill, this country would be 100% better off.

Marb

PS - Vor the 5600 year old comment was great! I can't fathom how anyone could actually believe that...

Acies · Post by **Acies** » May 6, 2003, 9:10 pm

Voronwë wrote:the whole Cobb Co thing w/ creationism made me want to puke a couple of years ago. I grew up there, and many of you who have heard of Newt Gingrich, that was the heart of his congressional district.

just to clarify something that Murr quoted from the Bible beaters:

Evolution is NOT a theory.

Evolution is a fact.

Natural Selection is a theory that explains how evolution occured. This is a common misconception. Because you hear people say "Darwin's Theory of Evolution". Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection explains evolution.

We now know there are many forms of selection at work in evolution, Natural Selection being one of them. But evolution is a fact simply because, there are animals that exist now that arose from animals that no longer exist.

Don't bother refuting this unless you can disavow radioactive decay, specifically of carbon isotopes.

but most likely if you believe in creationism you also believe that dinosaur bones were put on the earth by God for some reason (so museums would have cool exhibits, and kids would recognize what Barney was?). It is also curious why God would have created the background microwave radiation in such a fashion as to make the universe appear to be expanding and 10-12 billion years old, when anybody knows it is only 5600 years old. duh. (that was sarcasm).

i have a sore spot for tribalism, and legislating the teaching of "creation science" is nothing more than one ethnic/religious group attempting to brainwash both its future constituency as well as those of other children to maintain the political power base of that ethnic group.

Persoanlly dawg, I agree with you, but evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. They are differant things people, not differant levels of certainty.
Facts are the world's data.
Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's, but the err remains that the apple did not simply hang there in the air pending the outcome of the conflict between the two theories.
Did we evolve from Apes or other life? Possibly.
Evolution really is simply a fact of how a life form will alter itself down the generational lines to adapt to it's enviorments, on a genetic scale.

I know creationists piss me off in the fact that they will not hear evidence, conclusive proof that obviously the book of Genesis was mistaken or left empty of many facts, due to:

It is fact that the earth with liquidized water is over 3 billion years old, cellular life over 1 billion years old, fact that there were not birds or mammals on eath 250 million years ago.
You can no more deny these simple, conclusive facts than you can deny that the earth is round and rotates around the sun. It is proven as we understand it.

Now, if god created us, which is possible, then I contend that the bible in essence is flawed, and that is all. Besides, what are seven days in the eyes of a god?
Who knows.

Vetiria · Post by **Vetiria** » May 6, 2003, 11:37 pm

/sidestrack on

Just a clarification: Einstein's Theories of Relativity did not replace Newton's laws of gravity and forces, it only added onto it. Newton's laws are still correct in most circumstances. The only time they're not correct are when objects approach the speed of light (an impossibility even according to Einstein, at least as of now), or when gravitational fields are very strong (near the center of a planet or star).

I do understand the point you're trying to make though.

/sidetrack off

Marbus · Post by **Marbus** » May 7, 2003, 2:51 am

My personal opinion is that yes God did create the world, something had to spark that "Big Bang" right. When speaking of the OT though I try to approach it from what God must have been thinking (in the best my feeble mind can comprehend). Something like...

Hmmm... I have a bunch of people who can't even find their way home, who barely understand how to make clay bricks much less relativity and time... I have one guy, maybe two in the group that can actually read but I want to let them know I was responsible as well as keeping them from starving and doing stuipd things like eating diseased animals... lets see, what DO they know. Well they have a basic understanding of a calander and seasons and understand the meaning of "No." MOSES Write this down and tell those who can't read...

While it may seem funny, and is to us, what else could an Omniscient, Omnipresent Being do if they didn't want interfear too much with Human evolution? Right?

Cheers!
Marb

PS- Years ago there was a comedian on HBO who sang a little song, I enjoyed it so much I have it memorized to this day...

Well a man said to God what's a million years to you?
And God said... a second
And the main said to God what's a million dollars to you?
And God said... a penny
And the man said to God would you give me a Penny?
Then God he replied yes I will... in a second...

VeeshanVault

Text book censorship

Text book censorship

It's not hard to understand