Re: paleonet US education/creationism

[Nancy Meyer <marsglow@xxxxxxxxx>]

Yahoo has several groupd that purport to deal with this
issue.  Most end up as raving lunatics, which is my opinion
of the creationist perspective anyway.  There is a strong
tradition here of stupidity - look at our President.  
--- "björn kröger" <buxcreau@gmx.de> wrote:
> Dear Colleagues,
> 
> in increasingly shorter intervals the creationism
> /anti-evolution topic
> swapped from the U.S. colleagues to us in Europe. 
> 
> Few years ago I was simply astonished about that
> phenomenon (I compared it
> with other strange US American oddities like e.g.
> “Wrestling”
> and “Death Rows”), later on I was somewhat
> bored about the
> ongoing discussions here at the paleonet-list, but in the
> last time I began
> to take the problem really serious.
> 
> How could it be that in the US, the state of Stanford,
> Harvard, Berkeley,
> Yale etc., etc. Creationism represents not only a funny
> idea of some
> outsiders but a point of view of a considerable
> percentage of the people?
> Why in the US and not in some rural areas of the Catholic
> Bavarian Germany
> (oh benedetto..) or Sicily? For me that speaks primarily
> of a strong
> disintegration within the US society. 
> 
> This disintegration is a big threat not only for the US
> but for the entire
> First World. In Europe at the time we face a strong
> neoliberal
> reorganization of the educational sector that is in big
> parts oriented at US
> models. In Germany in the last years we introduced the
> bachelor and masters
> degrees at Universities with the aim to delete the
> traditional
> “Diplom”. The tendencies going toward a
> modulation of education
> in small parts that are most effective in order to
> produce flexible
> graduates. Effective, means economically effective. In
> 2004 the leading
> parties in Germany initiated a discussion toward German
> elite
> universities...
> 
> My impression is that the trend toward an economically
> efficient education
> is accompanied with a strong disintegration between rich
> / poor, flexible /
> inflexible, enlightened / traditional etc. Moreover, this
> trend could be
> generally in complete contrast to an ideal of
> enlightenment. Could that be
> also a factor in the US education system that causes the
> problem
> “Creationism”?
> 
> This is now my question here at paleonet:
> 
> I never in my life faced a real Creationist so please
> appreciate my probably
> naive questions.
> 
> How is the experience of the US paleo/geology/evolution
> teachers: where are
> the lines between Creationists and enlightened? Are they
> between classes,
> between races, between geographic areas, between
> confessions? What can we in
> Europe learn from your conflicts? 
> 
> Does anyone know a reference / book / paper /
> internet-forum where the
> probable connection between US educational system –
> social
> disintegration - Creationism is explicitly discussed?
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Björn
> 
> -- 
> ----------------------
> Dr. Björn Kröger
> Museum für Naturkunde
> an der Humboldt Universität Berlin
> Invalidenstr. 43
> D-10115 Berlin
> Germany
> http://www.museum.hu-berlin.de/home.asp
> 
> +++ Lassen Sie Ihren Gedanken freien Lauf... z.B. per
> FreeSMS +++
> GMX bietet bis zu 100 FreeSMS/Monat:
> http://www.gmx.net/de/go/mail
> 
> -- 
> ----------------------
> Dr. Björn Kröger
> Museum für Naturkunde
> an der Humboldt Universität Berlin
> Invalidenstr. 43
> D-10115 Berlin
> Germany
> http://www.museum.hu-berlin.de/home.asp
> 
> +++ Lassen Sie Ihren Gedanken freien Lauf... z.B. per
> FreeSMS +++
> GMX bietet bis zu 100 FreeSMS/Monat:
> http://www.gmx.net/de/go/mail
> 
> 

"The United States is in no sense founded upon the Christian religion." - George Washington


		
Discover Yahoo! 
Find restaurants, movies, travel and more fun for the weekend. Check it out! 
http://discover.yahoo.com/weekend.html