and makes it a tenet of their political agenda, so not only is it a rejection of "anti-Christians", but a rejections all things 'liberal'. It will be a big part of the country. Unfortunately.

and often just at a school board level.

There's an opportunity to address this locally, but dems really need to step up to the plate.

seriously address this, you could be right.

No one wants to look stupid.

The key, as another author points out, is to educate the public in a way that does not threaded their religious beliefs.

...how are you going to teach them evolution in such a way that it does not conflict with their religious beliefs?

I don't see that happening.

how to go about it.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1218111547

Clearly, whatever we are doing to try to counter it isn't working at all, so I think it's time to rethink the approach.

Antagonism and ridicule often just sends people further into their caves.

Yes, Bill Nye did a good job debating Ken Ham, but anyone with a bachelor's degree and access to wikipedia could have done the same. And still, I wouldn't say he "won" the debate; it is likely that every creationist who walked into that auditorium a young earth creationist also walked out a young earth creationist.

Plait seems to think that if you could just prove to these people that evolution isn't incompatible with belief in a deity that they'll warm up to it. But religion in general doesn't matter to these people; it is their religion they care about, and evolution stands in stark contrast to what they know they are supposed to believe. There's no way to teach them evolution in such a manner that it does not contradict something they've been told by a religious authority.

OTOH, I don't think there is anything to lose by trying new approaches and developing curriculum that attempts to do exactly what plait suggest.

What do you suggest?

Our current situation is the result of an interplay of many different factors. There is, for example, the invulnerability of faith to any contradictory evidence, no matter how pointed; and there is the Dunning-Krueger effect, which makes it difficult, if not impossible, to convince confident people they really have no idea what they're talking about. Both make Plait's suggestion a losing proposition. You just can't teach these people anything.

If I had to throw my two cents in -- and I fully recognize my limitations in doing so -- I would argue what we really need to do is establish some kind of standard for science education in this country, because a big part of the problem is that evolution is not a self-evident proposition. The particulars of its mechanisms and their implications are difficult for the layman to understand unless he or she has a solid background in fundamental biology and genetics. If kids understand how genetic information is passed down from parents to offspring, then it would be much easier to accept evolution as a scientific fact.

This means, ipso facto, tackling incompetent school boards and teachers, and taking a firm stand against vouchers to religious schools.

Darwin was tortured by doubt and fear and dread about the impact his findings might have on the religion that he embraced.

I will not accept that "you just can't teach these people anything". It accomplishes nothing other than to dismiss some people as too ignorant to learn, and I do not believe that.

I agree about the standards for science education and would like to see a much stronger emphasis on teaching critical thinking. With the ease of obtaining information these days, what is most important is being able to determine whether it is legitimate.

Darwin was at one time a devout, orthodox believer, but he was also a competent biologist. That he was conflicted between his faith and his findings is perfectly illustrative of this fact. An incompetent person would experience no such conflict at all; he or she would continue on with their predetermined, poorly-informed conclusions as if the findings had never existed in the first place. And those of us who do engage in with young earth creationists see this all of the time. On Monday, a Christian will ask me why there are no transitional fossils, and I will explain that because evolution is a continuum every fossil is a transitional fossil. On Tuesday, they'll ask the same question again, as if it had never been answered in the first place.

I'm not saying it is impossible to change people's minds. I'm saying it is very unlikely.

about the impact their discoveries would have on religious beliefs in general and their personal beliefs in particular.

I still disagree with you. I take the opportunity to calmly discuss the science behind evolution (and other things such as global climate change) with people who's religion has taught them a different way of seeing things.

I have jewish friend who is a cartoonist. I have spent some time with him talking about evolution and he really enjoys it.

He is starting to form a "reconciliation" of sorts in his own mind. He understands that the torah is full of metaphor and allegory, and it's not that big a leap to refile genesis.

Just my experience, but I think that my respecting his beliefs and not mocking them makes a big difference.

I would again go back to the need to teach critical thinking.

I don't think that there will ever be success with the entire population, and this article is frightening in terms of it's description of what is going on in Australia.

But whatever those of us who care about this are doing to try and get more people to abandon creationism or just see it as the metaphor/allegory that it is, we are obviously doing it wrong.

I certainly don't consider myself a scientist, but I've had enough training in the various sciences to understand my own limitations, and that I should always defer to the scientific consensus on a given issue. As things stand now, kids generally aren't exposed to the experimental/empirical side of the sciences, and are ill-equipped to evaluate the relative merits of, say, Bill Nye's arguments when juxtaposed to Ken Ham's.

But again, this means dealing with local and state school boards, which is a thorny issue in and of itself. I'm not throwing in the towel, but I'm beginning to feel less optimistic than I was ten years ago.

I was forced to take so many things that I didn't think I needed or wanted to know about.

And so many people were drug into a basic science course kicking and screaming, only to leave with some skills that I think will benefit them for life.

The repubs, not stupid, began to focus on local and state elections about 10 years ago and caught us with our pants down. They made a lot of progress, particularly on school boards. It's not going to be easy, but i think we can turn this ship around.

And some important players may be religious leaders in a community that embrace science.

My wife is a science professor at a fairly significant Michigan university. Every year, the standards for admissions into her program have to be lowered because incoming students, not just those from Republican districts, but also poor urban districts, are so insufficiently prepared for college-level sciences classes that they are unable to perform in introductory courses.

The more I think about it, the more it seems to me funding and directing public education on the municipal level, and maybe even the state level, is a bad idea. As much as I loathe the notion of standardized tests, what's the alternative?

But I've also heard it from english professors, math professors, history professors, etc.

I don't know much about education, so I can't say much about what might or might not work. I follow with some interests the huge food fights that go on both on DU and at every level about how to solve this.

But I also watched all the food fights about health care for about 30 years. I felt totally hopeless that there would ever be a resolution and am awestruck at what has been accomplished in the last couple of years.

That just isn't happening, cbayer.

So clearly whatever antagonism/ridicule is being used now (including referring to them as "dumbasses&quot doesn't seem to be resulting in that.

Instead what we see is that accommodationism encourages them. If creationism is just another way of looking at the world and how it came to be, why can't it be presented to children as a competing viewpoint to naturalistic evolution? If you can't prove them wrong (which you can't), then how are you justified in saying it can't be taught? This puts you in such an awkward position, cbayer, since the same admonishments you hurl at vocal atheists who are criticizing religion now come into play when dealing with the specifics of creationism. You've provided them with the armor they needed to put forth their beliefs as legitimate.

It looks like more people the Ham have figured out how to make money off of this.

It's a hoax.