From Media Matters, a quote from John "5 in da Noggin" Gibson:
GIBSON: Hey, everybody. It's John Gibson in for Bill O'Reilly. And uh, this hour threatens to be big trouble. Big, big, big, big, big trouble. Because this subject has been big trouble in this country since at least -- 1925? Wasn't that when the Scopes trial happened? Inherit the Wind [the play and film based on the Scopes trial], 1925? And we're still arguing about it, although the argument has transmogrified in a lot of ways and is something different. And it's probably not even fair to talk about the Scopes trial of 1925. When the ACLU [American Civil Liberties Union] found John Scopes and was able to challenge, uh, the teaching of Bible-based science in schools. Successfully. And ever since then, we've had science-based science in schools.
Yeah, because you know, you'd never want to teach science in science class. Maybe something more meaningful, like how to keep score in bowling, oh wait, that involved...math, which is related to science. Forget it, let's just give every student a ream of paper and a pair of scissors and let them make paper angels for the whole school year. Now that's learnin'!
posted by Jo Fish on 08.24.05 at 06:10 PM
Comments:
Came this way via Pen and Sword.
Scopes actually LOST the trial which was set up as a test case. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scopes_Trial So what the heck is Gibson blathering about? What does he mean: successfully? And is he afraid of literature-based English classes, too? French-based language classes?
Can you say moron?
posted by: ellroon on 08.24.05 at 07:08 PM [permalink]
The thing that strikes me about the Gibson quote here is that he seems to be arguing (of course): "Bible-based science: Good; science-based science: Bad".
That'll have me shaking my head muttering "WTF?" all morning, at least....
Scopes lost and by definition it can not be Bible-based sicence. Science is experience based hypothesis which is then tested by experiments. Whose Bible anyway?
posted by: SGeorge on 08.25.05 at 11:26 AM [permalink]
He must have gone to Yale with the Boy Blunder.
posted by: Pechorin on 08.25.05 at 05:28 PM [permalink]
There are an awful lot of scientists coming out of India. If we want to keep up, we need to keep science solid in this country.
posted by: Tony on 08.26.05 at 11:28 AM [permalink]
Well just make me wear a big 'S' to show that I am a scientist and ipso facto must be an un-spiritual, hedonistic, number-luvin' and goodness-hating, white-coat wearing, fact encumbererd beast who can't tell a cell from a person. I never thought I'd see superstition dominate science--I thought the lessons of Galileo's time were not only that indeed the planets revolve around the sun but that the truth cannot be hidden behind words like 'heresy'. Eppur si muove.
posted by: Nina on 08.26.05 at 02:16 PM [permalink]
Science is not dominated by creationism... public discourse is. But science is NOT democratic, it's evidence based. Sorry, but the ONLY scientists that get a vote here are degreed biologists!
