Two Telegraph articles...

[beagle]

Two bits in the Telegraph today which were quite interesting. Charles Moore expressing a similar view to Sibling Chatty on arrogant atheists (I've noticed you never see C.M and S.C. together, but no, surely not...):

http://tinyurl.com/2uysup

and an article on U.S. home schooling and its association with creationism.

http://tinyurl.com/2p6d33

edit: fixed spelling

[The Meromorph]

I was far from impressed with Charles Moore's piece.
It seemed to me he tried to combine rambling and bumbling, and failed to achieve rumbling.
Instead, he got some mental fumbling. He stumbled between the banal and irrelevant, failing to recognize either.
Sibling Chatty would eat his lunch.

[beagle]

It's (IMHO) a traditional  Middle-England view of religion which rather give the impression that they want religion to be respected, not because of veracity, but because it's a useful philosophy for keeping the servants in order, and because we've always done it that way.

It's a view that finds the devout believer every bit as annoying/embarassing as the smarty-pants Oxford atheist. If it's rambling/bumbling it's perhaps because there isn't a way of putting this philosophy coherently, even if it is the last stand of the religious middle-ground before it polarises into evangelism and atheism.

[Griffin NoName]

It's (IMHO) a traditional  Middle-England view of religion ......it's a useful philosophy for keeping the servants in order, and because we've always done it that way.

It's identical with the Tory idea of tax cuts for "married couples" IMNHO.

I found the article infuriating. Not slagging off the intelligent? That's exactly what he seemed to be doing to me.

Why does CM think the two word phrase, that ends with "design", begins with the word "intelligent"?

[beagle]

I think it's a doomed sort of wishy-washy English Christianity that he's promoting anyway. Caught in a pincer movement between those evangelical/fundamentalist faiths that aren't afraid to say "We are right, you are wrong" and secularism. In a way it's sad to see it go, because it did embody a degree of tolerance, perhaps partly because it didn't feel an absolute conviction in its own correctness.

No thoughts on the other article? I thought that was the more interesting. Especially the parallels between fundamentalist Christians and Muslims being afraid of the outside world corrupting them.

[Griffin NoName]

I think it's a doomed sort of wishy-washy English Christianity that he's promoting anyway.

You mean like C of E ? 

No thoughts on the other article? I thought that was the more interesting. Especially the parallels between fundamentalist Christians and Muslims being afraid of the outside world corrupting them.

No thoughts YET. On my part. (Can't speak for others!) I got distracted by RL (a friend with man trouble) and haven't read it yet. 

[anthrobabe]

my favorite part of the second article is where
it is explained that Noah took baby brontos on the ark because that makes the most sense.
Are they still called Bronto- I thought it was Apatosaurus or something.

Sorry if I sound like I am making fun of someone or someones beliefs- it's just that it does not make sense.

I agree it's the idea of "corruption" from the outside world and exactly what are the children being taught in the name of religious freedom? Does freedom of belief automatically trump verifiable fact? Of course that now begs the question, "Who's fact?".

[Griffin NoName]

my favorite part of the second article is where
it is explained that Noah took baby brontos on the ark because that makes the most sense.
Are they still called Bronto- I thought it was Apatosaurus or something.

My favourite is where Prof. Eve says of the Scopes trial: 'The press had such a field day painting creationists as ignoramuses that I think most people thought evolution carried the day,'. I wondered if they took baby Ignoramuses on the ark like they took the baby Brontosauruses.

ditto... not intending any religious offense

This is a rich article with a wealth of interesting material, likely to incite many people. For example, I can think of a number of vegans who would object to the use of antlers as candlesticks. I like the imaginitive and multiple use of x says there are N thousand/million home-schoolers citing creationism as the reason for it.

I love the paragraph:

'Some parents are sincere,' Steven Schafersman admits. But he is still not convinced that the children of literalist Christians get a good education in biology, earth science, environmental science, history, civics, economics or health. Tim Lambert is unfazed: 'We would say you get a very narrow, skewed education in high school.' Schafersman has another worry: 'Their kids are restricting themselves from the broad community, from news and other views that may disagree with them.' To which many home-schoolers would chorus, 'Exactly!'

to which I would add two words "exactly Exactly".

No offense meant to the Gebharts : 'Megan was just too precious and too special to hand over to a big machine,' recalls Dave Gebhart,"; but doesn't the bible teach all children are precious and special? Or is it just one of my own unimportant beliefs?

I wonder if Karen Armstrong was home schooled? I am puzzled by her understanding of Islamic fundamentalism.

[anthrobabe]

This isolation from those of differing viewpoints is one of my main "issues" with home schooling. I can't fault any parent who truly thinks it is better for their child ( and I agree w/ Griffins Aren't all children precious!thought) but so often it seems  (anyone feel free to disagree here) that the idea is not so much "schooling" but "indoctrination" in the us vs them belief system.

My daughter and I were discussing the "either or fallacy" last night- and the idea that many have( and it's not just fundamentalist christians either) about evolution and christianity being the eiter and the or. There is much more than A or B here- even if we someday find a  modern homosapien fossil that can be positively dated as a fossil say among positively dated trilobite fossils- well then of course we've got to go back to the ol drawing board ( but ain't that what science is about all folks!) and figure some things out--- but even if this were to occur that does not mean that TA-DA the B camp is correct, C could be or even F. We have to combat this If I'm right then they are wrong fallacy, because it could always be C.(if you ever get an opportunity to see Dr. Michael Shermer lecture take advantage of it- he explains this so much better than I ever could).

[beagle]

my favorite part of the second article is where
it is explained that Noah took baby brontos on the ark because that makes the most sense.
Are they still called Bronto- I thought it was Apatosaurus or something.

I didn't know that until now. Think they're in the clear though as it's a Brachiosaurus they're trying to haul up the gang-plank, and that hasn't undergone rebranding yet.

I agree it's the idea of "corruption" from the outside world and exactly what are the children being taught in the name of religious freedom? Does freedom of belief automatically trump verifiable fact? Of course that now begs the question, "Who's fact?".

Yep. If it wasn't possible to muddy the waters around even obvious facts then we'd be rather short of lawyers.

You can't help feeling that when these kids finally venture out into the outside world someone's going to sell them the Brooklyn Bridge in the first few minutes.

Out of interest I had a quick Google round some homeschooling sites in the UK, and they too seemed to be fundamentalist religion dominated (though some weren't and had evolution related stuff in the Biology sections).

...but even if this were to occur that does not mean that TA-DA the B camp is correct, C could be or even F.

Be sort of amusing if 2001 (the movie) was correct, and someone dug up a monolith instead of another fossil. That would put the cat among the pigeons.

(if you ever get an opportunity to see Dr. Michael Shermer lecture take advantage of it

Thanks for the reference, there seems to be stuff of his at skeptic.com which I'll look at.

[Kiyoodle the Gambrinous]

Concerning the Brontosaurus thingm here's a camplete explanation on that issue:
http://www.miketaylor.org.uk/dino/faq/s-class/bronto/
and here another interesting one:
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/brontokids.html

======================================================

Concerning quality of school education, there was an interesting article the other day in the Telegraph:

No lessons on the Holocaust

Schools are dropping controversial subjects from history lessons - such as the Holocaust and the Crusades - because teachers do not want to cause offence, Government research has discovered.

What will the kids learn in the future, if you consider that most parts of our history are controversial?

[beagle]

I think history has been the area where political correctness has most impinged on the curriculum. When I was at school 30 odd years ago it was the tail end of the great man/woman school of British history teaching. It was still possible to say that history turned on what key individuals did (Wellington, Nelson, Elizabeth I, Churchill, Wilberforce, Florence Nightingale, Pitt etc for Britain).  Nowadays it seems it all has to be in terms of the inevitability of social trends and the behaviour of the common people. So it's fine to teach how the British people put up with hardships in WWII, but not to remotely suggest that the country's survival owed something to that old imperialist, Churchill and the possession of a rather large navy.

In the immortal words of the Stranglers, No more heroes any more.
At least, not unless you can afford to send the kids to private school.

[Griffin NoName]

Concerning the Brontosaurus thingm here's a camplete explanation on that issue:
http://www.miketaylor.org.uk/dino/faq/s-class/bronto/

Not wishing to return to the endless debate of the past on the topic of phylocodes, nonetheless I feel bound to mention that Mike Taylor is a phylocode bod and as such I wouldn't put any weight myself on the finer details of his explanation, embedded in the article, on "When is a new dinosaur erected as a new species or genus?''.

I did start looking for the establishment views on this to quote here but got side-tracked down memory lane looking at pics of many old work colleagues at http://www.svpca.org/years/2005_london/gallery.php. Thanks Kiyo for an interesting side trip !

One final note on Mike Taylor. I see he is based at the University of Portsmouth. Anuvver foine reeson ter scratch me peg leg 

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

What will the kids learn in the future, if you consider that most parts of our history are controversial?

Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't the knowledge of what happened on WWII the catalyst that changed a number of attitudes in Europe? Isn't that the rationale for the laws against denying the holocaust?

[Griffin NoName]

What will the kids learn in the future, if you consider that most parts of our history are controversial?

Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't the knowledge of what happened on WWII the catalyst that changed a number of attitudes in Europe? Isn't that the rationale for the laws against denying the holocaust?

My own belief is that we have lost any clarity that followed WWII. I feel society is in an endless turmoil of confusion. For me it is impossible to ignore ongoing ethnic cleansing around the world, extremely mixed messages here in the UK about our mix of backgrounds and ethnicity, and a lack of global focus on basic human dignity, rights, freedoms, wellbeing (and well fed) and health. I constantly see a polarity between violent acts (and wars)and deprivations and self-perpetuating debate from which no action emerges. But it is the middle of the night here so maybe things will look different to me in the morning when a nice sunny day is forecast.