Charles Darwin

[adrian jaye]

does anyone know.. I'm after some info...

I heard from somewhere, that shortly before CD died he became a missionary and renounced his theory of evoultion of and man.

I dont think this is right, can anyone point me in the right direction, link or resource, which states this either way..

cheers

Ade

[widebody911]

There's a Jesus phreak at my work was telling me something very similar. I asked her where she got the information, and it was from AFOAFOAFOAF... - you get the idea.

Personally, I think it's fundamentalist propaganda.

[RickM]

I've never heard this "rumor".

This site does not suggest a reversal: http://www.aboutdarwin.com/index.html

[Neilk]

Speaking of Darwin

PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 20 - A Pennsylvania school district Friday defended its decision to discount Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and teach what critics say is a version of creationism.

You can read the rest of the article here. NY Times article, so registration required.

Let's leave religion out of our science classes.

[WOODPIE]

Back in my day, we said the Lord's Prayer every morning, and evolution was taught as science. And nobody had much of a problem with it.

The whole thing has gotten completely out of hand now. Evidence this political cartoon from the Atlanta Journel, commenting on one metro county's school board members intention to attach a 'disclaimer' regarding evolution to the front of their science books. Some people are totally out of their focking minds, IMHO.




Ed

[djmcmath]

Unsubstantiated, according to the folks at truthorfiction.com . Not proven false, but not proven true, either.

[adrian jaye]

cheers all,
the more digging I did, seemed to not proove nor disproove it, but it seems theres more truth in the fact that he did not and died an agnostic.

That I dont have a problem with, but when people say that
"blah blah blah... did this" and quotes it as a fact, when there is as appears to be a bit of a debate leaning to it not being true (I also looked at snopes) that annoys me

cheers

Again

Ade

[cstreit]

Probably syphilis insanity.

Disclaimers? Probably necessary since they are more worried about self-esteem these days than actual learning. If they taught more critical thinking, kids could make up their OWN minds instead of having it done for them.

[legion]

Originally posted by cstreit
Disclaimers? Probably necessary since they are more worried about self-esteem these days than actual learning. If they taught more critical thinking, kids could make up their OWN minds instead of having it done for them.

Wow...one of the many reasons I got the h311 out of Naperville...

[widebody911]

Originally posted by cstreit
If they taught more critical thinking, kids could make up their OWN minds instead of having it done for them.

That's dangerous territory - then they'd start questioning the church, and eventually the administration!

[cstreit]

Legion, Naperville has one of the best public school systems in the world... Mind you, more than it's fair share of the "entitlement" attitudes I suspect... Plus we have an annual kart race downtown and rib-fest and Quigleys pub. It's enough to keep me happy.

Thom...

I'm sure they would love it if kids started questioning the church, it would make the whole evolution discussion much simpler. The second one, well, hmm.... We need lots of burger flippers. Too much education and who's gonna wanna do it?

I had a particularly sadistic time hitting up my high-school bio teacher with evolution/creation questions. I had made my own conclusions prior and just had a good time badgering him because he was so politically correct. Tied him in knots.... Better yet when (because this was a "gifted program") we got to do vivisection on frogs and urchins (sea urchins, not street urchins, lol) I had a field day with him!

[legion]

I eat a Quigley's every time I'm up there! Still, I went through middle school and high school in Naperville. No question the education was excellent, but I saw my grades suffer any time I had an opinion that wasn't exactly the same as a teacher...

For example, in a history class, a teacher assigned us a project supposing our team was the president's cabinet and it was the Great Depression. It was our job to help the country out of it. Every other team flipped ahead in the text book and copied down some New Deal programs. Most got "A"s. We decided it would be best to invade Mexico and Canada steal their resources and enslave its residents. We got a "D". We explained that we would never actually do this, but we didn't see any benefit in copying the textbook either. It didn't help our case.

I ran into this in college too. As a business major, I had one tenured professor for a senior-level management class whose sworn duty was to get us to drop out of the College of Business. I know this because he told us so on the first day. His entire class consisted of studying cases like Bhopal, India, Dalkon Shield, and asbestos. (Enron hadn't happened yet.) We learned nothing about management. I ended up getting a "B" in the class because I didn't adhere to the professor's dogma...and he knew that if he gave me anything lower I would have taken it up with the department head.

Rather than teaching how to objectively evaluate information, I think our education system is preoccupied with imposing what it has judged is the acceptable viewpoint.

[gaijinda]

Originally posted by legion

Rather than teaching how to objectively evaluate information, I think our education system is preoccupied with imposing what it has judged is the acceptable viewpoint. [/B]

William F. Buckley said recently something to the effect that higer education is no longer about the free exchange of ideas, but rather a high church were the pews are reserved for the true believers...

[legion]

Originally posted by gaijinda
William F. Buckley said recently something to the effect that higer education is no longer about the free exchange of ideas, but rather a high church were the pews are reserved for the true believers...

I read that article, so the credit should go to him. I've also read some similar thoughts from Thomas Sowell. I buy into the idea because I have experienced it firsthand.

Another example. Nearly every resident assistant in my dorm my sophomore year of college was gay. This was done intentionally under the guise of diversity. It struck me as ironic that in order to be diverse, we had to put a group in power that identified itself as homogeneous (no pun intended). On my floor, if we had a disagreement with our resident assistant, we were accused of being intolerant of his lifestyle. The real issue revolved around his extreme intolerance of our ethanol imbibing lifestyle (stated that way to make you think).