Europe cancels creationism vote

In the Calgary Sun today was a small, two sentence article succinctly stating that a resolution which banned "creationist and intelligent design views from school science classes," and which the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly was going to vote on today, was canceled. The reason? "[T]he proposed resolution was one sided."

Now the greater issue of legislating what can and cannot be taught in public schools is a very controversial topic. In many subject, for example History and English to name only two, there are a variety of view points and interpretations that I believe must be presented to students, where they can discover for themselves what might be considered "truths." The best way I can explain this begins by assuming that many people read, at some in their education, read Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.

This story follows one man, Marlow, up the Amazon River during the time of Belgium's King Leopold's vicious colonization of the Congo at the end of the 19th Century. Marlow snakes his way up the river on a riverboat into the depths of the Congo to retrieve a Colonel Kurtz. Colonel Kurtz, as Marlow himself comes to parallel, has gone quite insane. When Marlow arrives as the forgotten "Inner Station," he finds that Kurtz has become a god to the savages (read: black natives). Trust me; it's all very exciting. Watch Apocalypse Now! for its contemporary translation of nationalistic imperialism.

On the other hand, I would not be surprised to discover that very few High School students have read or even heard of Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart. I spent no more than two lectures on it in a 100-level English course. Achebe is an out-spoken of Joseph Conrad and specifically of the teaching og Heart of Darkness in schools. Achebe argues that, despite what we learn in school, Conrad was just as racist and chauvinistic as the next white imperialist of the day. We definitely see this in how Conrad depicts women in Darkness--as innocent, fragile things that are too be kept isolated from all unpleasantnesses in the world; and which, ironically, they may be partially the cause of. However, when we consider the only two lines of dialogue spoken by black characters:

"Mistah Kurtz, he dead"
[I have forgotten the second]

That's it. There are no other lines spoken by black characters in the novelette. Achebe combines this with other evidence to argue that Darkness is a racist piece of literature that should not be taught in school. This begins to lead us back to the debate about prohibiting the teaching of creationism and intelligent design in schools.

As shown in looking at Heart of Darkness, there is always more to teach. Can we read as a Modernist allegory of the gradual and symbolic descent into madness and absurdity without looking at the racism that it revolves around? And is the racism so badly presented that the work loses all merit as a piece of great literature? I disagree with Achebe that Darkness should not be taught because, notwithstanding cultural prejudices, it is a great piece of literature. Rather than prohibiting its teaching in schools, I say more about it should be taught. Why not bring in Achebe's argument while discussing Darkness, or even reading Things Fall Apart as well?

Creationists (and intelligent design proponents--they're the same thing) have taken this same argument and moved into the field of science: if we're going to teach evolution, they argue, why not also bring in the creationist argument while discussing evolution, or even reading the Bible as well? But while some subjects, as I have stated like History and English, possess multiple viewpoints and interpretations, others do not. As a simple point, there is only one way to add 2 + 2. And you will always get 4. If not, you've done something wrong. Furthermore, if you divide the circumference of a circle by its diameter, you will always get π. Even if we don't fully know what π is equal to (it's actually impossible), we know that this equation will always be true. It has been replicated millions of times with an extremely high level of accuracy. Science is the same way,

In subjects such as Math and Science, the variety of interpretation greatly homogenises. The reason for this is that the logic that these disciplines are formed from requires that everything addressed by mathematics or science must conform to these rules of logic. Science, for its own part, is unique in forming a naturalistic view of the world from the study and investigation of observable phenomena around us. Therefore, whatever is considered science must be observable and testable. Evolution is science. Creationism (or ID) is not. Therefore, creationism should not be taught in science classes anywhere. To do so would represent a gross violation of the separation of church and state, as creationism is purely a religious doctrine held and asserted by those of the Abrahamic religions.

I am actually surprised that, first the vote was canceled due to being too "one-sided," but also that it took so long for this issue to boil to the surface in Europe. To be honest, I previously believed that America was the main place in the industrialised world where the evolution/creationism debate was raging fiercely. However, it appears as if the judiciary in America is actually having success outlawing the teaching of creationism in public schools. In the fall of 2005 a group of parents in Dover, Pennsylvania sued the school district to stop teaching evolution in biology classes as scientific fact (which, by the way, it is.)

Check out this article: 'INTELLIGENT DESIGN' TEACHING BAN

In a definitive 139-page verdict, this article states, the judge decided that ID could not be taught in schools as it was little more than creationism thinly veiled.

On a similar subject, last April the EU did pass an argrement that "makes it an offence to condone or grossly trivialise crimes of genocide - but only if the effect is incitement to violence or hatred" (The BBC again).

All of these issues seem to me to be contributing to a greater debate in both Europe and the world: limits to the freedom of speech and to the freedom of intelligence (which I just made up). There is already so much legitimate subjects and controversies for youth to be taught. Some, like Chinua Achebe's argument against the canonical text, Heart of Darkness are not even made aware to most high schoolers! I'm dragging on so I'll quickly conclude by saying that teaching children creationism is tantamount to contributing to the intellectual delinquency of a minor. And if you're cool with that, fine. Just keep it in your damn Sunday schools.

(I think the one thing we can all agree on, though, is that it was the right decision on Germany's part to ban Tom Cruise from shooting his next movie on German military sites. Now, if America could only deport him back to wherever the fuck Scientologists come from. READ MORE HERE)