What would Jesus do in a case like this?
In order to question evolution theory, a publisher claiming to be Christian, publishing books to be used in nominally Christian schools that get charter school funds, claims that the Loch Ness Monster is real. Why?
[Loch Ness Monster = dinosaur] + [Alive with humans] = [Falsification of evolution theory]
Like Dave Barry, we could not make this stuff up. It’s too lunatic for fiction.
Here’s the story, from Scotsman.com (not “true Scotsman,” of course) (links added):
Loch Ness monster cited by US schools as evidence that evolution is myth
The Loch Ness monster: Used as evidence that evolution is myth*
By CLAIRE MCKIN
Published on Monday 25 June 2012 14:05THOUSANDS of American school pupils are to be taught that the Loch Ness monster is real – in an attempt by religious teachers to disprove Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.
Pupils attending privately-run Christian schools in the southern state of Louisiana will learn from textbooks next year, which claim Scotland’s most famous mythological beast is a living creature.
Thousands of children are to receive publicly-funded vouchers enabling them to attend the schools – which follow a strict fundamentalist curriculum.
The Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) programme teaches controversial religious beliefs, aimed at disproving evolution and proving creationism.
Youngsters will be told that if it can be proved that dinosaurs walked the earth at the same time as man, then Darwinism is fatally flawed.
Critics have slammed the content of the religious course books, labelling them “bizarre” and accusing them of promoting radical religious and political ideas.
One ACE textbook called Biology 1099, Accelerated Christian Education Inc reads: “Are dinosaurs alive today? Scientists are becoming more convinced of their existence.
“Have you heard of the Loch Ness Monster in Scotland? ‘Nessie’ for short has been recorded on sonar from a small submarine, described by eyewitnesses, and photographed by others. Nessie appears to be a plesiosaur.”
Another claim taught is that a Japanese whaling boat once caught a dinosaur.
One former pupil, Jonny Scaramanga, 27, who went through the ACE programme as a child, but now campaigns against Christian fundamentalism, said the Nessie claim was presented as “evidence” that evolution could not have happened.
He added: “The reason for that is they’re saying if Noah’s flood only happened 4,000 years ago, which they believe literally happened, then possibly a sea monster survived.
“If it was millions of years ago then that would be ridiculous. That’s their logic. It’s a common thing among creationists to believe in sea monsters.”
Private religious schools, including the Eternity Christian Academy in Westlake, Louisiana, which follows the ACE curriculum, have already been cleared to receive the state voucher money transferred from public school funding, thanks to a bill pushed through by Republican state governor Bobby Jindal, a Hindu convert to Catholicism.
Boston-based researcher and writer Bruce Wilson, who specialises in the American political religious right, said: “One of these texts from Bob Jones University Press claims that dinosaurs were fire-breathing dragons. It has little to do with science as we currently understand. It’s more like medieval scholasticism.”
Mr Wilson believes that such fundamentalist Christian teaching is going on in at least 13 American states.
He added: “There’s a lot of public funding going to private schools, probably around 200,000 pupils are receiving this education.
“The majority of parents now home schooling their kids are Christian fundamentalists too. I don’t believe they should be publicly funded, I don’t believe the schools who use these texts should be publicly funded.”
And you wonder why kids turn out like they do?
Christians, you may disagree with evolution theory, or Darwin’s findings and the work of 10,000 other scientists, but do you want to perpetrate bald-faced hoaxes to defend your disagreement? Call on the publisher to change the book. Spreading falsehoods is the wrong way to go about getting at the truth.
_____________
* Yes, that’s the photo that’s been debunked a dozen times, a dozen ways. Whatever it is a photograph of, it is not the Loch Ness Monster.
More, and Related articles
- Loch Ness Monster disproves evolution (boingboing.net)
- Fundamentalist Christian Textbook Uses Nessie To Disprove Evolution (patheos.com)
- Loch Ness monster proves Darwin wrong (freethinker.co.uk)
- Fundamentalist Schools Using “Nessie” To Disprove Evolution (idle.slashdot.org)
- Louisiana Elementary School Teaches Loch Ness Monster Refutes Darwin (jdjournal.com)
- Weird Science: Taxpayer-funded religious schools in Louisiana teach monstrously bad biology (secularnewsdaily.com)
- In Louisiana schools, ‘Nessie’ is real, evolution is myth (sfgate.com)
- American Fundamentalist Schools Seek To Disprove Evolution Using Loch Ness Monster (techie-buzz.com)
- At Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub:
- Critics of evolution will damage the economy of Texas and the Nation, Tyson says
- Fred Flintstone waded here: Hoaxsters ready to teach creationism to Texas kids
- Dangers of creationism: Synapse shutdown
- Peppered Moths
- Dembski’s blog caught hoaxing again
- Fearful IDists can’t meet ethics challenge in Dallas
- Inherently dishonest: Creationism
- Twisting recent history (creationism), 2
- Twisting recent history (creationism), 1
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
[…] We soaked this idea a bit here at the bathtub a couple of days ago. […]
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I’ll agree with you on that part–using something that there is no definitive evidence for as proof of a claim is pure idiocy.
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The hoaxes of science you claim demonstrate a higher moral dedication than the hoaxes you defend now. Piltdown Man at least had solid, concrete artifacts. It was available for study, though adequate study was not done on it.
The hoax, if it was intentional, was not done to promote science falsely, and in fact damaged science.
That contrasts sharply from the current issue, with creationists falsely claiming evidence that there is evidence of a monster in Loch Ness, and falsely claiming scientific study of it.
In short, one practical joke gone awry does not justify lying an cheating by creationists today.
And the lying and cheating demonstrate the moral paucity of creationism — creationism erodes morality in those who hold to it.
All of which adds up to, the publisher needs to repent and get that garbage out of the book.
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I find your unflinchingly unique take on Piltdown Man to be amusing but no one is buying the creationist conspiracy version of events. It was clearly and evolutionist conspiracy.
And yes, the pseudoscientists had no choice but to admit to the fraud after the real scientists–the real experts–started examining the “evidence.”
I bring up the frauds of evolutionists past because they certainly do not hold any ethical or moral high ground to be able to label others as hoaxes or frauds. And because the lies and deceit that they continue to perpetuate to this day will no doubt be exposed within time as well.
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From Wikipedia:
From the outset, some scientists expressed skepticism about the Piltdown find (see above). G.S. Miller, for example, observed in 1915 that “deliberate malice could hardly have been more successful than the hazards of deposition in so breaking the fossils as to give free scope to individual judgment in fitting the parts together.”[6] In the decades prior to its exposure as a forgery in 1953, scientists increasingly regarded Piltdown as an enigmatic aberration inconsistent with the path of hominid evolution as demonstrated by fossils found elsewhere.[1] Skeptical scientists only increased in number as more fossils were found.[citation needed]
Oh look…it was scientists who laid it out as a hoax.
By the by..we’re quite a long ways from the Scopes trial..if you think Piltdown man disproves evolution then you are deluding yourself.
I find it quite amusing though that your faith in God is threatened by a scientific theory. WHat next? Going to attack the theory of gravity as somehow anti-Christian?
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I’m rather disturbed by this. Aren’t they Good Patriotic Americans? Why did they feel the need to cross the ocean to find proof, when we have Good American Proof here at home? I’m referring, of course, to Champ; the plesiosaur residing in Lake Champlain. I demand that they rid their books of all foreign plesiosaurs, and concentrate on an American one…even if it does sometimes swim on the Canadian side.
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So, you’re a die-hard creationist?
Read the Wikipedia article again, in full, and be alert to inaccuracies in it. For example, Piltdown was not introduced as evidence at the Scopes trial. It could not have been, since there was no real trial. After the judge ruled that expert witnesses would not be allowed, Scopes was essentially plead guilty. Darrow and the ACLU hoped to get a hearing on the issues of the law on appeal, but the Tennessee Supreme Court overturned the conviction on a technicality apart from the merits of the law, and to prevent a full appeal, the creationists just let the issue drop. So there was no place that Piltdown could have been used as evidence, and claims that it was are pure hoakum.
Better, read the link to the Piltdown page at Talk Origins that I linked to earlier. See especially the description of the trouble in science caused by the hoax.
(NOVA’s episode on Piltdown Man is another great source.)
Piltdown was always an outlier. It did not comport with the other evidence. Raymond Dart found good fossils in Africa, suggesting the African rise of humans we now know. Piltdown misled many into thinking Dart’s discovery wasn’t good enough, or was somehow compromised by a British rise of humans.
Piltdown advanced no then-existing hypothesis of evolution. It supported nothing else in science, but was a stand-alone anomaly. In retrospect, Piltdown revealed the kind of care necessary to prevent similar errors — but for 40 years it was a stumbling block to science. The TO Piltdown page runs through the classic forms that science hoaxes take. Piltdown fits none of them.
It may be unfair to call it a creationist hoax, since Teilhard de Chardin eventually came around to understanding evolution. But it’s more unfair to claim it as a hoax of scientists trying to promote science. That’s patently wrong.
Typical of creationist hoaxers, though, instead of providing an answer of rebuttal and refutation of anything I posted, you introduce other, red herring claims of hoaxes in other places. The existence of other hoaxes cannot in any way offer verification of the existence of Nessie, nor any other cryptic animal.
Especially, the existence of other hoaxes does not justify this hoax by the publisher on unsuspecting American kids. Christians should strive for honesty, and not stoop to hoaxes and false stories to justify anything, you know?
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“Because it was a counter-evolution theory hoax, surely you’re not claiming the contrary, are you?”
Yes I am and this is the first time I’ve heard someone claim that Piltdown Man was used to counter evolution. Here’s what Wikipedia says:
“During 1912, the Piltdown man was believed to be the “missing link” between apes and humans by the majority of the scientific community.”
“The fossil was introduced as evidence by Clarence Darrow in defense of John Scopes during the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial. Darrow died during 1938, more than ten years before Piltdown Man was exposed as a fraud.
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Piltdown did not support evolution theory. It was not a hoax designed to promote evolution in any way. In fact, its uncovering was a result of scientists’ noting that the evidence didn’t fit so dramatically that they went back to analyze the originals, after the perpetrators (most of them, if there were more than one), had died and no longer could prevent such investigation.
Because it was a counter-evolution theory hoax, surely you’re not claiming the contrary, are you?
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LOL–you’re blaming creationists of something that attempted to make the case for evolutionists?
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Piltdown is a good example of why creationists shouldn’t do it again. Another creationist hoax that delayed science at best, smoked out by scientists because the evidence didn’t fit. Archaeoraptor? You need two ancient animals to make one hoax like archaeoraptor. Archaeoraptor, an unintentional hoax, offers solid evidence for two other animals, while Nessie has none. As a hoax, it’s closer to reality than Nessie.
Thousands of witnesses? You’re joking, of course. There’s no significant evidence at all.
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“Christians, you may disagree with evolution theory, or Darwin’s findings and the work of 10,000 other scientists, but do you want to perpetrate bald-faced hoaxes to defend your disagreement?”
You mean like Piltdown man? The Archaeoraptor hoax? And very likely Lucy as well? At least there are thousands of eye witnesses for Nessie. Witnesses without an agenda.
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