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Old March 25th 05, 05:36 PM
Kreisleriana
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On Thu, 24 Mar 2005 22:59:36 -0600, Karen
yodeled:

I begin to feel as though we are descending into the Dark Ages again.....



Capitol bill aims to control Œleftist¹ profs
THE LAW COULD LET STUDENTS SUE FOR UNTOLERATED BELIEFS.

By JAMES VANLANDINGHAM
Alligator Staff Writer

TALLAHASSEE ‹ Republicans on the House Choice and Innovation Committee voted
along party lines Tuesday to pass a bill that aims to stamp out ³leftist
totalitarianism² by ³dictator professors² in the classrooms of Florida¹s
universities.


The Nation has a whole issue about right-wing backlash towards
"liberal" university faculty. I've spent about half my life in
academia, and I've still never met a "liberal dictator professor." :P

There is a similar bill being introduced in the Ohio legislature too.

There is right now a major political battle going on over Columbia
University's department of Near Eastern and Asian studies. The real
problem is not that the professors are stifling students, but the
students simply don't like some things some professors are saying--
even students who have never taken their classes are getting involved
over things they have "heard" other people report. One of the
problems is that some of these students have simply never been exposed
to the Palestinian point of view before, and this discussion is so
polarized that they immediately think that the whole treatment of the
subject at Columbia is anti-Israel and anti-Semitic. So these
students *are* getting exposed to an alternative point of view-- from
the one they have heard all their lives. But they don't like it

In a way, this is like the evolution debate. Why should
knowledgeable, expert people, people who have been long tried in their
fields by their peers, who have abided by serious, rigorous methods
of study and research, be compelled to give "equal time" to attitudes
that they know are b***s***? Next time we have a discussion about
world travel, shall we have the Flat Earth Society check in with their
views? Did God put the fossil record there just to pull our legs?
Bacteria and viruses are developing more resistant strains in matters
of a few years, not millions. People are dying of resistant
tuberculosis. Anybody can get a bunch of fruit flies, and watch a
hundred generations in just a a few months, and you can see the
changes. But evolution still needs to be "balanced out" by an
"alternative POV. Ridiculous.

You know something? The Catholic Church-- yes, the same people who
persecuted Galileo 400 years ago-- have openly stated that evolution
is *not* in conflict with belief in a Creator God. In a way, the
Christian right wing people have a very narrow view of a God they
claim is all-powerful. I believe if God is all-powerful, He could
have created the world any way He wanted, and that can certainly admit
the Big Bang and evolution. They also think that God has some pretty
petty concerns, like about who's sleeping with whom.

Wow! Thus endeth MY rant.



Theresa
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