Religion & Law

Riding North

By John Pieret

Larry Moran has accused me of reveling in the creationism that pops up outside of the United States. ... Okay, misery does love company. But you shouldn't think that I find particular pleasure when Canada is the victim ... not that it isn't true, you just shouldn't think it. Anyway, Bill Kaufmann of the Calgary Sun has a case study:

In Alberta, teaching kids creationist fairy tales as an alternative to real biological science is even paid for with our tax dollars. Last summer, the province quietly began shipping more of our dough to private and religious schools by upping their per student grant from 60% to 70% of the total instructional cost.

Our tax dollars are underwriting ignorance in religious schools peddling myth as science throughout the province, some of which have attached themselves to public boards in a bid to receive full funding.

[A]t a time when the anti-science agenda of the Bush administration fades south of the border, [there is] increasing pressure on Canada to compete in research and knowledge-based pursuits, as our university heads warn.

The principal of Airdrie's Koinonia Christian school is proud creationism and its more sophisticated offspring, intelligent design, is part of his school's science instruction, even though Alberta Education says it forbids creationism being taught as science.

"When I was in school in the 1970s, creationism was not considered science, it wasn't even considered a scientific theory," says Driedger.

It still isn't, but Driedger clearly thinks education has come a long way -- and the future is bright.

"Intelligent design is certainly taking off due to the lack of evidence in evolutionary science," he says.

Full post as published by Thoughts in a Haystack on February 06, 2009 (boomark / email).