Evolution as the root cause of Holocaust: Texas version
Photo: EPA
When Texas parents sent their kids to iSchool High, charter school in Houston, they were expecting some great college preparation. Instead, their children came home with apparently religiously motivated anti-science books. A publicly funded charter high school in Texas is teaching students with the textbook that implies the Holocaust has roots in the theory of evolution.
According
to Salon.com, iSchool High is using a textbook that links Charles
Darwin's scientific theory to Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler:
[Hitler]
has written that the Aryan (German) race would be the leader in all
human progress. To accomplish that goal, all “lower races” should either
be enslaved or eliminated. Apparently the theory of evolution and its
“survival of the fittest” philosophy had taken root in Hitler’s warped
mind.
So
some worried parents researched ResponsiveEd, the curriculum used at
iSchool High. What they discovered was that ResponsiveEd was founded by
Donald R. Howard, former owner of ACE (Accelerated Christian Education).
ACE is a fundamentalist education group that teaches young-Earth
creationism as fact and integrates Bible lessons into every academic
subject.
Last
year it hit headlines because one of its high school science books
taught that the Loch Ness Monster was real, and that this was evidence
against evolution. After Howard left ACE in the 1990s, he founded Eagle
Project charter schools, which became Responsive Education Solutions, or
ResponsiveEd, in 2007.
Howard
told the Wall Street Journal in 1998: “Take the Ten Commandments – you
can rework those as a success principle by rewording them. We will call
it truth, we will call it principles, we will call it values. We will
not call it religion.”
ResponsiveEd
is the latest in a long line of concerns raised over the religious
affiliations of charter schools. In 2010, more than 20 percent of Texas
charter schools reportedly had a religious affiliation. And ResponsiveEd
aims to expand further, adding that it has 60 schools in Texas, with
plans to open another 20 by 2014. It also has facilities in Arkansas,
and intends to open in Indiana.
Charter
schools receive public funding but operate privately. While promoting
creationist science is deemed unconstitutional in public schools,
charter schools enjoy greater freedom to challenge mainstream science in
the classroom.
Some
charter schools has their curriculum based on Accelerated Christian
Education’s Paradigm Accelerated Curriculum (PAC). It was designed by
former ACE vice president Ronald E. Johnson. While ACE is an
“individualized, accelerated” curriculum based on the “five laws of
learning,” PAC is an “accelerated individualized” curriculum based on
the “six principles of learning.” Like ACE and ResponsiveEd, it
questions the theory of evolution and presents the “catastrophist
theory” of Noah’s Ark as a credible rival explanation. Positing that the
earth is only 6,000 years old (because the oldest living things on
earth are less than 5,000 years old), this pseudoscientific theory is
easily disproved-- by 4000 BC, human cultures were flourishing
throughout the world, agriculture and animal domestication were
thousands of years old and the biblical city of Jericho had been inhabited for more than 5,000 years already.
Like
ResponsiveEd, PAC teaches that the theory of evolution influenced
Hitler to create the Third Reich. It also relies on the traditional
creationist argument of “gaps” in the fossil record:
Evolutionists
insist that their theory must be right and that missing fossil evidence
is merely the result of a flawed fossil record; the catastrophists
insist that evolutionists have not exercised the scientific method of
discovery and therefore have little real scientific evidence to prove
their theory.
The PAC materials in general try to undermine the authority of science by all means.
ResponsiveEd’s teaching on evolution promises that students will, among other things:
· Explain the difference between microevolution and macroevolution.
· Describe the theories concerning the origins of life.
· Discuss theories of human development.
· Express opinions regarding evolutionary theory in general and human evolution in particular.
· Describe controversies regarding evolution.
This
resembles John Hudson Tiner’s “When Science Fails,” an Accelerated
Christian Education literature book that uses various examples to
undermine science and cast doubt on the theory of evolution.
By
questioning the science, the evolution challengers in Texas are
following a strategy increasingly deployed by others around the country.
If
textbooks do not present alternative viewpoints or explain what they
describe as “the controversy,” they say students will be deprived of a
core concept of education — learning how to make up their own minds.
However,
ACE’s educational techniques have faced much criticism. Harry
Brighouse, professor of philosophy and affiliate professor of
educational policy studies at University of Wisconsin, Madison,
described ACE’s social studies as “a kind of Christian version of the
Stalinist approach to history but without the intellectual subtlety.”
The harshest criticism came from a 1987 article in the Phi Delta Kappan that stated:
If
parents want their children to obtain a very limited and sometimes
inaccurate view of the world – one that ignores thinking above the level
of rote recall – then the ACE materials do the job very well. The world
of the ACE materials is quite a different one from that of scholarship
and critical thinking.
Critics
claim there are dangers in allowing pseudoscience and fundamentalist
fallacies to be taught in American schools. Scientifically disprovable
theories already bear fruits: nearly half of Americans surveyed by
Gallup last year said they believe 'God' created modern human beings
sometime in the past 10,000 years.
Meanwhile,
US Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA), a medical doctor and member of the House
Science Committee, calls evolution a "lie from the pit of hell" and
believes the earth is only 9,000 years old.
For
citizens in Texas, however, the concern remains that public funds are
being allocated to schools that teach religiously motivated lessons.
Texas
will soon be able to select biology textbooks for use by high school
students over the next decade, but the panel responsible for reviewing
submissions from publishers has stirred controversy because a number of
its members do not accept evolution and climate change as scientific
truth, NYT reports.
Texas
governor Rick Perry boasted that his schools taught both creationism
and evolution while the State Board of Education includes members who
hold creationist views. Six of them are known to reject evolution.
“Utterly
unqualified partisan politicians will look at what utterly unqualified
citizens have said about a textbook and decide whether it meets the
requirements of a textbook,” NYT cited Kathy Miller, president of the
Texas Freedom Network, which monitors the activities of far-right
organizations.
Publishers
including well-known companies like Pearson, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
and McGraw-Hill have already submitted 14 biology textbooks for
consideration this year. The state board will vote on a final list of
textbooks in November. Even though Texas districts can make their own
decisions, many will simply choose books from the state’s approved list,
activists fear.
Some
Texans worry that ideologically driven review panel members and state
school board members are slowly eroding science education in the state,
NYT says. Parents are also concerned that their children will not be
able to compete for jobs that require scientific backgrounds.
