Censorship discussed in 'The Oppressed and the Oppressors'
School celebrates 'banned book week'
Ashley Fuquay
Issue date: 10/4/07 Section: Campus Life
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On Thursday, Tarleton celebrated Banned Book Week by holding a brown-bag lecture in the library entitled "The Oppressed and the Oppressors: A History of Science Textbooks and Censorship," hosted by Dr. Charles Howard, department head of communication studies.
His presentation was about how divided our society is when it comes to the subject of evolution. According to the Gallup Organization's poll in May 2007, 49 percent of those who were polled said they believed in evolution, 48 percent said they did not believe in evolution, and 2 percent said they had no opinion, the remaining answers were varied.
"The most common alternative to evolution is today called 'Intelligent Design,'" Howard said. Intelligent design is the claim that certain features of the universe and living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.
He discussed the Kitzmiller v. Dover School Board case in Dover, Pa. where ninth graders had to take an Intelligent Design prep course before taking biology where evolution is taught.
Howard read from page 22 of the Supreme Court Case Opinion for the Kitzmiller v. Dover School Board court case. It was decided that teaching a lecture on Intelligent Design to students before they could enter ninth grade biology was going against separation of church and state.
"After researching the views of the record and applicable case laws, we find that I.D. (Intelligent Design) arguments may be true, a proposition in which the court takes no position, I.D.is not science. We (the Supreme Court) find that I.D. failed on three different levels anyone of which could determine that I.D. is science. They are, one, I.D. violates centuries-old ground rules by invoking and permitting supernatural causation. Two, the argument of irreducible complexity, essential to I.D., employs the same flawed and illogically contrived dualism of creationism that desecrated science in the 1980s, and three, I.D.'s negative attack on evolution has been refused by the scientific community," he recited.
All of those Dover School Board members that supported anti-evolutionism lost the election the next year, so the decision was not appealed.
"We've seen the Discovery Institute. We have seen a lot of think tanks and other scientific putting together and promoting the idea of Intelligent Design so this is not a small scale thing," Howard said. "It's mostly a manifestation of polarized society."
Famous banned books:
The Age of Reason
Animal Farm
Call of the Wild
Civil Disobedience
For Whom the Bell Tolls
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Uncle Tom's Cabin
The Wealth of Nations
Black Beauty
American Psycho
His presentation was about how divided our society is when it comes to the subject of evolution. According to the Gallup Organization's poll in May 2007, 49 percent of those who were polled said they believed in evolution, 48 percent said they did not believe in evolution, and 2 percent said they had no opinion, the remaining answers were varied.
"The most common alternative to evolution is today called 'Intelligent Design,'" Howard said. Intelligent design is the claim that certain features of the universe and living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.
He discussed the Kitzmiller v. Dover School Board case in Dover, Pa. where ninth graders had to take an Intelligent Design prep course before taking biology where evolution is taught.
Howard read from page 22 of the Supreme Court Case Opinion for the Kitzmiller v. Dover School Board court case. It was decided that teaching a lecture on Intelligent Design to students before they could enter ninth grade biology was going against separation of church and state.
"After researching the views of the record and applicable case laws, we find that I.D. (Intelligent Design) arguments may be true, a proposition in which the court takes no position, I.D.is not science. We (the Supreme Court) find that I.D. failed on three different levels anyone of which could determine that I.D. is science. They are, one, I.D. violates centuries-old ground rules by invoking and permitting supernatural causation. Two, the argument of irreducible complexity, essential to I.D., employs the same flawed and illogically contrived dualism of creationism that desecrated science in the 1980s, and three, I.D.'s negative attack on evolution has been refused by the scientific community," he recited.
All of those Dover School Board members that supported anti-evolutionism lost the election the next year, so the decision was not appealed.
"We've seen the Discovery Institute. We have seen a lot of think tanks and other scientific putting together and promoting the idea of Intelligent Design so this is not a small scale thing," Howard said. "It's mostly a manifestation of polarized society."
Famous banned books:
The Age of Reason
Animal Farm
Call of the Wild
Civil Disobedience
For Whom the Bell Tolls
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Uncle Tom's Cabin
The Wealth of Nations
Black Beauty
American Psycho
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