Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Is School Choice Weak?

On January 19th, 2016 (the day after Martin Luther King Day) 10,000 school choice supporters rallied in Tallahassee.  Parents, educators and activists advocated for the biggest private school choice program in the U.S. (78K students participate).  A lawsuit is currently challenging it on constitutional grounds.  Martin Luther King III addressed the crowd near the Florida State Capitol.

Young Earth Science (YES) is one key motivating school choice.  Many hold that the earth is thousands of years old and not billions.  In a survey that came out in 2014, a full 36% of Americans are not too (or not at all) confident that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old (AP-GfK).
Homeschoolers the Jonas Brothers performed at National School Choice Week 2013 in Phoenix.  Learn more about School Choice Week here.

Donald Trump on school choice:

... Open the schoolhouse doors and let parents choose the best school for their children.  Education reformers call this school choice, charter schools, vouchers, even opportunity scholarships.  I call it competition - the American way.

Ted Cruz on school choice:

I am a passionate supporter of homeschooling. ... The Democrats are essentially bought and paid for by the union bosses and the teachers unions, so they will always oppose school choice.
Get your copy of YES - Young Earth Science today and learn the facts that support a youthful planet that you don't hear about in most public schools.  School Choice Matters!  Homeschooling rocks!  #DropTheSuit

Wednesday, January 6, 2016

Straight Out Of Science (SOOS)

Should we always trust Big Science?  Michael Crichton (Jurassic World) said, "Consensus is the business of politics.  Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right … The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus."  Let's consider some scientific frauds that fooled many in the scientific community.
Piltdown Man, found in 1912, was supposedly an early hominid.  It wasn’t until 1953 that the scam was brought to light.  The skull was human, but the jawbone was from an orangutan.

In November of 1999, Archaeoraptor came on the scene as an allegedly feathered dino.  Almost a year later, National Geographic magazine (Oct. 2000) admitted that Archaeoraptor was a fake.  But the damage was done and some even today may not be aware of the hoax. [1] 
Can science get political?  Trofim Lysenko (Трофи́м Лысе́нко, d. 1976) was a Soviet biologist who applied Jean-Baptiste Lamarck's idea of acquired characteristics.  Lysenko denied the ideas of Gregor Mendel (d. 1884), the father of Genetics.  Joseph Stalin favored Lysenko's program and over three thousand biologists were sent to prison, fired or executed.  Lysenkoism is the manipulation/distortion of science in order to teach what is dictated by the powers that be.

Science by force fails.  We are reminded of these sayings from Yoda:  "Many of the truths that we cling to depend on our point of view [i.e. WorldView]" and "You must unlearn what you have learned."

Consider these wise words from Emil Røyrvik:

Efforts to make people bow uncritically to the authority of a dogmatic representation of Science, seems largely to produce ridicule, opposition and inaction, and ultimately undermines the legitimacy and role of both science and politics in open democracies. [2]
Reject Old Earth Fallacies (OEF) and learn about Young Earth Science (YES) by getting our newly updated book (w/ a brilliant new cover).
Science is not defined by majority vote.  Some would call global warming a hoax.  Let us know what you think:  YoungEarthScience@yahoo.com

Notes:
1) YES - Young Earth Science by Jay Hall (IDEAS, Big Spring, TX, 2014), p. 182.
2) quoted in Hall, p. 192.