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Ken Ham and Text Book Labels
Michael Suttkus

KEN HAM ON EDUCATION! - A warning label - in science textbooks!

Home Education Weekly News - 11 October 2002

Question: Is this a warning for readers about evolution?

I find such amusement in Mr Ham writing his own questions so he can pretend to be a great teacher talking to his wide-eyed followers.   What's the matter, Mr Ham?  Aren't the questions you actually get simplistic enough for you?

Answer:  That's exactly what it is! 

No, what it is is a preposterous attempt to pretend that evolution is somehow less certain than heliocentrism.  Oh, wait, a lot of Mr Ham's supporters don't believe in heliocentrism either....

In a few states in America, boards of education have approved a label warning students about evolution. It's placed in their new state-approved science textbooks.

One wonders why you aren't demanding warning labels on creationist comic books.  For instance:

"This book contains information on the long refuted notion of 'creationism', based on the heresy of bibliolatry, rejected on both theological and scientific grounds 250 years ago.  It's supporters are all idiots.  Reading it may induce uncontrolled laughter or even nausea .  You have been warned."

And what a furore this small label has caused!  Evolutionary professors and the media have been up in arms about this.  But why are they so upset?

Because the wilfully ignorant are trying to have their ignorance forced into science classrooms by law.  Gosh, if they only had evidence to support their nonsense they wouldn't have to waste our time with this backdoor duplicity, they could just publish articles and make their case like real science does.  But of course creationism isn't real science, and the courts keep giggling at them when they try to pretend otherwise. 

The label generally tells students that evolution is only a theory.

Perhaps we should put a label in political textbooks saying, "George Bush is only the president of the United States".

The word "only" has no business in front of "a theory".  There is no "only" here.  Creationists would understand this if they had the first clue about how science operates, but, as has been shown time and again, they don't.

In science, theory is the pinnacle of scientific success.  Theories do not grow up to become facts (or anything else).  It simply does not get any better than theory.   To say something is "only a theory" is like saying that, financially one is "only the richest person on the planet."  The only way it is a legitimate English construction is if one is being sarcastic.  I doubt that the "warning" labels are considered sarcastic.

Next, shall we label the health books, "The germ theory of disease is only a theory."  Perhaps we should warn physics students that relativity is "only" a theory!  If evolution deserves the "only a theory" treatment, then so do these two "mere" theories.

The truth is that the creationists want to falsely imply that evolution is somehow less certain than the rest of the science in the textbook.  This is, simply put, a lie.

There's no mention of Creation on this label, nor are students told that they shouldn't believe in evolution. 

Ham is being very disingenuous here.  The only reason that the books don't include that kind of label is because the creationists' previous attempts to enforce exactly that kind of legislation was rejected by the courts.   Look at their history:

First, they tried to ban evolution outright.

When that failed they tried to enforce creationism.

When that was rejected because it's religion they tried to ban evolution again by claiming it was a religion!

When that failed they again tried to enforce creationism in schools, now disguised as "scientific creation" through "equal time" laws (which, notably, were completely unequal to
creationists other than the "Christian" YEC).

Well, they failed again there, so they tried simply removing evolution from the school curriculum so that neither would be taught.

Yet another failure for the creationists.

And so, at long last, we have Mr Ham whining "There's no mention of Creation on this label, nor are students told that they shouldn't believe in evolution."  Gosh, Mr Ham, and why would that be?  Certainly not for lack of trying on your part.

All the label does is to tell students that evolution is not a proven fact.

Nothing in science is a proven fact.  Indeed, the concept "proven fact" is meaningless in science.  Again, there is no excuse for pretending that evolution somehow needs a special
warning label, but not, say, spherical earth theory.  The only reason we have these labels is not because evolution is less a "proven fact" than any other scientific theory, but because the
creationists are desperate to sling some mud at it any way they can.

This tells us how far our education system has degenerated - evolutionists are now insisting that evolution is FACT.

That organisms change over time is a fact.  That this is the definition of evolution is also a fact.  That creationists refuse to deal with either of these facts, or to use the word "evolution" correctly is also a fact.

In one of the media reports concerning the warning labels, an evolutionary scientist expressed alarm, thinking that they would cause students to challenge their teachers!

It is not, in general, the place of high school students to challenge their teachers, as they should, theoretically, know less about the subject.   There are exceptions but it's still unusual.

Of course, coming from the people who insist on unchallenged dogmatic acceptance of the party line, even insisting on oaths to prevent any of it's members from challenging anything written by it's "teachers", this sentence is nothing but the purest hypocrisy from Mr Ham.  What is it the Bible says about hypocrites?


You see, evolutionists don't want students to even know that evolution can be questioned.

So, one quote from some unnamed source is taken as the be all and end all of science.

Gosh, Mr Ham, we're so impressed with your journalistic integrity.

Underneath it all, they realize that the "creationist answers" from Genesis are powerful and convincing!

Yeah, right.  If they were convincing, you wouldn't be trying to enforce your lies by law.

By the way, Mr Ham never seems willing to answer my emails about how mangroves got sorted to the top of the fossil record.  Now, why do you suppose that is?

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