Thomas: college students are not being educated.

Workout notes 6 mile walk (about; 43 minutes out, 42 back). Just enough to work up a sweat. Pleasant morning!

Cal Thomas: He thinks that our students are not being educated in history and civics:

1. The average college senior knows very little about America’s history, government, international relations and market economy. Their average score on the civic literacy test was 53.2 percent. “No class of seniors scored higher than 69 percent, or D plus.”

2. Prestige doesn’t pay off. “An Ivy League education contributes nothing to a student’s civic learning. Š There is no relationship between the cost of attending college and the mastery of America’s history, politics, and economy.”

3. Students don’t learn what colleges don’t teach. “Schools where students took or were required to take more courses related to America’s history and institutions,” says the ISI, “outperformed those schools where fewer courses were completed. The absence of required courses in American history, political science, philosophy and economics suggests a negative impact on students’ civic literacy.” [...]

4. Greater civic learning goes hand-in-hand with more active citizenship. “Students who demonstrated greater learning of America’s history and its institutions were more engaged in citizenship activities such as voting, volunteer community service and political campaigns.” [...]

[...]
Here are three of the test questions. Even partially informed people who believe American history is a better teacher than fascination and fixation on the latest news about Britney Spears and O.J. Simpson ought to be able to answer them correctly. The entire 60 multiple-choice questions can be found on ISI’s Web site, www.isi.org.

1. Which battle brought the American Revolution to an end: (a) Saratoga, (b) Gettysburg, (c) the Alamo, (d) Yorktown, (e) New Orleans?

2. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (1964) was significant because it: (a) ended the war in Korea, (b) Gave President Johnson the authority to expand the scope of the Vietnam War, (c) Was an attempt to take foreign policy power away from the president, (d) Allowed China to become a member of the United Nations, (e) Allowed for oil exploration in Southeast Asia.

3. Which of the following is the best measure of production or output of an economy (a) Gross Domestic Product, (b) Consumer Price Index, (c) Unemployment rate (d), Prime Rate (e) Exchange rate?

Very nice, Mr. Thomas. I might add that scientific illiteracy is also at alarming highs; did you know that there are people out there who think that the world was created “from nothing” about 6000 years ago, and that evolution is a big scam?

Oh that’s right; Mr. Thomas is one of those people!

Creationists are never interested in debating the merits of their theory with legitimate scientists; their target audience is the general public. As such, the real battle is in the realm of public relations. While belief in creationism is indeed growing among the general population, this is mainly due to a popular misconception that it is gaining acceptance within the scientific community. Creationists feed this perception by generating misleading statements about secular creationist literature and by quoting eminent scientists out of context. Cal Thomas parrots this approach by stating, “In the last 30 years, there’s been a wave of books by scientists who do not hold to a Christian-apologetic view on the origins of humanity but who have examined the underpinnings of evolutionary theory and found them to be increasingly suspect.”

Since he does not cite any of the books by name, it is unclear what books he means. He quite possibly may be alluding to the “tidal wave” of books referred to here. However, a simple online search of these titles reveals that none of them is a rejection of evolution by a non-Fundamentalist Christian who is a scientist working within his or her professional field. Several of the books are by scientists–but none of these authors dispute the fact of evolution. Every other book on the list is either by a Christian who believes in the literal truth of Genesis, or by a sensationalist writer of “unexplained phenomena” subjects such as Bigfoot, ESP and Atlantis.

It is an outright lie to claim that these books provide some objective basis for scientific creationism, but it is repeated often. In addition to the alleged “wave of books,” creationists typically quote moldy old articles from popular science magazines out of context, to give the impression that the article supports a creationist viewpoint. The most typically cited are from Science Digest in 1979, and Discover in 1984. True to form, Thomas writes:

Pro-evolution forces say… that no “reputable scientist” believes in the creation model. That is demonstrably untrue. No less a pro-evolution source than Science Digest noted in 1979 that, “scientists who utterly reject Evolution may be one of our fastest-growing controversial minorities…Many of the scientists supporting this position hold impressive credentials in science.” (Larry Hatfield, “Educators Against Darwin.”)

However, Thomas ignores the same article’s disclaimer that “most or all of the Creationists are devout fundamentalist Protestant Christians. Many of them testify that they adopted their creationist positions in childhood, long before their professional training, and have not wavered since.” One of these scientists proudly declares, “I have always accepted the Bible as God’s unchanged and unchangeable word.” Contrary to Thomas’ apparent belief, uncritical acceptance has never been a hallmark of reputable science. Another quoted scientist calls evolution “among the great Satanic lies.” Impressive credentials aside, how can Thomas trust the objectivity of anyone who believes his opponents to be literally in league with the devil?

Maybe Mr. Thomas should invest in his own education!