Re: [HAPS-L] news from Darkest PA

[Ken Saladin <ksaladin@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks for the news, David [Evans], gloomy though it may be. Like David Woodman, I try to look for a silver lining behind the dark cloud. 



The good news is that this may discourage school districts from playing fast an loose with their science/educational standards.  While I feel for the new board, I do believe that the previous board was also elected democratically.  We all deserve the government we voted in, witness the policies of 43. 
David A. Woodman, Ph.D.


If any good is going to come of this, I hope that news of this financial burden will be widespread and other school boards will be very reluctant to risk incurring a similar cost by trying to substitute religion for science. In the early 1980s, the era of the McLean "creation-science" decision in Arkansas, I carried out an extensive letter-writing campaign in Georgia to help prevent passage of a similar act here. Some legislators told me that one of the most compelling arguments they drew from my letters was amount that the Arkansas trial had cost the state. Then, it was "only" about $400,000.  This was sufficiently persuasive to our legislature, even among some lawmakers who doubted evolution or supported creationism on ideological grounds.

It's interesting, too, that the DA in PA is investigating a possibility of indicting certain old school board members for perjury -- lying to the federal court in their depositions in an effort to cover up their religious motive behind the old ID policy. I would not grieve to see a couple of those people heavily fined or incarcerated for a little while, to pay a price for their deceit in trying to cover up the way they sacrificed sound scholarship and educational integrity on the altar of their own sanctimonious, sectarian reasons. I don't want people to see that one can lie about such a matter and get away with it.

Ken