Manifesto?

[carolynwhite2]

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Charme" <dontask2much at y...> 
wrote:
> 
> I think you're right, BTW, WRT to your comments comparing 
their "attitudes" 
> to the intelligent design concept.  I am in a unique, and for me 
unenviable, 
> position of having first hand knowledge of this with my own high 
school alma 
> mater: the school system I graduated from is now, as of January of 
this 
> year, the first public school system (with much input from the 
avowed 
> religious community) in the US to mandate the mention of 
intelligent design 
> in the biology curriculm in conjunction with evolutionary theory - 
along 
> with adding 68 copies of the ID book "Of Pandas and People" to the 
school 
> library. 
> <snip>
> 
> Charme, who truly doesn't want to offend those of you who believe 
in ID, but 
> asks that you understand that I disagree and consider it a seperate 
> conversation/discussion.

Carolyn (with similar caveats):
The ID concepts have been introduced in a couple of private schools 
in the UK, amid considerable controversy. A millionaire businessman 
with strong Christian beliefs is funding their development. The 
difficulty for parents is that the schools otherwise offer first-
class education in areas where there is not much choice of schools. 
Our government is apparently unable to prevent ID being made part of 
the curriculum.

I was similarly amazed to hear from a (British) Professor of Geology 
that I met on a Christmas break, that he was about to fly out to the 
US to give his annual New Year lecture at a university on the theme 
that the geological record proved that the world was not made in 
seven days. He was very gloomy about it, because it was the fifth 
year running he'd done it, to quite critical audiences.

To vaguely drag this back to Harry Potter, I do think this is a major 
area where different cultural sensitivities can trip people up in 
their interpretation of the books. We get much exercised about what 
Faith really thinks (I mean Faith as a metaphor for authorial intent 
here, of course), but people like LL forget that she's British, and 
this stuff is just not such a hot issue in our cultural environment 
as it is in the US (though it exists, of course). I suppose he'd just 
say she needs converting...

Carolyn