Adventures in N.C.

Just documenting a few tidbits here in the event you haven’t heard about them yet. From North Carolina we have: Brunswick school board to consider creationism teaching

The Brunswick County school board is looking for a way for creationism to be taught in the classroom side by side with evolution.

“It’s really a disgrace for the state school board to impose evolution on our students without teaching creationism,” county school board member Jimmy Hobbs said at Tuesday’s meeting. “The law says we can’t have Bibles in schools, but we can have evolution, of the atheists.”

When asked by a reporter, his fellow board members all said they were in favor of creationism being taught in the classroom.

And a follow up story: No place for creationism in science class, state says

But neither creationism nor the related “intelligent design,” which says life forms are so complex only a higher power could have created them, may be taught as a required course of study, Edd Dunlap, science section chief for the N.C. Department of Public Instruction, said Wednesday. These are considered religious teachings and may not be taught in science class or as fact, although they may be included as part of an elective, such as a course on religion or philosophy, he said.

…

In a religious state such as North Carolina, teachers must plan carefully, Dunlap said. “They must make sure they’re teaching the standard course of study and not stray from it, and also not impose their beliefs on their students,” Dunlap said.

In New Hanover County, which does not teach creationism, “teachers don’t really focus on what’s in the beginning” of the evolutionary process, said Valita Quattlebaum, the county school system’s spokeswoman. Teachers have alternative assignments for students whose parents have objections about evolution, but students are still assessed on the topic in state tests, she said.

And on a separate note: Vatican evolution congress to exclude creationism, intelligent design

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Speakers invited to attend a Vatican-sponsored congress on the evolution debate will not include proponents of creationism and intelligent design, organizers said.

The Pontifical Council for Culture, Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University and the University of Notre Dame in Indiana are organizing an international conference in Rome March 3-7 as one of a series of events marking the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin’s “The Origin of Species.”