Finally: Discovery Institute develops first intelligent design friendly curriculum

Reported at Evolution News.

Excerpt:

Today, Discovery Institute Press released a new intelligent design (ID) curriculum for homeschool and private school educators, Discovering Intelligent Design. Co-authored by Gary Kemper, Hallie Kemper, and Casey Luskin, it’s the first ID curriculum to comprehensively introduce the case for design in both cosmology and biology. For more information about the curriculum, and to order your copy or copies, visit www.discoveringid.org.

Here’s a quick overview of what’s in it:

ENV: The major theme is introducing intelligent design, but it sounds like the book covers a lot of ground. What are the major topics covered in the curriculum?

A: There are 20 chapters in the textbook, divided into six sections.

Part I introduces the basic concepts of intelligent design and Darwinian evolution, and terminology important to the debate. It also covers some critical thinking tools useful to investigating human and animal origins.

Part II examines the evidence for ID from cosmology, looking at the Big Bang and the evidence for design from cosmic fine-tuning, and the evidence showing that Earth is a “privileged planet.”

Part III explains the evidence for design in biology, starting with the idea of biological information and the origin of life, and also getting into mutations, molecular machines, and the design of animal body plans, including the human body. The capstone chapter of this section responds to “dysteological” arguments against ID, such as the increasingly dubious concept of “junk” DNA.

Part IV explores common descent, and studies the relevant genetic and fossil evidence for a “tree of life,” as well as discussing some common “icons” of evolution. The last chapter in this section looks at the genetic, fossil, and behavioral evidence surrounding human origins.

Part V is a short section that lets the reader evaluate the scientific evidence as a whole and decide whether it supports materialism, or intelligent design.

Part VI, the final section, investigates the larger context of the debate about intelligent design, and explains the importance of protecting academic freedom. One of my favorite parts of this section answers common criticisms of intelligent design, and exposes their logical fallacies. The book closes with tips for students and other readers on getting involved personally in the issue.

Looks like a good bridge to the best books for helping students to learn about intelligent design, which is “The Design of Life” by William Dembski and Jonathan Wells.

Filed under: News, Curriculum, Discovery Institute, Education, Homeschooling, ID, Intelligent Design

Ryan T. Anderson’s commencement speech at Regent University

The full text is up at National Review. I wanted to highlight a couple of points.

First, the importance of marriage and family for raising children:

As a graduate of Regent University you know that the obligations we have to our neighbors are not dependent on race, or sex, or social class. Neither are those duties dependent on age, or size, or stage of development. Or whether someone is wanted or unwanted, planned or unplanned, healthy or sick, “perfect” or disabled.

This starts with you and me. We need to love our children. Graduating class, if you have a daughter with Down syndrome, love her. If your son is conceived “by accident,” love him. As my late mentor Fr. Richard John Neuhaus explained, we have the responsibility to see to it that every human being is protected in law and cared for in life.

The best care comes from the family. Some of you may have already started your families. Most of you will start one in the next decade. And as you welcome children into this world you will experience firsthand that the best way to ensure that children are cared for in life by the man and the woman who gave them life is to unite that man and woman as husband and wife in marriage.

We are created male and female. And marriage unites a man and a woman permanently and exclusively as husband and wife to take responsibility for their children as father and mother. That’s what marriage is all about. And our marriage policy should respect these truths. So, too, should our churches and our own lives. Graduating class: Live lives of fidelity and service to your spouse and your children.

Your children will be educated in this society. And as mothers and fathers you have the responsibility to care for and educate your children. Government should empower you to fulfill those duties. It shouldn’t interfere or indoctrinate. Nor should it use healthcare laws or anti-bullying programs to promote a sexual ideology at odds with the values that responsible parents try to instill in their children.

Second, the free market and the need for job creation:

Our responsibilities extend beyond our families. One of the best ways to care for our neighbors is by serving them in our professional callings, performing quality work at a fair price. Creating wealth and value for our neighbors. Who among the Class of 2013 will be the next David Green, the founder of Hobby Lobby? Who will be the next Truett Cathy, the founder of Chick-fil-a? Who will improve our lives with new technology or medical devices? Who will create new jobs that pay decent wages? This is your responsibility as future business leaders and entrepreneurs.

We know that the market economy—along with families headed by married couples—has done more to lift people out of poverty and into a flourishing life than any other institution. But it only works if people of good character and upright morals are at the helm. Markets are inert apart from the values that actors bring to them—and you have responsibility for your market action.

Look at leaders like David Green and Truett Cathy. They run their businesses in accordance with their Christian beliefs. There’s a simple reason why: They know that they have duties to serve God—and not just on Sundays, but also on the other six days of the week, when they enter the workforce and marketplace. Remember, you can’t check your faith or morals at the door.

It’s worth a look. The actual speech can be seen here, starting at 41 minutes in.  It goes on for about 19 minutes.

Filed under: News, Capitalism, Children, Civil Society, Commencement, Education, Entrepreneurship, Family, Free Market, Jobs, Love, Marriage, Parenting, Regent University, Ryan Anderson, Ryan T. Anderson

Good news! Liberty University offers scholarship to persecuted Eagle Scout

This is such a heart-warming story that I had to post it!

Fox News reports.

A North Carolina Eagle Scout who was arrested and faces expulsion for accidentally leaving a shotgun in his pickup truck in the school parking lot has been offered a scholarship to attend Liberty University.

Cole Withrow was just a few weeks from graduating with honors from Princeton High School when he was arrested on Monday and slapped with a felony weapons charge. Withrow had been skeet shooting with friends a day before and had only noticed he had left his shotgun in his truck as he reached to grab his book bag.

When he realized his mistake, he went to the front office and called his mother. An administrator overheard the conversation and called police.

Withrow’s story has generated national attention. Hundreds of people have joined a Facebook community to show their support. And many local parents are upset over what many believe is a case of a young man getting severely punished for trying to do the right thing.

“You teach your kids if you’re in trouble or if you see you’ve done something wrong, go ahead and admit it,” family friend Kimberly Boykin said. “Be a man and it’ll be fixed. In this case, that’s what he did and he’s being punished for it. That’s not the lesson we need to teach our kids.”

Jerry Falwell, Jr., the chancellor of Liberty University, had been traveling through North Carolina and saw a local television news account of Withrow’s ordeal. He also noticed that the 18-year-old was wearing a “Liberty University” t-shirt.

Falwell told Fox News that he made a few calls and discovered that Withrow’s sister is a Liberty graduate.

“I was really impressed with what a meek and humble Christian kid he is,” Falwell said. “I thought he would be a perfect fit at Liberty.”

So the chancellor made the 18-year-old an offer he couldn’t refuse.

“I told him that we would give him whatever scholarships he needed to attend Liberty University,” he said.

Falwell said the university is willing to do whatever it takes to make sure the teenager gets a college education.

“The anti-gun zealots seem to be vilifying him for making an honest mistake,” he told Fox News. “We want to reward him for trying to do the right thing.”

And that means even helping the young man finish his last few weeks of high school. Falwell said they offered to let him finish his high school work through their online academy.

Wow! Isn’t that a great way to show the public school tyrants a better way? Be sure and share / tweet this story if you liked it, because it really shows how Christians can step up and do the right thing when the secular left is too brainwashed by political correctness make a right judgment.

Filed under: News, Christian Living, Education, Folly, Jerry Falwell, Leftism, Liberty University, Political Correctness, Public Education, Public School, Secularism

Alabama homeschooling family sends 6 kids to college – by age 12!

From NBC News.

Excerpt:

At 7, when many kids figure they might be firemen, Seth announced he would be a military archeologist. His mom, Mona Lisa, encouraged that curiosity. “Wow! That kid was into this!” she marvels.

By 12, Seth was hanging out with students nearly twice his age, studying the Middle Ages at Faulkner University, near his home in Montgomery, Alabama. “How’s he doing?” I ask assistant professor Grover Plunkett.

“He’s got the highest average in the class.”

Seth was motivated by his brother Keith’s success. Keith is just down the hall, studying finite mathematics, a college senior — at 14.

“It makes you wonder,” their friend Wesley Jimmerson says, shaking his head. “Are they advanced, or are we just really behind?”

Sister Hannah was the first of the Harding kids to take college entrance exams — at age 12. “I didn’t expect to pass,” she says, “so I started crying, because I was thinking, ‘Now what?’”

By 22 she was designing spacecraft. She holds master’s degrees in math and mechanical engineering.

Ten-year-old Katrinnah Harding hopes to enter college next year. Her brother Heath started at age 11. He’s finishing his master’s in computer science — at 17.

“If they’re going to be working at my kitchen table,” Mona Lisa says with a smile, “why not earn college credit for what they’re doing?”

Named after her mother’s favorite song, Mona Lisa Harding home-schools her children in the basics, but found that her kids learned more quickly (and got less bored) when they were allowed to study deeply — something they loved.

“I don’t have any brilliant children,” she contends. “I’m not brilliant. My husband’s not brilliant. We’re just average folks.” Who inspired six children to enter college before they became teenagers.

[...]I can understand maybe convincing one or two children to enter college early, but Mona Lisa has more kids than Mother Hubbard: 10.

She shrugs. “By the time you get down to number five, number six, they just think learning seems normal. We find out what their passions are, what they really like to study, and we accelerate them gradually.“

But what happens to their childhood?

“We didn’t limit their experience,” Mona Lisa says. “They’re taking college classes, but socially, they are just teenagers.” Who live at home, not in college dorms.

What’s their secret? What I got out of the story is that parents don’t have to be smart in order to have smart kids. They just have to take an interest in what the children want to do and then guide them to the next level and the next level and the next level. It’s hands-on parenting!

Filed under: News, Child, Children, Education, Homeschool, Homeschooling, Parent, Parenting, School

Wayne Grudem explains what the Bible says about parents and schools

This is a must-listen, especially for any single Christian woman who would like to get married and have children. If you want to marry a Christian man, you should listen to this lecture and also the Dr. Morse lecture on marriage Every Day. Christian men expect Christian women to know a lot about marriage. About why children need mothers, and why they need fathers, and how the state is always taxing families and then using that money to poke their noses in and teach the children all kinds of bad things.

With that introduction, here is the MP3 file on education policy.

Note: public schools = government-run schools.

Topics:

• Does God care whether we people marry and have children?
• Does God care whether Christian parents raise their children to know him?
• Should government promote bearing children?
• What are some effects of declining birth rates in other countries?
• What are the economic effects of declining birth rates?
• Who has the right to decide how children are trained: government or parents?
• What does the Bible say about parents having to raise children to know him?
• Does the government have the responsibility for training children?
• What do educational bureaucrats think of parents training children?
• What do school boards think of parents training children?
• Should school boards be elected by local, state or federal government?
• Should Christians be opposed to government-run education? (public schools)
• How should schools be viewed by parents? As a replacement or as a helper?
• How are schools viewed by those on the left and in communist countries?
• How can you measure how supporting a government is of parental rights?
• How is parental authority viewed in left-wing EU countries like Germany?
• How is parental authority respected in the United States?
• Should parents have a choice of where their children go to school?
• What is a voucher program? How is it related to parental autonomy?
• How does competition (school choice) in education serve parental needs?
• Why do public school teachers, unions and educrats oppose competitition?
• How well do public schools do in educating children to achieve?
• Does the government-run monopoly of public schools produce results?
• Does paying more and more money to public schools make them perform?
• How do teacher unions feel about having to compete in a voucher system?
• Does the public school monopoly penalize the poorest students?
• Does the public school monopoly penalize children of certain races?
• Does the public school monopoly cause racial predujice?
• What else should parents demand on education policy?
• Is it good for parents when schools refuse to fire underperforming teachers?

This podcast is just amazing! This is what we need to be teaching in church. Church should be the place where you go to learn and reflect about how to tailor your life plan based on what the Bible says. And I think that this whole notion of free market – of choice and competition benefiting the consumer (parents) – applies to everything that government does, especially education and health care.

Related posts

• Wayne Grudem explains what the Bible says about parents and schools
• Wayne Grudem explains what the Bible says about self-defense
• Wayne Grudem explains what the Bible says about capital punishment
• Christian professor of economics discusses capitalism, socialism and the Bible
• How I got interested in the relationship between Christianity and economics
• First Things reviews Jay Richards’ Money, Greed and God
• Ron Nash explains what should Christians believe about social justice

Filed under: Podcasts, AFT, Barack Obama, Charter School, Choice, Competition, Conservatism, Education, Education Policy, Education Reform, Europe, Government, Government Control, National Education Association, NEA, Policy, Politics, Private School, Public Education, Public School, Race, Race to the Top, Racism, Regulation, Teacher, Teacher Union, Voucher