Last updated on August 24th, 2019 at 12:02 pm
Well, it had to happen–one pseudoscience, creationism, is using another pseudoscience, the nonexistent Loch Ness Monster, as proof. Herald Scotland is reporting that a book, produced by the A.C.E. Curriculum Program and called Biology 1099, Accelerated Christian Education, informs students that Nessie is proof that evolution never happened.
According to the book,
Are dinosaurs alive today? Scientists are becoming more convinced of their existence. Have you heard of the ‘Loch Ness Monster’ in Scotland? ‘Nessie’ for short has been recorded on sonar from a small submarine, described by eyewitnesses, and photographed by others. Nessie appears to be a plesiosaur.
The creationist logic is apparently that this lone plesiosaur got captured in Loch Ness during the biblical flood. Thus, we can assume, Nessie proves that dinosaurs didn’t die out 65 million years ago.
Of course, there is just not one single bit of evidence that there’s a monster in the lake. And since the absence of evidence is evidence of absence, you’d think after the few thousand years of human habitation in the area of Loch Ness, someone would have actually seen it. Of course, there is no evidence that a single plesiosaur survived the K–Pg extinction event 65.5 million years ago which killed almost all dinosaurs, except for birds. And there’s that small point that a several hundred meter thick hunk of glacial ice sat on top of the lake 10,000 years ago. The search for Nessie is nothing but pseudoscience, which is apparently good enough for the creationist pseudoscience.
Next up. Sasquatch disproves human evolution.
This story would just be good fun at the expense of pseudoscientific silliness, except there’s a major problem. US taxpayers are funding the teaching of this nonsense to children. According to a report in Salon, “thousands of students in Louisiana will receive state voucher money, transferred from public school funding, to attend private religious schools, some of which teach from a Christian curriculum that suggests the Loch Ness Monster disproves evolution and states that the alleged creature, which has never been demonstrated to even exist, has been tracked by submarine and is probably a plesiosaur.“
This is money that should be spent on an education that’s based on real science and real facts. Some critics warn that this voucher program could eventually cut public school funding in half.
But what’s worse, the Accelerated Christian Education program pushes other lies:
- Science Proves Homosexuality is a Learned Behavior
- The Second Law of Thermodynamics Disproves Evolution
- No Transitional Fossils Exist
- Humans and Dinosaurs Co-Existed
- Evolution Has Been Disproved
- A Japanese Whaling Boat Found a Dinosaur
- Solar Fusion is a Myth
One “survivor” of the ACE curriculum writes,
Everything about ACE is inimical to responsible education. It serves no purpose except to brainwash children and give parents the feeling that their children are being placed on the way to godliness. It is a travesty of schooling. Any teacher with any dignity or integrity would not put children anywhere near ACE.
In addition to the ACE Curriculum, A Beka and Bob Jones textbooks promote creationism, push a political bias, and promote racism. Amongst their fallacious claims:
- Only ten percent of Africans can read or write, because Christian mission schools have been shut down by communists.
- “the [Ku Klux] Klan in some areas of the country tried to be a means of reform, fighting the decline in morality and using the symbol of the cross… In some communities it achieved a certain respectability as it worked with politicians.”
- “God used the ‘Trail of Tears’ to bring many Indians to Christ.”
- It “cannot be shown scientifically that that man-made pollutants will one day drastically reduce the depth of the atmosphere’s ozone layer.”
- “God has provided certain ‘checks and balances’ in creation to prevent many of the global upsets that have been predicted by environmentalists.”
- The Great Depression was exaggerated by propagandists, including John Steinbeck, to advance a socialist agenda.
- “Unions have always been plagued by socialists and anarchists who use laborers to destroy the free-enterprise system that hardworking Americans have created.”
- Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential win was due to an imaginary economic crisis created by the media.
- “The greatest struggle of all time, the Battle of Armageddon, will occur in the Middle East when Christ returns to set up his kingdom on earth.”
So, it’s more than just trying to teach kids that the imaginary Loch Ness Monster proves the imaginary creationism. It’s teaching kids homophobia. Racism. Religion. Anti-environmentalism. All with taxpayer money.
