Parenting Beyond Belief Author and the Creationist Teacher

Dale McGowan, author of Parenting Beyond Belief, has encountered a creationism-inclined science teacher in his son’s school and is blogging the progress of his dealing with it. So far there are two posts, Science, Interrupted and Dear Mr. Taylor, Part 1. Some of the commenters on his posts and that on the Friendly Atheist (linked below in the hat tip) are full of bravado and I hope McGowan ignores them. You don’t start with a flame-thrower.

So far McGowan is handling it well, emailing the teacher first (he’s using email to retain a record of the interaction), and asking polite but clear questions. What he has not done, or at least not mentioned he has done, is contact NCSE for advice, counsel, and support. I’ve urged that in a comment on one of his posts and I here urge it publicly: Contact NCSE now, Dale! There’s no need to re-invent a wheel that’s already on the ground and rolling. NCSE exists specifically for this kind of situation.

McGowan’s experience reinforces the fact that stealth creationists are wide-spread in the public schools, busily infecting students with doubt about honest science. As one of the students who testified in the Freshwater hearing said, what he learned from Freshwater is that science can’t be trusted. And it’s public school teachers like Freshwater and McGowan’s “Mr. Taylor” who fan that mistrust.

Update

Dale McGowan has quite properly (and gently) chastised me for implying that he didn’t know about NCSE. See this comment on his post.

Hat tip to The Friendly Atheist.