Thanks for the reply. I thought it must be complicated.

It is clear that (in any country) parents will teach there children what they want at home.
But in most European countries we have (as in the states I guess) laws that children have to be educated. In some countries there is even a part of the constitution which gives children the right “of proper education”.
Then standards are put up by government boards (or similar organisations, not necessarily controled by government). These standards have to be thought in school. These standards are also valid for all private schools and even home schooling (which is very rare at least in Germany). So even if parents teach there children at home only crap, there is still the school as another source.

What baffles me, is that in the U.S. the conception of “individual freedom” seems to go as far as parents can decide it is enough for there children to read the bible as sole textbook and mathematics means +,-,x,/.
What is with the right of the children to have a proper education?

Do the rights of parents go so far they can keep their children as stupid as they want? No protection for the children?

Andre

What does the American Constitution say about the rights of children vs. parents when it come to schools and education? Do parents have the right to teach there children whatever they want? Is there a borderline drawn somewhere?

If I follow the argumentation of Ethan this would mean, parents can teach their children for example that people with a darker skin should not have the same rights as the more pink ones? All that on a legal base by home schooling?

I don’t think your constitution treats children as personal posess of their parents? (Only with things you posess, you can do what you want)

Difficult topic to address. The U.S. Constitution does not explicitly address the role of parents vs. children – that is not it’s function. The U.S. legal code does deal with that issue, though I am not aware of a single formal declaration. (IANAL). Essentially, it is usually considered that parents have the legal authority and responsibility for the rearing of their children. What children learn in the home as their attitudes toward live, treatment of other people, and religious views are all protected by the First Amendment protections of free expression and free religion. It is legal to teach your children that skin color matters, that the Earth is flat, etc. This is independent of homeschooling laws. Homeschooling sets up guidelines for education mandates that match formal public school requirements with regard to testing – math, science, English, etc. These laws are, I believe, state and not federal.

There are some legal limitations on parental control, however. Again, these are state issues, but all states have some level of protection against abuse of children by their parents. Some people have tried to argue legally about certain beliefs, such as refusal to pursue medical treatment on religious grounds. I do not know the current status of any particular state, but I know this is contentious.

The short answer is that parents do not have free reign to do whatever they want, but they do have broad authority to teach whatever beliefs they wish to instill.

What does the American Constitution say about the rights of children vs. parents when it come to schools and education? Do parents have the right to teach there children whatever they want? Is there a borderline drawn somewhere?

If I follow the argumentation of Ethan this would mean, parents can teach their children for example that people with a darker skin should not have the same rights as the more pink ones? All that on a legal base by home schooling?

I don’t think your constitution treats children as personal posess of their parents? (Only with things you posess, you can do what you want)

Thank you for a little advice here.

Andre

Maybe I’m biased since I share many of his views, who knows.

Ever notice how it’s always people who don’t like his political opinions that start whining about how he should “just stick to astronomy” ?

How much you want to bet that if Phil parroted their favorite pet religious/political/social perspective they’d be incredibly supportive and helpful?

Maybe Phil should drop in a fake post supporting government censorship of science and the notion that the world is ten thousand years old and see what kind of nutty responses he gets.

Christianity is classified as a revealed religion. This means that, according to its adherents, the only reason we know anything about God at all is because He has deigned to let us know them.

However, there are still plenty of mysteries that have left the best theological minds scratching their heads. How do predestination and free will coexist, for example? Exactly which divine attributes did Christ surrender and which did He retain when He became a human being?

Should we be attempting to dismantle Christianity because its adherents don’t know everything about God? (Or, if you insist on making it more general, should we attempt to dismantle ID because we don’t know everything about whatever created or how it was done?)

For the record, I think we should be dismantling ID, but because it’s a vapid proposition with no scientific weight. That alone should be enough to remove it from scientific discussion.

Is that those who support ID, never seem to notice that it is easily proven to be demonstrably wrong.

As their so called “theory” goes, it has no scientific legs what-so-ever.

Where as, Evolution, is one of the best tested and validated theories of science.

It kind of makes ID creationists – hypocritical.

They support something demonstrably wrong (ID), as opposed to something very well proven (Evolution).

Folcrom

Personally, KaiYeves, I wanna go to Jupiter. Well, one of the moons. Maybe Europa. Then I could put up a large sign that says “Attempt no landing here”.
Something wonderful……

I was taught evolution in grade schools while growing up in Texas and there was no mention of creationism or any other faith-based teaching. And, this was in the period of time before the Supreme Court said you couldn’t do it. In other words, they were legally free to teach it, but didn’t.

I could take any little bit of news about any state and make the same comparisons. What I have found is that every part of the country I have spent time in is beautiful and wonderul. So is Texas. We are far from ‘doomed.’

Go Cowboys!

Let me run the Doom-O-Meter.

(beep)

(boop)

(blip)

(beep)

(zrgfx)

(boop)

(DING!)

Nope. Still doomed.

Ethan said:
“Phil, you should really stick to astronomy.

I love coming here and reading about things involving space, but the blogging on politics is beneath you.”

Phil has pre-empted you on this one. Go and read his earlier blog entry.

“You do know that Intelligent Design is not the same as Creationism, right?”

Actually, this is false. ID is a form of creationism, because it requires that certain structures and systems have been designed and hence created. More prosaically, ID is simply re-badged creationism, because it uses almost all of the exact same arguments. It just tries to hide them behind new terminology.

“In any case, if I did believe that evolution was a lie (I’m not saying I do), and I didn’t want it being taught to my children, isn’t that my right? Just as much as it’s my right to not let Creationism be taught to my kids.”

It is not your place to decide what is good science and what is not. That is decided by a consensus emerging from the scientific community.

Your kids have the right to be taught what is correct, irrespective of whether you believe in it or not. You do, of course, have the option of lying to your children as much as you wish – that’s why so many creationists home-school.

“Really, the only way out of this is to not teach anything about the origins of the universe in school.”

There are several things wrong with this.

(1) The only way out of this is to teach good science at schools throughout the US. Maybe then, in 20 years’ time, when today’s high-school students are parents themselves, this spectre will have been quote properly laid to rest.

(2) Evolutionary theory has nothing to do with the origins of the universe. That is covered by Big Bang theory. They are actually very easy to tell apart, which you would know if you made even a cursory attempt to become informed on these topics.

Here’s a clue: Evolutionary theory is a biological theory; Big Bang theory is a physical theory.

(3) Evolutionary theory also has nothing to do with the origin of life on Earth : that is a separate theory of biology and is called abiogenesis.

“The teachers would have to tell their students to ask their parents, instead.”

How would this inform students about how reality is?

This is absolutely key. Science is the best mechanism we humans have for finding out how the universe works. It is, in the (slightly mangled) words of Richard Feynman, a means of not lying to ourselves.

For any nation to succeed in a world in which science and technology have an increasing impact on our lives, it is imperative that the population has some understanding of that science and those technologies. Science is the only way we have of obtaining objective information on which to base rational decisions.

“Honestly, I’m all for that approach. Or, this one just came to me, we can have different schools for different parent’s kids. I think I’d be up for that, too.”

I would vehemently opppose this. Science is the only available mechanism for achieving any consensual basis for what constitutes truth. This is because everything we learn through science has been checked against reality.

Ultimately, science is not about opinions. It is about using reality as an arbiter of truth. Any attempt to sidestep or subvert science education deprives the children of access to the most reliable form of truth avaiable.

When people checked the rates of premarital sex, teen pregnancy, STD’s, and such they found that “abstinence only” sex education are no better, and in some aspects likely worse, then no sex education at all. On the other hand more complete education programs that include abstinence but also birth-control methods (particularly condoms) cause significant reductions in both pregnancy and STD’s. So not only does abstinence-only education not work, it likely makes things slightly worse and there are alternatives that make things significantly better.

For more details, I have a blog post here.

SO, I created you in MY own image and since I’m a bull headed, stubborn, iconoclastic, S.O.B., with rings on my fingers, bells on my toes and lightening in my hair, I expected you to be just like me. How come it’s ONLY the atheists that seem to have a firm grasp of that. HAVEN”T YOU BEEN LISTENING? I wrote the code, but you are the output.

Evolve, dammit. It’s lonely here in eternity,,,

God 7