If you read the comments on my previous entry, you know that an AP article recently mentioned me and a textbook that I co-authored. Well, there have been a couple of developments you might want to know about.
First, I received an E-MAIL from the author of the story (Dylan T. Lovan). In my reply to his E-MAIL, I mentioned the fact that he truncated my quote about the demographic of homeschooling. He replied with the following:
I had your full quote on the question of why the homeschool materials industry is dominated by Christian-based texts. I especially wish your last clever line about natural selection would’ve made it in.
“If I’m planning to write a curriculum, and I want to write it in a way that will appeal to homeschoolers … I’m going to at least find out what my demographic is. And that demographic is, according to most research, 85 to 90 percent conservative Christian. I think in the end if I were an evolutionist looking at that market I’d say, ‘I’m not going to waste my time on that nonsense.’ ” “If I’m a creationist looking at that market I’m thinking this is a place where my views will be received very well. So I think this is sort of a ‘natural selection.’ ”
So it was not his decision to truncate the quote to make it sound like I was saying something I clearly was not saying. It’s nice to know that, because Dylan does seem like a great guy. It also makes me wonder how much of the AP’s dismal record when it comes to bias and inaccuracies is not the fault of the reporters who write for the AP.
The other interesting thing I received as a result of the article is yet another E-MAIL talking about the spectacular success of a student who used our curriculum. A mother (Lori P.) wrote to say:
I just read the AP article attacking Apologia Educational Ministries and I had to drop everything and pray for you. According to The Associated Press, Coyne argued your books may steer students away from careers in biology or the study of the history of the earth. He also said, “If this is the way kids are homeschooled, then they’re being short-changed, both rationally and in terms of biology.” My “case study” does not involve biology or the history of the earth, but does involve a hard science. My son studied several of your books and is now completing his second year in mechanical engineering at a large university. He received “Student of the Year” both years of his pre-engineering academy, received 5 on every AP test he took, including calculus and physics, and received multiple scholarships and honors. He has a 4.0 GPA. He was just elected officer in the American Society of Mechanical Engineers at his university and he is faithfully witnessing to the campus of the truth of the gospel. He was asked to give his testimony to the Point Man Conference, a national assembly of Navigators. He and I do not feel he was short-changed by Apologia. Instead we feel sorrow for the student who experienced “confusion” when she read your book which disputed Charles Darwin’s theory. Perhaps she is the one who was short-changed by not hearing the facts of the debate.
I strongly agree with this mother, and I am glad that the article inspired her to write to me to give yet another example of how successful a young-earth creationist education in the sciences can be. For more examples, you can go here, here, here, here, and here.
You might note that in the AP article, Dr. Jerry Coyne used his fervent faith in evolution to predict that my books “may steer students away from careers in biology or the study of the history of the earth.” Instead, the myriads of success stories clearly show that my books do exactly the opposite. Thus, while this is not a failed prediction of the theory of evolution itself, it is a failed prediction made by an evolutionist, based on his evolutionary faith. Not only does evolution produce lots of failed predictions, it seems that evolutionists do as well. Of course, that’s not surprising. If you base your view on unscientific ideas, you will come to unscientific conclusions!
What a sobering reminder of the dangers of sophistry and media bias. I found this comment by Dr. Jerry Coyne especially interesting: “I feel fairly strongly about this. These books are promulgating lies to kids.” Well, if kids are basically rearranged pond scum, why would it matter if anyone lies to them? He basically assumes that God exists and gave us a moral code to argue against Him. It is truly maddening. Evolution’s implications frighten me. Telling children that they are the product of random chance is not a way to propagate peace and knowledge. It is a way to propagate relative morality, eugenics, abortion, and euthanasia. I pray that someday, scientists will realize the horrible mistake they are making by promoting evolution.
Thanks for letting us know about this! I mentioned it in my latest blog post.
~Amanda~
Dr. Wile,
I have carefully followed the information given in this AP article,and the media fury that has followed.
Almost every homeschooler I know uses apologia, and so do the college prep tutorials.
I taught my children myself out of the first text “General Science” and I will never forget how I read over and over the first chapter that taught me what science is and what it is not. That was a big moment for me in learning how to understand how public school textbooks get away with propping up evolution as a fact. They are not really teaching science!
Science text books have chapter after chapter on fictional thoughts, and the most serious injury to the intellect of public school students is that they are taught to believe these philosophies as truth, solid hard scientific fact! I would say, “What a joke…if it was not so harmful… and so manipulative to indoctrinate generation after generation to not even know what real science is.”
My children went to public school for 6 months when my mother-in-law was dying of cancer. My son in sixth grade spent about 3 months on learning imaginary time period of the age of the earth and what they claim happen during each period. It is like reading a fairytale or Greek mythology. Not one scientific concept was studied. Not one single experiment was done.
How sad!
Thank you for giving homeschool families an opportunity to learn about and study real science.
Lindy Abbott
Lindy, thanks so much for your very kind words. I agree with you that there is too much “fiction taught as fact” in a lot of science textbooks.
Lindy,
I think your right, it is sad that they present evolution, and more to the point the evolutionary version of history, as science. On a Wrong Planet thread I made a poll asking what the most important theory, law, or principle in science is, and most of the people, like 80%, voted for Darwin’s evolution over Le Chatelier’s principle, Ohm’s law, Kirchhoff’s laws, Faraday’s laws, Newton’s laws, Kepler’s laws, Einstein’s theories, and everything else. The indoctrination of generation after generation, cramming evolutionary history and philosophy as the most important junk in the universe has, I think, weakened appreciation for actual science. Also, with such high praises it gets in the schools and in the media, people may prefer evolutionary garbage over real hard science; it is much easier to just write papers with a predetermined conclusion than to do laboratory work with chemicals where the result can be somewhat mathematically deterministic rather than just an after-the-fact explanation. Atheists and other evolutionists weaken science in the manner above.
Ben, that is incredibly sad. The fact that an unconfirmed hypothesis is considered by so many to be an important theory shows just how poor science education in the U.S. really is.
Yes, it seems the “lies” quote generated quite a lot of mail to Coyne. Here’s his general response:
So he’s calling you a liar Dr. Wile. Maybe you should defend yourself on his blog. I’m sure he would publish a response from you.
Actually, Shooter, I called Dr. Coyne a liar in the article. He can defend himself here if he wants. However, I have no desire to waste my time on the blog of someone who doesn’t care to tell the truth to students. Besides, those of us who are honest have no need to defend ourselves those who are not.
Shooter, why should Coyne get more textual material to interpret eisegetically?
“Ben, that is incredibly sad. The fact that an unconfirmed hypothesis is considered by so many to be an important theory shows just how poor science education in the U.S. really is.”
Dr. Wile,
I think it could actually be a good thing, but in a different way… with how government schools are teaching so poorly and giving so much media hype to fiction, I think homeschoolers have a better chance at becoming tomorrow’s intelligentsia. While evolutionists are grasping at straws using every method of internet trolling, triumphalism, and propaganda they can think of in order to promote their failed ideology, homeschoolers are learning actual science thanks primarily to you. Bob Jones is sorta okay, but your style of presentation is simply awesome… I wish you made a math curriculum also, but in a way your chemistry and physics textbooks do help to teach, or cement at the least, algebra and trigonometry too — by providing real world examples of how they are useful. Anyhow, I think that there may be a day in the academic world where the entrenchment of evolutionists will end, perhaps sooner rather than later.
Ben, that’s an interesting take on the issue, but I would prefer that everyone be more scientifically literate. I guess that’s just the science educator in me.
I didn’t see where you called Coyne a liar. Can you repeat it for me?
I’ve waded threw the “here” links and didn’t find anyone who had received a college degree in biology or earth sciences. Two potential Bio majors, one still in HS and the other a first year student in CC, that’s all.
So where is the evidence for “the myriads of success stories clearly show that my books do exactly the opposite” [of steering students away from careers in biology or the study of the history of the earth].
I did find one negative review:
“Dear chemistry student/parent, Having completed this course [Exploring Creation with Chemistry] myself as a homeschooler, I can honestly say this book is horrendous. No doubt, wikipedia trumps this book in all aspects, except for the cartoon illustrations at the end of each module, which makes the book suitable for an elementary school student. If you want to learn more about an electron, for example, read the wikipedia article and you will learn about it in great detail, instead of Wile’s “a thing that orbits the nucleus”.”
Shooter, now it takes FOUR posts to make mostly incorrect statements. You aren’t getting any better at posting OR reading, are you? As the article says, “Wile countered that Coyne ‘feels compelled to lie in order to prop up a failing hypothesis (evolution). We definitely do not lie to the students. We tell them the facts that people like Dr. Coyne would prefer to cover up.'”
Also, you need to try to accept the fact that my courses produce such excellent results. I know you won’t sleep as well at night, but you have to face up to reality. First, the myriads of success stories in the linked reviews are given by the fact that students do so well in their university course after taking my courses. Good high school science education (like my courses) leads to success at university science courses. Even more importantly, some were able to demonstrate via CLEP and AP exams that my HIGH SCHOOL courses already gave them a UNIVERSITY-LEVEL understanding of biology, including evolution! Second, there are many who got degrees as well. I blogged about one who got her university degree (double major in biology and chemistry) and is now in a PhD program (in the biological sciences) at Harvard.
Dr. Brandon P. Brown is another. He says that my courses changed him from planning on being a politician to being a medical doctor. Of course, one degree was not enough for him. He got his MD as well as a masters in bioethics. He is now a practicing physician and a published bioethicist.
Note that neither of these students is an engineer. In addition, many of the success stories linked have nothing to do with engineering. In addition, if you look at a sample list of young-earth creation scientists (most of them with incredible credentials), you don’t see an inordinate number of engineers. There are, for example, 19 listed with some kind of engineering degree, but more than 50 with some kind of biology degree. Thus, once again, your conjectures (and the Salem Hypothesis) are demonstrated false by the data.
So you found ONE negative review on those lists and A COUPLE others on a few other lists. That just shows how effective my courses are. Even after so much searching, the best you can come up with is a pitifully small number of bad reviews compared to the myriads of success stories that have been posted. Thanks for once again demonstrating my point for me. Good job!
I expect that’s what is frustrating you the most over this whole article thing. You were “giddy” when you first read the article, because you thought it somehow indicted my courses. Instead, this article has caused the myriads of success stories to come to light which, of course, reinforces the fact that my courses are so excellent. A young-earth creationist education really is superior, and the article has just spotlighted that fact!
I can’t recommend enough places like True Origin, Answers in Genesis, Creation Ministries, Access Research Network, and Dr. Hunter’s Blog. They are simply are simply must read web sources on Creationism, and unlike the ones you link, actually are honest in presenting the data. As shown in this link, for example, talkorigins is a seriously deceptive website. It is sad when you have to resort to posting such a dishonest source!
A college teacher with sympathy for homeschooling in general, but not it’s creationism.
After reading several of your students becoming engineers, I thought I’d heard of a link between creationism and engineering. A little googling produced “The Salem Hypothesis” and several blog posts on it, PZ Myers, Joshua Rosenau, and Larry Moran. BTW, I can’t recommend ScienceBlogs enough to people. Dozens and dozens of great blogs. That and Talk.Origins are simply must read web sources on Creationism. Here’s a short history of Creation Science from T.O.
Joshua Rosenau is an employee of the National Center for Science Education. I apologize for the poor proofreading I’ve been doing lately.
I had not heard of the Salem hypothesis before, and given the percentage of creationist scientists that are not engineers it is false, but even if it were true it would not say anything regarding the truth or falsity of the creationist position. Perhaps it could even lend some credence in a way, as an engineer is more able to appreciate another Engineer’s work. However, I think the Salem hypothesis sounds like a failed form of character assassination, otherwise known as Ad Hominem.
Ben, you are exactly correct. Many evolutionists learn that when it comes to the data, creationists have the stronger position. As a result, some think that the only thing they can do against creationists is character assassination. The Salem hypothesis is just one of many attempts to steer the conversation away from the data, where the evolutionists know they are in a losing position.
I’m a Junior in highschool and I have a great respect for the Creator. I’ve been through Physycal Science, Biology, and I’m going through Chemistry. I must say that I greatly appreciate your books presenting Science in both a Creationist view and a way that I understand. I like the way you present the information. It all just makes sense to me. When you presented algebraic(sp?) equations it made more sense to me than with my own algebra textbook. I’m quite a curious person as well. You presented evolution in enough respect and with enough information that I’m satisfied. You also don’t spend too much time talking about creationism vs. evolutionism. You instead spend that time talking about chemistry. Which, from the sounds of it, many public textbooks don’t do. They spend too much time talking about why evolution is right. (I don’t know this as fact, this is just what I’ve heard) Basically, this is a long way of saying thank you for your work. Both in Chemistry, and for our Lord.
On a side note, about this girl. Your textbooks clearly say, on the cover, “Exploring Creation with Chemistry, Biology, Physycal Science, etc.” She should have realized that it would be presented from a creationist viewpoint due to it being on the cover.
In Him, for Him, to be with Him.
Joey, thank you so much for your kind comments. They mean a lot!