Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Is Freshwater Losing Supporters?

I've kinda been hanging back and watching the reactions in the news and blogs to the most recent days of the John Freshwater hearing. Of the news coverage, the articles in the Mount Vernon News by Pamela Schehl provide the most detailed information and are available here and here, although the Columbus Dispatch articles by Dean Narciso, here and here, are also quite informative. Most importantly, now that the MVSB's lawyer is questioning Freshwater directly, it is becoming increasingly clear that Freshwater's testimony has major inconsistencies and that he is being very evasive about answering the questions.

Comments to the articles reflect that an increasing number of people have determined that Freshwater's pants are on fire. Comments for previous articles consisted of little more than proponents and opponents hurling insults at each other, but, with these latest articles, which quote the actual testimony, a larger number of self-identified Christians are reaching the conclusion that A) Freshwater is guilty, and B) that he is not a good Christian either. It's refreshing to see comments from Xians who, at least in this case, say that lying for god is as immoral as other lies.

A lot of blogs with an anti-creationist leaning have recently discovered the hearing and are reporting on it, although in some cases, they seem to be relying on 1 1/2 year old information. What the heck. At least they got here in time catch the finale.

The blogs I was trying to watch most closely are the ones that support Freshwater. Some of these were actually set up specifically to follow the hearing and most indicate support of teaching creationism in school as well as most of the other conservative Xian crackpottery. I was anxious to see how the blogs would deal with Freshwater's testimony a few weeks ago when he denied ever teaching creationism in his science classes and insisted that he was opposed to the teaching of creationism. The bloggers dealt with it as they would most scientific evidence; they ignored it.

The pro-Freshwater bloggers (does that make me a pro-saltwater blogger?) prefer to quote Freshwater's testimony where he insists he never did anything wrong and to promote the idea that he was the innocent victim of an evil conspiracy. I thought the description on the header of agoodchoice.blogspot.com pretty well summarized the viewpoint of a lot of these supporters; " America is in the midst of a raging cultural and spiritual war. Forces of Good, Light, Conservatism and a Judeo-Christian Worldview daily battle the forces of Evil, Darkness, Socialism and False Religions and Philosophies. A Good Choice is on the frontlines exposing evil across America’s political and social spectrum." Um, OK, that sure sounds like a fair and balanced perspective to me. Sign me up in the evil column, please.

In general, it would seem that more and more people are reaching the conclusion that the Mount Vernon School Board had valid reasons for firing John Freshwater and that it was always his plan to lie his ass off if it was necessary in order to win. I can't help wondering what will happen as more Mount Vernon residents realise that Freshwater knew he was guilty of at least some of the reasons for his firing and yet chose to insist on a hearing that has cost the taxpayers half-a-million dollars so far, just so he could gamble that he could outsmart the school board. At least his closed-minded agree-with-me-or-die friends will stand by him.

5 comments:

Sam Stickle (mountvernon1805) said...

The Empirical Infidel said “I was anxious to see how the blogs would deal with Freshwater's testimony a few weeks ago when he denied ever teaching creationism in his science classes and insisted that he was opposed to the teaching of creationism. The bloggers dealt with it as they would most scientific evidence; they ignored it.”

Um, news flash—John Freshwater has stated since the summer of 2008 that he did not teach creationism in his classroom.

The Empirical Infidel said...

Mr. Stickle, I wrote what you have quoted based on the articles printed on Dec. 9th and 12th in the Mount Vernon News. The article on the 9th quoted John Freshwater as saying, “I believe in creationism,” Freshwater told Hamilton, “but school is not the right environment to teach creationism.” That sounded to me like he opposed teaching creationism in school.

The Dec. 12th article states, "Freshwater, who has been testifying for about 2 1/2 days, categorically denied all of the allegations brought against him by the board of education." That suggested to me that he denied teaching creationism, since that was one of the allegations.

If I've misinterpreted the information in the articles, or if the articles themselves are flawed, I'll change that section based on any more accurate info I receive.

FSM_Ed said...

This is one train wreck I'm enjoying watching. Nice post, thanks!

Sam Stickle (mountvernon1805) said...

The quote from the Mount Vernon News is probably correct. Your original statement, that I referred to, sounded to me like you were surprised that Mr. Freshwater was taking the position that he had never taught creationism. Perhaps I misunderstood and you were more focusing on the part about Mr. Freshwater being “opposed to the teaching of creationism” in school.

Some background information: Back in 2003 Mr. Freshwater submitted a proposal to the school labeled “Objective Origins Science Policy.” The Science Curriculum Committee interpreted the proposal as being about teaching Intelligent Design. The wording of the proposal did have one phrase that left open, based on how it is interpreted, the possibility of teaching ID—but Mr. Freshwater did preface the proposal with an explanation that said the policy was a “suggested policy statement.” When he sent a follow-up letter, he stated that “Myself, and others who support this proposal have made every effort to clarify that this is not a religious issue. My proposal only requests that our school system be allowed to critically analyze the theory of evolution. It does not request the teaching of creation or intelligent design.” (If the suggested policy was re-worded it might have avoided the possible interpretation of allowing for the teaching of ID.)

Mr. Freshwater has definitely wanted the school to teach the subject of evolution differently—although he has not lobbied for the teaching of creationism or ID.

When I previously read the quote from Mr. Freshwater, that you referenced, I wasn’t too surprised by it since I knew the way he approach the proposal in 2003.

The Empirical Infidel said “If I've misinterpreted the information in the articles, or if the articles themselves are flawed, I'll change that section based on any more accurate info I receive.”

I wasn’t trying to suggest that paragraph was incorrect regarding how Mr. Freshwater testified.

RBH said...

Sam leaves out a few details that might help. For example, he said

Back in 2003 Mr. Freshwater submitted a proposal to the school labeled “Objective Origins Science Policy.” The Science Curriculum Committee interpreted the proposal as being about teaching Intelligent Design.

That interpretation was possibly based on the fact that Freshwater's proposal identified the source of the policy as "www.intelligentdesignnetwork.org." That's the outfit run by John Calvert, one of those who worked to inject ID into both the Kansas and Ohio state science standards some time back.

Documentary evidence and independent testimony in the hearing have shown that Freshwater has used handouts and videos that directly or indirectly advocated for ID creationism and that contained specious critiques of the modern theory of evolution. Indeed, the main support he offered for his 2003 proposal was two documents written by Jonathan Wells, a Fellow of the Discovery Institute, the most prominent organization pushing intelligent design. They were Ten questions to ask your biology teacher and Survival of the Fakest, the latter a summary of Wells' "Icons of Evolution," an anti-evolution screed that at one time was featured by the Discovery Institute as a primary source for intelligent design information.

For more than you want to know about the Freshwater hearing see Panda's Thumb.