Censoring School Textbooks - Do We Care?

[Didacus]

Getting back to the artcile at hand;

To give unlimited information to children is both irresponsible and a contradiction of common sense. How about we post websites giving info on how to build bombs and commmit bank roberies?

Why don't the liberal morons come out and debate the real debate they're trying to defend: the right to commit all evil they desire without truth and richeousness getting in their way.

God grant justice, God have mercy.

[avemaria40]

I don't see how giving kids the right to objectify women (and some men as well) is "preventing bias"

What next, are they going to complain that preventing kids from seeing gruesome and graphic R rated movies is taking away their rights? Oops, they already have. I forgot! :sarcasm:

[Iacobus]

About only the prev's using unfilters computers, I will steadfastly REFUSE to use any filtered computer or install any filtering software on my computer. My issue with them, other then information filtering which I disagree with, is that they are based on a concept that says "If this item is found on the page, block the page."

If I try to open an essay on Mark Twain and it quotes Huckfin and uses the word "nice black man" in the text, the page will be blocked. Is that right? That word used today is offensive, but in a quote by Mark Twain the term is not meant to be and should not be read as such. We are restricting the data access to students based on what someone deems "a bad word."

Also, everything has a basis of some sort. All history books have a basis in what they talk about and exculde, etc. We have to admit that whoever makes the program that has the list has some basis. Last summer there was the huge issue with the hotcoffee mod on GTA:SA. It looks like what happened with that is that a programer added that code to the game and did not tell anyone about it, the publishing levels didn't know about it. How can we ensure that the data on the "ban list" is not basis. What if I decicded I wanted to prevent people from reading about, as in the article, peanuts. I could tell the program to block every page with the term peanuts on it and prevent access to that page. While this is "far fetched," I readily admit, when you start to ban sites and "force people" to use that software, then you risk this happening.

Furthermore, restriciting data is a dangerous thing to do if you intend to hold a democratic society. It is what the Nazi's did (opps, Nazi's is on the ban list, I just blocked someone else from seeing this post), what Napleonan did, what the Chinese do. Data is important to the life of educated and informed debate. Right now, all around the world, and in the US, this right is under attack.

There was another one of those stories in the New York Times yesterday about a NASA researcher being quieted about global warming. He was prevented from talking to NPR because "it was the most liberal outlet in the US" and not in line with the researchers job of "Making the Pres. look good." There are a few stories about the Bush admin limiting access/firing researchers from the USGS and Dept of the Interior for presenting disagreeing findings. That last thing we need to do it to start limiting access to data via other means esp in a climate where the above occurs.

The filters on public access computers aren't like preventing children from seeing R rated films. Often, almost always, R rated films have nothing educational or informative contained within them. Websites, like I mentioned above can use "bad words" and be overly informitive. If you go to a journal data base and look up the "banned words" you will find hits, lots of hits. Is the journal Nature bannable because it used the word abortion? You can't fiddler data by "buzz words." (As a side note, there is a program called XXXChurch that tracks URL's and copies "bad" ones to a file, phatmass is one of those words. Why? The last three letters of "mass" are considered objectionable and the program can't see that they are A) Part of a word or B) in a resonable context).

As for textbooks, they have always been silly. What I find even more silly then those that you cite, which are mainly stories, but major factual errors or questionable things, most of which come from the right. Objections to evol. in bio textbooks, mentioning US warcrimes during the Imperalistic age, etc.

[Desert Walker]

[quote name='Iacobus' date='Jan 30 2006, 11:51 AM']As for textbooks, they have always been silly. What I find even more silly then those that you cite, which are mainly stories, but major factual errors or questionable things, most of which come from the right. Objections to evol. in bio textbooks, mentioning US warcrimes during the Imperalistic age, etc.
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Maybe I don't understand what you're saying here .... but are you saying that .... objections to evolution in bio textbooks, first of all, EXIST, and second, that they are from..... the RIGHT??? Objections to that theory are so far from the right they're actually coming from scientists themselves......

And... how does the metnion of imperialistic age US war crimes originate from the right? I can understand if they were OMMITTED by a "right wing" writer that the textbook could be said to be from the right. The best textbooks on anything give ALL that is known and under consideration about that thing. Unfortunately MOST textbooks do not follow this criteria of excellence, and MOST follow criteria supporting MOSTLY material that undermines the work and principles of the CHurch, and simple intellectual honesty!

Edited February 1, 2006 by Desert Walker

[Iacobus]

[quote name='Desert Walker' date='Feb 1 2006, 11:47 AM']Maybe I don't understand what you're saying here  .... but are you saying that .... objections to evolution in bio textbooks, first of all, EXIST, and second, that they are from..... the RIGHT???  Objections to that theory are so far from the right they're actually coming from scientists themselves......

And... how does the metnion of imperialistic age US war crimes originate from the right?  I can understand if they were OMMITTED by a "right wing" writer that the textbook could be said to be from the right.  The best textbooks on anything give ALL that is known and under consideration about that thing.  Unfortunately MOST textbooks do not follow this criteria of excellence, and MOST follow criteria supporting MOSTLY material that undermines the work and principles of the CHurch, and simple intellectual honesty!
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The respected scientific community does not object to evolution in any way. It is a good model and describes what appears to have occured better then any current system. The objects to this theory are not coming from the left or the middle. The objections come from the right on this issue, last I checked the ACLU wasn't trying to get evolution out of textbooks.

They are ommitted by many right leaning people. The objections carried over to the war crimes. Most textbooks treat the Spanish-American War, the Mexican War, etc as "splendid little war."

[Cow of Shame]

[quote name='Kilroy the Ninja' date='Jul 19 2003, 04:49 PM']As God as my witness, it will be over my dead body that any child of mine attends a public school.
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[quote name='littleflower+JMJ' date='Jul 20 2003, 02:41 AM']my only safety would be to teach in private school, at least theres some sanity in that!
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You do realize it doesn't matter? These are the [i]text book[/i] companies they're talking about. It's likely that all subscribe to this system.

[quote name='mulls' date='Jul 24 2003, 12:41 AM']but wherever i go you best believe my kids are gonna get some of that good stuff from the Good Book!
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Only if you're in private school. If you're teaching in a public school, they'll come down on you for bringing God into your classroom.