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Re: [Phys-l] Law suit over controversial teache 'corbett' in Capistrano

True MSNBC did not carry the earlier story, but one of their headlines was:
"Court evades central question in anti-Christian lawsuit"
This is not what one would expect for a biased headline.
The other one was:
"Court: Teacher can't be sued over anti-Christian remarks"
Which sound like something FOX would say. Of course it is inaccurate
because the suit was not dismissed with any resolution by the court.
Actually the first court case upheld the student for an anti-creationism
comment. But creationism is not a tenet of "Christianity", but rather a
tenet of some particular sects of Christianity. It is also common in Islam
and some Jewish sects, but not in other religions.

MSNBC seems to quote a lot from other sources, so it may be that their other
sources did not cover the story. They might have a bias, but it is more
obvious in the FOX headline and article that proclaims a win for the student
in 2009 when everyone else considered it to be a substantial loss. Also
failing to continue with a story that has already been aired many times
would seem to be a clear indication that they do not wish to acknowledge the
latest outcome. But of course this might just be because it might drive
away some of their current readers. Huffington did report all of the
articles. Of course as a case goes to higher courts it becomes more
reportable.

In all fairness the straight science news does not seem to be biased when
reported. The big exception is the global warming segments, while they do
report faithfully concerning evolution and cosmology. Of course they also
seem to have a lot of advertising for "quack" ideas, but then so do a lot
of other internet papers. The anti-evolution segments are generally what
might be characterized as political reports. comments. "Rome meeting snubs
intelligent design, creationism" implies that creationists may have been
unfairly snubbed. It was the Vatican's "scientific" meeting and not a
debate forum for ID. It was not their forum! Or watch the segment
"Evolution vs. Creationism" in which a creationism advocate is interviewed
without interviewing a scientist who is knowledgeable about biology
textbooks. This segment purported to support evolution, but in reality was
trying to sow seeds of doubt. It recaputulated standard arguments put forth
by creationism advocates, with no rebuttal.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX


Interesting. Google searches show a string of Fox News
articles on the matter from 2007-2009. CNN did not cover the
story at all. MSNBC did not cover it until last Friday when
the decision was made that the teacher could not be sued. So
it appears that MSNBC did not report until their biases were
satisfied as well. (I'm sorry - I forgot - only Fox News is biased.)

Bob at PC

________________________________________
From: phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu
[phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu] on behalf of John
Clement [clement@hal-pc.org]
Sent: Monday, August 22, 2011 4:16 PM
To: 'Forum for Physics Educators'
Subject: [Phys-l] Law suit over controversial teache
'corbett' in Capistrano

This was reported in Education Week with the headline:
Teacher Can't Be Sued Over Alleged Hostility to Religion, Court Says

But in Fox News:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,518864,00.html

The headline is:
Student Wins Suit After Teacher Says Creationism
'Superstitious Nonsense'

Now admittedly the story from Fox is from 2009, but for some
reason the
latest story about the teacher has not made it to Fox, but is
in many other
news sources. Actully there were 20 allegations in the
orignial suit and
only 1 was upheld. Now if the teacher had said that "science
shows that
creationism is nonsense" he might not have even lost on this
one point.
Since the latest story is not yet on FOX I am wondering what
they are going
to do to slant it. Virtually all news sources are calling it
a win for the
teacher and agree with it.

But the latest report in Ed Week was that the circuit court
threw out the
entire suit against the teacher.

So it seems that FOX despite the fact that they report fairly
well about
science and do not inject creationist rhetoric into their
science articles,
are in favor of creationism. Again conservative scientists
need to speak
out about this sort of nonsense.

There was a previous suit of a Capistrano biology teacher who taught
creationism, and was censored by the school district. The
teacher lost,
but the court according to some reports ruled that evolution was not a
religion because it did not say anything about ultimate
creation according
to the dictionary definition. Hmmmm.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX


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_______________________________________________
Forum for Physics Educators
Phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu
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