The issue here isn't whether evolution is true, but whether it's wise to teach it to young children

Do you really want your children to be taught that life is a constant struggle of person against person, family against family, class against class, sex against sex ...

... and of children against parents?

(yes I know this is simplistic, but that's how most kids in their early teens will see the situation)

Sounds like a recipe for social chaos to me

Kids who want to pursue careers in biology can learn about evolution in college. i.e. when they're old enough to understand and take responsibility for the consequences of their opinions and actions

Folks who push evolution in schools are being either (a) stupid or (b) deliberately malicious and socially destructive

"By this logic, we should have them rant against capitalism."

"You should read a bit about kin selection. Even multicellularity is testament to the fact that evolution requires cooperation as well as competition."

We're dealing with kids here. You can't get too sophisticated, else you'll lose them and confuse them

Evolution is a complex subject. A teacher must either slip into (potentially dangerous) over-simplifications, or else risk leaving the class behind

Either way, a lot of kids are going to come away with the idea that moral values are relative, a matter of luck or superior force

An adult - living in the real world, responsible for himself and conscious of the effects of his actions - can handle this idea

For kids it is dangerous

18 is a good age to start learning about evolution

Godless & Razib

Personally, I think that schools should neither teach evolution nor creationism - they should do what public schools were originally designed to do: teach kids to read, write and do sums competently

Everything else (including biology) is of secondary importance

Questions to teachers about religion, human origins, sex, and other similar issues should be referred to parents

?Religious apologists (aided and abetted by man's natural brain structure - viz. neurotheology) have managed to keep the comforting lie of religion afloat despites insults as serious as heliocentrism, rain-making crop dusters, and birth control.?

I?m with Spinoza on this one ? religion and philosophy (science) are different approaches to the same problem. The former seeks to promote truth by appealing to emotion, while the latter promotes it by appealing to reason

Philosophy is clearly superior, but this is something not everyone can appreciate

The intelligent should practice philosophy, while respecting the simpler beliefs of those unable to follow their arguments. To attack religion *per se*, without providing an equally simple alternative explanation (which evolution is not), is to risk social upheaval and revolution

I would have no problem with evolution, except that provoking social upheaval and revolution is *exactly* what many evolution-promoters seem to be interested in

? = "

"following the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, the Scottish monarchy intermarried with the exiled Anglo-Saxon monarchy"

I remember reading a book on this subject that argued the opposite: that the kings of Scotland welcomed Norman (not Saxon) adventurers from England as immigrants because they brought with them technological and military skills which the Scots of the time didn't possess: crossbows and siege engines, superior stonemasonry and armour, mastery of heavy cavalry

Naturally, many native Scottish nobles disliked this policy, and eventually rebelled against their king. He, with the aid of his new Norman subjects, suppressed the dissidents and awarded their lands to the newcomers.

The result of this was a Celtic-Norman aristocracy that was the military equal of that of England, which enabled the Scots (unlike the Welsh and Irish) to resist English expansion over the succeeding centuries.

If by the time that this happened (about 100 years after the Conquest), the Normans were speaking English as their primary language, it would account to a great degree for the early establishment of English in Scotland.

"my general question was this: we get the impression that charles the great was more of a "frenchmen" than a frank (that's my impression). the origin"

We're forgetting the enormous prestige of the Roman Empire, even as it collapsed

These illiterate German chieftans were desperate to be seen as the heirs of Rome, not as its destroyers. So we can expect that they would have deliberately favored latin/gallic cultural forms over those of their ancestors

Intermarriage with old noble Roman families was also an objective: very soon these "Franks" were calling themselves "Romans" and claiming descent from Alexander, Caesar and Augustus...

I'm reminded of Frederick the Great's statement that he spoke "French to my ambassadors, English to my accountant, Italian to my mistress, Latin to my God and German to my horse"

i.e. in 18th C. Germany, -

French was the language of government and diplomacy,

English of trade and commerce,

Italian of art, music and literature,

Latin of the church,

While German was the language of the peasantry and soldiery

"it may be difficult to face the possibility that immigration from England was a major factor in building the 'nation'."

I haven't read Davies, so I'm treading on thin ice here, but I think it unlikely that any Scottish government would have encouraged large-scale English immigration into Scotland - even of refugees or skilled farmers

The Normans seem a likelier vector for the introduction of English to Scotland, since they were few in number, skilled fighters, and hated by the northern English - a combination that would have made them welcome in Scotland

A Scottish/Norman alliance with English as "lingua franca" would have been very likely in these circumstances

David B, thanks for the info - I've ordered the Davis book

Initially, ruling elite dialects rarely influence common languages: ordinary people continue conversing unaffected. Eventually, conquered natives emulate elite cultural expressions, popularizing priorly noble language patterns

(Every word in the above sentence derives from French)

"we know elite transmission does occur sometimes, and we know it doesn't other times. i am curious about the contexts where it does & doesn't obviously."

It's probably a matter of politcal will: how badly do the conquerors want to keep control of their new province?

If they regard it as a new homeland (eg. hungary), then great effort will be put into promoting their language and culture among the subject people. Linguistic luddites will be punished, and collaborators rewarded - even if this carries an economic cost

If on the other hand, they regard it just as a useful source of tax-revenue (eg. normans in england), then there will be very little incentive to educate the natives - as long as the peasants pay up, they will be left alone to speak whatever language they want. Over time, by a process of cultural osmosis, the native language may change - but this will be a slow process, taking centuries or millenia