3/20/2007 8:22:00 AM
Sisters fires biology teacher
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By Tia Duerrmeyer
Kris Helphinstine lasted less than two weeks on the job as a new Sisters High School biology teacher. The school board fired him last Monday night on the recommendation of Superintendent Ted Thonstad for deviating from accepted curriculum by presenting materials supporting creationism to his biology class.
By a vote of three to one, with one member abstaining because of a lack of background information, the board terminated the employment of the probationary, part-time teacher.
Helphinstine, 27, disagrees with Thonstad's analysis of his actions.
"Actually, I did not teach creationism," Helphinstine said. "That's one thing I did not teach. I understand that's not my job. As far as what I taught. I taught ... natural selection, the effects of natural selection, genetic drifts and allele frequency that's what I taught."
That's not how some parents of students in the class see it. One parent, John Rahm, said his daughter reported that only "one day of 10" was devoted to the study of evolution, with the rest devoted to "Intelligent Design" materials.
"The test as well was 90-plus percent ID material," Rahm said.
When asked by The Nugget if he believes the Bible is the final authority when determining scientific fact, Helphinstine said that assumptions have been made about him that are not accurate. However, he acknowledged that he was not responding directly to the question.
The red flag went up last week when parents were asked questions by their puzzled students about information that was being discussed in their freshman biology class. Concern mounted when parents examined materials that Helphinstine was distributing to his students and they brought the matter to the attention of high school principal Bob Macauley.
According to Rahm the material was "conspicuously intelligent design type information or teaching. Actually if you took the material and Googled the crucial passages it takes you to a creationist Web site called Answers in Genesis, www.answersingenesis.org, that is run by Ken Ham. ... One of the lines in his (Ham's) mission statement for the Web site is any statement which contradicts the Bible is inherently false," Rahm said.
Helphinstine defended his usage of source material from the "Answers in Genesis" Web site telling The Nugget that some of the information presented is "good scientific fact."
Parents turned out in force at the school board meeting.
"I'm here to tell you that I am absolutely outraged to the deepest level of my bones that this curriculum, that this study session, was allowed to be presented to our families and our children without anybody looking over anybody's shoulder, and I would like to know how this occurred and why it occurred and what remedies the board has," said parent Dan Harrison.
Before board members made public statements, they asked superintendent Ted Thonstad for his recommendation.
"I thought Kris departed from the curriculum," Thonstad stated." He included controversial material in the content of his class without discussing that with his supervisors. I think he exercised poor judgment and strayed into an area that causes a great deal of concern on the part of the people in the district. I have a concern that because of that he might not conform to teaching our curriculum in the future, and I don't believe the district can take that risk, and for that reason I recommend that Kris be terminated."
Board member Glen Lasken said that although he is not sure that Helphinstine broke the law, "when you completely debunk evolution through your paper work that you're handing out, I don't think that at that point it really matters that you (Helphinstine) never said the word God in the classroom."
"I think Mr. Helphinstine wasn't teaching good science. ... I think his performance was not just a little bit over the line. I think it was a severe contradiction of what we trust teachers to do in the classroom," said board member Jeff Smith.
"I feel that he departed from the accepted curriculum and exercised poor judgment on his source material in particular...," chairman Gould said.
When the vote was taken, Dumolt abstained, as he had not attended the closed executive session when all issues surrounding the matter were discussed. Gould, Lasken and Smith voted in favor of termination. Steve Rudinsky voted against termination.
"What this teacher did was unacceptable behavior," Rudinsky said. However, Rudinsky wanted Macauley and veteran biology teacher Glenn Herron to recommend what action should be taken.
"Unfortunately, we couldn't get the input from the principal or from the master biology teacher who are intimately involved in the situation to speak up about it," Rudinsky said. "This was an unfortunate situation It was not just about the teacher. It was about oversight and how we manage new teachers. Do we mentor them? Are we watching what they do? So there's culpability on both sides."
According to the district's Human Resources Director Tim Comfort, "It is not common practice to pop in in the first week or two and observe your new staff formally. In general, you've got to have some faith in their training.... We don't operate thinking that every new employee is going to be at risk and do something wrong,"
According to Thonstad, he asked Helphinstine to resign to save both himself and the district from "negative fall out." However, Helphinstine refused asserting that he had broken no laws and resigning would be contrary to his principles.
The school district has gotten in trouble before for blurring the line between church and state. The State of Oregon is witholding $1.2 million in state school funds that had been earlier paid out for a disallowed homeschool program that involved students at the local private Christian school.
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Posted: Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Article comment by:
Monimonika
Pete, by saying that "[Monimonika] would NOT want to claim [AVIDA creators are as "dumb as a box of rocks"]", you CLEARLY implied that it WAS what I would be claiming if I were to keep to my position against ID. If that's not what you wanted to imply, why did you even bother MENTIONING me? Seriously, why did you have to UNNECESSARILY connect ME with the idea that "AVIDA creators are dumb"? What was the point? Answer me. Also, while attempting to compose a response to you I wondered what you actually meant when you typed, "I seriously doubt that Monimonika would want to claim that the creators of "AVIDA," a computer program designed at CalTech (California Institute of Technology) to simulate Darwinian processes, are as dumb as a box of rocks. One thing's for certain, though... they would have to be if "AVIDA" was an effective argument against Intelligent Design." I just couldn't figure out why you would use the phrase "dumb as a box of rocks" and how it somehow related to my position. There just didn't seem to be any justification for your "if" statement. But then I realized something and it all became clear. Tell me if I got this right: When you said "dumb as a box of rocks" you meant "non-intelligent" (the term I've been using a lot in my comments). You also said that the AVIDA creators were "enormously intelligent" (i.e. "smart"). By playing on two very DIFFERENT meanings of the word "intelligent", you were able say that if the universe were created through natural ("DUMB") means, then the AVIDA creators are REQUIRED to be as "DUMB" to create something similar; but since we all know the AVIDA creators are NOT "dumb as a box of rocks", it LOGICALLY follows that the universe was created via Intelligence! The analogy you make is "(Smart!Intelligent!)AVIDA creators are to AVIDA as (Intelligent!)God is to the universe." So, did I get it right? Sorry for being slow catching on. Oh, wait, you had just replied to me that you weren't making such an analogy. ...well, HOW ELSE is the AVIDA program supposed to be in support of ID if not by that very analogy? (And please don't say that AVIDA deals with organisms while the universe has to deal with stars and planets. The physical rules, forces, and materials/matter inside the AVIDA environment had to be programmed in by the creators. How is that NOT GodCreatingUniverse-like?) By the way, I wasn't the one who brought AVIDA into the discussion, YOU were. And I was attacking the faulty logic-by-analogy that you were using (and now denying for some reason) to say AVIDA supports the notion of ID. AVIDA does not support ID because the premise, "Because humans (an "Intelligent Agent") can design/create something similar to what is found in nature, the thing in nature must also have been the work of an Intelligent Agent similar to humans (but not in the physical sense)," is flawed and rife with counter-examples (remember my mentioning about sharp, pointy rocks?). Let me repeat here what I said in a prior comment of mine (this is from the latest comment I left at the "Sisters Fires biology teacher" article thread, you may have missed reading it). You, also, essentially make the "unsupported leap in logic that if ALL _currently_ known non-intelligent processes (TOE, weather, etc.) cannot explain [something], then that [something] must have been the result of some sort of intelligence. Of course, this all crashes down if progress is ever made in what we know of the non-intelligent processes that WOULD explain that [something]. In other words, SC is based on IGNORANCE. The greater the IGNORANCE, the more likely someone will see ID/God's work in the world around him (aka "God of the Gaps")." ("SC" stands for "specified complexity", but you can easily substitute "SC" with "the ID/God explanation".) And I'll give you another cut-and-paste from my prior comment: "You know what REALLY ticks me off about your argument? You diss science for not being able to explain something yet, despite all the work scientists have done (and continue to do), all the supporting evidence they have gathered so far, and how much they have expanded our knowledge and capabilities. But then you expect the ID/God explanation to be allowed to get fast-tracked DIRECTLY into public schools (skip the scientific community review process!). To be fed to students (who have yet to acquire the knowledge needed for critical thinking) as if it had passed the same amount of scrutiny that scientific theories have (hard to see how, since it skipped the entire review process). And you want all this to happen even though ID/God has yet to demonstrate ANYTHING AT ALL in regards to ACTUAL supporting evidence." Making flawed, already-refuted analogies while performing no actual tests of ID's own is NOT how supporting evidence is gathered. By the way, how would you go about doing a POSITIVE test for ID, Pete? Don't make the same mistake as "specified complexity" makes in its premise. Oh, and before I forget, you typed, "So to the extent that AVIDA demonstrated that natural selection produces adaptation, I say "So what? I already accept that."" Hello? AVIDA was made to see how much complexity natural selection and mutation is actually capable of producing, thus giving more strength to the evolutionary process and less ammo for the ID-whiners who claim that something is "too complex" to have "evolved" without "direct help" from an Intelligent Designer. And again, drop the stupid analogy argument (or are you still denying that?). While you're at it, tell us all what it is that actually happens when the Intelligent Designer causes "macroevolution" to occur. I assume you agree the changes occured at least a couple of times in the past. So, did the new creatures just suddenly pop out of thin air? Were a bunch of eggs (or pregnant mammals) chosen to plop out an entirely new species completely distinct from their parents? Will we ever possibly see the Intelligent Designer do macroevolution (the process itself shouldn't take that long, according to you). Why do IDers tend to avoid answering these questions? Weren't IDers the ones complaining about how "evolutionists" don't answer their questions?
Posted: Monday, April 02, 2007
Article comment by:
Charles
Why wouldn't god just make the world, and it's resources, bigger to sustain the increased population? An omnipotent god could do anything. If you're assuming that this god is also benevolent, which the Christian god seems to be (despite the 2,000,000+ kill count), then there should be no reason for people to die.
Too manny people? Make the Earth bigger. Earth falls out of orbit? Make the solar system bigger, to sustain it. If your god exists, there should be nothing between him and the complete elimination of pain and death.
Posted: Friday, March 30, 2007
Article comment by:
John Chaikowsky
Hi Dave,
What kind of a world would this be if nothing died? It would be pretty crowded after awhile. It is not our purpose to live forever on this earth. Have you kept all of your pencil stubs after they no longer become useful? This earth was created/fashioned for recycling. The second law assures us that everything winds down and losses useful energy over time. That includes us.
If something is not optimally designed, it does not mean it is not designed. And who says our eyes are badly designed? Our eyes work just fine by doing what we need them to do. Are eagle eyes a bad design because they can’t see through rock or they don’t have perfect night vision? Is a Volkswagon a bad design because it doesn’t carry 25 people? That’s not what its designed for.
By the way, if neither of your hands can hold a cup, you should see a doctor;)
Posted: Thursday, March 29, 2007
Article comment by:
Dave
Thanks, John - I'll wait as long as I'm capable.
Seriously, don't know if you're mocking fairy tales or rationality.
But if what you describe occurs, that would be closer to describing evolution than an instant "poof" from nothing - there's a frog!
By the way, since I won't last 350 million years, why do humans die? Why do any "created" creatures die? Why are many extinct? Not a very intelligent design, huh?
Why are our eyes such a poor design - not as good as an eagles? - or a fly's?
Where are our cup holders?
Posted: Thursday, March 29, 2007
Article comment by:
John Chaikowsky
Dave - The only suggestion I have conserning your empty box is to wait 350 million years and see if one of the microbes or bacteria in the box mutates into something visible. I remember the old saying, "A frog instantaneously changes into a Prince, then that's a fairy tale. But if a frog changes into a Prince over a period of 350 million years, well now, that's science."
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