Time, already, to follow up on the previous item, because Oolon Colluphid of Kansas, as far as I know, was the first to give us the key to nailing down once and for all what Kris Helphinstine was up to in his high school science classroom. At this point, we have a rather healthy collection of creationist smoking guns.
Oolon Colluphid of Lawrence, Kansas (a place no stranger to the creationism controversy), helpfully points out that Kris Helphinstine’s PowerPoint presentations, previously available only under Internet Explorer, now are available in pdf form (scroll down to the left-hand sidebar) thanks to The Bulletin out of Bend. Bonus points to Colluphid for tracking down the apparent source of one of the footnotes Helphinstine included in his presentations — an infamous Holocaust denier and purveyor of Zionist and Freemasonic conspiracy theories.
Happenstantially found via Google is this item which helpfully informs that “Part-time biology teacher Kris Helphinstine” anagrams into this: “I lie, share creation myth, get pink slip. Bother!”
And now Answers in Genesis itself is getting into the misinformation game. While they do helpfully provide what apparently is the abridged poodle article (pdf), it’s the only thing they mention. Nowhere to be found in their article is any reference to the obviously-creationist PowerPoint presentations on which Helphinstine spent four of his eight days as a “science” teacher. Missing still from any account from any source is an explanation for why Helphinstine chose an article on poodles from a creationist author rather than, say, one written by a scientist.
Just a friendly piece of advice to Christianity and Science. You’re quite right that “[a] lot of misinformation has been passed around concerning the firing of biology teacher Kris Helphinstine”. But do yourself a favor and read the truth of the matter before accusing other people of passing around misinformation. Otherwise, you just look like an idiot.
Now, it’s nice and all that Jen over at Diary of 1 “saw the teacher in question, Kris Helphinstine, in church yesterday”, and it’s all well and good that she feels the need to “put in a good word for him”, but to claim that “[t]he reporting is not accurate” and that he “was not teaching creationism” shows only that the other side in this debacle has no interest in actually reading the facts. Which, of course, should come as little surprise.
Out of Bend, The Bulletin profiles Kris Helphinstine, and yet in its discussion of his PowerPoint presentations somehow (perhaps in a zeal to appear “balanced”) manages to leave out the one which most directly shows he was teaching creationism in his high school science classroom.
Number of entries: 3. Entry page time: March 24th 2007 11:17:33 PM. Visit length: 1 hour 2 mins 59 secs. Returning visits: 0. Location: Ohio, Cincinnati, United States. Hostname: mail.answersingenesis.org (66.42.196.194). Entry page: ‘Upholding The Authority Of The Bible From The Very First Verse’. Exit page: On God And Poodles In Sisters.
“The father of one student claims that almost all of Helphinstine’s lessons were slanted towards creationism,” I wrote yesterday. “[T]hat heavy of a bias might help explain why it took the district less than two weeks to discover that Helphinstine needed to go.” Now, according to Bend Weekly News, four of his eight days were spent on the infamous PowerPoint presentations. They show, once and for all, just what it was he was up to in his classroom.
It turns out that the previously-mentioned Ken Ham, president of Answers in Genesis, has a blog, and he’s written about the Sisters incident. Ham says that Helphinstine told him via telephone that he “removed all references to God and the Bible” from the Answers in Genesis material which he provided to his science class students. One of these articles, Ham says, was something he’d written about poodles. So let’s take a look at that, shall we?