From: John.Feltham@f706.n640.z3.fidonet.org (John Feltham)
Newsgroups: k12.sys.channel1
Subject: Portland, Oregon.
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 92 22:47:02 PST
Organization: FidoNet node 3:640/706 - Coral Sea, Townsville Qld Australia

PORTLAND.  OREGON

Ancient Egyptians were black, invented aircraft, the theory of evolution and an exact science of precognition and other psychic phenomena. These claims are made in a guide being used by school teachers in Portland,Oregon, and other American cities to stress the achievements of African cultures and inspire black pupils.

The "African-American Baseline Essays' published by the Portland Public Schools Board of Education, are at the centre of a long running row over the value of multicultural education. Most scholars say the science essay's claims about the achievements of the pharaohs amount to "pseudoscience". But scientific criticism of the factual claims has been submerged in a larger debate in the US over curriculum changes that require students to learn more about Africa and Asia at the expense of European history and l

iterature. Advocates of these changes say that they are necessary to show black, Hispanic or American Indian students that their cultures also participate in scientific advances.

The essay says that an ancient 14 centimetre-long (note: not a SI unit in Australia), wooden , aircraft-shaped object was "a scale model of a full-size glider" and quotes a British businessman who says that: "the Egyptians used their early planes for travel, expeditions and recreation".

The essay claims that a religious papyrus describing the origin of the god Neb-er-ter :shows the Egyptians and a theory of species evolution at least 2000 years before Charles Darwin".

The Egyptians were also "masters of... precognition, psychokinesis,remote viewing and other under-developed human capabilities". Such psyhoenergenetics was no mere magic but "an exact science in Egypt:. Stephen Quirke, an Egyptologist at the British Museum says the claims are beyond credibility. "It is not a bit like the ancient Egyptians" he says. In reality, there is no evidence of manned flight, the papyrus purporting to outline a theory of evolution has been misinterpreted,and tales of psychic powers a

re no more common in ancient Egypt than in any other culture.

The essay states that it was Al-Khazin, not Newton, who discovered the law of gravity; that the 10th-century scholars Al-Battani and Al-Biruni  -- and not Copernicus and Galileo--discovered the principles of astronomy; and that Al-Biruni, not Bacon, invented the scientific method.

James Sekord, a historian of science at Imperial College London, said such claims are unhelpful and untrue. Islamic scientists made a major contribution to science, but there is no question, for example, that Newton discovered gravity.

The baseline essays were published in 1987. The Portland schools board expects teachers to use them in their classes. The series has also been taken up by education authorities in many cities, including Atlanta,Detroit and Washington DC.

Bernard Ortiz de Montellano, an anthropologist at Wayne State University in Detroit, sympathises with the objectives of multicultural education. Nevertheless, he criticises the scientific illiteracy. "you are teaching as science what most scientists would deny is science," he says.

Ortiz de Montellano believes that the essay will confuse pupils from ethnic minorities and make it harder for them to distinguish between science and pseudoscience. the effect will be to lower the attainment of pupils in science.

Matthew Profit, who as the superintendent of education introduced the base line essays in Portland, says: "People miss the point when they try to check every single scientific fact."  Prophet says parts of the essay are being reveiwed. However Ortiz de Montellano says the essay has already passed through one review.
[Note: he does not state who carried out that review]


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