Tag Archives: religion

Textbook disclaimers

Here are some warning labels for books that you can print onto sticker paper. The text of the top left one is from an actual sticker used in Cobb County, Georgia. Creationist parents had pressured the school board to paste it into a biology textbook that contained chapters on evolution. When I first heard about this in the news I was outraged, but it also made me laugh. So I decided to waste an entire afternoon creating similar stickers based on the same silly logic, then sent them to the lawyer in Georgia who was involved in getting the sticker removed. The lawyer had them printed up as huge posters and then used as courtroom props (the judge liked them a lot, I was told). I keep the stickers on the internet so that they can be used whenever pitchfork-wielding parents try something similar. Just download the PDF and get yourself some sticker paper. Then give them to your kids. They’ll know what to do.

Here‘s the version that ran in The New York Times.

Textbook disclaimer stickers

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Here are some warning labels for books that you can print onto sticker paper. The top left sticker is an actual sticker from Cobb County, Georgia. Creationist parents had pressured the school district to paste it into biology textbooks that mentioned evolution. Their sticker made me angry (I was teaching evolution at the time), and it inspired me to waste an entire afternoon creating similar stickers based on the same silly logic.

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I then sent the stickers to the attorney in Georgia involved in getting the sticker removed (Selman v. Cobb County School District). The lawyer had some of them printed up large, as courtroom props, and told me that the judge thought they were hilarious. I was happy to do my part.

If you live in a town with pitchfork-wielding parents who like to meddle in the science instruction of other people’s kids, please consider downloading the PDF of the above and printing onto sticker paper. Then give them to your kids to use at school. It’s fun.

Here’s the version I did for the New York Times:

descent-of-dissent-disclaimers-nyt