Posted on 10/11/2005 6:21:59 PM PDT by gobucks
The most frustrating thing about following the Dover school board trial is seeing both sides maneuver for a legal advantage with arguments that not only seem disingenuous, but miss the point.
Dover school board members may deny it, but religion did influence the vote to introduce intelligent design into science class. Lawyers for the plaintiffs jump on the legal requirement demanding a “secular purpose” for science curriculum by lining up witnesses who denounce intelligent design as religion. Slam-dunk case, right?
Not really, because the plaintiffs’ argument is built on faulty premises. Their witnesses insist that Darwinism is pure fact, that it is neutral in regard to religion. Then they roll out the old chestnut that science and religion are two entirely different realms of knowledge — separate but equal. We’ve heard that before.
Intellectual honesty
The truth is that anyone who’s being intellectually honest will admit that science can never be divorced from religion, that a person’s philosophical outlook will always affect how he or she interprets nature’s phenomena. Honest people will also admit that Darwinism supports a definite philosophy about nature, one that is hostile to theistic faith held by many Americans.
This is why I find the Dover plaintiffs’ arguments disingenuous. Their witnesses, like many adherents to Darwinism, insist modern science respects religion when in reality it marginalizes it and usurps its authority.
Consider how many leading scientists frame the issue. The late Harvard biologist Stephen Jay Gould went further than many of his colleagues in allowing that religion has the right to pursue “questions of ultimate meaning and moral value.” But then he undercut the credibility of religion by stating that only science deals with actual facts.
In other words, science examines reality; religion deals in fantasies.
Hard to take
This implicit disdain for religion makes it hard to take the Dover plaintiffs’ argument at face value, such as when theology professor John Haught explained why he does not consider intelligent design science.
Science, Haught said, is supposed to address the question of “how;” while religion answers “why.” They are two different schools of thought, he said.
What Haught did not say was that this alleged restriction fails to prevent some scientists from encroaching upon subjects supposedly reserved for religion.
Physicists argue that miracles are impossible. Behaviorists equate human morality with the instinctive reactions of laboratory rats. Oxford professor and prominent atheist Richard Dawkins insists that an evolutionary view of life and the cosmos makes God “gratuitous.”
The late biologist Julian Huxley even went so far as to call for “an evolutionary and humanist religion” to replace faiths such as Christianity he considered either dead or outmoded.
Does this kind of agnostic evangelism sound like the product of a field of study that restricts itself to answering certain kinds of questions? It does not, and to suggest otherwise is absurd.
Second-class status
But even if Haught is right, what does that say about the priorities of public education? If religion answers the question “why” — why we are here, why evil exists, why any choice we make matters at all — wouldn’t you think religion would be considered indispensable to the curriculum?
But as far as public education is concerned, religion is quite dispensable. Religion courses, if they’re offered at all, certainly are not presented as students’ best chance to learn about divine truth. How much “ultimate meaning” can you expect to get out of an elective, anyway?Science courses, by contrast, are usually mandatory. And don’t forget about those standardized tests.In reality, the separate-but-equal standard works about as well for religion in public education as it did for minorities during Jim Crow.
Belief in nothing
What does this means for students? It means that explicitly and implicitly they’re taught that science trumps faith.
It means they learn that men in white lab coats — the ones who offer medicines, iPods and weapons of mass destruction — speak with greater authority than pastors, rabbis and priests. It means they’ll be told the reason they exist is no reason at all, just chance, mutation and blind law.
And chances are they’ll believe it, because after all, it’s based on science.
Dave Dentel is a copy editor for the York Daily Record/Sunday News. Reach him at ddentel@ydr.com or by calling 771-2043.
Yes. Honest people would admit this. But democrats are in a fight for their demographic survival; public schools are just about their last hope. So, dishonesty is a fair a weapon to use as any other, as The Prince would testify.
Uh, I'm not theistic and I think Darwinism is a crock based on the facts alone.
Ridiculous.
Well, I guess if you were willing to say that the godless, materialistic theory of astronomy - which says that angels do not push the planets around - is also "hostile to theistic faith", then adding evolution to that category is no big stretch.
So, gobucks, do you think that the mainstream (materialistic) theory of planetary orbits is hostile to your theistic faith? Why or why not?
Darwinism supports no such thing.
Ponder this:
" theology professor John Haught explained why he does not consider intelligent design science.
Science, Haught said, is supposed to address the question of “how;” while religion answers “why.” They are two different schools of thought, he said.
Personally, I think the theory that angels push the planets around in their orbits is wrong. I've developed the theory that angels warp the fabric of spacetime around massive objects, causing them to follow non-euclidean geometric paths. Most recently, I've been working on a theory that quantizes angelic energy into discrete packets. Want to sign up?
The planets are actually tied to very long stands of spaghetti!
Ramen.
Brilliant! Frankly, we adherents of Angelic Orbital Theory have been frustrated at constantly being stymied in our efforts to get AOT taught in high school science classes. But if we can start a website & publish a popular book or two, and get a PhD or two to sign on, then we can frame the debate in more scientific terms as "science vs. science" instead of "science vs. wackos" as most HS teachers refer to it today.
The good folks at the reDiscovery Institute definitely need to hear about this scientific work. The moral health of society depends on it!
If all this sarcasm about "angels" is not hostility, I don't know what is.
I'm sure we can work our upstart Intelligent Orbital Theory into compatibility with believers in His Noodly Appendage. We should be going for a big tent here if we hope to prevail against the Vast Materialist-Wing Conspiracy.
Hostility towards misguided & sometimes downright dishonest creationist arguments, maybe. But hostility toward religious belief per se? No.
"So, gobucks, do you think that the mainstream (materialistic) theory of planetary orbits is hostile to your theistic faith? Why or why not?"
Well, it all depends on gravity, yes? The facts are pretty straight forward about gravity, unless I'm mistaken. Here, Earth's is 9.8m/s2 as I recall.
We know that gravity can hurt you pretty bad if you are falling unprotected over a relatively short distance.
But, jennyp, (can I call you jenny?) Gravity is not so clear after all. When scientists really roll up their sleeves to describe just what 'gravity' really is, they find, ahem, they can't really explain it.
They can explain the effects of gravity pretty nifty, including the motion of planets. Nova spends a lot of money showing nifty graphics regarding how good they are at this stuff ... usually on Sunday nights I've noticed.
But they are having a terrible time with describing how the force itself functions, where it comes from, and oh yes, one other small detail ... how it interacts w/ the strong and weak nuclear force and electromagnetic force.
That small detail has led to sillystring theory!! What is the latest 'acceptable' version, M I think? And we need how many dimensions to make the math 'plausible' ... what, its up to ELEVEN DIMENSIONS now, yes?
Now, just how many out of Eleven do we have rock hard evidence for? Anyone? Anyone? What lab recently announced proof of the 7th? Oh. I'm sorry. We've been told to 'trust' scientists to 'eventually' discover all this and unravel all this, and that we can put our faith in their motives and intelligence.
You asked do I think it is hostile?
Why, after the 6th dimension, I am beginning to wonder if they drink the same beer at the same pub the evos do....
They get good and drunk, peer at the beery bubbles and discuss the quantum behavior of fermentation effects which appear before their starry eyes, and the evo goes, 'eureka'!! for quantum jumps are sort of like ... puncuated jumps ... don't you agree?
Maybe it was the astro folks who put the evo folks up to their shenanigans. Maybe not.
Is astronomy hostile to thiests? No, I suppose not.... they had a guy on PBS who was praying while is Andes Mt. instrament was being worked on; it was measuring fine detail COBE stuff as I recall. It got working after his prayer.
They didn't show the part where he thanked God for answering his prayer. But I am sure he did. They say that once people actually, sincerely, thank God for ANYTHING, that it is at that point, and no other that they become teachable.
Did you know that those who never say 'thank you' to GOD for anything are also the most unteachable people on earth?
Really? Then why the angels? Seems to me to be directed not only at religion but even at a particular religon.
"If all this sarcasm about "angels" is not hostility, I don't know what is."
Good point.
Well, of course they are. Otherwise, how could they be miraculous?
You got that right.
Wow. Impressive.
"Otherwise, how could they be miraculous?"
The saving grace of rationalism really helps in a pinch of course.
"And they know that, they will just never admit it and will hide behind physics until *ell freezes over."
The weather channel is reporting an approaching severe cold front....it is heading toward Dover....
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