Posted on 12/06/2005 11:55:32 AM PST by MRMEAN
Andrew J. Coulson is director of the Center for Educational Freedom at the Cato Institute.
Supporters of the theory of human origins known as "intelligent design" want it taught alongside the theory of evolution. Opponents will do anything to keep it out of science classrooms. The disagreement is clear.
But why does everyone assume that we must settle it through an ideological death-match in the town square?
Intelligent design contends that life on Earth is too complex to have evolved naturally, and so must be the product of an unspecified intelligent designer. Most adherents of this idea would undoubtedly be happy just to have it taught to their own children, and most of my fellow evolutionists presumably believe they should have that right. So why are we fighting?
We're fighting because the institution of public schooling forces us to, by permitting only one government-sanctioned explanation of human origins. The only way for one side to have its views reflected in the official curriculum is at the expense of the other side.
This manufactured conflict serves no public good. After all, does it really matter if some Americans believe intelligent design is a valid scientific theory while others see it as a Lamb of God in sheep's clothing? Surely not. While there are certainly issues on which consensus is key — respect for the rule of law and the rights of fellow citizens, tolerance of differing viewpoints, etc. — the origin of species is not one of them.
The sad truth is that state-run schooling has created a multitude of similarly pointless battles. Nothing is gained, for instance, by compelling conformity on school prayer, random drug testing, the set of religious holidays that are worth observing, or the most appropriate forms of sex education.
Not only are these conflicts unnecessary, they are socially corrosive. Every time we fight over the official government curriculum, it breeds more resentment and animosity within our communities. These public-schooling-induced battles have done much to inflame tensions between Red and Blue America.
But while Americans bicker incessantly over pedagogical teachings, we seldom fight over theological ones. The difference, of course, is that the Bill of Rights precludes the establishment of an official religion. Our founding fathers were prescient in calling for the separation of church and state, but failed to foresee the dire social consequences of entangling education and state. Those consequences are now all too apparent.
Fortunately, there is a way to end the cycle of educational violence: parental choice. Why not reorganize our schools so that parents can easily get the sort of education they value for their own children without having to force it on their neighbors?
Doing so would not be difficult. A combination of tax relief for middle income families and financial assistance for low-income families would give everyone access to the independent education marketplace. A few strokes of the legislative pen could thus bring peace along the entire "education front" of America's culture war.
But let's be honest. At least a few Americans see our recurrent battles over the government curriculum as a price worth paying. Even in the "land of the free," there is a temptation to seize the apparatus of state schooling and use it to proselytize our neighbors with our own ideas or beliefs.
In addition to being socially divisive and utterly incompatible with American ideals, such propagandizing is also ineffectual. After generations in which evolution has been public schooling's sole explanation of human origins, only a third of Americans consider it a theory well-supported by scientific evidence. By contrast, 51 percent of Americans believe "God created human beings in their present form."
These findings should give pause not only to evolutionists but to supporters of intelligent design as well. After all, if public schooling has made such a hash of teaching evolution, why expect it to do any better with I.D.?
Admittedly, the promotion of social harmony is an unusual justification for replacing public schools with parent-driven education markets. Most arguments for parental choice rest on the private sector's superior academic performance or cost-effectiveness. But when you stop and think about it, doesn't the combination of these advantages suggest that free markets would be a far more intelligent design for American education?
This article appeared on FOXNews.com on November 18, 2005.
Yes and no. It might be an improvement, and eyeglasses are an improvement, but there is a drawback from the evolutionary point of view in that deaf and blind people will survive and procreate and produce a weaker species. That might not be so bad except that when the going gets tough, and it will get tough sooner or later, the weaker ones die off. It's great while everything holds together, but when the system collapses, look out!
I did. I don't have much time for a lengthy reply at the moment.
So things DO accidentally and naturally "derandomise" themselves?
This statement is so laughable, paranoid and downright silly that it brings a smile to my face.
Thats OK. I'm lurking in the crevo threads today. I do understand you frustration, both with me and those who sound like I did.
The fluid dynamics of the human nose are pretty complex as are the vast variety of odor sensors. Attempts to mimic same through intelligent design have not fared very well.
No, we're fighting to retain the integrity of science. Because ID is not science, yet believers are attempting to use the force of government to make it so.
The author is twisting the current conflict into an argument for libertarian ideals. The libertarians have some good points, but this one misses the mark.
Admittedly, the promotion of social harmony is an unusual justification for replacing public schools with parent-driven education markets.
The idea that Balkanizing students into Atheist schools, Christian schools, Jewish schools, Islamic schools will "promote social harmony" is just stupid. It would rather create many us-them situations and we would all be the worse off.
I believe that one of the primary justifications for government school systems that grew up around a century ago during the massive immigration of that day, is to make a single crop of "Americans", that all speak the same language, pledge to the same flag, and have many similar values so as to create a strong culture. I think the success of the US during the last century owes much to this policy.
Since I hold to the originalist interpretation of the Constitution, I don't think the current mantra of "separation of church and state" is valid. I don't think there should be a constitutional problem with teaching creationism/ID in schools. I just don't think we should lie to students and tell them it's science. Because it isn't. It's religion, and it should be taught in religion and philosophy classes.
So you deny that the ACLU and AU would like to completely ban all mention of God or any reference to God in public life? And you deny that the ACLU also openly supports groups such as GLAAD and NAARAL and NOW and Planned Parrenthood and others? And you deny that all these groups are closely connected to DemocRat party and support each other's interests?
How long have you been reading FR?
The accepted age of the earth (~4.5 billion years) is derived independently of any principle that is even remotely related to evolution. This is the province of geologists, not biologists, who empirically deterimined that the earth was much older than a literal interpretation of the Bible allows in the 1700's, a long time before Darwin first published his theory. (i.e. Creationist geology is even more abhorrent than their biology.)
Also, we are supposed to believe that evolution went from self replicating amino acids to trillions and trillions of extremely specialized cells working together in the mere blink of 4.5 billion years.
Anyone saying this obviously has not considered how long 4.5 billion years really is. If you started counting when you first learned to talk, you couldn't count to 4.5 billion before you died. Continents move via continental drift slower than human fingernails grow, yet 1 billion years is more than enough time for a continent to move across the earth. 4.5 billion years is certainly enough time to accommodate the wealth of evolutionary changes that spawned Earth's biodiversity, even if it only worked at a fraction of the rate that has been observed in nature.
The reason for the battle is to repel the flank attack by creationists who insist on teaching Intelligent Design /Creation science as hard science rather than myth.
Snowflakes are not "random". Nonrandom crystals are all over nature.
You ever look at yourself in the calm water of a pond? The water "derandomised" into a nearly perfect mirror, all by itself.
The 2nd law of thermodynamics argument against evolution has been blown away for years. It deals with CLOSED systems, which the earth is not, because of the energy input of the sun.
Try again.
Evolution has made testable predictions and, of all those tested, none have falsified evolution. The evidence supporting evolution is abundant.
The polarization disturbs me as well, both as a Believer, and an oath-sworn scientist seeking the truth.
4,500+ million years ago there is light
3,500 million years ago - Precambrian (began), ooze, photosynthetic life appearing late
600 million years ago - Cambrian, explosion of marine life forms, huge variety
425 million years ago - Silurian, explosion of land life forms, first plants
405 million years ago - Devonian, first seed plants (in only 20 mil yr! We gardeners appreciate the difference), first amphibians
220 million years ago - Triassic, dinosaurs
181 million years ago - Jurassic, first flowering plants, birds
135 million years ago - Cretaceous, monocotyledons, oak and maple forests, Alps, Himalayas, Andes, Rocky Mountains the extinction of the dinosaurs as a finale. The K/T discontinuity world-wide.
65 million years ago - Tertiary, 35 mil yrs Oligocene Epoch appearance of most moderen genera of mammals and monocotyledons
0.004 million years ago civilizations learn to write, all over the world at about the same time.
0.002 million years ago philosophy is advanced enough to describe the New Covenant in The best Greek of the New Testament, the Book of Hebrews, to Jews in Rome. Would that our society were as well read.
0.002 million years later Free Republic provides a forum, as the Nation Under God is bringing Liberty to the Cradle of Civilization and the birthplace of Abraham, the site of Daniel's vision of the Ancient of Days the repository of the treasures of the first Temple, the captivity of Israel.
Life on this earth, on this planet with a molten core, a magnetic field, plate tectonics ( understood in only our lifetimes), distributed continents and a single moon so large as to cause our oceans to breathe, has developed in the last seconds of the last minutes of the last hour of the clock of the firmament.
And yes, I am still stubborn and stiff-necked. And I have no right to be here, but for prevenient grace.
Using Millions of Years as a time line puts things into perspective. We haven’t been on it long.
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