Posted on 01/04/2006 12:55:35 PM PST by A. Pole
Will the federal courts, and the people who rely on the federal courts to enforce secular ideals, ever get it? The anti-school-prayer decisions of the past 40 years—not unlike the pro-choice-in-abortion decisions, starting with Roe vs. Wade—haven’t driven pro-school-prayer, anti-choice Americans from the marketplace of ideas and activity.
Neither will U.S. Dist. Judge John Jones’ anti-intelligent-design ruling in Dover, Pa., just before Christmas choke off challenges to the public schools’ Darwinian monopoly.
Jones’ contempt for the “breathtaking inanity” of school-board members who wanted ninth-grade biology students to hear a brief statement regarding Darwinism’s “gaps/problems” is unlikely to intimidate the millions who find evolution only partly persuasive—at best.
Millions? Scores of millions might be more like it. A 2004 Gallup Poll found that just 13 percent of Americans believe in evolution unaided by God. A Kansas newspaper poll last summer found 55 percent support for exposing public-school students to critiques of Darwinism.
This accounts for the widespread desire that children be able to factor in some alternatives to the notion that “natural selection” has brought us, humanly speaking, where we are. Well, maybe it has. But what if it hasn’t? The science classroom can’t take cognizance of such a possibility? Under the Jones ruling, it can’t. Jones discerns a plot to establish a religious view of the question, though the religion he worries about exists only in the possibility that God, per Genesis 1, might intrude celestially into the discussion. (Intelligent-designers, for the record, say the power of a Creator God is just one of various possible counter-explanations.)
Not that Darwinism, as Jones acknowledges, is perfect. Still, “the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent scientific propositions.”
Ah. We see now: Federal judges are the final word on good science. Who gave them the power to exclude even whispers of divinity from the classroom? Supposedly, the First Amendment to the Constitution: the odd part here being the assumption that the “free speech” amendment shuts down discussion of alternatives to an establishment-approved concept of Truth.
With energy and undisguised contempt for the critics of Darwinism, Jones thrusts out the back door of his courthouse the very possibility that any sustained critique of Darwinism should be admitted to public classrooms.
However, the writ of almighty federal judges runs only so far, as witness their ongoing failure to convince Americans that the Constitution requires almost unobstructed access to abortion. Pro-life voters and activists, who number in the millions, clearly aren’t buying it. We’re to suppose efforts to smother intelligent design will bear larger, lusher fruit?
The meeting place of faith and reason is proverbially darkish and unstable—a place to which the discussants bring sometimes violently different assumptions about truth and where to find it. Yet, the recent remarks of the philosopher-theologian Michael Novak make great sense: “I don’t understand why in the public schools we cannot have a day or two of discussion about the relative roles of science and religion.” A discussion isn’t a sermon or an altar call, is it?
Equally to the point, what does secular intolerance achieve in terms of revitalizing public schools, rendering them intellectually catalytic? As many religious folk see it, witch-hunts for Christian influences are an engrained part of present public-school curricula. Is this where they want the kids? Might private schools—not necessarily religious ones—offer a better alternative? Might home schooling?
Alienating bright, energized, intellectually alert customers is normally accounted bad business, but that’s the direction in which Darwinian dogmatists point. Thanks to them and other such foes of free speech in the science classroom—federal judges included—we seem likely to hear less and less about survival of the fittest and more and more about survival of the least curious, the least motivated, the most gullible.
Moral Absolutes Ping.
Just a little evofundie/non-evofundie discussion to wake you up. The usual is starting to happen on the thread. I pay the evofundies no mind since their day is drawing to a close.
But it is awfully telling that not a hint of anything other than the party line is ever allowed to even sit at the table, to mix metaphors. It's as bad as the "gay" agenda - can't even hint that maybe, just maybe, there's a little flaw in the assumptions.
No Doubting Allowed! Or we'll be put on the rack!
Freepmail me if you want on/off this pinglist.
I'll use hypothetical children to help me make an argument, but I won't answer a hypothetical question about my hypothetical kids.
And how likely it is that you will live in rural Alabama?
If the school in question recieves government funding, then it must abide by government regulations.
"Yeah sure, the University of Bologna, Sorbonne, Oxford, Cambridge they were all Islamic madrasas, or maybe they were the creation of the brave atheists and secularists."
Honestly, I didn't think I'd have to explain this. Many Muslims look at the so-called Golden Age of Islam as the birth of modern science. They're wrong, of course, but at least their scientific climax predates Roman Catholic acceptance of science. They also claim that the Koran is filled with scientific truths; that's patently absurb, but Muslims still use it to claim that Islam created science.
"And somehow the leading oldest US schools were created by the churches:"
And this proves what, exactly? At which of these schools did Copernicus study? How about Galileo?
I didn't claim that church-founded schools are inherently anti-science (or at least not all of them). Rather, I disputed your claim that the Roman Catholic Church CREATED science. Your post does nothing to address my rebuttal. In fact, it would be called a red herring.
Let me reiterate--science predated the RCC, and thus the RCC (and those other churches) did NOT invent science. Not in Europe. Not in America.
You'd be suprised by how easy it is to mistake the tone of a reply without them.
Oh really? And when, pray tell, do you date the Catholic Church's acceptance of science?
At which of these schools did Copernicus study? How about Galileo?
Coperincus studied at the Jagellonian University, founded and run by devout Catholics. Galileo studied at the University of Pisa, which had a similar story.
Copernicus was never persecuted by the Church. Galileo was only persecuted because he was pontificating on the theological implications of the Copernican system. He was never persecuted because of his science.
In fact, the Church never persecuted anyone for doing science. I defy you to name one person who was. No, Galileo does not qualify, for the reasons mentioned above. Nor does Bruno, who was persecuted for his panthesitic theology, not his science.
Copernicus was a Roman Catholic priest - a canon regular in the Frombork(Frauenburg) cathedral in Poland.
I don't have children, but I think it's difficult to say which is worse. I object to teaching creationism is public school most strongly for religious reasions. Creationism (and its bastard child are a intellectually bankrupt and false religious beliefs, and passing them off to my hypotheical children in school would only undermine the Catholic upbringing I would want to provide them. It would also create in their minds a false dellema between science and religion, contradicting one of the most fundamental Catholic doctrines that there can be no conflict between faith and reason.
In fact, I'd venture to say that teaching creationism might do comparable damage as training in homosexual activism. I seriously doubt that homosexual propaganda turns people into homosexuals, but I've known many people to have lost their faith because they were under the false impression that Darwinism and Christianity are incompatible.
You treat science as some nebulous mythical entity. Western science with its rules, organization, hierarchy (doctors, professors, corporations) and practice was created in the Middle Ages by the Roman Catholic Church along with the development of scholasticism and network of universities which were given charters and funding.
Science did not jump out of the head of Zeus and was not even the continuation of Platonic Academy or Pythagorean secret societies. Your anti-Christians bias blinds you to the historical fact.
This that the natural sciences are based on the belief on intelligible and consistent rules governing the visible Universe is not a coincidence. It is the logical outcome of scholastic theology and philosophy.
Not when it violates the Constitution. If establishing sectarian religious doctrine, like I.D., with no basis in science as the favored theory of the school district does not violate the establishment clause, nothing does.
Not when it violates the Constitution. If establishing sectarian religious doctrine, like I.D., with no basis in science as the favored theory of the school district does not violate the establishment clause, nothing does.
The 1st Amendment is not about purging the sectarian ideas from the public sphere, from public institutions or from the public schools. The REVERSE is true - if it intends to secure free exercise of religions EVEN if it contradicts the doctrine of established Church of England or the correct scientific doctrine.
Free exercise is not free when it is restricted to the privacy of homes or religious buildings, while treated in the schools where the your minds are being formed as insidious plague.
For the free exercise of religion it does not matter whether this free exercise is restricted by the Archbishop of Canterbury or by the scientific authorities. The result is the same, and possible more severe in the second case, as scientific secular mindset appears to be more exclusive, intolerant, aggressive and better funded (by mandatory taxation paid by the believers too) .
I would say, if some county in Alabama wants to have Creationism be taught in schools it will not lead to the decline of America. America grew and prospered when the religion was present in schools. The spiritual vacuum created by secularism will be filled with "non religious" beliefs like sexual diversity, political correctness, feminism etc ... And in the end Islam might come.
Just what is it you are predicting for scientists who study evolution? The rack? Burning at the stake? Pitchforks?
Or will it be something new?
No, but the 1st Amendment doesn't just prohibit the establishment of a state Church. It prohibits anything "respecting the establishment of religion." ID is a religion, and the school district was establishing it as its favored theory.
The 1st Amendment is not about purging the sectarian ideas from the public sphere, from public institutions or from the public schools.
I agree. It's about, among othing things, prohibiting public institutions from establishing sectarian religious doctrines as their official view.
Free exercise is not free when it is restricted to the privacy of homes or religious buildings, while treated in the schools where the your minds are being formed as insidious plague.
No one is saying it should be restricted to the privacy of homes. Students are free to express religious views in school, as are teachers so long as they do not attempt to pass them off as absolute truth in the classroom.
For the free exercise of religion it does not matter whether this free exercise is restricted by the Archbishop of Canterbury or by the scientific authorities.
How has exactly has free exercise been restricted?
The result is the same, and possible more severe in the second case, as scientific secular mindset appears to be more exclusive, intolerant, aggressive and better funded (by mandatory taxation paid by the believers too).
Nonsense. The only thing science is intollerant of is pseudoscience, like intelligent design.
America grew and prospered when the religion was present in schools.
That's because religion wasn't used as a pretext to teach pseudoscience.
I would say, if some county in Alabama wants to have Creationism be taught in schools it will not lead to the decline of America.
No. It would merely lead to the stunting of the intellectual development the county's students, as well as the loss of faith of the smarter ones who will realize that creationism is a crock.
The spiritual vacuum created by secularism will be filled with "non religious" beliefs like sexual diversity, political correctness, feminism etc ... And in the end Islam might come.
Nonsense. There are plenty of places for students to get religion besides biology class.
YEC INTREP
I can see where there would be some objection to this if there were other theories to mention. But there aren't. ID doesn't qualify as a scientific theory. A scientific theory has to be able to lead to propositions that are scientifically testable, and you can't do that with ID.
Are you equating ID with Christianity? ID is just as compatible with Islam as it is with Christianity.
When Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan had "things like science" and when did they replace them?
Islam was a major supporter of scientific endeavors in the Middle Ages, especially astronomy and mathematics. We don't write with Roman numerals, we use Arabic numerals. The use of the digit "0" came from them (write "zero" in Roman numerals). The very name of Algebra comes from "al-jabr", an Arabic phrase.
How come that science itself was CREATED by the Roman Catholic Church in the Middle Ages?
You can't be serious. You actually believe that the scientific method was developed by the RCC?
Oh, yeah, and there's also a good reason why the names of almost all of those stars known to the ancients have Arabic names.
Well, that's a stretch, I admit. I would say that the scholastics of the 12th and 13th centuries laid the philosophical groundwork that led to the development of the scientific method.
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