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To: Noachian
So, where's the "diversity of opinion" we keep hearing about from liberals? Where's the "tolerence of ideas"?

Thankfully we've (generally) been able to hold the line against intellectual affirmative action, cultural relativism and the like in the science curricula.

Creationism, environmentalist pap, ethnic/gender-group oriented feel-good tokenism in the history curricula, etc: it's all of a piece. If we weaken our commitment to rigorous, hard-nosed academic standards in one area -- insisting that ideas are included/excluded in the curricula because they have objectively succeeded/failed in the relevant field of scholarship, and not because some ideologically motivated interest group likes/dislikes them -- then we weaken our resistance in all other areas.

IOW, you make a very good point about hypocrisy. Conservatives have traditionaly stood for no-nonesense curricula. We need to maintain that standard, even if some of us may have doubts about evolution, and challenge liberal relativism in the sciences, social sciences, and elsewhere, from that ground of consistency.

I happen to be an evolutionist myself, but for those he think that some sort of creationistic theory may one day prevail, bear in mind that this prevalence may not be reflected in future curricula if the precendence of teaching "both sides" is established now. Even though an evolutionist, I aver that if evolution should ever be supplanted by a superior theory, then evolution should be excluded, just as creationism is now.

29 posted on 09/11/2003 8:49:00 PM PDT by Stultis
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To: Stultis
I lean toward evolution myself, and have thought it to explain quite rationally the origin of our species. Having said that I also keep an open mind, and have noticed that there are "gaps" in the evolutionary theory which IMHO means the theory itself must be flawed in ome way.

Were evolution to be labeled as a "theory" I'd be more comfortable with it, but those in the scientific community insist it is proof positive and overlook the flaws in the theory.

It's this "absolutism" mentality, that shuts out any competing idea, insists that there are no flaws, and leads to hypocrisy by those who insist, "from others", a diversity and tolerance of ideas.






30 posted on 09/11/2003 9:23:35 PM PDT by Noachian (Liberalism belongs to the Fool, the Fraud, and the Vacuous.)
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