Posted on 01/07/2005 2:42:22 PM PST by Ed Current
The "creation" controversy has splashed down in Gull Lake, Mich. Last spring, according to the Kalamazoo Gazette, a parent complained that two middle school biology teachers were giving the concept of "intelligent design" equal treatment in the classroom with the theory of evolution. The district has told them to stop, and both are now crying foul, appealing to the community for help.
Gull Lake parents are divided.
"Intelligent design," or ID, contends that the diversity of life on Earth and the complexity of some biological systems could not have arisen by means of evolution. To correct that perceived inadequacy, ID stipulates that an "intelligent designer" authored the world’s species.
Proponents argue that intelligent design is a serious scientific theory, and that, at the very least, its existence should be taught in biology classes. Opponents dismiss it as a superficially secular attempt to inject biblical creationism into public school classrooms – a Lamb of God in sheep’s clothing.
Michigan isn’t alone. All told, roughly 40 states are now embroiled in battles over the teaching of evolution. On Tuesday, the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups filed a lawsuit on behalf of Pennsylvania parents objecting to their school board’s decision to teach ID. Eugenie C. Scott of the National Center for Science Education told the Gazette that "by lobbying school boards to include creationism or weaken evolution in their science curricula, (biblical) creationists are politicizing science education."
But Ms. Scott understates the problem — and mislays the blame.
Every aspect of the public school curriculum, not just science education, is inherently political. Decisions over what and how to teach are made by elected and appointed government officials. Because there is only one official state organ of education, everyone wants it to conform to their own views.
That is impossible.
In a pluralistic society, there are countless different and incompatible worldviews. Our effort to serve that diverse audience through a monolithic school system has not only failed to forge common ground; it has bred animosity and discord.
But this failure of compelled conformity is no cause for alarm; it is unnecessary to force all Americans to accept a single view on the origins of man. While there are certainly issues on which consensus is important in a free society, such as a commitment to the democratic process, respect for the rule of law and equal rights for all citizens, the origin of humanity is not among them.
Nor is it clear that centrally planned public schooling is the best means of nurturing societal agreement in those special areas where it is important. Research shows private school students to be as tolerant and civic-minded as their public school counterparts, and it also shows private schools to be, if anything, more meaningfully integrated than public schools.
Private schools, with their diverse world views, coexist as peacefully as private churches. If every family in America had the financial resources to choose the public or private school they preferred, as they would under a universal education tax credit system, we could enjoy the same harmonious relations in education that we have experienced in the field of religion. Thanks to the separation of church and state, American religious life has avoided most of the political and ideological conflicts that have beset our official state schools.
And honestly, is anyone happy with the way schools currently handle this issue?
Adherents of intelligent design presumably aren’t. They must fight to have their views heard in the public schools, and when they succeed, they immediately face legal challenges. Even if ID prevails in court (as biblical creationism did not), will science teachers present it in a way that will satisfy its advocates?
Adherents of evolution have nothing to cheer about, either. Virtually all biologists see evolution as the fundamental structuring principle of their entire discipline. By contrast, schools often teach it as a brief, isolated unit to avoid controversy. Tellingly, after generations of public school instruction in the theory of evolution, a recent Gallup poll found that 45 percent of Americans believe humanity is the comparatively recent product of divine creation, while only one-third believe that evolution is a theory well-supported by scientific evidence.
These results must dismay most scientists, and they should cause intelligent design advocates to question the wisdom of entrusting their own views to the public schools.
Back in Gull Lake, both sides are digging in their heels, and accusations of miseducation and brainwashing have started to fly. So long as we stick with a single official state school system, however, there will always be ideological winners and losers, and such antagonism will remain.
Wouldn’t we all be better off giving school choice a chance instead?
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Andrew J. Coulson is senior fellow for education policy for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a research and educational institute headquartered in Midland, Mich. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided that the author and the Center are properly cited.
It seems to have equaled the swelling number of credentialed biologists who doubt evolution.
Ah yes, the 3 or 4 evolutionists who keep "flocking" to creationism year after year. The same 3 or 4 flockers, who keep leaving evolution in droves, and who for some reason never publish their ghostly findings in peer-reviewed professional journals. It's a real crisis for evolution.
I never cease to marvel at your ability to post on the odd-numbered primes like that.....
;-)
Amen, brother. Junior is still a Catholic and still believes in the Almighty. However, Junior thinks your typical creationist is childishly afraid of what daddy might do if said creationist ever grew up and started using his brain.
Should we meet the flockers?
I'm attracted to irrational numbers.
The Bible also makes testable predictions which have been verified.
Neither can be tested directly enough in a repeatable controlled experiment to be considered science.
I'm inclined to believe both to be reasonably accurate, but claiming either is scientifically verified is at best dishonest.
Can you cite these please. I'm intrigued.
Good grief! Have you ever heard of Archeology? Prophecy? History? I don't even know where to begin.
For example, I assume you've heard of the Biblical character of Jesus (mentioned predominantly in all versions of the Christian Bible). Would you find it surprising to know that archaeologists and historians have found plenty of "secular" documentation of the man's life consistent with the accounts in the Bible?
So then, the Bible predicts there was a famous religious leader who traveled around to certain cities. Thus "predicting" secular records of his ministry existed. Archaeologists looked for such, and found them! Amazing! Shazam! But does this make the life of Jesus science?!? Not in my humble opinion.
Wrong. This is a "Republic," not a mob-ocracy. If we let the government dictate religion to our children, bad things will come of it. ID is firmly tied to religion, there is no separating it out.
Interesting, and yet ID is held as a self evident in the preamble of the U.S. Constitution.
Can you post the text?
"We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights among them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
1. That's not the preamble to the Constitution.
2. I'm somehow missing the reference to ID.
Otherwise, you're doing fine.
In Congress, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
On point 2, you are entitled to miss the blantantly obvious. It is, after all, your God given right to deny the existance of God. Heck you could even beleive the sky is red and that pigs can fly. You could even go so far as to say that beleiving the sky is blue is too religious, and that the government should be carefule not comment on the color of the sky.
On the planet Earth, in the United States however, the existance of a Creator is "self evident".
Indeed. Phillip Johnson, Boalt Hall (Berkeley) Law Professor Emeritus, an ardent champion of ID, conceived of this strategy in the early 1990s, calling it "the wedge." He and a handful of other brilliant men and women including Dr. William Dembski, have endured unceasing hostility, resistance, and scorn over the years from the Darwinists as they have patiently and methodically driven "the wedge" through the heart of the materialist beast.
The Darwinists are losing because ID meets them and beats them on their own terms at the point at which Darwinism is weakest and most vulnerable--the issue of origins.
Of course you can separate it out. ID can and should be evaluated according to strict mathematical and statistical models and rules without invoking religion.
ID shares common stock with such scientific theories and initiatives as panspermia and SETI, both of which are darlings of many an atheist scientist.
And this is characteristic of the evolutionists; to not respond with logic, reason, or science, but hostility and scorn. (They would respond with logic, reason and science if they had access to it.)
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