"Nothing comes from Nothing
and Nothing ever Could" PING!
Posted on 10/07/2005 4:59:16 AM PDT by shuckmaster
How should evolution be taught in schools? This being America, judges will decide
HALF of all Americans either don't know or don't believe that living creatures evolved. And now a Pennsylvania school board is trying to keep its pupils ignorant. It is the kind of story about America that makes secular Europeans chortle smugly before turning to the horoscope page. Yet it is more complex than it appears.
In Harrisburg a trial began last week that many are comparing to the Scopes “monkey” trial of 1925, when a Tennessee teacher was prosecuted for teaching Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. Now the gag is on the other mouth. In 1987 the Supreme Court ruled that teaching creationism in public-school science classes was an unconstitutional blurring of church and state. But those who think Darwinism unGodly have fought back.
Last year, the school board in Dover, a small rural school district near Harrisburg, mandated a brief disclaimer before pupils are taught about evolution. They are to be told that “The theory [of evolution] is not a fact. Gaps in the theory exist for which there is no evidence.” And that if they wish to investigate the alternative theory of “intelligent design”, they should consult a book called “Of Pandas and People” in the school library.
Eleven parents, backed by the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State, two lobby groups, are suing to have the disclaimer dropped. Intelligent design, they say, is merely a clever repackaging of creationism, and as such belongs in a sermon, not a science class.
The school board's defence is that intelligent design is science, not religion. It is a new theory, which holds that present-day organisms are too complex to have evolved by the accumulation of random mutations, and must have been shaped by some intelligent entity. Unlike old-style creationism, it does not explicitly mention God. It also accepts that the earth is billions of years old and uses more sophisticated arguments to poke holes in Darwinism.
Almost all biologists, however, think it is bunk. Kenneth Miller, the author of a popular biology textbook and the plaintiffs' first witness, said that, to his knowledge, every major American scientific organisation with a view on the subject supported the theory of evolution and dismissed the notion of intelligent design. As for “Of Pandas and People”, he pronounced that the book was “inaccurate and downright false in every section”.
The plaintiffs have carefully called expert witnesses who believe not only in the separation of church and state but also in God. Mr Miller is a practising Roman Catholic. So is John Haught, a theology professor who testified on September 30th that life is like a cup of tea.
To illustrate the difference between scientific and religious “levels of understanding”, Mr Haught asked a simple question. What causes a kettle to boil? One could answer, he said, that it is the rapid vibration of water molecules. Or that it is because one has asked one's spouse to switch on the stove. Or that it is “because I want a cup of tea.” None of these explanations conflicts with the others. In the same way, belief in evolution is compatible with religious faith: an omnipotent God could have created a universe in which life subsequently evolved.
It makes no sense, argued the professor, to confuse the study of molecular movements by bringing in the “I want tea” explanation. That, he argued, is what the proponents of intelligent design are trying to do when they seek to air their theory—which he called “appalling theology”—in science classes.
Darwinism has enemies mostly because it is not compatible with a literal interpretation of the book of Genesis. Intelligent designers deny that this is why they attack it, but this week the court was told by one critic that the authors of “Of Pandas and People” had culled explicitly creationist language from early drafts after the Supreme Court barred creationism from science classes.
In the Dover case, intelligent design appears to have found unusually clueless champions. If the plaintiffs' testimony is accurate, members of the school board made no effort until recently to hide their religious agenda. For years, they expressed pious horror at the idea of apes evolving into men and tried to make science teachers teach old-fashioned creationism. (The board members in question deny, or claim not to remember, having made remarks along these lines at public meetings.)
Intelligent design's more sophisticated proponents, such as the Discovery Institute in Seattle, are too polite to say they hate to see their ideas championed by such clods. They should not be surprised, however. America's schools are far more democratic than those in most other countries. School districts are tiny—there are 501 in Pennsylvania alone—and school boards are directly elected. In a country where 65% of people think that creationism and evolution should be taught side by side, some boards inevitably agree, and seize upon intelligent design as the closest approximation they think they can get away with. But they may not be able to get away with it for long. If the case is appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, intelligent design could be labelled religious and barred from biology classes nationwide.
Logic is a set of laws, not subjective appeals to authority. It's based on mathematics. Take a course and find out.
sorry - we are TIED together by our pubic hair (economically) !
So does that imply we cannot know anything about anything? Because everything's subjective?
Ah. If you can point to any you're able to convince, I'll grant you the point.
lol appeal to authority does not have anything to do with maths.
That shows how pathetic your reading comprehension is. I am a moral absolutist.
But the holocaust might not have happened right? We can't trust the historians and the accounts of people who were there. That would be an appeal to authority right?
And no non-Christians were involved at all? Fascinating.
Where were the atheists?
Hiding from persecution by the theists. I seem to remember that even the KKK (God-fearing folks that they were) went after atheists and other heathens.
Secondly, my point is that there absolute moral truths,
Such as?
and the failure of some people to follow them in no way erases the fact that absolute moral truths exist.
Hmm, seems to me that people's views about "absolute moral truths" is highly relative (*cough*) to which Holy Book they choose to follow, or which leader's interpretation they adhere to.
For example, the "absolute moral truths" of the Koran frequently clash with the "absolute moral truths" of the Bible, which also clashes with the "absolute moral truths" of the Torah, etc. It's all relative to which "absolutes" you choose to believe in.
As soon as all the religions and sects manage to agree on which versions of "absolutes" are "the" absolutes, and from where they derive, perhaps you'll have a better position from which to argue that there are actually some absolutes to be found.
For a person who knew next to nothing about the theory of evoluton this might seem like a valid criticism. But for anyone with even a shred of knowledge about the subject it is as ridiculous as "if the earth is a sphere, how come people in australia don't fall off"
Only one problem - I didnt' make claim 150.
Which laws?
not subjective appeals to authority.
Okay.
It's based on mathematics.
Which mathematics?
Take a course and find out.
Waaaaayyy ahead of you.
He didn't say that you did. Reading comprehension is your friend.
But some anti-evolutionists have. On what basis shouldn't they be allowed to teach it as an argument against evolution in schools?
Smart[sic]Citizen: That is the plain meaning of the amendment. And we know that judges nor the executive branch, nor teachers, nor school districts, nor anyone else, has the authority to make law in the United States of America. The legislative branch and ONLY the legislative branch has that authority. Care to argue further? YOu[sic] don't have a constiuttional[sic] leg to stand on.
Absolutely breathtaking. I'm going to type it again, because I'm so amazed by this. You really think that because the Constitution empowers the Congress (and only the Congress) to pass legislation, that the phrase, "Congress shall make no law" in the Amendment 1 actually means, "Only Congress shall make a law".
Admit it -- you're not really a conservative, are you? You're posting for the KGB.
It was a joke - horoscope page, get it?
"Admit it -- you're not really a conservative, are you? You're posting for the KGB."
You're wrong there, Gummlegs. He's posting from the KFC.
I doubt it. There's no evidence whatever they've even been introduced.
[SmartCitizen:] Don't you get it? Only the evidence counts. Nothing else.
[Ichneumon:] Okay, then what *does* the evidence say?
[SmartCitizen:] That depends upon the subjective observer (and there is no other type),
And the wheel goes round and round... Shall we dance?
Anyway, this is looking suspiciously like, "it doesn't matter how much evidence there is, I reserve the right to ignore it all because trying to deduce anything from it would just be pointlessly subjective anyway..."
and the quality of the evidence.
And who gets to (subjectively?) decide *that*? (and/or dismiss it...)
Look, do you actually want to learn anything from the evidence, or are you just making your excuses?
That's a gratuitous insult to bird brains everywhere.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.