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.
Good idea! The way this trial is going, there will be plenty of good news soon enough!
I'll bet you don't mind the big gaps in your doc's bag of tricks when you go to him for advice though.
It most certainly does!
Evolution says millions and millions of years. God says six normal 24 hour days.
Evolution claims to base it's years upon a fossil record of dead things in mud that accumulated over millions and millions of years. God says that there was no death of anything till 6,417 years ago.
Evolution says the grand canyon came about over millions and millions of years, God' word teaches that it came about via a world wide flood. and the examples go on and one and on.
Evolution denies God, denies God's word, and denies God's rules. Evolution claims that rights, laws, everything comes from man. The Bible teaches that these things come form God and that we will one day answer to Him regardless of whether one believes in Him or not. Hebrews 9:27.
Exactly. So, why is it then that the ACLU and Eugenie Scott and Barry Lynn and all of the other outsiders are trying to tell a PA community what they can teach in their schools? The school board is elected BY THE PEOPLE. If the people want to teach that evolution is not a FACT (which it isn't by the way), then butt out.
We teach science in school because it's science's task to fill in those gaps.
And woudl that not be: "D. Those religious leaders, those men and women with fancy degrees and words who call God Himself a liar. Telling us that God doesn't know what He is talking about when He tells us that He made the earth and all things in and on it, and in the heavens above in six literal 24 hour days?" Those who call God a liar, those who deny that He is God, that He is perfect, that He is fully capable of saying what He means and meaning what He says in His book, the Holy Bible?
Yes, and we all know that the notion of "science" is defined and controlled by neodarwinists who become apoplectic at the slightest challenge to their hegemony. That's not science - that's might makes right.
It most certainly does!
You are dishonestly equating atheism with rejection of your particular brand of Christianity. Perhaps you should ponder the fate that you believe God has reserved for liars.
Education should be to teach the truth. That means by folks that know the subject.
" You want to exchange one form of tyranny for another. I remember "scientists" teaching german children that jews were subhuman using the shape of their skulls. "
You might remember scientists taught this, but that's only because you were either taught lies, or were dreaming. Parents and the local German community leaders taught this.
LOL! Their bag of tricks contains few words. They simply rotate and repeat the same claims over and over again as if doing that would render the lie true.
If you are accusing me of ying, than you need to show me where. If you're accusatioon is that I am lying regarding God's word than you need to use Scripture to correct me. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
Otherwise I do believe you owe me an apology.
Stalin and Hitler certainly believed it espoused atheism. And the most famous neodarwinists also believe it - Gould, Sagan, Crick, all of the Huxleys, Dawkins (blind watchmaker) and many many others. Since the most renowned gatekeepers of evolution espouse a godless universe and godless origins, it cannot be denied that evolutionary theory breeds such a connection.
Yes, neodarwinists will teach them their idea of truth whether they want it or not! What if a community doesn't want your brand of truth taught in their school? hmmm? The day is coming when communities will revolt and all of the king's horses and all of the king's ACLU lawyers, will not be able to stop it.
The UNIVERSITIES taught this. Who teaches at the university level? Hitler has "SCIENTISTS" who supported this crap - there is no denying it.
They are not. If the School Board want to include ID (or astrology or voodoo for that matter) in the curriculum, that is fine. Just don't usurp accepted and valid science with confusing and contradictory dogma in the same class.
The fact that they are elected does not absolve them of their responsibilities to the the students to prepare them for the world, away from Dover. That is done by deferring to experts in the chosen field to set that curriculum. Failure to do so fails the students.
An adopted slave of an Egyptian pharaoh with access to the royal library concocted a book of verses that combined plagiarized Sumerian and Babylonian (Iraqi) tablets with the oral traditions of a wandering tribe of bronze age goat herders and four thousand years later you want to force it into 21st century science class believing the masses are too stupid to see through the charlatan pseudo science called intelligent design. You'll see soon enough that you should have been happy with your freedom of religion and kept your fanatic superstitions out of courtrooms and science classes where you can't possibly win.
I suppose you could repeat this in an endless loop and it would become your truth, but in reality it will always remain false. These parents and community morons that taught this were no more scientists than the high priests of ID. ID is the same as phrenology, or whatever feeling head shapes is called.
Read my lips: It was taught in the universities. Deal with it.
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