Tap dancing around the slavery issue.
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.
Trying out a new tagline placemarker.
Refined version placemarker
At least I can be sure that he would have been on the Divinely Right side in 1766. ;))
The Grand Master himself read that post and smiled.
I donno. I've got a small list of such posts that I keep outside of The List-O-Links because I can't find a convenient place for them. That's where I've a link to this one.
That's not a blackguard; it's a fop.
There really isn't any place on the net where this issue is more vigorously debated, not even talkorigins. There are certainly places that have polished arguments, but they wind up here anyway, because we quote them.
Not many forums allow the beserkers loose to say whatever passes through their mind at the moment. They don't deal with the full and glorious range of lunacy.
When getting into these theological issues you have to ask what KIND of slavery, among other things. There's a little gem in Revelation about "slave traders" being among those who will go to Hell. That's chattel slavery. The Roman system was more like indentured servitude; these slaves were urged to purchase their freedom if at all possible.
Seems that way.
Tap dancing around the slavery issue.
Why should people criticize those that they agree with?
You do not know this, having no knowledge of Mithraism.
"I am not in support of slavery. What I am saying is if government allows slavery than slavery is permissible. However I am not an advocate of government sanctioning slavery."
So for you, whatever the government does is just fine and dandy? Again, what are you doing supporting slavery on a forum called The Free Republic?
-- (the great) W. C. Fields
You can prove this assertion, no doubt.
Thatch: Divine Right in the 21st Century. Wow!
"Dieu et mon droit " might make a nice tagline for taxesareforever.
Considering that these passages deal with acts of war and killing, and considering that there are numerious verses scanctioning slavery and regulating the practice of slavery, I don't see that this carries the weight you want it to.
I'm not sure how much worse the American system of slavery could be than one that allows the owner of a slave to beat him to death, provided the slaves lives at least 24 hours after the beating.
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