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.
Oh, and you do? Where's your facts?
Show me where I ever said everything the government does is fine and dandy with me. Read my tagline. By your statement it is obvious you haven't read my other posts. By the way, I thought Free Republic meant a "free exchange of thought". I guess you believe if it only pertains to your thoughts.
Don't be surprised if some day there will be no Constitution in this country and then you would be right. "So much for an 'inalienable right'".
"Don't be surprised if some day there will be no Constitution in this country and then you would be right. "So much for an 'inalienable right'".
What do you care, whatever the Government does is permissible to you. Governments are instituted by God, and how could any government do anything against God then?
"Please tell me what the difference would be between government sanctioned abortion and government sanctioned slavery?"
Nothing. If the Government santions it, how could you not find it permissible?
Then of course there is the statement that brought you all this trouble:
"My position on slavery? I don't consider it is wrong to have slaves."
Not much wiggle-room there.
It wasn't just that one statement. He made several posts before it that implied that was his position. It was just the one post where he got the brass to admit it directly in words that all can understand.
Well, the Nazis assumed power under the German Constitution. So I guess our friend taxes must think everything they did was "permissible," if not exactly meeting entirely with his/her/its approval.
Oh, I'm sure SmartCitizen (Logician, Constitutional Expert, and All-Round Good Fellow), can explain to us how an "inalienable right" to liberty really means "no right to liberty whatever."
Uh-oh. Do you think if we ask real nice England will take us back?
Not sure. Maybe we should apologize to Germany for being so mean a few years back and turn over England to them when we give France back.
What! A bunch of rebellious colonists who think football is played by men in armour? You've got to be joking.
LOL!
One of the most audacious attempts I ever saw involved a whole series of quotes from Darwin's Descent of Man. They were all valid quotes, alright, but from a section where Darwin was considering the arguments for "polygenism" (mankind as multiple species, and possibly with separate or at least ancient origins for the various races) versus "monogenism" (mankind as a single species with relatively recent origins for the races, and/or with the races interpenetrating and grading into each other).
This controversy was inherited from the preceding creationist paradigm and was still a live issue at the time Darwin was writing. What Darwin did in this section was to have an imaginary polygenist and monogenist each give their best arguments on several relevant issues, with Darwin then commenting on and evaluating each in his own voice.
What this creationist did was to go through that whole section and quote only from the arguments and evaluations Darwin attributed to his imaginary monogenist, ignoring and suppressing the fact that within a paragraph or three Darwin had explicitly disagreed with and refuted every one of them. (I.e. on each major consideration Darwin sided with the monogenist view.)
Some posters are going to be awfully disappointed.
Dear Lord, why do you send me opponents incapable of research?
Really?
It seems awfully unfair to them, if you ask me.
Since you're the one who considers slavery to be all right as long as the government sanctions it, I'd lay money it will be people like you who obviate the Constitution eventually.
Either the clearest example of assuming the conclusion in the Bible, or the most amazing justification for power grabbing imaginable. By this line of reasoning, any who manages to achieve power by any means has the mantle of God.
All the history that I was supposed to learn in high school is suddenly coming alive. The scary thing the people who made the past the paradise it was are still voting. I do mean the European feudal past.
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