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.
500
Aaaarrrgggghhhhh
lol you sound like that simple error has put something terrible into motion
It is all right, 501 is prime too.
I guess that I am correct in presuming that numerous creationists spotted this error and flamed the unfortunate who had perpetrated the lie, just as they always do.
I'll get over it. In time ...
That's not a blackguard; it's a fop.
Actually, I meant a mental image of the sort of guy who would prissily call people names like "blackguard" and "coxcomb".
Good choice, because even though I found that image by searching for "dandy", I had also done an image search on "foppish".
That's what you choose to believe, anyway.
The Almighty has already implied that I'm not going to Heaven, so it doesn't really matter what I believe or don't. The best I can hope for is the cessation of existence. Oh well, I've never been in it for the reward or to avoid punishment, so any good I do is simply because I want to do it, not because I'm being forced to.
"Oh well, I've never been in it for the reward or to avoid punishment, so any good I do is simply because I want to do it, not because I'm being forced to."
Amen!
The Old Testament rules were specific to the Hebrews' situation. God authorized them to enslave the prior occupants of the land that God sent them to possess, and could and did have harsh laws about that. This was a one-off situation. That theology can't be carried forward even into slavery under the Roman system.
And, it's notable that "liars" are named along with the slave traders in Revelation as among the hell fodder -- puts a damper on the theory that this was simply talking about acts of war.
Taking the road fork more difficult.
There are at least half a dozen passages in the New Testament supporting slavery. At worst, it seems like a bad idea to go out and capture slaves, but there's no problem owning them.
Here's a question you must answer yourself - nobody else is going to answer it for you. Would you WANT any part in Jesus' Kingdom of Heaven if you otherwise knew that such a thing existed?
Again from history, the Roman slavery was an indentured servitude kind of thing. Instead of debtors' prisons, they had this. Palestine was under Roman rule and there were a lot of things in Old Testament law that the Romans did not allow them to do (just like we aren't allowing stonings in Iraq today). Had they been able to, Jesus wouldn't have been crucified, but stoned.
Kinder, gentler servitude.
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
It doesn't. There is an afterlife, but it isn't what you think it is, and it's definitely something I'm not achieving. Oh frickin' well.
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