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.
There you go again with the "atheists" stuff. Do you not read what we post, or when you read it, is it not processed, or do you just not care?
Doesn't matter.
The theory of evolution is the only scientific theory regarding the origin of species. There are many religious views on the matter, but absolutely none of them is scientific. Most of the time, most believers don't try to pretend their religion should govern science. The rest show up here.
It is not unscientific to keep the unscientific out of science class. Most people regard this as something of a tautology.
They need a stranglehold on the public school system and expect their lackeys in the secular world to support them.
Just lackeys? No "toadies," or "running dogs"? I'm disappointed. What we expect is for rational people to look at the issue rationally, and be able to tell the difference between a faith-based outlook and a scientifically-based outlook. Guess which one belongs in science class.
My interest in all this is that our kids' minds are not force fed one theory to the exclusion of all other possibilities.
Ah, now "theories" have to be counterbalanced by "possibilities." And if we have to teach "possibilities" (a section in math class, maybe, after a unit on "probability theory," which is pretty atheistic, come to think of it), wouldn't we have to teach "ill-defined but strongly felt notions"?
And why do you assume that learning the theory of evolution as the scientific explanation of how the diversity of life on planet earth came about will somehow erase everything else from the students' heads? My son had a unit on evolution last year, and he still remembers all sorts of other stuff!
Pope John Paul II was able to declare the T of E did not have to conflict with Catholic doctrine. Unless you're prepared to call the Pope an atheist, you might want to rethink your position. (More-or-less standard note to the bloody-minded: I neither endorse nor deny the correctness of the Pope's position, or the correctness of the Catholic Church. I merely use the Pope as an example of a deeply serious and religious man who does not reflexively reject the Theory of Evolution).
Rules regarding the release of Jewish slaves and the result of not granting them liberty according to the Will of God.
No mention of the gentiles, however. :(
Not a single word anywhere in the Bible saying that owning slaves is a moral evil. No commandment, "Thou shalt not take any person to be property."
Why should I give a logical answer? You would call it a lie anyway or even a rope-a-dope. Just because you think slavery is oh so wrong, why don't you check out the feelings of those who were slaves in the past. I know that there are many who had wished to remain slaves. But no, government forced people to turn them loose.By the way, anyone who is employed is in effect a slave. They do what they are told and they get paid so that they can obtain room and board.
No. Scripture does not say it is wrong or right to have slaves. Show me in Scripture where it says it is wrong to have slaves? Or, show me in Scipture where it says it is moral to have slaves. Scripture only speaks on how slaves should be treated and that is with respect. Hopefully this will clear up your misunderstanding.
[to me] Just because you think slavery is oh so wrong, why don't you check out the feelings of those who were slaves in the past. I know that there are many who had wished to remain slaves. But no, government forced people to turn them loose.
You know, some people stay with the same employer for 30 years or more, voluntarily, all because they want to. The government doesn't force them to move to another employer.
By the way, anyone who is employed is in effect a slave. They do what they are told and they get paid so that they can obtain room and board.
Only in the same sense that all sex is rape as long as the woman isn't totally in the mood.
[to PH] Scripture does not say it is wrong or right to have slaves. Show me in Scripture where it says it is wrong to have slaves? Or, show me in Scipture where it says it is moral to have slaves. Scripture only speaks on how slaves should be treated and that is with respect. Hopefully this will clear up your misunderstanding.
Yeah, well, I do know that many Southern slaveowners loved their d*****s, especially their house n*****s.
So, we really shouldn't have passed the 13th Amendment, should we have? And we shouldn't have really fought the Civil War, or at least Lincoln certainly shouldn't have signed the Emancipation Proclamation. Right?
I would say that having rules proscribing moral conduct for slaves and slaveowners to be legitimizing of chattel slavery.
Just twisting in the wind are we? The Civil War was fought over states rights not slavery.
Aw, that is so cute. Brings a little tear to my eye.
Indeed. For example we wouldn't want to force feed our kids the secular humanist notion that slavery is bad when committed Christians in this forum have an alternate theory, that it is pretty good really.
"Teach the controversy!"
Christian ethics placemark
That hole is getting so deep that I can hardly see the earth flying out of the top of it.
Point of order -- it most certainly WAS your post. I saw it before the moderators removed it due its disgusting nature. It read, in full and I quote you verbatim:
My position on slavery? I don't consider it is wrong to have slaves.Those are your words, that was your post #375.
Indeed, this is one of the strongest arguments that the Bible was actually written by men, for men. Any hand God had in its inception has long since been papered over by Bronze and Iron Age editors.
Ayn Rand, an atheist, stood against slavery for purely rational reasons (it denies another his freedome). One need not be told whether in each instance whether something is good or bad. Most folks are adults and can work it out for themselves.
Yes, that's the rational viewpoint. But we've had several creationists in these threads declare quite openly that unless their specific belief system is totally and uncritically adopted, then there can't be any right or wrong, there can't be any morality, and folks would be running around raping and pillaging. As they tell us, it's either Noah's Ark, or else you've got Jeff Dahmer, Charles Manson, and Colombine High School.
Kind of like the US constitution prior to the civil war. On the other hand there are no statements that slavery is good. It's routinely considered a bad thing throughout the Bible.
If you're looking for statements of modern sensibilities in the Bible you're not going to find them. It's a 2000 year old book written in a very different time.
The books of Galatians and Philemon contain pleas to free slaves but you'd have to do a lot of research into the early Christian writers to see what they really thought about where slavery was going. The real crime is that slavery still exists today. However, it's rare in the Christian parts of the world.
LeviticusSeems rather straightforward.
25:44 Both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids.25:45 Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land: and they shall be your possession.
25:46 And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen for ever: but over your brethren the children of Israel, ye shall not rule one over another with rigour.
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