Posted on 11/13/2007 1:40:53 PM PST by yoe
A packet for educators issued by the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) in conjunction with the NOVA program "Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial" encourages teaching practices that are probably unconstitutional, a conservative organization stated on Tuesday.
"The NOVA/PBS teaching guide encourages the injection of religion into classroom teaching about evolution in a way that likely would violate current Supreme Court precedents about the First Amendment's Establishment Clause," said John West, vice president for public policy and legal affairs at the Discovery Institute, in a news release.
The 22-page document is a companion piece to the two-hour NOVA docudrama, "Judgment Day," airing on most network affiliates Tuesday night. The film is about a trial concerning intelligent design that took place in Dover, Pa., in 2005.
The guide claims to provide teachers with "easily digestible information to guide and support you in facing challenges to evolution."
In the booklet, teachers are instructed to use such discussion questions as: "Can you accept evolution and still believe in religion?" The answer to that query is provided as: "Yes. The common view that evolution is inherently antireligious is simply false."
"This statement is simplistic and not neutral among different religions, and in that sense arguably inconsistent with Supreme Court teachings concerning neutrality," said attorney Casey Luskin, program officer for public policy and legal affairs at the institute.
"The Supreme Court ruled in Epperson v. Arkansas that the government must maintain 'neutrality between religion and religion,'" said Randal Wenger, a Pennsylvania attorney who filed amicus briefs in the Kitzmiller v. Dover School District case.
"Because the briefing packet only promotes religious viewpoints that are friendly towards evolution, this is not neutral, and PBS is encouraging teachers to violate the First Amendment's Establishment Clause," Wenger added.
In its news release, the Discovery Institute indicates that it has enlisted more than a dozen attorneys and legal scholars, including Wenger, to review the PBS teaching guide with an eye to its constitutionality.
"The PBS materials, in suggesting that students need not be concerned that evolution violates their religion, ironically equip public school teachers to violate our current conception of the First Amendment by explicitly teaching students concerning matters of religious belief," Wenger said.
"The irony is that discussing intelligent design would not teach any student about any religious belief - the PBS materials, on the other hand, will," he said.
Luskin noted that the teaching guide also presents false information about the theory of intelligent design.
"The teaching guide is also riddled with factual errors that misrepresent both the standard definition of intelligent design and the beliefs of those scientists and scholars who support the theory," the attorney added.
As a result, the institute is providing its own guide for educators, "The Theory of Intelligent Design," which will help teachers better understand the debate between Darwinian evolution and intelligent design.
Cybercast News Service previously reported that in December 2004, parents in Dover filed the first-ever challenge to intelligent design being taught in public schools, claiming it violated their religious liberty by promoting particular religious beliefs to their children under the guise of science education.
Just over a year later, U.S. District Judge John Jones III ruled that the school system may not include intelligent design in its science curriculum because intelligent design is not a scientific concept.
Telephone calls and e-mails seeking a response from the Public Broadcasting System were not returned by press time. However, on the PBS Web site, the program is described as capturing "the turmoil that tore apart the community of Dover, Pa., in one of the latest battles over teaching evolution in public schools."
"Featuring trial reenactments based on court transcripts and interviews with key participants - including expert scientists and Dover parents, teachers and town officials - 'Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial' follows the celebrated federal case of Kitzmiller v. Dover School District," the site states.
"In 2004, the Dover school board ordered science teachers to read a statement to high school biology students suggesting that there is an alternative to Darwin's theory of evolution called intelligent design - the idea that life is too complex to have evolved naturally and therefore must have been designed by an intelligent agent," the Web site says.
"The teachers refused to comply," it adds.
"'Judgment Day' captures on film a landmark court case with a powerful scientific message at its core," said Paula Apsell, NOVA's senior executive producer. "Evolution is one of the most essential, yet - for many people - least understood of all scientific theories, the foundation of biological science."
"We felt it was important for NOVA to do this program to heighten the public understanding of what constitutes science and what does not and, therefore, what is acceptable for inclusion in the science curriculum in our public schools," Apsell said.
Nevertheless, Discovery Institute attorney Casey Luskin disagreed that the program is just about science.
"PBS gives a false definition of intelligent design that is a complete straw man argument," Luskin said. "Scientists who support intelligent design seek evidence of design in nature, and argue that such evidence points to intelligent design, based on our historical knowledge of cause and effect."
"So intelligent design theory is not an argument based on what we don't know, but rather an argument about what we do know," he said.
Actually, I think the common law -- the "law of the commons," or the public sphere -- is the civil outgrowth of the natural law. At least this seems to be the case in the English-speaking world, where frequently the common law has been hostile to legal notions such as, for instance, "the divine right of kings."
The Framers did not believe that kings have any divine rights. And there was to be no king in America: SOVEREIGNTY VESTS DIRECTLY IN THE PEOPLE UNDER GOD. Ours was to be a system of rule of law (natural law as the Constitution distills it), not a rule of men. It seems legal positivists tend to reject this notion, although they frequently pay it lip service. Roe v. Wade is a prime example of this hypocrisy.
And so what has the Supreme Court wrought in Roe? The Roe holding seems designed to make us forget that the entire natural purpose of sex is procreation, not recreation. An unplanned child is seen as an inconvenient by-product of what the parties intended to be a purely recreational act. An inconvenienced mother-to-be can just rid herself of the inconvenience, and so quickly make herself available for further recreation.
I wonder how Darwinists manage to square such social facts with their evolutionary theory. People who don't or won't procreate contribute zilch to the gene pool and, thus, to natural selection and the fitness of the species.... And yet Darwinists such as Dawkins and Pinker evidently think that "free love" -- Love Means You Never Have To Say You're Sorry (For Anything) -- is just dandy. Just one more piece of evidence that these people really are deeply crazed.... The "pelvic revolution" seems to have trumped, not only life, but reason itself.
Well, just my two cents' worth, Lexinom. FWIW. Thank you so much for your beautifully reasoned essay posts!
Franklin attended the sermons of George Whitefield, a Methodist evangelist whenever he found opportunity.
The “deism” practiced in Revolution era America was a “Judeo-Christian deism” as evidenced by Jefferson’s own translation of the bible.
In short, the deity in question was the Judeo-Christian Deity. It was not Molech of the MidEast, the Sun God of the Aztecs, or the sprites in trees of the animists.
Straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak. :^) Can we now just admit that Franklin was of profoundly Christian persuasion and sensibility? Or are there still people out there who are prepared to argue the negative?
Thank you ever so much, dearest sister in Christ, for your excellent research into these issues!
It is evident that the PBS materials are religious teaching. I had one poster telling me last week that since there was at least one denomination that accepts both evolution and God that that means there is no contradiction. The logic of extrapolating the one to the many is an interesting exercise that could take us many unusual places. It is certainly the logic of the “me” generation.
It is all about “me”....the one.
In the realm of aborting life, selfishness (”me”ism) is the major culprit.
Interestingly, there is a path from “me”ism to the very idea of monarchy. With fallen humans that eventually becomes a deadly thing....as God through Samuel so clearly warned the people.
Yet, how we long for the perfect Monarch; the One about whom all does revolve, and to whom all Glory does belong.
It must be the season: “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.”
Once again you confirm that if the right button can be found (as true of our friend boop as it is of you), the results will be rather spectacular. Likewise, you convincingly illustrate that seeking definition and meaning will bring clarity to a conversation. I had hoped for a similar result from others on this sidebar, but it seems no curiosity was aroused, no desire to learn stimulated. But, of course, for either of those two things to have occurred, that had to have been their motivation in the first place.
Your remarks lead me to search out my own copy of the July ’75 edition of The National Geographic, and it seems that it was the very year of his death (1790) that Franklin wrote to Ezra Stiles expressing “some doubts” as to the divinity of Christ, but adding that he did not “dogmatize upon” it, expecting it to be a question soon answered. It is in this same letter that Franklin declares his belief in one God,” Creator of the Universe,” and it is at this point where etymology and definition, once again, become “our friends.” The word ‘Creator’ with a capital ‘C’ did not become common until the appearance of the King James Bible (1611) and it has, ever since that time, come to specifically mean the biblical Judeo-Christian ‘God’ (see the Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, The Origins of American English Words – see also In The Beginning The story of the King James Bible and How It Changed a Nation, a Language, and a Culture, by Alister McGrath).
Perhaps it is that letter to which js1138 refers in his abortive effort to undermine boop’s quote of Franklin’s June 28th convention speech by falsely alleging a fabrication of one of the best known speeches arising from that period in America’s history.
What I said was that in his Autobiography, his message that he wanted people to know about his own life, said he was a thorough Deist. Here we see a quote where he openly admitted he doubted the divinity of Christ. He is hardly an example of the founding of our nation being ‘Christian to its core’ which is what the initial poster alleged. I pointed out that there was also a very strong Deist influence and Franklin might not be the best evidence of the argument that it was entirely Christian thoroughly and to its core. It was heavily influenced by the ideas of Deism and the natural rights of man and the ideas of freedom of religion inherent in the idea of freedom of conscience.
And for the first time in our history those black-robed justices narrowed the meaning of what it is to be a ‘person’ and who it is that is entitled to God-given dignity rather than broadened it.”
But God is not mocked.”
However you wish to express it, there has been Hell-to-pay ever since.
Thomas Jefferson would think that the divinity of Christ was as mythical of Moloch or Quetzalcoatl or Dryads. As much as he admired the ‘philosophy’ of Christ, he was not a Christian save for by his OWN definition. I guess I should take him at his word that he is a Christian but one must also accept his other words, such as...
“To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed opposed, but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian, in the only sense in which he wished anyone to be: sincerely attached to his doctrines in preference to all others, ascribing to himself every human excellence, and believing he never claimed any other” Thomas Jefferson in the intro to the Jefferson Bible.
“The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter” Thomas Jefferson in a letter to John Adams.
But if they didn't have that point to raise, they'd find something else, e.g. a creed, Scriptures, religious authority. "If a person is not [label], he's not Christian. If he is [label], he's not Christian." - on and on...
Faith and reason are tortured by men seeking to justify their desires.
Maranatha, Jesus!!!
Your point about the word Creator is very, very well made. There can be no doubt he was speaking of God in the Judeo/Christian sense of the word, i.e. God the Creator.
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