I do not find it at all odd that the President, like most Americans, wants schools to explain controversial topics in a way that does not offend the beliefs of the students and their parents.
If I understand his claim, the fact that the vast majority of scientists believe "we're here because of random mutation and natural selection" is suffient to require the teaching of evolution in public schools.
Now, why do I find his arguement odd? Read on (cited in the article):
According to the most recent Gallup poll on the subject (2004), 45 percent of Americans believe God created human beings in their present form 10,000 years ago, while another 38 percent believe that God directed the process of evolution. Only 13 percent accept the prevailing scientific view of evolution as an unguided, random process.
So, when a majority of scientists hold a belief, it must be taught in schools. When a majority of everyone else holds a contrary belief, it must not be taught in schools?
I must admit, I am unimpressed.
And remember, the President said, quite reasonably, I think:
"I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought," Bush said. "You're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, the answer is yes."
So what is he unhappy about?
The president seems to view the conflict between evolutionary theory and intelligent design as something like the debate over Social Security reform. But this is not a disagreement with two reasonable points of view, let alone two equally valid ones. Intelligent design, which asserts that gaps in evolutionary science prove God must have had a role in creation, may be—as Bob Wright argues—creationism in camouflage. Or it may be—as William Saletan argues—a step in the creationist cave-in to evolution. But whatever it represents, intelligent design is a faith-based theory with no scientific validity or credibility
So that must be it, the president knows the real truth of the matter, but is hiding it from us, the plebes, in order to stay in office.
If Bush had said schools should give equal time to the view that the Sun revolves around the Earth, or that smoking doesn't cause lung cancer, he'd have been laughed out of his office.
So, the President is being faulted for saying things that scientists say are untrue but are popular, and for not saying untrue unpopular things, because then he would forced out of office (appearently via a heretofore-unnoticed codicil to the grounds for impeachment?)
Oh goodness this is a mess.
Let us review politics. Politicians give the voters what they want. In a Republic, we tell politicians what we, the voters want, and expect them to generally reflect our wishes (except when it would really harm a minority.)
Weisberg's real complaint is with democracy. That schools teach the things that the local community wants is critical to democracy, and to the whole scheme of public schools as well.
It's hard enough to get people to pay for schools; how likely is it that you'd willingly pay taxes to support an organization that ridicules and minimizes your fundamental religious beliefs?
Oh wait, isn't this the exact same arguement that lead to the disestablishment of the churches? Which, like the schools, were formerly provided for by public exactions?
Now, I know my point of view is unreasonable, but so what?
If I believe the universe is less than 10,000 years old, and that God created it in 6 days (and rested on the seventh) and that the Son of God was born of a Virgin, died and was resurrected to bring eternal life, well I may be unreasonable, but I'm in good company.
And since public schools have to reflect someone's beliefs, why not ours?
***
Back in Middle School, when we hit the sex ed portion of the health curriculum, teachers handed everyone a note alerting their parents, and advising them that they could opt to have their children study other health related topics in the library.
My answer is simple: when the class comes to the creationist and intelligent design portions of the curriculum teachers should send a note home with all the children.
And if the parents want to let their kids sit in the library reading about Galapagos, the school should let them.
4 comments:
Adam, i think you misspelled "whining" :)
Here's how i look at this issue (keep in mind I am a heathen and will burn in hell if there is one).
Evolution is taught in science class. It is a theory of science - created by scientists and advocated for by scientists. Creationism (and to a degree Intelligent Design) is a theory of religion, specifically a theory of Christianity. Inclusion of religioun in a science class is as inappropriate as inclusion of science in a religion class. Public schools, being secular institutions, don't teach religion (as it should be).
You will note that i'm not agruing the virtue of any of these theories over each other, since that isn't really the point.
A few other notes:
The president isn't holding back the truth about evolution/creation to stay in office - he's fighting a war to stay in office. Of course, this is related since this basic problems that are beneath the obvious troubles in the middle east bascially revolve around refusal to accept differing religious beliefs.
Re: Sex Ed. - I understand why parents can opt their kids out of this, but it is a terrible idea. Lack of knowledge/education about reproduction and sex are major culprits for teen pregnancy, STD transmission, abortion, and even child abuse (although in a more distant way). Many people might say/think "you don't trust the parents to educate their children about this?" In an ideal world, yes, i would, but in this real world, not all parents, maybe most parents avoid talking to their kids about sex, or are uninformed themselves.
Anyway, enough ranting. sorry for hijackign your blog, Adam.
Shoot, you're not hijacking, you're responding.
The original Slate article dismisses sincere religious belief as, I suppose the best word is superstition.
And then proceeds to inform both materialists and supernaturalists that we misunderstand the terms of the debate.
The author's total lack of humility stuck in my craw, and so in proper internet fashion I wrote a counter-screed no one will ever see.
As for what topics get included in public school instruction, and how those topics are discussed, here we come to the heart of the matter.
Now, I'm no scientist, but over at Pitt they had a small but influential department devoted to the History and Philosophy of science. Certain assumptions about the nature of reality are generally accorded to be necessary for science to work.
So that's the real rub, is epistemiology part of science, or not. I think it is, and so I think it's reasonable in a science class to discuss the question "how do we read experimental data to infer laws of nature, and what are the limits to the laws we thereby derive?"
I am willing to concede that evolution is a useful theory for the purposes of, say, molecular biologists. Yet, to claim that evolution gives answers to questions about human telos is, to my mind, clear overreaching.
Thank you for your comments!
(I'm at a web cafe in Times Sq., so I'm not logged into Blogger.)
"Shoot" and "shucks" and other comments.
The Slate article may have things wrong with it, but I doubt it's the ones you picked on.
I'll blog on ID at some point; it deserves to be smacked around as often as its proponents keep hanging around.
Shouldn't we be having a full and honest debate about the merits of neonaticide (killing of post-birth infants, usually by their parents)? Shouldn't we expose children to both sides of the debate over restricting hardcore pornography to pay channels and dingy stores? Can't we have an honest, open, and full debate in our elementary schools about whether Saddam Hussein or George W. Bush was the leader who was elected more fairly?
No, we can't, and we won't. That's not because of snarkiness (alone). It's because certain questions have single right answers (Hussein was never in a fair election in his life, that I know of, and Bush won in a dirty but fair election his last time at bat), and others may have more than one, but are not appropriate for children to wrestle with.
Questions that involve wrestling with the deepest issues of faith are seldom appropriate in elementary school. Debate the death penalty? Wait until high school. Discuss premarital sex? Wait until middle school or later. Discuss adult human sexual perversion? Usually you have to wait until college classes, or read about it on your own.
Some things can be reasonably debated. The _scientific_ basis for _intelligent design_ is not, and no scientist anywhere can reasonably say it is. People who talk about the "assumptions" that science makes, are not scientists. People who talk about faith and science as if they talked about the same thing in the same way, are deluded.
Evolution is not a "useful" theory. It is the fundamental organizing theory for all of biology, from biochemistry to zoology to pathology and immunology. Denial of the validity of the theory of descent with modification as presently understood is an EXTRAORDINARY claim, one requiring EXTRAORDINARY proof, unlike creation science, which is just nonsense, tied up with a bow.
There is no extraordinary proof for the existence of God. Show me one. That's what science is all about. Show a falsifiable proof for the existence of God, one where I could do the test and then say, "Oh, this is a positive result, but it _could theoretically have been_ negative," and we'll be on the right track.
Rant off; longer rant to follow, on my blog.
Thanks Eh!
Oh, I don't know, I think the basic errors of logic in the Slate article annoyed me most.
And, making those errors while castigating evolutionists and those of us of a non-materialist persuasion was just icing on the cake.
Your point, that education does not happen all at once, and that it is reasonable to delay exposing students to some things is well taken. From my perspective, those decisions are best made by a democratically responsive school system in partnership with parents, even if that turns out to be suboptimal from a strictly pedagogic point of view. (A point I also should have brought-up responding to Matt's comments regarding sex ed above.)
As to the need for extraordinary proof to support extraordinary claims, I certainly agree. For most Americans, the claim that any part of the Bible is wrong is extraordinary, and requires extraordinary evidence to overturn our settled belief.
Descent with modification is certainly true as a statement about how the world we see around us usually works. But the "forbidden" use of evolution that Creationists reject is the inference that, since descent-with-modification could describe how the panoply of life we see around us, it must be the way humans (and all other life) were created.
As always, I look forward to your expanded take on these topics over at your blog!
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