Monkey See, Monkey Doo-Doo
Hallelujah!
Federal Judge John E. Jones III has ruled that gussied-up creationism, aka Intelligent Design, cannot be taught in biology classes in Dover, Pennsylvania.
AP reports:
"Jones said advocates of intelligent design 'have bona fide and deeply held beliefs which drive their scholarly endeavors' and that he didn't believe the concept shouldn't be studied and discussed.
"But, he wrote, 'our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom.'"
Of course, his ruling will not staunch the push by the Christian Right to pursue ID theory in an effort to drown out all that godless Darwinian hocus-pocus.
As we've been reminded many times on this blog, not all ID proponents are drooling, glassy-eyed Christian conservatives; and, indeed, a portion of ID theory is devoted to questioning aspects of evolution other than that regarding the origins of humankind.
Point taken.
Nevertheless, that hardly justifies the teaching of what is essentially creationism in science classes any more than Shakespeare belongs in Geometry.
posted by Chase McInerney @ 10:22 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
"...indeed, a portion of ID theory is devoted to questioning aspects of evolution other than that regarding the origins of humankind."
Just a few friendly comments as an addendum and clarification: First, I don't think I've personally yet met a drooling, glassy-eyed Christian conservative. Perhaps Chase has, thus the reason for his comment.
Second, in fact big portions of ID theory have absolutely NOTHING to do with evolution, period.
Rather these other scientific fields ignore evolution altogether -- evolution is simply not relevant to the discussion.
These other fields examine, for example, sentient consciousness (neuropscyhology and other similar fields looking at an intangible yet definite mind separate from the organic brain - recent experiments measuring brain patterns of Tibetan Buddhist monks would fall into this realm); cosmology and the origin of the universe (i.e. the Big Bang as solid proof of the classic logical cosmological argument for a rational, transcendent Creator); quantum physics (showing that time and space are malleable and can be transcended); astrophysics (i.e. the incredible fine-tuning of the universe); patterns theory (i.e. the striking repetition of similar and mathematically precise patterns at macro and micro levels of reality, such as spirals, honeycombs and so on -- PBS' NOVA examined these amazing repetitions in a one-hour installment), holographic universe theory and more.
Those fields are entirely separate from the evolutionary debate -- and because most involve higher math, high-level physics or ongoing research at the most elite medical and academic institutions in the nation, most of these things would not be appropriate in any secondary school setting.
And indeed that is the very position of the Discovery Institute, the think tank seen as the most visible ID proponent. They argue that ID is too new and without enough accumulated literature to even begin teaching it to high school students.
Eventually, however, as irrefutable proof for what Einstein referred to as the "singularity" of the hard-edged space-time boundary of the Big Bang begins to accumulate ... or for the nonmaterial, separate and yet quite real nature of mind ... or the anthropic nature of the universe's fine-tuning ... it will be difficult not to teach secondary students such things -- along with the logically unavoidable conclusions.
Red Dirt!
I am shocked -- shocked! -- that you would respond to this post!
I don't think Intelligent design should be taught in schools, but the scientific method is a process causing scientists to:
"have bona fide and deeply held beliefs which drive their scholarly endeavors"
Science is its own religion in many ways.
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