A decision came down this week from the U.S. District Court in Central California in the case of Farnan v. Capistrano Unified School District. There are a few emerging news reports on what happened; the best article I found so far is in the Orange County Register. Apparently a student (Farnan) recorded a number of statements made in a AP course on European history taught by James Corbett, and the student felt that the statements made by the teacher violated his First Amendment rights under the establishment clause. Among the twenty or so statements made by Corbett about which the complaint was made, the court found that only one, where Corbett referred to creationism as “religious, superstitious nonsense” violated the student’s constitutional right not to have a “government official” in effect establish a secularist religion.
The statement arose, apparently, because another teacher, Peloza, was, in Corbett’s view, teaching religious, superstitious nonsense. From the Court’s ruling:
Peloza apparently brought suit against Corbett because Corbett was the advisor to a student newspaper which ran an article suggesting that Peloza was teaching religion rather than science in his classroom. Corbett explained to his class that Peloza, a teacher, “was not telling the kids [Peloza’s students] the scientific truth about evolution.” Corbett also told his students that, in response to a request to give Peloza space in the newspaper to present his point of view, Corbett stated, “I will not leave John Peloza alone to propagandize kids with this religious, superstitious nonsense.” One could argue that Corbett meant that Peloza should not be resenting his religious ideas to students or that Peloza was presenting faulty science to the students. But there is more to the statement: Corbett states an unequivocal belief that creationism is “superstitious nonsense.” The Court cannot discern a legitimate secular purpose in this statement, even when considered in context. The statement therefore constitutes improper disapproval of religion in violation of the Establishment Clause.
The decision is worth taking a look at, and may become a cause celebre for the creationists. It’s worth wading through the legalese, and getting to the other statements that the court did not think violated Farnan’s rights, and which statements it felt did. In the case of the Peloza comment, the Court suggested that Corbett might have “criticized Peloza for teaching religious views in class without disparaging those views” and thereby would not have violated their rights. Yikes! Quite subtle nuances now separate what you can and can’t say in class.
If you are a teacher, particularly one who intends to tell your students that creation “science” isn’t really science but is religiously inspired non-science, are you violating your students’ rights? I can imagine many, many more things which, said slightly different ways, could be taken to violate students’ rights. Can a court really take a single sentence and say “this constitutes the establishment of a state (non)religion”? I am aghast at the thought.
Personally I hope that Corbett and the Capistrano school district appeal this one…and the ACLU should take a major interest here. The chilling and anti-rational effect of this ruling on classrooms all over the country is all too real.
May 8th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
so now it becomes a liability to tell the truth in schools, if it offends someone’s beliefs or claims it’s against a religion… Or maybe it was always so.
May 8th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
Am I misunderstanding this – or does this decision establish creationism as a point of view that is inseperable from religion?
If someone’s right to religious freedom is being trampled on because creationism is being slammed, then creationism is clearly a doctrine belonging to some religion – and would violate the rights of a person whom subscribes to a different religion if it were to be taught.
May 8th, 2009 at 4:28 pm
“Corbett states an unequivocal belief that creationism is “superstitious nonsense.” The Court cannot discern a legitimate secular purpose in this statement, even when considered in context.”
This is pure hogwash, and contradictory. I think the DOJ needs to investigate.
May 8th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
From pg 27 of the decision, a quote from Corbett
“Contrast that with creationists. They never try to disprove
creationism. They’re all running around trying to prove it. That’s
deduction. It’s not science. Scientifically, it’s nonsense.”
To which the court responds
“For example, in
discussing creationism, Corbett stated that “[s]cientifically, it’s nonsense.” Corbett
did not say that he thinks creationism is nonsense but that generally accepted
scientific principles do not logically lead to the theory of creationism. The Court
recognizes, however, that common sense dictates that people of a certain religious
faith may be offended by a comparison of their religion to “magic” and that this
could be construed as being derogatory. Nevertheless, the Court cannot find that
the primary effect of the lecture was to disapprove of religion.”
Here the court clearly demonstrates that it acknowledges that a statement that creationalism is nonsense does not violates any rights. From a purely scientific viewpoint, which represents a secular purpose, creationalism is nonsense. The judge contradicts himself when he finds that stating that creationalism is “superstitious nonsense” has no secular purpose. It clearly serves the secular purpose of promoting scientific reasoning.
May 8th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
Does this mean it is not illegal in a public school to refer to the gods of ancient Greece as ‘Greek mythology”? As some writers have found out when they’ve said things publicly like “Well, you don’t believe in people like Zeus, do you…”, on this planet of 6 billion folks, there are still people who follow that religion. I myself refer to ‘ religious mythologies’ in talking to groups about science, space, and evolution; since, if any of them were factually true, to me, they would no longer be religion – they’d be science, or part of the natural world.
May 8th, 2009 at 6:32 pm
I really wish that people were much more reasonable about this.
The biggest danger with passionate skepticism is cynicism. A closed mind is, by definition, not a skeptical mind.
This decision is nit-picky to the point where the defendant is judged as “justified” in many comments that are clearly disparaging and totally unnecessary. ONE comment for which the judge could find no pedagogical purpose (mostly because of when he said it) was judged to violate the student’s rights.
This teacher did much more than teach that faith has no scientific value or even that faith cannot provide knowledge, both of which would (IMO) be exactly what we all should be teaching. His language clearly demonstrates and attempt to strip those kids of their faith, and that is simply wrong.
We cannot tell the religious that they have no right to preach to our children, then get mad when someone says that it is not right to “unpreach” to theirs.
What we need to be doing is teaching children that faith is faith, science is science, and the two do not mix. When those children are adults with the right to change the channel, close the book, or turn away, we can say whatever we want. Until then, freedom is a 2-way street.
One more note: I realize that many skeptics reject the stance that science and religion can live side by side, but I know from experience that I will never be able to teach science to the faithful by first attacking their faith. I will reach a LOT more of them by showing them how to reconcile the two. If they can learn what I teach them of science, they will eventually question that faith.
May 8th, 2009 at 7:11 pm
I am a public high school physics teacher who teaches the Big Bang because many kids are interested, it is important, and I know quite a bit about it. My students have included young earth creationists and even one whose father is a YEC pastor. I explain why we know the Big Bang happened and what we and I do not leave the door open even a crack for other interpretations. We know that the Big Bang happened 13.7 billion years ago.
I do not bring up God, but students do. It is not that difficult to deal with those questions without trouble. “I am teaching science. As scientists we look at the world to figure out how it works. If what science finds conflicts with something that you believe, I can’t tell you how to resolve that conflict. I can only tell you what we see.”
I do not discuss any religious beliefs, I just talk about science. If they do not see a conflict, great. If they do, it’s not my problem or concern. Since I don’t talk about religion there is no need, nor any place, for words like “nonsense.”
May 9th, 2009 at 12:04 am
“Personally I hope that Corbett and the Capistrano school district appeal this one…and the ACLU should take a major interest here. The chilling and anti-rational effect of this ruling on classrooms all over the country is all too real.”
Yes, yes, yes.
In my opinion, this seems to even flatly contract Kitzmiller v. Dover? Didn’t Judge Jones say that Creationism and ID are, in fact, “religious”?
May 9th, 2009 at 1:14 am
It seems to me that there is a fine but definite line between saying:
1) “Creationism is not a scientific theory, and cannot be legitimately taught as a scientific alternative.”
and saying:
2) “Creationism is superstitious nonsense.”
Many things fall outside of the category of scientific theories without being nonsense (superstitious or otherwise): art history, the philosophy of ethics, arguably even studies on the foundations of logic. Religious philosophy, even creationism, can be viewed in this light.
In line with Gavin Polhemus, I do not think it is necessary or useful to teach people that religion or religious beliefs are wrong in order to convince them that science is right. This sort of “chip-on-the-shoulderism” doesn’t convince anyone who starts out with a different opinion, it just offends and alienates them.
The Dawkins/Hitchens approach of interpreting every assertion of religious belief as an implicit attack on science greatly overstates the profile of science in the worldview of ordinary people, most of whom don’t care that much about science.
The way to teach people about science is to show what is interesting and even useful about it, not by attacking their core beliefs. You want to catch flies? Use honey.
May 9th, 2009 at 6:29 am
Lots 0f great points in the comments above – thanks!
In thinking about this more, it’s becoming more clear to me that what Corbett meant when he said “creationism” is “creation science”. Perhaps if he had said that explicitly, or elaborated to explain clearly just what he thought was nonsense, it would clearly not have violated anyone’s rights.
The idea that, if you are a teacher, and a slip of the tongue means that you violate someone’s constitutional rights, and are then subject to adjudication of some sort, is absurd. Hopefully this will be realized in the appeal.
May 9th, 2009 at 9:04 am
Text of the First Amendment to the US constitution:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
Seems pretty clear to me that only Congress can violate people’s First Amendment rights, and only in the process of setting something into law. This doesn’t seem to me like an amendment that leaves itself wide open for judicial interpretation, it seems to be nothing more than a restriction on the type of laws that Congress is allowed to enact. But I’m not a legal scholar, so if anyone with some background in constitutional law sees this post, could you enlighten me as to when in American history this amendment was revised to: “No public employee, from the city to the federal level, shall ever say anything in disparagement or disagreement with the religious beliefs of any citizen.”
May 9th, 2009 at 9:30 am
Josh: if you read the ruling you will find that almost all of it is in favor of Corbett – moreso, IMO, than should be. It is actually a ruling that is good for US because it reinforces the definition of creationism as religion; Corbett could not have been found to violate the kid’s 1st amendment rights if he did not disparage the kid’s religion.
John: Corbett’s tongue did not slip. It is clear from all of the documentation and recordings that he is quite an activist. That would be great if he did not bring that into a public high school classroom.
Kevin: Children are required by law to attend school. If we provide public education, those children are, in effect, required by law to be there and to listen (their grades depend on it). The 1st amendment has been slightly modified to clarify that “establishment of religion” means the establishment of a specific religious doctrine or the absence of any religious doctrine. This means that telling children that “there is no God, and that’s a fact” is as illegal as telling children that “Jesus died for your sins.”
What Corbett did was pretty clear is you consult the source. Without a “secular purpose” – in this case, which a pedagogical reason – he called creationism “superstitious nonsense”.
This isn’t rocket science, people.
May 9th, 2009 at 9:55 am
I’d like to offer my hearty endorsement and gratitude for Gavin Polhemus’ approach.
May 9th, 2009 at 10:24 am
John,
I agree with badrescher: This is not a matter of a slip of the tongue. Corbett’s attitude is fundamentally anti-religious. As a personal point of view, there is no problem with that; but he should not be proselytizing anti-religion, any more than a Christian should be promoting Christianity in a science class. Corbett doesn’t need to be a Constitutional scholar to stay out of trouble: He simply has to avoid trying to shove anti-religion down his students’ throats.
I will give an example from my own experience: One year, in expiation of my sins (or something like that), I was teaching high-school physics. The question of the relationship of the Bible and science came up. So I asked a series of questions:
- “Who believes that God created the Earth?” Lots of hands went up.
- “Who believes that it took 6 days, and was finished 4,000 years ago?” Most students agreed that the 6 days should not be taken literally; there was one hand still up, although he was taking a little bit of laughter from the others. He stated that he was fundamentalist.
- “OK, we have one student who interprets Genesis literally. No, the rest of you should stop laughing: I’m not going to question that, it’s a legitimate point of view. But I have a few other things for Luis to think about. Luis, do you have any problem with the theory of carbon dating? It comes out of nuclear physics.” Luis had no problem with carbon dating, because there was no mention of C-14 in the Bible.
- “According to our nuclear physics, the half-life of Carbon-14 is about 6,000 years. So according to nuclear physics – which does not conflict with the Bible – we find that there are lots of critters that lived way earlier than 4,000 years. That poses a problem for you to think about, because science has a unity and a basic consistency that has to be respected: You can’t take just part of it here and forget the rest of it there, it all hangs together. If you accept carbon dating, you have to accept that the world is older than 4,000 years.”
Luis was really surprised by the C-14 argument, because he hadn’t seen that coming. He did not feel under pressure, however, because I had absolutely and publicly supported his right to have a religious orientation on this point.
I left it there. I don’t know whether he eventually decided that the world really was older than 4,000 years or whether he decided that nuclear physics was wrong. I am reasonably certain that he didn’t just forget the issue.
My point is that you can teach the issue of scientific conflicts with religion without attacking what may be a student’s core beliefs, and it is respectful of the students to do that. They are not in school to be proselytized, but to be educated.
May 9th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
Kevin: When I am teaching in a public school, I am the government. The 1st amendment is not there to protect me from the government, it is there to protect my students from me.
John: Which of these statements is ok from a teacher?
A) I will not leave John Peloza alone to propagandize kids with this religious, superstitious nonsense.
B) I will not leave John Peloza alone to propagandize kids with his religion.
C) I will not leave John Peloza alone to propagandize kids with this atheist, heretical nonsense.
D) I will not leave John Peloza alone to propagandize kids with atheism.
The first, A, is the actual statement. As an atheist and a parent, I’d be pretty annoyed if a teacher was making statements like C in my son’s classroom, so I can certainly see why A would be a problem. The ruling says that B and D are allowed, but A and C are not. This seem like a sensible and easy-to-follow rule. While Corbett went to far in this case, he didn’t make a pattern of going to far, so I think the punishments should be very mild.
May 9th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
By JAMES CORBETT
Teacher at Capistrano Valley High School. A federal judge ruled recently that Corbett violated the First Amendment’s establishment clause by disparaging Creationism.
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Over 2,000 years ago Socrates faced a court for refusing to recognize the gods acknowledged by the state, importing strange divinities and corrupting the young. The judges sent Socrates to his death. He accepted the sentence of the court and committed suicide by drinking a cup of hemlock.
The only virtue for Socrates was “knowledge.” He reached it by questioning the most deeply held beliefs of his students by which I mean all of Athens and ultimately all of us. What troubled the Athenians about Socrates, however, was not listed in the charges. His crime was that he prompted people to think.
His provocations exposed the Athenians’ shallowness of belief and mindless deference to myth. Socrates was judged because he was successful in provoking his students “examine their lives.” [his words]Those who guard the myths must try and strike down any who teach young people to think and question, because myths often shrink in the light of reason, draining power from those in authority who benefit from belief.
There are thousands of teachers who agree with Socrates that, “[t]he unexamined life is not worth living.” Every teacher who makes a student think takes the risk that he will be attacked by parents and others who see themselves as guardians of cherished political and religious myth. The teachers willing to take that risk should be rewarded, not punished. After the verdict, the Athenian court asked Socrates what his punishment should be. He responded that he should get free meals at the Pyrataneum, a celebration hall for Olympian athletes. Socrates went on to explain that those who passed judgment were not harming him, but rather themselves. He said, by killing him they corrupted their own souls and revealed the weakness of their own belief. A true believer does not fear that a few questions can undo years of parental teaching. Those who would “protect” students from self-examination have little faith and great fear.
Chad Farnan, the boy who sued me, was an average student, who admitted under oath that he did not do the required reading for the class. If Chad’s lawyers, the “Advocates for Faith and Freedom,” and his parents were actually concerned with protecting the boy, why didn’t they simply come to me and ask me to explain my comments? Neither they nor the Farmans ever expressed concerns to me nor to any administrators before they came to school with attorneys and reporters in tow to drop a lawsuit on the desk of Tom Ressler, our principal. Perhaps more importantly, the Farmans were aware long before Chad took my class that I go out of my way to be provocative. Every year in July, I send a letter home to students who have signed up for my class. Chad admitted under oath that he received that letter. The letter says, in part:
“Most days we will spend a few minutes (sometimes more) at the beginning of class discussing current events from either The Orange County Register or the L.A. Times. I may also use material from a variety of news Web sites. Discussion will be quite provocative, and focus on the ‘lessons’ of history. My goal is to have you go home with something that will provoke discussion with your parents. Students may offer any perspective without concern that anything they say will impact either my attitude toward them or their grades. I encourage a full range of views.”
I included my home phone number and e-mail address in that letter and encouraged parents to contact me if they had any concerns. Chad admitted under oath that my lectures prompted many discussions with his parents. I might add, that in 20 years in the CUSD, I have never had a complaint filed against me, save this one.
Every teacher in California (this was a federal case after all) now works with the knowledge that any student, at any time, and in violation of California law, can sneak a tape recorder into a classroom, record the teacher and use an out-of-context five second comment as a bludgeon to threaten, to intimidate and, ultimately, to destroy the teacher’s career and good name.
Challenging myths is dangerous, but it is the essence of getting students to think for themselves. The Athenian judges, like some parents today, would have students accept myth without question, because myth is the foundation of their parental, political and/or religious authority. Ms. Farnan objected to my challenging the myth of the Puritans as a pious people who fled religious intolerance to found America. As Ms. Farnan sees them, the Puritans are quaint, pious people with buckles on their hats and shoes as portrayed in the national mythology, but they may also be seen as intolerant, misogynistic and homophobic religious bigots who hanged Mary Dyer, a Quaker girl, for preaching something other than Puritan doctrine and several other women for the crime of “witchcraft.”
Questioning may make students and parents uncomfortable, but students have a right to think for themselves. It is not “bullying” to demand that students think.
Ms. Farnan also objected to my challenge of another national myth, that the United States was founded as a “Christian” nation. There is some truth to that notion, but embracing that myth and excluding other views can be used to unfairly gain political advantage. Another view of the founding fathers can be seen in the writings of Thomas Jefferson, the man who authored the Declaration of Independence. He translated the Bible. The last words of the Jeffersonian Bible might shake Ms. Farnan’s faith: “There laid they Jesus, and rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulcher, and departed.” There was no resurrection for Jefferson, he rejected all the Biblical miracles, as contrary to reason. I doubt with his view would be called “Christian” by Ms. Farnan or anyone else. James Madison, who penned the Constitution, warned, “Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and units it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect.” If Jefferson and Madison were alive today, I doubt they could be elected. The guardians of the national myth would rise up and smite them as unbelievers.
We respect the guardians and their myths at our peril because history (and science) changes and improves with knowledge, but the same force damages myth based on belief. That’s why the guardians fear the knowledge begat by questioning. For them, “knowledge” is gained in rote memory of approved truth. They chant in the school, temple, church or mosque and fool themselves into thinking they’ve acquired knowledge.
All those teachers, and there are many of us, who understand the value of questioning sacred myths serve this nation as faithfully as other patriots. What is true will be strengthened. What is false will be destroyed, as it should be. Such teachers should be honored. There is no greater gift teachers can give to students than to teach them to think. Don’t sue them for it. Try taking them to the Pyrataneum for dinner, conversation and a cup of coffee, no hemlock.
May 9th, 2009 at 9:40 pm
Gavin P. has it exactly right here and John has it exactly wrong. As Gavin says, the 1st amendment in the classroom setting is designed to protect the students from him (and me!). WELL SAID!
I happen to be an atheist also, but while disparaging creationism in my astro classes, I’m pretty careful not to disparage religion as religion. I even go so far as to point out (while not telling students my personal beliefs, which are none of their business) that I know lots of religious physicists and astronomers, including some fundamentalist Christians and a couple of Jesuit astronomers. As Gavin said, Corbett messed up, as we all can do if we’re not careful. The fact that he messed up in a good cause (as most of the readers here believe), is irrelevant to the fundamentals of separation of Church and State.
May 9th, 2009 at 10:33 pm
The coverage of this issue has been very strange. All of the headlines suggest that Corbett lost this case. However, the ruling looks at a huge volume of comments made by Corbett, many of them quite outrageous in my mind, and concludes that all of them are constitutional except for the “superstitious nonsense” comment. Even those exact words would have probably been ok according to this ruling if he had been teaching about the epistemological standing of creationism, rather than venting a professional dispute he was having with another teacher.
I cannot imagine this ruling having a chilling effect on any teacher who actually reads it. Look at this comment these comments which were all ruled constitutional:
“When you put on your Jesus glasses, you can’t see the truth.”
“[C]onservatives don’t want women to avoid pregnancies. That’s
interfering with God’s work. You got to stay pregnant, barefoot, and
in the kitchen and have babies until your body collapses. All over the
world, doesn’t matter where you go, the conservatives want control
over women’s reproductive capacity. Everywhere in the world. From
conservative Christians in this country to, um, Muslim
fundamentalists in Afghanistan. It’s the same. It’s stunning how
vitally interested they are in controlling women.”
The context for these was everything. I encourage everyone to read the ruling. It is very clearly written.
James: Socrates made people uncomfortable, and your insults make people uncomfortable, but your insults do not make you Socrates.
May 10th, 2009 at 2:42 am
James Corbett,
The fact that some of us do not agree with your position or the specific statement at issue should not be taken for lack of sympathy. I believe no one here wants a severe penalty.
It should be sufficient that you avoid proselytizing anti-religion, just as you would want others to avoid proselytizing religion.
May 10th, 2009 at 4:44 am
Thank you, Mr. Corbett, for weighing in here. Having read more (and there is plenty out there) it is clear to me that the conflict here is not between church and state but between a rational versus an irrational approach to understanding our natural world. As the court noted in Peloza v Capistrano, adding “ism” to “evolution” does not make it a religion. And creation scicence isn’t science.
I fully agree that teachers should not, as “agents of the state”, declare categorically that religion is nonsense, any more than they should declare that, say, they think evolution is nonsense. The first amendment *does* protect students as well as teachers. Here it should protect them from superstitious nonsense, which is precisely what the creationist approach to understanding the origin of life on earth is.
May 10th, 2009 at 10:16 am
Brief summary of my facts and opinions.
(1) Fact 1: I was an Adjunct Professor of Astronomy, after 20 years in Aerospace/Space program, and a number of provocative papers at the fringe of Quantum Cosmology. Between 5% and 10% of my college students didn’t believe that people have been to the Moon. To say that they were skeptical of Big Bang Cosmology (except “Let there be Light” is an understatement.
(2) Fact 2: I taught Chemistry, Biology, Anatomy & Physiology in a high school charter school, with a heavy emphasis on Evolution by Natural Selection. Roughly 30% of my students appeared to be some isotope of Creationist. Roughly 5% were self-identified in Intelligent Design. I made it clear that I didn’t care what they believed. I wasn’t telling them what to think. I was showing them how to think. I accepted Creationist answers which cited evidence, rather than dogma. I was sl;ightly uncomfortable with helping an Intelligent Design student towards U.C. Berkleley Med School, but he was bright, hard working, and so I pass that problem on to the UC system.
(3) As current President of the Humanists Association of Cal State L.A., I have steered the student group consensus towards a middle-of-the-road position. I lean towards Agnosticism, rather than hard-core anti-Religion Atheism. It is not the religious who are ant-science. Ask any Jesuit Astronomer. Ask Newton. However, Intelligent Design has been proven in court to be religion fraudulently presented as Science. Intelligent Design is in fact an enemy of Science as an enterprise.
(4) I believe that Socrates was right. He chose to be a martyr for truth and knowledge and academic freedom. Hence I support Mr. Corbett’s nuanced position, as he articulates it. I refuse to denigrate lawyers and judges (all of whom are now lawyers, unlike at the time of Darwin or even Scopes). But the distinction should be drawn between the paradigm of Mathematics (axiomatic truth), Science (empirical truth), Law (politolegal truth), Art (aesthetic truth), and Religion (revealed truth). The words “truth”, “proof”, “evidence”, and “theory” do not mean the same thing from one of these 5 to any other.
May 10th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
If someone must or must not have specific beliefs in order to attend a science class in school, and is subject to disparagement in the classroom from the teacher because of those beliefs, then we’re in big trouble. I think Gavin P. is perfect in his approach.
May 11th, 2009 at 4:42 am
Ironically, I believe this court decision is 100% a product of how this age old battle has been fought. All too often people that are so adamant about getting “religion out of schools”, they sort of twisted and turned the establishment clause and argued it well past the point, of what I believe, that the founding fathers had intended when they wrote it.
Now, it is what it is, and the cultural battle that has been waging for many, many years is continuing onward and upward.
Regarding the commenter Whaaaaa?
When you said, “The judge contradicts himself when he finds that stating that creationalism is “superstitious nonsense” has no secular purpose. It clearly serves the secular purpose of promoting scientific reasoning. ”
It may server the purpose of promoting scientific reasoning, it’s going about it the completely wrong way. There are far better methods to promote reasoning than denigrating philosophical stances in a captive audience.
May 11th, 2009 at 7:37 am
Belittling someone is not generally the way to change their mind, but that doesn’t change the fact that creationism *is* nonsense.
May 11th, 2009 at 11:23 am
The battle between “creation science” and REAL science IS definitely s a battle “….. between a rational versus an irrational approach to understanding our natural world.” This court case is ENTIRELY about separating Church and State, which is the proper job of an American court. Scientists are themselves quite capable of fighting the first battle. Courts do have to rule on whether scientific evidence is permissible (polygraphs, dna testing (in which the statistics are almost always presented in misleading ways) etc. etc. ) and in that narrow sense they do make judgments about science. Good jurists keep those rulings as narrow as possible.
May 12th, 2009 at 6:16 am
Evolution is a theory – fact. Theories aren’t any more real than superstitious religion. Why not just teach facts in school, which would exclude evolution. You can teach facts. There were dinosaurs – fact. There has been no evidence of macro-evolution. Micro-evolution? Yes. But if you look at all the “evidence” pointing to evolution, such as “Lucy”, it’s just bone fragments that some decided what the rest of it looked like. That is superstitious here say.
May 12th, 2009 at 7:52 am
Robert, you have a lot of reading to do, sorry. Few scientific frameworks have had the unqualified success that evolution has had in explaining how life arose. It is supported by so many and varied observations (certainly not just “bone fragments”) that it really is the only way one can discuss the origins of species on our planet.
As an introduction for a non-specialist (and I assume you are not a biologist), you might try one one of the many popular books on the subject, such as those by Stephen Jay Gould , Richard Dawkins (”The Blind Watchmaker”, “The Ancestors’ Tale”) , or Sean B. Carroll (not my co-blogger).
As for scientific theories being “any more real than superstitious religion”, I would offer the following. A scientist who has a theory is perfectly willing to abandon that theory if evidence arises which contradicts it. Those who believe in superstition and/or religion are not willing to abandon those beliefs no matter what.
May 12th, 2009 at 9:55 am
The problem is, that just because you label something “scientific” doesn’t mean that it is true. I would agree on evolution in a micro sense, but there is not enough proof on a macro level. Evolutionist are just as dogmatic as people of faith, if not more so. There are many documented cases of discoveries being fraudulent or someone finding fragments of bones and building a complete skeleton from them. My point is that science should be taught in schools, just don’t give favoritism to creation OR evolution. Evolution is not truth. What is a theory? – “a coherent group of general propositions used as principles of explanation for a class of phenomena” What is phenomena? “something that is impressive or extraordinary.” Sounds like you need faith to believe in it, huh? Therefore, until it is proven, without a doubt. Don’t teach it. You can teach biology. You can teach geology. You can teach about dinosaurs. Etc, but don’t teach evolution, and don’t slam someone elses belief. Maybe you need to read outside your own circle?
May 12th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
Robert, do the reading. I really liked “The Ancestors’ Tale” by Richard Dawkins. He starts with the present, and traces human origins back to the earliest primates, the primates from the earliest mammals, etc. ultimately ending up with the ancient microbes, pointing out the converging lines of evolution (when going backward!) along with the fossil evidence, evidence from DNA, and patterns of morphology. I found it breathtaking, actually, to realize the connectedness we all share with all the creatures on the planet, going so deep into the past.
You ascribe the wrong attitude of a scientist towards theories. Theories aren’t something you decide to believe in or not. Theories either work or they don’t, and when they don’t they are either modified or abandoned in the face of a new point of view. Take relativistic quantum field theory. It seems to account for a huge array of known particle phenomena, and has made many predictions which later were demonstrated to be true. (In fact one important property for a scientific theory to have is prediction about the world.) However, RQFT does have its weaknesses, and a new and better way to organize the calculations of particles and their properties may emerge in the future. At that point we will all happily abandon it, I assure you. Faith has nothing to do with it.
May 24th, 2009 at 12:59 am
John–
Well, by “we will all happily”, you mean “all of us who are good scientists will eventually.” As some wag–who might have been a famous physicist in the early 20th century–noted, “Science progresses, funeral by funeral.”