Kudos to George Murphy

The following comes from an article in the Columbus Dispatch Wednesday March 10, reporting the Ohio school board's approval of lesson plans that include critique of evolution. (I get the digest, so other submissions today I haven't yet seen. Sorry if I'm duplicating).

****************

State OKs curriculum involving creationism
Board denies that the plan teaches religion
Wednesday, March 10, 2004
Catherine Candisky
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Snip . . .

The Rev. George Murphy of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Akron, a former
college physics professor, testified that the guidelines cater to those who
oppose evolution on religious grounds.

"The lesson plan leaves the impression that the arguments against evolution
are just as good as the arguments for evolution, and that just doesnt
reflect the preponderance of evidence," he said.

Snip . . .
****************

Well said, George. What are teachers and students going to spend time on in high school science classes?
The relationship between scientific findings and their possible religious implications should not dictate whether those findings make an appearance in the classroom. Perceived religion-friendly implications of "problems with evolution" should not exclude such discussions from the classroom. But, neither should those implications justify the inclusion of such discussions if they would otherwise be excluded as insignificant or invalid on purely scientific grounds.

All we can do is keep pointing out that 90% or more of scientists working in the discipline, and 100% of the professional scientific organizations that have developed positions on the issue, consider evolution to be solid science. I think it's also important to point out that some evolutionary scientists are religious believers, and that most consider religion and science compatible even if not religious themselves. We can also point to the lack of peer-reviewed journal articles or presentations at scientific meetings. Yes, Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin wrote books, but their work was also exposed to scrutiny in regular meetings of scientific peers, tested, and found to be valid. Can't say the same for the arguments of Jonathan Wells, William Dembski, Michael Behe, etc.

I don't know how else to counter arguments for "teaching the controversy" that apparently won the day in Ohio. The Santorum amendment to the No Child Left Behind Act, which survived only in the conference report rather than in the legislation itself, says that more than one view should be presented when the topic engenders controversy. Unfortunately, it didn't distinguish between controversy arising from competing alternative hypotheses each backed by similar amounts of evidence (which does sometimes happen in science), and controversy arising because some people don't like what they consider to be the religious implications of a well established scientific theory. The latter is clearly going on with regards to evolution.

Ideally school board members would learn enough science to see the evidence for evolution themselves. They might even learn enough theology to see that evolution does not equal atheism. I won't hold my breath. But we've got to try. Keep up the good work, George and others in Ohio.

Chuck

-- 
Charles (Chuck) F. Austerberry, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Biology
Hixson-Lied Science Building Room 438
Creighton University
2500 California Plaza
Omaha, NE  68178
Voice: (402)-280-2154
FAX: (402)-280-5595
e-mail: cfauster@creighton.edu
web: http://puffin.creighton.edu/Austerberry
Nebraska Religious Coalition for Science Education
http://nrcse.creighton.edu