Re: The El Tajon situation [was Judge Jones sided]

>>> "Robert Schneider" <rjschn39@bellsouth.net> 01/11/06 10:45 AM
>>>writes:
Ted,

After reading the news articles and the draft syllabus of the short term
course at El Tajon High School called "Philosophy of Design" and being
offered as a philosophy course, I wonder if we are seeing the next step in

the ID/YEC strategy for getting ID into H.S. courses as science. The
course
is advertised as a philosophy course, but it is clear from the syllabus
that
the real intent of the course is to teach the "sciences" of YEC and ID.
The
syllabus, however improved, has a blatant YEC agenda behind it. What this

course offers is even worse than what the Dover board tried to do with its

warning statement. I hope we do not see a range of "philosophy" courses
being proposed around the country that are really creation science and ID
science courses.

I agree with you that H.S. courses that deal with philosophical issues,
including the philosophy of science, should be encouraged. I also think
that in a science course (college or H.S.), when the nature of science and

what and how scientists work are presented, ID ought to be presented in
this
context so that students would be able to see that ID has yet to offer a
scientific support for its theology. However, there may well be a constant

struggle to keep philosophy courses or units within courses freed of the
blatant ID, really YEC, agenda that is apparent in the El Tajon course.

In one respect I'm glad that the El Tajon course is such a blatant example

of manipulation of "philosophy," as it should be much easier to be
challenged in the courts. It appears to be another example of a course
thrown together at the last minute, to be taught by a person who admits to

being unqualified but sympathetic to the subject matter, statements going
out to parents, etc., we know the story--presumably to make it more
difficult to challenge it legally. I would like to see a judge issue an
injunction against the course until the merits of it can be reviewed.

Bob Schneider
Ted replies:

Bob, we're on the same page, mostly.

However, I think that students should *also* see that there are persistent
explanatory problems in evolutionary theory--such as the details of how
precisely to interpret the fossil record (see my earlier posts on this), and
whether or not the origin of life and its complexity are adequately
accounted for in present science. I do not believe that simply by raising
questions about such things that one is simply advancing religion--even
though religious critics of evolution are overjoyed by the exercise. The
common ground that ought to exist here is truth--religous people believe in
it, and secular people do too. The problem is a lack of agreement about how
to establish what is true, and that's where the poltics come in and distort
truth and the search for it. It is TRUE, pure and simple, that there are
important explanatory "gaps" in evolutionary theory (as Michael Ruse even
admits); it is also TRUE that some of these "gaps" have persisted since
1859. It seems fair to me to ask whether a fully Darwinian paradigm is
really adequate--it's the kind of question that Kuhn writes about. When do
anomalies become crises in a science? If most scientists don't perceive a
crisis, at least quite a few see the areas that continue to present
explanatory problems, and science education is very well served when
students understand this point.

Responding to Rich, now, I don't think that anyone should abandon any
particular idea b/c of the judge's ruling here. I continue to think that we
need to revise our idea of what counts as public education, to break down
the monopoly that "secular" education presently holds on our schools.
"Secular" in the sense of disallowing religious views to be expressed is not
nearly the same thing as "secular" in the sense of genuine neutrality toward
all individual expressions of religion. There's the problem, as I have
thought for about twenty years. Johnson and his friends are entirely right
about that part, and I've thought so before they were saying it.

Ted
Received on Wed Jan 11 11:26:06 2006