Re: [asa] Science and the Public Good was Re: World sets ocean temperature record

On Aug 23, 2009, at 10:43 AM, David Clounch wrote:

> Why is it good for society for one group of Christians (NCSE) to
> battle in court with another group of Christians (YECs)?

The NCSE is not a Christian organization.

> Especially if the result (the "effect") is to ensure that all ideas
> that might in any way support or be compatible with any version of
> a Christian world view is then excluded?

That's only the case if you buy into the warfare model. The NCSE, the
National Academies, and the AAAS support a viewpoint that evolutionary
science is compatible with religion, including Christianity. Thus, by
definition, Christianity would not be excluded.

> Leaving only ideas that are compatible with and support the
> atheist worldview?
>
> Remember, any school district that can ban Behe can also ban
> Collins. In fact they can also ban all ASA materials too.
>
> My school district has a policy which, if enforced fairly, must ban
> all ASA materials.
>
> This poisoned ground wasn't caused by atheists. It was caused by
> Christians.

You're right. When the DI tried to sneak in Creationism with Pandas
they got caught with the "cdesign propopentists" edit in the
Kitzmiller trial, exposing the lie that they weren't religiously
motivated. This completely poisoned things to the point that
reasonable suggestions such as what Ted has proposed here are probably
not politically feasible. It's most likely a lost cause at the high
school level except maybe getting a stipulation that science teachers
shouldn't actively and explicitly proselytize for atheism. Since this
rarely if ever happen this is not really much of an improvement.
Fortunately, at the university level this is not an issue. Behe spoke
last year at our local state university.

>
>
> I would ask Christians to please stop doing this. Please adopt a
> policy of constitutional neutrality. A policy of tolerating and
> even accommodating Christians with other views of science.
>

I think Ted has a good idea to do this but I am not optimistic that in
the charged environment we can do it. Organizations such as the DI
could make it easier to support such things by turning down the
temperature and eschewing the charged political rhetoric and their
warfare model.

Rich Blinne
Member ASA

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Received on Sun Aug 23 17:45:22 2009