Schools and NOMA (was Re: [asa] Atheist finds God thru Behe's books....)

Good points, Merv. I can clarify one point for you. When I wrote:

>> Thus, I think it is perfectly appropriate to teach schoolchildren
>> information that would allow them to infer that YEC is impossible --
>> BUT only on the proviso that schoolchildren are ALSO taught information
>> that would allow them to infer that design is a more reasonable
>> explanation for the origin of life than abiogenesis by random
>> recombination of atoms.

I meant, in both cases "would allow them, in principle, to infer". That is,
I was not implying that YEC is impossible and that design is the most
reasonable explanation of life; I meant only that *if* the evidence pointed
to the conclusion that YEC was impossible, then teachers shouldn't be
stopped (for fear of offending YECs) from presenting that evidence, and that
*if* the evidence pointed to the conclusion that there was a designer,
teachers shouldn't be stopped (for fear of offending atheists) from
presenting that evidence.

Currently, however, it only works one way. Science teachers are legally
allowed to teach as *fact* that the earth is billions of years old and that
man is hundreds of thousands of years old, and children of YEC parents just
have to endure it; but science teachers aren't legally allowed to teach as
fact (even though it is fact) that Darwinian evolutionary theory has no
detailed explanation for the origin of the flagellum or the cardiovascular
system or the avian lung or any other major organ or system, and that the
only *known* source of integrated complexity on that level is
intelligence -- not even if they have previously laid out, at much greater
length, all the arguments in favour of Darwinism in their full strength, and
not even if they have made it clear that students will not be graded based
on which side they take. Were any science teacher to have the temerity to
present the opposite side in this balanced way, it would be Dover replayed:
the terrible trio of Eugenie Scott, the "Reverend" Barry Lynn, and the ACLU
would be all over the school board; the teacher would be accused of teaching
covert creationism, his or her church background would be investigated, the
principal would be phoned and asked to order the teacher to stop, the
Discovery Institute would be accused of egging the teacher on, and The New
York Times and The New Republic and NOVA television specials would inveigh
against "theocracy". And why? Because even granting the *possibility* that
design might be the logical inference would offend the atheists. So much
for the constitutional equality of religion and irreligion. When it comes
to school curriculum, the playing field is tilted far in favour of
irreligion. "Religiously neutral" has, by slow degrees, come to mean "not
offensive to secular humanists".

My point about Muslims and so on was that John seemed to be trying to make
sure that the school science curriculum favoured liberal Protestant
Christianity and kept out YEC and Islam, and I don't think that is a proper
goal for a school science curriculum. I think that liberal Protestantism
should be put just as much at risk as any other religion. I didn't include
ID in my list because ID isn't a religion.

I don't know how many people here are champions of NOMA, but many of the
arguments advanced here smell strongly of NOMA. However, I have no great
stake in this point, and am willing to withdraw it if everyone here
renounces NOMA as a ploy of the devil. :-) However, in that case, I would
ask the renouncers to specify at least *one* area in which science and
religion *do* overlap, and in which, at least potentially, a believer could
be forced to choose between the teaching of Christianity and the teaching of
science. So far, I have heard people here say that there *is* a conflict
between YEC Christianity and science, but the same people say that YEC is a
*flawed* form of Christianity, so from my point of view, that doesn't count
against belief in NOMA. What would count is if someone believed that even
the "correct" form of Christianity could, at least in principle, be opposed
to certain statements strongly affirmed by the majority of scientists. Such
a person would be acknowledging that in matters of religion, truth is more
important than peaceful coexistence with science (or with any other aspect
of worldly culture). NOMA believers insist that such a choice would never
have to be made. But that insistence is arbitrary, following circularly
from the rigged definitions of religion and science which NOMA employs, not
from a careful independent analysis of the separate contents of Christianity
and science.

Cameron.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Merv Bitikofer" <mrb22667@kansas.net>
To: "Cameron Wybrow" <wybrowc@sympatico.ca>; "asa" <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2009 8:13 PM
Subject: Re: [asa] Atheist finds God thru Behe's books....

> My comments interspersed below.
>
> Cameron Wybrow wrote:
> snip...
>> Methodological naturalism is fine in its place. But in the hands of
>> Eugenie Scott and NCSE, it is merely a scientific-sounding cover for
>> unacknowledged atheism, and that is how it's used in the culture wars.
>>
> I appreciate your allowance for at lease some *sensible* place for MN. As
> I've become something of a defender of MN (in my own thoughts at least), I
> can appreciate and agree with your concerns about how it is used. ---More
> below.
>
>> I didn't say that methodological naturalism was a capitulation to the
>> Enlightenment. I said that *a rigid boundary between science and faith*
>> was a capitulation to the Enlightenment. NOMA, a principle which many
>> here seem to hold dear, <snip>
> I'm curious who, on this list, would actually defend NOMA. I only know
> it from having read Gould's 'Rocks of Ages', and while I think his tones
> were respectful and that he may have even thought he was trying to do
> religious folks a favor by carving out some special space for them, I
> didn't agree with his main point. I would be surprised if many others
> here did, but I would like to hear it defended if that is so.
>
>>
>> I do not understand why you think a scientific method should try to "keep
>> out" Muslim views or YEC views or anything else. A scientific method
>> should try to determine what is true about nature, and let the chips fall
>> where they may, <snip>
> You seem sure in the rest of this paragraph that those chips have already
> fallen in favor of an ID conclusion --and that any fair and unbiased
> reading would reveal this. Otherwise, why not include ID in your list
> below, along with Muslim views or YEC as being one of the contenders that
> simply waits to see how the chips fall? Perhaps I am reading a bit much
> into your 'allow them to infer' phrase below, but since you refer to
> design as 'a more reasonable explanation' in the same sentence, it would
> seem that you find the jury is in where others contend it is still out,
> and indeed many others yet (stubbornly --you would say, and I agree) say
> the jury is in but with precisely the opposite verdict.
> I appreciate your exchanges on this list even if I haven't read them all.
> (Bernie likes 'pithiness' --- you write tomes --my perseverance gauge is
> set somewhere in between, depending on how badly I want to put off grading
> papers.
> --Merv
>> as far as whether the results please or offend any religious groups.
>> Thus, I think it is perfectly appropriate to teach schoolchildren
>> information that would allow them to infer that YEC is impossible --
>> BUT only on the proviso that schoolchildren are ALSO taught information
>> that would allow them to infer that design is a more reasonable
>> explanation for the origin of life than abiogenesis by random
>> recombination of atoms. If science class isn't going to worry about
>> offending fundamentalists, neither should it worry about offending
>> atheists. What offended ME about the Dover Trial was the
>> self-righteousness of the atheists in the ACLU and the media who
>> condescendingly lectured the fundamentalists for trying to control the
>> contents of science class in order to promote their religion, when the
>> atheists quite plainly wanted to make sure that nothing was taught in
>> biology class, in Dover or anywhere else in the country, that could lead
>> students to infer the existence of a designer, since the existence of a
>> designer would threaten their own atheist religion. And they claimed
>> that they were defending "constitutional neutrality regarding religion".
>> Right.
>>
>> Cameron.
>>
>
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Received on Tue Oct 13 21:40:34 2009