Quote:
Originally Posted by AXOmom
DubaiSis,
Thank you for the suggestions. I'm very familiar with Richard Dawkins, but I'll look around for the others.
Actually, I'm not a proponent of teaching creationism in public schools. I agree that there are many religions with creation beliefs, and they can't possibly cover them all in a science class nor should they necessarily. All that I would like to see is science teachers being respectful of these differing beliefs. Evolution is still a theory and a simple acknowledgement of that would be enough for me. If a science teacher says, "We teach evolution because most scientists and our school system believe that this is where current scientific evidence leads and this is the theory they think is most likely, but there are many other beliefs out there about how life came to be on this planet. If you are interested you are free to research those on you own," then I would be a perfectly happy camper, and I think its a compromise most people on both sides of the fence could live with.
What bothers me is when a student who holds to some form of creationism sits in a classroom and is told that evolution is fact (no doubt whatsoever), and their belief is a myth (no doubt whatsoever). That happened to me - often.
My daughter sat in an anthropology class last winter and on the first day the professor said (and I'm quoting pretty much verbatim here), "I teach evolution because I think any belief that says some diety created life is ridiculous. I might as well say some spaghetti man came down and made the world." This is at a university (my alma mater) that, again, prides itself on open mindedness, tolerance, and diversity. Apparently the concept that respect for diversity includes people who hold religous beliefs was news to her. My daughter certainly expected the prof to teach evolution - nothing new with that - she just didn't expect that level of disrespect towards opposing viewpoints publicly from a teacher at a university.
Anyway - end of my vent. As I said, most everyone here seems much more capable of handling those differences in a civil, respectful way.
Thank you again for the reading suggestions. I'll look for them and add them to my reading list.
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As far as evolution being "just a theory." That is not how the word "Theory" works in science. Being a theory means it is supported by all the evidence and both predicts and describes behavior. Gravity is also a "theory" for example. A more appropriate acknowledgment to me is "Evolution is based on scientific facts. Science doesn't take an opinion on matters of faith or religion. Hopefully you will explore these issues in an appropriate theology/philosophy/etc. class or on your own." I'm not sure such a disclaimer is even necessary unless the issue is actually raised. (Then again, Catholic grade school/high school/college taught evolution so I never had that struggle in school.)
The professor is an asshat, and lifted the Flying Spaghetti Monster concept without doing it well and being rude in the process. The FSM was created in response to people who wanted to introduce intelligent design into schools in Kansas (i think) arguing that they had just as much evidence for Flying Spaghetti Monsterism as the proponents of Intelligent Design had.
They're right, as far as science goes, and that was their point. Intelligent Design is creationism re-wrapped in fudged science and a pretty name. And it doesn't belong in a science class. While I personally disagree with teaching "Young Earth Creationism" as it both contradicts all evidence and implies that God put dinosaur bones there to trick us, it's a private school's right to do so. In contrast, the "evolution was guided by God with a plan" theory that Catholics subscribe to supports the science while providing their religious perspective as well. All of this makes sense in private schools only though. Public schools don't need any of it taught whether packaged as Intelligent design or not, not in Science/Natural Science/Biology/etc.
Long story short, I have no problem with keeping science in science class and religion in religion class. But neither side needs to be an ass about it. (The being an ass thing is why I'm not a fan of Dawkins or some of the other 'new' atheists. )
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