Kansas ought not dabble with science
Public school children in Kansas may be getting the erroneous and dangerous impression that science is something determined by majority vote. For a few years, evolution was out in Kansas. Then it was back. Now it’s been marginalized in a subtle way, with an official curriculum that casts doubt on evolution.
The same thing has happened elsewhere. For a time, intelligent design was on the curriculum in Dover, Pa. But its proponents were ousted in Tuesday’s election.
That’s the worst way to handle this longstanding controversy. The best way is the way Nebraska and other states handle the controversy. They keep religious theories on the origin of life out of science class. Parents who don’t want their children taught evolution can send them to parochial school.
But there is a third way. Kansas and other states facing the same situation might consider the idea offered last week in Lincoln by legal scholar Noah Feldman.
Feldman recommended that intelligent design — the belief that the universe and its living creatures are so complex they must have been designed by a higher power — be taught in public schools as a religious belief in nonscience classes.
Students should be exposed to diversity of views during their education, Feldman said.
Teaching intelligent design in nonscience classes would recognize belief systems that “represent a social reality in American life,” Feldman said.
It’s not difficult to find scientists who see no inherent conflict between the scientific theory of evolution and the belief that God created the world. That viewpoint was offered by several of the scientists who were members of a panel last week at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Charles Austerberry, a biologist with Creighton University in Omaha, who described himself as a theistic evolutionist, said “I’m persuaded by the evidence for evolution, and I’m also a Christian.”
The continuing controversy over evolution stems in part from people objecting to “elitists telling people what to believe,” Feldman said, especially when the elitists treat others with condescension that “devalues sincere religious experience.”
The distinction between intelligent design and evolution is that the theory of evolution is subject to being proved or disproved by scientific means. It is not possible for intelligent design to be verified by scientific method. Accepting intelligent design as an explanation for the universe and its living creatures is a matter of faith.
Kansas has subjected itself to deserved ridicule by attempting to accommodate belief in intelligent design by making changes in its science classes. A more permanent solution might be to permit the teaching of intelligent design in a religion class, where it belongs.
The same thing has happened elsewhere. For a time, intelligent design was on the curriculum in Dover, Pa. But its proponents were ousted in Tuesday’s election.
That’s the worst way to handle this longstanding controversy. The best way is the way Nebraska and other states handle the controversy. They keep religious theories on the origin of life out of science class. Parents who don’t want their children taught evolution can send them to parochial school.
But there is a third way. Kansas and other states facing the same situation might consider the idea offered last week in Lincoln by legal scholar Noah Feldman.
Feldman recommended that intelligent design — the belief that the universe and its living creatures are so complex they must have been designed by a higher power — be taught in public schools as a religious belief in nonscience classes.
Students should be exposed to diversity of views during their education, Feldman said.
Teaching intelligent design in nonscience classes would recognize belief systems that “represent a social reality in American life,” Feldman said.
It’s not difficult to find scientists who see no inherent conflict between the scientific theory of evolution and the belief that God created the world. That viewpoint was offered by several of the scientists who were members of a panel last week at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Charles Austerberry, a biologist with Creighton University in Omaha, who described himself as a theistic evolutionist, said “I’m persuaded by the evidence for evolution, and I’m also a Christian.”
The continuing controversy over evolution stems in part from people objecting to “elitists telling people what to believe,” Feldman said, especially when the elitists treat others with condescension that “devalues sincere religious experience.”
The distinction between intelligent design and evolution is that the theory of evolution is subject to being proved or disproved by scientific means. It is not possible for intelligent design to be verified by scientific method. Accepting intelligent design as an explanation for the universe and its living creatures is a matter of faith.
Kansas has subjected itself to deserved ridicule by attempting to accommodate belief in intelligent design by making changes in its science classes. A more permanent solution might be to permit the teaching of intelligent design in a religion class, where it belongs.
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