Re: Challenges to teaching biology

I am sorry but you are wrong. There is nothing that prohibits a
teacher from communicating the compatibility of faith and evolutionary
science.

Unless we are talking past each other, I'll have to disagree with you
here. What prohibits it is the way the U.S. Constitution has been
intepreted. A public school teacher may teach "about" religion in an
appropriate context such as a comparative religion class, but a public
school teacher may not teach a particular religious viewpoint. Nothing in
your "Perspectives on an Evolving Creation" book, for example (a book I
appreciate and have beneffited from BTW), could be taught in a public school
classroom.

Yes, a public school science teacher could blandly say something like
"science and religion don't overlap, so nothing I'm telling you now
contradicts anyone's faith," but that's about it. Of course, that statement
is false insofar as it contradicts the faith of students raised to believe
in YEC, but the teacher is not free to dig deeper to help that student begin
to resolve that conflict. A public school teacher certainly could not
Constitutionally teach that creation is contingent on God's will and that
God sovereignly and immanently directed every aspect of evolution such that
faith in the Christian God and belief in evolution are compatible.

The ACLU lawyers involved in Dover have explicitly stated that if a teacher
tried to promote an atheistic worldview in a public science classroom they
would take them to court.

I'm sure they said that, but frankly I don't believe it. I don't have such
a sanguine view of the ACLU for many reasons beyond this narrow issue. The
problem is deeper than this, though, I think. When religion is excluded
from the public square, an ideological vacuum results, and the vacuum
invariably is filled by irreligion, or more accurately by other religious
beliefs that are not derived from traditional religions. There is no such
thing as religious neutrality, which is one reason our establishment clause
jurisprudence, IMHO, is fatally flawed.

Howewever, it would be inappropriate for a teacher to say "your silly
ideas about the Bible and God are falsified by science." I know of no
teachers, or any teacher organizations statewide or nationally that
would condone such an action.

I'm sure you're right. I'm not suggesting there is some sort of official
policy anywhere to promote atheism, and I'm not in the
atheists-are-taking-over-our-country conspiracy theory crowd. It's
certainly also true that most science teachers wouldn't say such a thing.
But some do, and many others communicate it less overtly.

I guess my overall thought is this: obstinate YEC
students/parents/advocates are only half of the problem. We should be
equally concerned, maybe more concerned, about the deeper roots of the
problem. There has indeed been a sustained effort to remove religious
influences from public education, and in many ways it has succeeded.

On 4/3/06, Keith Miller <kbmill@ksu.edu> wrote:
> > Just one other thought -- we can't be blind to the Constitutional and
> > social context that exacerbates this problem. It would be wonderful
> > if those Christian teachers could say "I accept the evidence for
> > evolution but I don't view that as a challenge to my faith. Here are
> > some reasons why." Constitutionally, they can't do that. A teacher
> > who is an atheist or agnostic, however, can say "your silly ideas
> > about the Bible and God are falsified by science" without violating
> > the Constitution, or at least without drawing an establishment clause
> > lawsuit from a well-funded civil liberties organization.
>
> I am sorry but you are wrong. There is nothing that prohibits a
> teacher from communicating the compatibility of faith and evolutionary
> science. That can be done without proselytizing. Teaching the history
> and nature of science is one such way. Again, I know many teachers who
> do just what you indicate above.
>
> The Kansas science standards that were rejected by the Kansas state
> school board explicitly stated that evolutionary science is not in
> conflict with religious faith, and is not based on an atheistic
> worldview. Again, it is the YEC and ID proponents who have
> consistently resisted the efforts to communicate the non-conflict view
> in the science standards (because they themselves view evolution and
> the Christian faith as in necessary conflict).
>
> Howewever, it would be inappropriate for a teacher to say "your silly
> ideas about the Bible and God are falsified by science." I know of no
> teachers, or any teacher organizations statewide or nationally that
> would condone such an action.
>
> BTW: the ACLU lawyers involved in Dover have explicitly stated that if
> a teacher tried to promote an atheistic worldview in a public science
> classroom they would take them to court.
>
> Keith
>
>
Received on Mon Apr 3 15:41:22 2006