Anti-Science Bills Weighed in Four States

[jmdrake]

What's wrong with it is that a government employee is using his official position to promote his individual religious belief, which not only violates the First Amendment but is also horrible policy.

A bill that says "It's okay for a teacher to encourage students to question theories including global warming and evolution" is not promoting an invidiual religious belief. Not unless you believe that questioning AGW requires you to be religious. And if it's okay to question AGW then its okay to question evolution.

The last thing a religious believer should want is for the government to be allowed to promote a particular religious belief through the public schools.

Treating evolution as a theory is not promoting a particular religious belief. In fact the act of questioning evolution isn't promoting any religious belief.

If you're going to have public schools in the first place, they have to be neutral on religious matters and can't favor one belief over another or promote theism in general. And it's no answer to say that the failure to teach a particular religious viewpoint is in itself a religious viewpoint. It should be obvious, but I'll say it again: the failure to teach p is not equivalent to teaching that p is false.

Teaching students to weigh the pros and cons of evolution is not equivalant to teaching religion.

Is religious faith so unpersuasive that it needs the power of the State to promote itself to a captive audience? I know you'll probably say that we should keep government out of education, but that's not the point. IF we will have public schools, do we want to allow every teacher to proselytize his or her own religious beliefs?

Is your faith is science so unpersuasive that you have to use a straw man argument to promote it?

 

[Sonny Tufts]

All public education does that. It's unavoidable. It permeates every class. There are zero exceptions.

Oh, please. Where is the promotion of religion in teaching the binomial theorem?

 

[Sonny Tufts]

1. Then why do they promote the religion of Secular Humanism?
2. Seems to be, the state is promoting the religion of Secular Humanism to a captive audience.

Just because they don't teach creationism or promote your favorite religious faith doesn't mean they're teaching secular humanism.

 

[jmdrake]

Just because they don't teach creationism or promote your favorite religious faith doesn't mean they're teaching secular humanism.

Just because a school may teach creationism doesn't mean it's teaching a particular religion.

Just because a school may teach students to think critically about evolution and understand problems with the theory doesn't mean its teachng creationism.

 

[erowe1]

Oh, please. Where is the promotion of religion in teaching the binomial theorem?

Mathematics presupposes the existence of God.

 

[Sonny Tufts]

Mathematics presupposes the existence of God.

Why?

 

[erowe1]

Why?

Because it appeals to inviolable laws that must have law giver with a rational mind.

ETA: One need only read an essay like this one by Nobel Prize winning physicist Eugene Wigner to see that proper study of mathematics requires that it be understood theologically.

 

[Sonny Tufts]

Because it appeals to inviolable laws that must have law giver with a rational mind.

You're begging the question -- that is, you assume that the "laws" of mathematics must have a lawgiver. Why must this be the case? Why can't they simply be the human mind's abstraction of features of the universe? Or if you're a Platonist, why can't they simply be features of reality that the human mind has discovered? Of course, if you're going to claim that the universe and reality were created by God, then it would follow that math presupposes the existence of God. But then you'd still have the problem of proving that (a) God exists, and (b) God created everything.

Incidentally, the laws of mathematics aren't necessarily inviolable. Noneuclidean geometries are just one example.

 

[erowe1]

You're begging the question -- that is, you assume that the "laws" of mathematics must have a lawgiver. Why must this be the case? Why can't they simply be the human mind's abstraction of features of the universe? Or if you're a Platonist, why can't they simply be features of reality that the human mind has discovered? Of course, if you're going to claim that the universe and reality were created by God, then it would follow that math presupposes the existence of God. But then you'd still have the problem of proving that (a) God exists, and (b) God created everything.

It's more than that. The laws of mathematics exist. They are not extended in space. They are transcendent of the physical universe. Atheism is the denial of the existence of anything not extended in space and transcendent of the physical universe. It rules out mathematics as much as it rules out the doctrine of the Trinity.

Incidentally, the laws of mathematics aren't necessarily inviolable. Noneuclidean geometries are just one example.

Noneuclidian geometries are built on inviolable laws.

 

[One Last Battle!]

Because it appeals to inviolable laws that must have law giver with a rational mind.

ETA: One need only read an essay like this one by Nobel Prize winning physicist Eugene Wigner to see that proper study of mathematics requires that it be understood theologically.

No

 

[jonhowe]

I respect your view, but what you have mentioned amounts to a logical or deductive case, instead of one based on the evidence. The Genesis genealogies flat out do not indicate skipped generations. If one may counter with other logic, we can suppose ancient man was far smarter and industrious on average, and built civilizations much faster than supposed. Think about how quickly urban areas have changed in less than 120 years (in the late 1800s, Times Square was still farmland, etc), to see how fast things can be built up.

Why do you accept any part of the bible as 100% accurate? Or even factual? Can we start there?

 

[Natural Citizen]

Begging the question is a natural reaction. Is tough to not do.

 

[erowe1]

Begging the question is a natural reaction. Is tough to not do.

At some level it's impossible not to do. Where problems come in isn't in the fact of having religious presuppositions. It's in the pretense of not having them.

 

[Natural Citizen]

At some level it's impossible not to do. Where problems come in isn't in the fact of having religious presuppositions. It's in the pretense of not having them.

Yep. But it's how "religion" (meaning the overall theme) comes into it though and then usually all is lost because of moral discussion from so many differnt perspectives. I really don't care for this when it happens because we lose the context. In reading the dialogue from yourself and sunny I almost choked on my coffee. Is good stuff that can only stimulate adult speak.

But yes. Even in the science community we find that begging the question and a general hypothesis, although similar in language, just isn't the same thing but exists. And then we get what jmdrake had mentioned and then referenced with the graphic. Which eventually leads to why origanalist's question was relevant to it. Is a mess.

 

[Dr.3D]

Just because they don't teach creationism or promote your favorite religious faith doesn't mean they're teaching secular humanism.

No they claim they don't promote any religion, when in fact, Secular Humanism is the official religion of the state and is the only religion allowed to be taught in public schools.

 

[Natural Citizen]

No they claim they don't promote any religion, when in fact, Secular Humanism is the official religion of the state and is the only religion allowed to be taught in public schools.

Heck, I've seen transhumanism make surprising leaps in a few areas of science in High Schools. And it's interesting because you'll typically hear the language used that specifically do stimulate the question of "God". If only subtle, it does happen. I know that's not relevant to your point but just thought of it for whatever reason. Probably the begging the question points made earlier because it's the student who would come preprogrammed to maybe ask or consider this without any actual or physical guidance to to so. Kind of a mind screw, really.

 

[PaulConventionWV]

That has been done again and again and every time it has been falsified. The same is true for other theories.

Of course if you deny that the means by which we try to falsify theories are not sufficient and can ultimately never be sufficient, then we won't get very far with that approach. There is no ultimate way of "proving" anything, let alone the very act of proving itself. It just seems rational to assume that the laws that govern our universe don't change all the time and that evidence does indeed show us something about the "real reallity", the objective truth, because all our sensible evidence is consistent with that worldview.

It should be done a thousand times more, and a thousand more after that. In case you didn't notice, we have new people coming into this world every day. No human being should be deprived of discussion about these things just because we think we have already found the answers. Will we ever learn just how shallow our knowledge of the universe is? No matter how much we study, we will always be led to believe false beliefs that we are sure are right and we will always commit ourselves to some belief that is popular only to be proven wrong after we are dead.

It is the height of absurd arrogance to claim that the next generation should have this generation's filter built in to their education. That is what you are arguing, and it is just flat out wrong.

 

[PaulConventionWV]

While a belief in the existence of an objective reality that is perceptible by our senses may be an unprovable assumption, it doesn't follow that there's anything remotely religious about it. Meanwhile, our schools are turning out students who are mathematically and scientifically illiterate compared to other industrialized countries, and we don't need to waste limited classroom time discussing the theoretical possibility that we're all brains-in-vats and that what we perceive isn't really real, when we should be teaching calculus, physics, biology, and chemistry. There's time enough for metaphysical speculation in a philosophy course (do public schools even offer philosophy courses?)

Science Teacher: I am forced by the school board to tell you that it's theoretically possible that all the science you will be studying is an illusion, and that what you think you see, hear, feel, taste, and touch isn't real. We'll be spending the next few classes discussing this.

Student: Then why do we need to learn any of the science you'll be teaching us later on? If it's all an illusion, who cares? I'd rather play video games.

Teacher: But almost everyone in the world behaves as if what they perceive is real, and they base their behavior on the predictible results of science. Science works.

Student: You only have faith that it does and that the results are predictible, because it could all be an illusion. For all I know, the sun could rise in the west tomorrow.

Teacher: If you believe that what you're experiencing now is an illusion, why not test it by jumping out of the window (assume the classroom is on the third floor) -- who knows, you might find that you're able to fly. Wouldn't that be more fun than a video game? (Aside to the other students: Everyone else, please measure the time it takes for your classmate to hit the ground; we'll then discuss the equation d = 16 t^2. Oh, and don't worry if you think you see blood and guts all over the ground -- it could just be an illusion.)

Student: [no response]

Nobody's forcing teachers to discuss alternatives. We're simply giving them the freedom to. Now that you know that, you fully support these bills, right? You like freedom, right? Or are you just another one of those atheist statist apologists?

 

[PaulConventionWV]

That's the crux of the matter. Obviously someone has to decide what has to be taught. If the class is called biology it makes sense to teach actual scientific theories that are part of the field of biology, rather than what the bible says. In fact, if you call the subject biology you already eliminate intelligent design from the table of content, since it's not part of biology.

Why in the world would we believe that teachers have the ultimate right to teach whatever they see fit and the parents (who - also - "own" the school after all) can't do anything about it? If the public who "owns" the school (even though that's a problem from libertarian property rights theory, it's still the hand we're dealt), then it should be the public who determines the rules by which the school is governed. That process is not very effective, but it's the best we can come up with, given we are in the terrible situation that the public/government owns schools.

At least we can all agree that if the government wouldn't be in that business, there wouldn't be a problem.

I was taught by a teacher who was a devout Christian and explained science through that lense. Guess what? I still learned a lot of science.

 

[PaulConventionWV]

What about if the science teacher used all his time telling students that there is no such thing as God, instead of teaching science? Who are we to prohibit such behavior?

That's what they are required to do now. All we want is some freedom of discussion. What I find comical is that people who tell me "You can't allow teachers the freedom to talk about X because then teachers will do what they want and anarchy will reign!" It's essentially the same thing that statists say when they are explaining why the economy should be regulated. "You can't let business owners run their businesses how they want or they will do whatever they want and anarchy will reign!"

This is strikingly hypocritical because it demonstrates that you turn your back on the free market when it comes to teaching. Now I understand that your tax dollars are used to fund public schools, but saying this justifies government shaping the curriculum to brainwash students is the worst way to react. When in doubt, err on the side of freedom. When we allow our freedom to be taken away for our own good, we find it does more harm than risking the consequences of freedom ever would have. Have we not learned this by now?