…and this is a 
Will we ever stop running away from the source of the problem?
Category: Creationism
Posted on: August 24, 2008 1:52 PM, by PZ Myers
This story about the struggles of a high school biology teacher in Florida is depressing. David Campbell, the teacher, is a hero — but it's the kind of hero sent off to suffer and fail in a misplaced struggle, who dutifully falls in battle, a victim of bad leadership and poor strategy. It's the same old tactics the educational bureaucracy has been pushing for 50 years or more: tip-toe gently about the subject of religion, never challenge the idiocy students bring into the classroom with them, always strain to allow them to accommodate science to their personal superstitions…which means pretending that science doesn't directly contradict their cherished myths. It doesn't work and has never worked, and the problem gets worse and worse every year.
Throughout the story, the teacher is striving to be respectful to religion (he's an Anglican himself) while the students are being arrogant dumbasses who refuse to listen to this evolution stuff. There is a villain here, but the article doesn't point a finger directly, nor does David Campbell place the blame: but the willfully anti-science students are victims of church and dogma. It's gotten so bad that it's not just parents and students who are opposing good science education, it's some of the teachers themselves. One of Campbell's fellow biology teachers is busily inculcating students with stupidity, too.
Animals do adapt to their environments, Ms. Yancey tells her students, but evolution alone can hardly account for the appearance of wholly different life forms. She leaves it up to them to draw their own conclusions. But when pressed, she tells them, "I think God did it."
Mr. Campbell was well aware of her opinion. "I don't think we have this great massive change over time where we go from fish to amphibians, from monkeys to man," she once told him. "We see lizards with different-shaped tails, we don't see blizzards—the lizard bird."
That that woman is a public school science teacher is an indictment of the educational system in this country. We can tell right away what has made her stupid, though: I think God did it. She's been infected with religion.
The kids are no better. Their brains have been poisoned with the lies of faith.
At 16, Bryce, whose parents had made sure he read the Bible for an hour each Sunday as a child, no longer went to church. But he did make it to the predawn meetings of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, a national Christian sports organization whose mission statement defines the Bible as the "authoritative Word of God." Life had been dark after his father died a year ago, he told the group, but things had been going better recently, and he attributed that to God's help.
When the subject of evolution came up at a recent fellowship meeting, several of the students rolled their eyes.
"I think a big reason evolutionists believe what they believe is they don't want to have to be ruled by God," said Josh Rou, 17.
"Evolution is telling you that you're like an animal," Bryce agreed. "That's why people stand strong with Christianity, because it teaches people to lead a good life and not do wrong."
Isn't that charming? Students attend meetings before school that explicitly undermine their instruction in science class. Kids get indoctrinated into the self-serving lies of religion — religion most definitely does not teach people to not do wrong, or it is awfully incompetent at doing that. And it teaches arrogance.
The last question on the test Mr. Campbell passed out a week later asked students to explain two forms of evidence supporting evolutionary change and natural selection.
"I refuse to answer," Bryce wrote. "I don't believe in this."
Tough, kid. Then you flunk science. It really is that simple — if you can't even regurgitate an answer given in class, then you don't get to pass…and your bogus faith is not a legitimate excuse.
And I'm sorry, but Campbell blows it, too.
"Can anybody think of a question science can't answer?"
"Is there a God?" shot back a boy near the window.
"Good," said Mr. Campbell, an Anglican who attends church most Sundays. "Can't test it. Can't prove it, can't disprove it. It's not a question for science."
I despise that chicken-hearted answer. There are two reasonable ways to address that. One is to accept the usual open-ended, undefined vagueness of the god entity and point out that the reason it can't be answered is that it is a bad question — it's not even wrong. Science doesn't answer it, but then no discipline can, because it's a garbage question like "what color are invisible elephants?" If that's what window-boy intends with his petty little gotcha, he deserves to have the inanity of his idea disparaged.
The other approach is to pin the question down. What god? What actions has it taken in the natural world? How does it influence us specifically? Then you can tackle that god with science by testing the purported effects it has. A potentially falsifiable or verifiable god is a legitimate target of scientific investigation…of course, that kind of god seems to vanish as soon as it is scrutinized, and its advocates rapidly fall back on the not-even-wrong version of a deity. Either way, though, gods are refuted.
Here's the real message of the NY Times story, though. There are good science teachers striving to get legitimate, credible biology taught…and at every turn they are undermined by a culture of unwarranted deference to religion, by an unchallenged church that actively disinforms kids from an early age, by families brought up in faith-based ignorance that perpetuates an anti-reality delusion. That's the dark evil gnawing at the heart of the American public.
It's an effective evil, too, since most people cower before it and fear to declare it the bane of public education. Even many who don't believe are reluctant to call it out — it will antagonize the believers, they say, they won't accept the all-important proximate message of science if we alienate them from their precious myths and superstitions. So we continue this game of science proponents edging delicately around the central issue while the advocates of religion feel no constraint at all, and attack reason by hammering our children with unrepentant, unapologetic lunacy.
Isn't it obvious yet that a policy of temerity does not work? If we're ever going to win, we have to fight back directly at the root cause of bad science and bad education: religion.
Education & Careers
Comments
Posted by: Dan | August 24, 2008 2:07 PM
I am a religious person. I am also a science professional. I think those who feel there is neccessarily an incompatibility between faith and science are victims of poor religious education. There is a lot of anti-Catholic propaganda in the world, but I feel that I must point out that it is NOT the Catholics who are biblical literalists, or who believe that the world was created 6,000 years ago.
Remember Gregor Mendel and George Lemaitre?
What humans need is the best education that they can receive.
Posted by: Sleeping at the Console | August 24, 2008 2:09 PM
Science education should be done with no regard for people's delusions and superstitious beliefs.
#1:
No, religion and science are not compatible. They are entirely different.
Posted by: Aaron | August 24, 2008 2:10 PM
From the article:
"Mr. Campbell quietly rejoiced in their final draft. Under the proposed new standards, high school students could be tested on how fossils and DNA provide evidence for evolution. Florida students would even be expected to learn how their own species fits into the tree of life."
I must be out of touch with curriculum standards. This is cause for rejoicing? This shouldn't be a victory - it should be a given.
Posted by: Maakuz | August 24, 2008 2:13 PM
Teaching reality- why is it so hard? Talking snakes and 6000 years old earth is beyond absurd. How about that secularism thingy?
Wow am I glad there are REAL teachers out there.
Posted by: Sleeping at the Console | August 24, 2008 2:15 PM
If you keep doing that, how long will it take before you have a lack of scientists? When will you stazt falling behind? And the important question: Why do some people want that to happen?
Posted by: Dan | August 24, 2008 2:21 PM
Ummm.... Yeah they are different... so they don't neccessarily have to interfere with eacthother. It only becomes a problem if one thinks that God wouldn't have created the universe to act according to principles that can be discovered through science and reason. Or if one wants to deny evidence (such as fossils) by saying that the devil just planted it to confuse believers.
Posted by: Sleeping at the Console | August 24, 2008 2:24 PM
So a religion should be evidence based? Except for the existence of god, of course. That's one thing we still can believe without any shred of evidence, which of course opens the door for beliefs in an infinite number of things. But why?
Posted by: archgoon | August 24, 2008 2:31 PM
Before we get completely off target, might I suggest that people start linking to (or writing) rebuttals of the book "Evolution Exposed"? It is mentioned in the NY Times article (and thus its claims are not dissected), and a basic google search ('evolution exposed', 'evolution exposed review') fails to bring up any non positive reviews.
Posted by: Greg Esres | August 24, 2008 2:36 PM
Only according to your definition of what religion ought to be. With respect to what we actually find in real world religions, many of them do attempt to address questions that science is much better equipped to tackle, which is where the conflict occurs.
The "non-overlapping magisteria" is wishful thinking.
Posted by: rrt | August 24, 2008 2:37 PM
Dan:
Where did PZ say Catholicism was the only problem religion? Where did he even mention it in this post?
Now, I think I know what you meant, and I'm more than a little sympathetic. Nevertheless, I'm firmly in the camp of people like Sleeping at the Console here when I observe that science and religion are not, ultimately, compatible. This really shouldn't be hard to realize. Yes, plenty of religious people are good, practicing scientists. This is classic human compartmentalization and cheerful irrationality. One only has to think of the words "faith" and "evidence" to see how science and religion differ at their cores.
What sort of "good religious education" would allow this alleged compatibility? One that crams God into all the unknown, indeterminate, vague, untestable gaps in our knowledge of the universe--or strives to create new unfounded dimensions or gaps to hold It? How is a universe that operates under (material, regular) principles that can be discovered through science and reason with a God waiting Deistically in the wings different from a universe that operates as such without one?
Posted by: hje | August 24, 2008 2:41 PM
Quote from Frank Rich's editorial in today's NYT:
"We don't have the time or resources to go off on more quixotic military missions or to indulge in culture wars. (In China, they're too busy exploiting scientific advances for competitive advantage to reopen settled debates about Darwin.)"
Posted by: BobC | August 24, 2008 2:41 PM
Our new public school science standards in Florida are a big improvement from the old standards which did not even mention the word "evolution". Now Florida has successfully joined the 21st century instead of being stuck in the 18th century. I agree it's ridiculous it's taken this long for Florida to properly teach biology, but we are lucky the new standards survived the relentless attacks of the Christian extremists who infest our state.
Posted by: Nick Gotts | August 24, 2008 2:49 PM
it is NOT the Catholics who are biblical literalists, or who believe that the world was created 6,000 years ago. - Dan
Some do. Even those who don't, are required by their church to believe all sorts of other crazy nonsense - that a virgin gave birth, that people have been resurrected after dying, that illnesses have been and still are cured supernaturally, that a man in a dress mumbling a few words can turn a cracker (invisibly) into the flesh of someone dead for centuries. It's only because most people in western societies have been brought up to believe this particular set of myths, or at least to respect them, that they are not recognised as nonsense on a par with belief in zombies, witches who can steal mens' penises, shamans' ability to commune with the ancestors, etc. They are no more compatible with science than any of these other beliefs.
Posted by: AdamK | August 24, 2008 2:50 PM
Dan -- Thanks! I'll sure sleep better at night knowing that the child-rapist-coddling, anti-condom African-AIDS-supporting, homophobic bigots that constitute the Catholic magisterium are so well educated.
It's amazing to me, the power of Catholicism to drain its victims of any remnant of an actual conscience.
Posted by: Ames | August 24, 2008 2:50 PM
Pz, sadly, the theistic evolution approach is the best way to win hearts and minds to science; then, with the seeds of a scientific education sown, let them struggle to the higher itellectual echelons. But don't begrudge Campbell an approach that gets students to listen.
Posted by: Ames | August 24, 2008 2:56 PM
Pz, sadly, the theistic evolution approach is the best way to win hearts and minds to science; then, with the seeds of a scientific education sown, let them struggle to the higher itellectual echelons. But don't begrudge Campbell an approach that gets students to listen. Yours would lose them forever and radicalize a new generation of anti-evolution culture warriors against us. Pragmatism in high school; let them get farther on their own if they can, but first, do no harm. "imagine no religion," sure: but that's as far as you'll get with that approach.
Posted by: Christophe Thill | August 24, 2008 2:57 PM
Another wonderful question, in my opinion, is Kent Hovind's (hi, Kent!) favorite: "Were you there?". Isn't it a great opportunity to explain what the historical approach in science is and how we can learn about what happened when we weren't there? Add a few words about police investigations, and you've won.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | August 24, 2008 2:58 PM
Whether science has any quarrel with religion today depends upon the state of scientific knowledge now, not what scientists knew in the past. It also requires grasping at least the outlines and contours of the entire sweep of that knowledge, as it is all to easy to be a careful, scientific reasoner within one's own narrow specialization while cheerfully claiming that the fingerprints of Jehovah are over there, in the other fellow's field. (He's saying the same thing about yours.)
Why not throw out the Bible, then, and start using a holy text which actually describes such a god? Job will have to be cut from the canon, of course. We could, in addition, file the Virgin Birth in the same folder as the generation of Aphrodite from sea-foam, dismiss Laban's goats as a folktale from the days when people believed in sympathetic magic, and quietly shake our heads at the picture Genesis 1 gives of a sky made of beaten metal sheets. . . No doubt the Gideons would be pleased at the reduction in their printing costs.
Posted by: ames | August 24, 2008 2:59 PM
Sorry. iPhone comment fail.
Posted by: H.H. | August 24, 2008 3:02 PM
Richard Feynman once said "Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool."
Seen this way, the scientific method is a type of applied skepticism. The practice of science is the act of winnowing out truth from a sea of guesses, suppositions, and assertions. It is a way of unfooling ourselves. It is the only tool we have for distinguishing between what is and what is not.
To believe in the existence of god despite the complete absence of current evidence is a violation of this basic principle of science. Even if god exists, the faith that he does cannot be justified by the current evidence. Thus, religious faith is an act of intentional self-deception. A conscious decision to embrace irrationality. It is perversely wrong to consider the act of deliberately fooling oneself "compatible" with the a method dedicated to eliminating such biases. Religious faith is in no sense compatible with science.
Faith in the existence of the unseen and undetectable is about as anti-science position as is possible to adopt. Plenty of practicing scientists do, of course. This is not evidence of compatibility between science and religion, however, but of human beings enormous capacity for irrationality and contradiction.
Posted by: kdaddy | August 24, 2008 3:03 PM
As a HS bio teacher, I can sympathize with the teacher in the article. I love teaching evolution and go full bore in doing so. But recently, I had my superintendent allow students to leave class and get "alternative" assignments during the formal evolution unit. Fortunately, when I fought back and refused his request to give a creationism lesson, and he found the school board sympathetic to my view, he re-evaluated policies and admitted he was wrong.
But while I can tell my students what the science is and that it is supported by evidence and other pseudo-scientific view are wrong, I do have to take an exception to what PZ said. You can't tell them their religious beliefs are wrong or say that god doesn't exist for the same constitutional reasons we can't be made to teach creationism. When a student asks about the probability of evolution happening, I would love to say "a lot higher than the existence of talking snakes, magic trees and Middle Eastern sky gods" but I can't. It's a science class and we need to stick to that and not take time evaluating the efficacy of any religious statement.
Posted by: Holbach | August 24, 2008 3:04 PM
Dan @ # 1 Your statement that "there is necessarily an incompatability between faith and science are victims of poor religious education", is appalling in it's irrational meaning, and ambiguous in the general meaning. So this means that one who is deficient in the basics of chemistry and physics are victims of poor science education? Your remark is totally incompatible with the tenets of science and reason. We know that Jupiter and its moons exist because we have photos and data that prove that they are there, whereas there is no proof whatsoever that imaginary gods invented by humans exist in any form you deign to explain. There is absolutely no compatability between science and religion; one is the real and tangible world that science has proven, the other of imaginary gods that will never be proven to have never existed. My use of double negatives only enhances my total disregard and contempt for insane ideas and of the minds that hold them.
Posted by: MH | August 24, 2008 3:09 PM
ames #19 "Sorry. iPhone comment fail."
Eat up Martha
Posted by: Liam | August 24, 2008 3:09 PM
You know, it's been 5 years and I'm still amazed how sheltered I was in high school. Creationism wasn't even acknowledged as existing, evolution was rigorously taught, and Inherit the Wind was a required movie for biology classes, which was itself a class required to graduate. But guess what, it was a public school in New Hampshire. Please don't paint all states with the same brush, some of aren't preoccupied with religion... Heck, we had a bill making wearing seat belts mandatory, and another enabling same-sex marriage: the seat belt bill was more controversial (and did not pass, unlike the same-sex marriage bill).
Posted by: JT | August 24, 2008 3:16 PM
As a teacher in the south, and a new teacher at this school, I could get fired for violating someone's religious beliefs and I'd have no recourse. This is a culture where faculty meetings are opened with prayers, every athlete is expected to join the FCA, and every day has a moment of silence for people to pray if they want. We also have no unions to protect our rights. Fighting this culture could mean me losing my job, and frankly in this economy I can't afford to be that idealistic.
I do not kowtow to the kids' religious beliefs, but I also avoid certain topics so I don't have to. (As a chemistry teacher, I can avoid evolution most of the time.) I choose my words carefully to be just ambiguous enough that my point gets made without directly attacking religion. Please be careful when blaming teachers!
Posted by: Dr. T | August 24, 2008 3:20 PM
This quote represents the specific arrogance that I despise:
"Evolution is telling you that you're like an animal,"
What makes humans so much better than the rest of the animal kingdom? These people can't stomach the fact that humans ARE animals.
This is exactly the type of inherent ignorance that religion purports.
Posted by: Greg Esres | August 24, 2008 3:22 PM
JT wrote:
That is kowtowing.
Posted by: Dan | August 24, 2008 3:28 PM
Holbach - you say, "So this means that one who is deficient in the basics of chemistry and physics are victims of poor science education?"
ummm.... yes..
Look trying to generalize a theory and judge an entire religion, or all religions based on the behaviours of only a portion of its' members - isn't really a rational, or scientific approach. Wouldn't that be like me stating that ALL science teachers are dummies because P.Z. gave the example of Ms. Yancey in the post?
Posted by: James F | August 24, 2008 3:31 PM
"A potentially falsifiable or verifiable god is a legitimate target of scientific investigation...."
The anti-science dogma of creationism, in contradicting the evidence, is a valid target. Students should be made aware that there is no support for it in peer-reviewed scientific literature and that it is not an alternative scientific view. To use it as a point for refuting religion in general in a public school classroom, however, would violate the Establishment Clause. Campbell was in the right.
Posted by: Qquiscula | August 24, 2008 3:32 PM
While I agree about his "chicken-hearted" answer, I have to say I think that the high school classroom is not the place to address such a thing. They shouldn't be talking about personal religious matters at all, IMO. For that matter, trying to gain the students trust on this matter would probably be easier with that small compromise (don't mistake me- I'm not saying the "F" word).
Posted by: BobC | August 24, 2008 3:32 PM
#25: This is a culture where faculty meetings are opened with prayers
JT, I can understand your not wanting to be fired, but this praying at faculty meetings should not be tolerated. If I worked at a place where I had to listen to prayers, I couldn't keep quiet about it no matter how bad the economy was. I'm not sure what I would say. Perhaps I would as politely as possible tell my coworkers they should pray in their closets because I don't want to listen to them show off how holy they are. If I didn't care about being fired I would tell them to grow up and stop acting like idiots.
Posted by: uncle frogy | August 24, 2008 3:33 PM
WOW WOW while all of our Bogeyman competitors are busy studying "nature" using science to get a competitive advantage and bring their societies prosperity we have to be soooo careful not to offend the religious prejudices of the religious ignorant lest they cut the education budget even more (to get rid of the waste) that we barely keep up with the past let lone make any advances
without the help of immigrant scientist.
it just seems so irrational, now if it was football instead of science and politics it would be entirely different.
my feelings and thoughts about all this drive me to despair until all the words collide in my fingers. It like some bad dream novel by Sinclair lewis or Bradbury let me wake up soon.
Posted by: Newfie | August 24, 2008 3:36 PM
What you're dealing with. (Just found on Reddit)
http://ufailpix.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/freethinker.jpg
Posted by: Neil B ☼ | August 24, 2008 3:38 PM
A wee bit OT, but related subject: John McCain at Saddleback clearly said (and he and supporters are proud of his "definitiveness" versus the wishy-wonky answer that Obama gave): human life begins at conception. If McCain really means it, then he must outlaw those forms of contraception that prevent implantation of fertilized eggs and not just "abortion" at *any* stage. How many voters realize the implications of that? I think they need to be reminded, since so many of them (and compliant SCL, MSMemia) think McCain is a moderate/maverick with no intentions of instituting hard-line conservative values.
Posted by: DsK | August 24, 2008 3:43 PM
The only point that I take issue with is that this is an "indictment of the educational system in this country." Rather, I would argue it is an indictment of the educational system in Florida. I teach AP biology and chemistry on long island and I never have to deal with this twaddle.
Of course, all of us in NY are godless swine...
Posted by: rrt | August 24, 2008 3:43 PM
But we aren't judging all religions based on the behaviors of only a portion of their members, Dan. We're saying that there are things fundamental to the very definitions of "science" and "religion" that are responsible for this incompatibility.
And I'd suggest you read Dawkins (God Delusion is a good example) and earlier posts from PZ to note that we think it's pretty weak to protest that "oh, you're just unfairly citing the worst examples of religion." The sad fact is that the anti-science, anti-reason elements of the dominant religions in our culture are not lunatic fringes. They are large, loud and strong. And when one considers both explicit supporters and passive assenters--the people who usually stay quiet but when pressed, admit their beliefs largely align with the "fringe" and who abstain from any effort to oppose them--we think these people are typically in the majority of the membership.
Oh, and MH @ 23: Bwaaahaha!
Posted by: True Bob | August 24, 2008 3:45 PM
So to the science teachers here, do you suffer repercussions for failing kids who give erroneous answers? I'm with PZ. If they want to make a religious statement on their science homeworks and exams, let them. Then they can learn a nice life lesson about dealing with failure.
As for mandatory prayers in the AM, I see two approaches (but I work for the gummint, so I'll not be in that predicament): can you ask for a Santeria commemoration? Tell them you'll bring a live chicken. Or just refuse to hold back on the giggles.
Posted by: RBH | August 24, 2008 3:50 PM
kdaddy wrote
I wish the fire-breathing atheists on this board would read that carefully and understand it. In the public schools it is not permissible to advocate for or against a religious view. Commenters here have excoriated John Freshwater for pushing his religious views in the classroom, but exactly the same constitution governs public school teachers who explicitly deride their students' religions views. In addition to being wholly ineffective, it's unconstitutional, kiddies.No one on this board can challenge my pro-science and anti-creationism credentials (or my atheist credentials, for that matter). I have been involved in this battle for years, starting with writing for the Committees of Correspondence on Evolution Education (predecessor to the NCSE) in the 1980s. The involvement includes having worked for years at the local and state levels, lobbying state and local school board members, speaking at local and state board meetings on the issue, providing materials and support to board members and to teachers, working for and contributing dollars to the campaigns of candidates in state and local school board elections, writing letters to newspapers, all the things citizens can do to affect policies. Hell, this fall a member of a local school board will be taking my course on the history of the evolution/creationism controversy.
My point is not what I've done, it's what so many here have not done. My bet is that damned few commenters on this board have done much of anything about the problem beyond commenting on this board. It's real easy to be an anonymous fire-breather in a comment thread on a web board; it's a lot harder to make the time and money commitment to do the actual work on the ground, the political work. Too few do that. It's easy to write a comment here in a few minutes and imagine that one has done something useful. But one has not.
I get a little tired of smack-talking commenters who have not the faintest idea what these teachers face every day. kdaddy has it right, and should be supported to the hilt.
Get off your asses and get out there and do the actual work.
Posted by: Master Mahan | August 24, 2008 3:50 PM
Ms. Yancey and her blizzards have a point. Who's ever heard of a bird with scales?
*
Posted by: Neil B ☼ | August 24, 2008 3:53 PM
One is to accept the usual open-ended, undefined vagueness of the god entity and point out that the reason it can't be answered is that it is a bad question -- it's not even wrong. Science doesn't answer it, but then no discipline can, because it's a garbage question like "what color are invisible elephants?"
Whatever the answer is/if there is one, that statement shows lack of understanding of philosophical reasoning. It is debatable whether "falsifiability" is a proper criterion of meaningfulness; that's what Popper thought but well, "he isn't God." We can even cast doubt on falsifiability with examples like: specific unrecorded events cannot be back-engineered in Laplacian fashion due to the uncertainty principle - but most would admit, "here we are now saying specific things" etc. when talking etc. If LP was literally true, then there couldn't be a specific "what is happening now" since it would be inaccessible in principle to future (or even most current) investigators.
The philosophical treatment of the question (which isn't even related to the issue of religious traditions, textual revelation etc.) works off abstract issues like necessary and sufficient existence/being, the awkwardness in terms of principle of sufficient reason for some possible worlds but not others to exist, etc. The inexplicably still-popular attitude" "This universe just exists, and that's that" is logically very shallow. WITSION is not ultimately about applying already-granted laws to their outcomes. Really, it is logically clumsy for a universe like ours to "exist" but not all the others with other properties to exist also. I haven't gotten good answers yet to the problem: one possible universe existing and not others is just like if the number 23 was reified in brass numerals etc., but not other numbers. Hey, they are all numbers, who or what can "pick out" one or some of them to be "real" instead of the others? Being "real" is too fundamental of an abstract property to logically attach only to universe/s with a restricted set of peculiar principles, or even a set of them however huge like the string-theory "landscape." (In logic, "peculiar" means properties that aren't logically necessary, like a fine structure constant around 1/137 - and I mean unrestricted "logically necessary" with no cheating based on circular reasoning that recycles what's already like that.)
As far as I'm concerned, either "everything exists" (which causes problems I can explain better later) or "someone/thing" somehow "manages" what exists and what does not. Philosophically sub-literate pretend metaphors and facile positivism just don't cut it, whatever else may.
Posted by: True Bob | August 24, 2008 3:54 PM
RBH and kdaddy, I wouldn't push you to deny anyone's religion in class. It's a fine line you have to balance upon. Can you at least deflect,like saying "this is not a comparative religion class"? Well,unless it IS a comparative religion class.
Posted by: Screechy Monkey | August 24, 2008 3:56 PM
kdaddy @ 21: "I do have to take an exception to what PZ said. You can't tell them their religious beliefs are wrong or say that god doesn't exist for the same constitutional reasons we can't be made to teach creationism"
Well, let's be clear. I don't think that PZ is proposing that public school teachers stand up in front of their classes and announce that religion is wrong, god doesn't exist, etc. I think he is proposing that, if the scientific curriculum conflicts with a student's religious beliefs, that the teacher shouldn't back off, excuse the students from learning the material, or be obliged to spout mealy-mouthed platitudes about non-overlapping magisteria.
I also think PZ is talking about more than just what public school teachers can do in class. The issue is whether public discussions of evolution and science education should tiptoe around the fact that in most cases, religion does conflict with science.
Posted by: Lorax | August 24, 2008 3:57 PM
FYI, Minnesota's science standards are about to go public (1-2 weeks iirc). For those living in MN, please take some time and look them over and comment. If you find problems or even like them as is, say so, because there will be people who don't like science all that much who comment ad nauseum. It will be helpful to those of us on the committee to have some ammunition to fire back. One thing I've found is that even though there are, at worst, a few anti-science folks (creationists or creationist leanings) on the committee, the talking points of the insane have been raised.
Posted by: anthropicOne | August 24, 2008 3:59 PM
Let's stop dancing around it. The U.S. is close to becoming a genuine theocracy. What will put the American Taliban into complete control are the nimrod idiots themselves; the vast majority who refute science and rational thought.
The education system (what an oxymoron, BTW) is just the tip of the iceberg. I'm simply at a loss for a suggestion how to turn this around.
I feel like vomiting my lungs out. That's how disgusted I am with these morons.
Posted by: Holbach | August 24, 2008 4:11 PM
Dan @ 28 Why is it so demanding and difficult to slough off all religious nonsense and just get on with the ordeal of living a sensible and meaningful life without the trappings of irrationality, especially the stultifying stigma of religion? I assure you that you will still be able to brush your teeth, start your car, and perform all the quotidian things you do without the senseless additions of invoking imaginary entities. Do you say, as you brush your teeth, "this is only possible because of you, dear god". Of course you don't, and neither is it necessary to appeal and invoke something that does not exist to explain your existence. Why do you find it so difficult to comprehend that religion has the stamp of human invention on it since we developed brains to give birth and illogical meaning to gods? It is not your fault that there are no gods; this insane idea was drummed into you as a malleable child, and surely held onto as an adult because you refuse to accept the human development of all irrationalities, especially religion. You may wish it to be true, but it does not make it so, and this only proves your chosen inability to accept rational facts as a telling weakness of mind and character on your part. Prove to me that your imaginary god exists with unequivocal evidence and I will definitely believe it. But you will never prove it and will go to your grave after having lived
needlessly with that irrational belief. And you most assuredly will not prove it when you are dead, as your mindless belief will perish with you and only be perpetrated in those still living with a like belief. So sad to have wasted a life on lifeless irrationalities.
Posted by: Denis Loubet | August 24, 2008 4:16 PM
I find it a little bit weird that they would rather be related to dirt than other animals.
How exactly does being told you're a dirt golem "teach people to lead a good life and not do wrong."? I don't see the connection.
Posted by: RHH | August 24, 2008 4:17 PM
BobC #12 "Now Florida has successfully joined the 21st century instead of being stuck in the 18th century."
Not really, Florida may have taken this one grudging step toward the 19th century but that step must be proven by some result. There is no output to measure yet.
Posted by: Steve_C | August 24, 2008 4:17 PM
I'm glad my son will be going to school in New York. This would never fly here. Religion is a handicap.
Posted by: rrt | August 24, 2008 4:18 PM
RBH: I wouldn't deride anyones' religion in a class. Ever. Nor would I actively seek to raise the topic. Are you suggesting, however, that it's inappropriate to deconstruct bad claims made in a class, whatever their origin? Are you saying we should just clam up, say "oh, well, I can't respond to that because it's religious?" I get the impression that you're reading a bit too much into the fire-breathing here. Though I readily admit I know I don't speak for all of us in that.
Neil B: As one of the philosophically sub-literate, could you put your point about "the universe just is" in layman's terms to me? I always see this response associated with the religious "everything has a cause, the universe's is God, who just is" argument, with the assumption that if we're going to slap the "it just is" label on something, we might as well cut an apparently frivolous layer (God) out of the system. But I get the impression you've got a different approach...?
Posted by: Donalbain | August 24, 2008 4:22 PM
If a child has a religious belief that the Holocaust never happened, or that there are 27 states in the USA, could a teacher tell them that they are wrong? I would say taht any teacher who didnt correct errors of that nature should be fired. But somehow if it is a religious belief that the world is 6000 years old, we CANT tell them that they are wrong? Is that the way it is meant to be?
Posted by: Blue Nine | August 24, 2008 4:22 PM
A few points:
"I think a big reason evolutionists believe what they believe is they don't want to have to be ruled by God," said Josh Rou, 17.
This is a pretty presumptuous statement. Is there a god? Plus, it reminds me of something someone once posted on Daylight Atheism: "These people don't really believe in freedom and liberty, they believe in servitude and their master has all the trappings of a Stalinist dictator or a plantation slave owner." Who are you to tell me that I have to be ruled by God?
"Evolution is telling you that you're like an animal," Bryce agreed. "That's why people stand strong with Christianity, because it teaches people to lead a good life and not do wrong." So, evolution somehow robs people of dignity because it says that humans evolved from other species (although that does not prevent a person from choosing to be good). Yet christianity tells us that we are created from dirt, inherently sinful and deserve death. And people think that is uplifting.
Okay.
Posted by: Moses | August 24, 2008 4:23 PM
Oh crap. Who's got the wishful thinking? Religion is just fairy tales. It has nothing necessary, rational or useful to say about the world in which we live. This includes the human condition and the mythical "soul."
Nothing that religion 'does' cannot be explained better through science. Even abstract things like love, truth and beauty can be explained better by science than religion.
All religion does is poison people's minds through its shared delusion and is nothing more than a mental illness spread through a viral meme that corrupts, or even destroys, everything it infects. And for every positive benefit we may kid ourselves to believe, there is a negative that far outweighs the positives.
Posted by: H.H. | August 24, 2008 4:26 PM
Neil B said
But why would this particular someone/thing exist to manage what else exists and what does not, as opposed to all the other possible someones/things? Wouldn't a different manager necessarily manage things differently? Looks like your solution suffers from the same problems it seeks to correct. It appears that you either haven't thought very deeply about your theism, or you are trying very hard to give an intellectual gloss to a profoundly bad idea that you refuse to relinquish for non-intellectual reasons.Posted by: Todd | August 24, 2008 4:27 PM
Aren't we missing the important point in this story? Florida students must now be taught evolution! That's a win people. Sure, science didn't pitch a shut out here and there's still plenty of work to do but let's take a moment to celebrate the advance of reason when we see it.
Posted by: Moses | August 24, 2008 4:28 PM
Post #20. Best post I've read in a LONG, LONG time. Hat tip to you.
Posted by: llewelly | August 24, 2008 4:29 PM
The Master decides right and wrong. A golem must obey its master.Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | August 24, 2008 4:32 PM
Neil B, you have quite the topic drift in comment 40. Each sentence has a slightly different topic than its neighbors... this makes the whole text very confusing to read.
So what? Why do you act as if that were a problem? Go ahead, believe in a multiverse, believe even in the "many worlds" interpretation of quantum physics. Not falsifiable at present, AFAIK.
And what exactly do you mean by "clumsy"? Is there some law of universal symmetry and justice that I've overlooked?
Posted by: H.H. | August 24, 2008 4:34 PM
Moses @ #55, thank you for seeing past the typos. My kingdom for an edit button!
Posted by: BobC | August 24, 2008 4:37 PM
RHH #47:
I agree. This is the first year for the new standards. At least now biology teachers are able to tell the Christian thugs who harass them that they are required to teach evolution.
A big question is the quality of our biology teachers. I doubt many of them are as competent as Mr. Campbell in the New York Times article. I also think a significant percent of Florida's biology teachers are creationists like Teresa Yancey who tells her students "I think God did it." These bad teachers should be fired but I think that's unlikely to ever happen in Florida. The parents and students, who are mostly creationists, are not likely to complain about bad teachers. They prefer to attack the best teachers.
Posted by: Davis | August 24, 2008 4:43 PM
St. Augustine in the fourth century knew that the story of Genesis was an allegory, for Christ's sake!
Posted by: AndrewC | August 24, 2008 4:47 PM
As a high school student in Florida, and one whose favorite subject probably would be biology, I can say that teachers suck. Most teachers of biology have that theistic evolution bent. You know, where they pretend like science can't really work all that well but it's probably right; oh and they can't explain this random question so ha, their favorite magic man exists. Their understanding of mechanisms dealing with evolution are really rather poor, and guess why
Posted by: Lynn David | August 24, 2008 4:48 PM
I once created some "Religion Based Ignorance Indices of Some Christian-based Countries" based upon a country's percentage of belief in the bible, the devil, hell and finally evolution. It was simple, I used some statistics from ReligiousTolerance.Org ad others. I simply divided the percentage in a country for each religious-based belief (bible, devil, hell) by the percentage of persons with a reasoned belief in evolution and then averaged them for a composite index. Thus an ignorance index of one (1.0) meant that equal persons believed in both the religious beliefs as evolution.
The composite index for the United States was the only country ABOVE one - at 1.21. We shared the top in religious-based composite ignorance indices with such countries as Northern Ireland (0.80), Poland (0.70), the Philippines (0.61), and Ireland (0.42). Other countries such as New Zealand, Norway, Great Britian, and Germany were all under 0.25.
What a country!
Posted by: sng | August 24, 2008 4:48 PM
Neil B,
In the context of science the questions are "Is there evidence for it?" and "Where's your data?". So while all of that may be wonderful in a philosophy class it has no bearing in a science class. In a science class the analogy is perfect. And a philosophy class is where such things, to include god and religion, should be discussed.
I read all that and think that it's so much intellectual masturbation. And about as productive. But I'll not go into a philosophy or religion class and start going on about it. The religious should show science class the same respect.
Posted by: RBH | August 24, 2008 4:54 PM
rrt wrote
Nope, far from suggesting that, I'm suggesting (via my remarks about supporting teachers and educating school board members about the issue) that we arm teachers with the information and background they need to counter the bad claims on an appropriate basis: science. Bear in mind that a fair proportion of science teachers in the public schools do not have degrees in the disciplines they teach. Further bear in mind that many public school biology teachers have never had a course in evolutionary biology. They are unarmed in the face of bullshit like the Disco Institute's Ten Questions to Ask Your Biology Teacher or Hovind's Lies in the Textbooks.Every scientist on this board ought to read the "Ten Questions" and watch the "Lies" video and find the various rebuttals that are out there and make the rebuttals available to public school science teachers. Make friends with those teachers, particularly if you have children in the school, and support them.
One of the problems we had in Ohio was getting scientists to actually stand up and speak publicly about the issue. Too many think it's not their problem, that their own research (mostly) and teaching (secondarily) are more important than being active in supporting honest public school science education. They'd maybe sign a statement that someone else wrote, but that's about the extent of it, and it was discouraging to those of us who were putting in the time and effort and money over years. If scientists in this country expect to maintain the level of public support and financing they have enjoyed for the 50 or so years following WWII and Sputnik, they had better get off their asses and do the political and public educational work necessary to ensure that the people coming up through the public schools learn and appreciate honest science.
There's more (I may write a Panda's Thumb post on this if I can find time) but finally, learn the difference between atheist and secular. The latter is what's germane to the science education issue in the public schools. I'm fully aware that PZ and Dawkins are fighting a larger war, one that I fully sympathize with, but I'm also aware that the war will be won or lost in the multitude of small and large battles in public schools, and that is a political battleground, not a scientific one or even a religious one. The very first article I wrote for the Committees of Correspondence on Evolution Education in 1987 made exactly that point, and it's still valid. If we lose politically at the local and state board of education levels we're screwed, regardless of what the actual science is. Look at Kansas. Look at Ohio. In neither case did we win on the science as such at the state level. The wins, such as they were, were political.
Find good candidates and get them elected and stay in contact with them and lobby them. Support good science teachers with time and materials. Organize with like-minded people and stay vigilant. That and only that will win the science wars.
Posted by: Rick Schauer | August 24, 2008 5:02 PM
"That's the dark evil gnawing at the heart of the American public."
That's a way-nice way to put it, PZ!
I remember a video game, "Zombies Ate My Neighbor?" The religious are like those zombies in that game.
Posted by: rrt | August 24, 2008 5:03 PM
RBH: Right on. :)
Posted by: bio teacher | August 24, 2008 5:12 PM
#64
Yes please make an easy rebuttal to the "10 things" and "Lies in the textbooks" for us!
Who wants to give me ideas for how to counter the "I just don't believe it" students when I've listed countless evolutionary examples and gone through comparative embryology and biochemistry and blah blah blah. What I've been telling them is that if they want to debate it with me, they can stay after school, but funny, noone ever does!
Any ideas for us teachers? And remember, we can't tell our students that they are mindless fairy tale worshippers. Also keep in mind that if some teachers skillfully deal with these indoctrinated students, perhaps they will one day begin to question their religious backgrounds and end up on OUR side!!!
Posted by: Irene Delse | August 24, 2008 5:13 PM
Blue Nine: " Yet christianity tells us that we are created from dirt, inherently sinful and deserve death. And people think that is uplifting."
Sure, it's uplifting. For a certain definition of uplifting, at least... It tells us strongly that life sucks (which is congruent with experience, on the whole), gives a reason why (a colorful, entertaining one, if not very reasonable) and leads us to expect much better after death (but only after death). I makes perfect sense, in a Stockholm syndrome kind of way.
Posted by: Freidenker | August 24, 2008 5:15 PM
I find it somewhat depressing to think that a world without religion is not going to be a world without evil.
I still think it'd be a better place, though.
Posted by: Nick Gotts | August 24, 2008 5:24 PM
It is debatable whether "falsifiability" is a proper criterion of meaningfulness; that's what Popper thought - Neil B.
No it isn't. Indeed, he explicitly denied it. He thought (wrongly IMAO) that it was the criterion of whether a claim was scientific.