Kevin sent me this article on the current debate over how science is taught in the state of Kansas. I hadn’t been paying much attention because these fights don’t usually interest me all that much. Darwinism vs. creationism, prayer in school, and similar battles are usually partisans on each side pushing their agenda.
The interesting thing here, though, is that the fight is not over the symptoms of the problem (e.g., evolution versus creationism), but goes to the heart of the problem itself. Here is a quote from the article…
The Kansas school board’s hearings on evolution weren’t limited to how the theory should be taught in public schools. The board is considering redefining science itself. Advocates of “intelligent design” are pushing the board to reject a definition limiting science to natural explanations for what’s observed in the world.
Instead, they want to define it as “a systematic method of continuing investigation,” without specifying what kind of answer is being sought. The definition would appear in the introduction to the state’s science standards. The Kansas school board’s hearings on evolution weren’t limited to how the theory should be taught in public schools. The board is considering redefining science itself. Advocates of “intelligent design” are pushing the board to reject a definition limiting science to natural explanations for what’s observed in the world.
Instead, they want to define it as “a systematic method of continuing investigation,” without specifying what kind of answer is being sought. The definition would appear in the introduction to the state’s science standards.
This is interesting because it goes to the philosophy of science itself. In recent decades, naturalism (the view that the material world is all there is) has maintained a stranglehold on scientific education by defining science as the study of that which has a materialistic explanation. The supernatural is defined out of science (and thus out of existence in any real sense). It’s like saying “That is not a unicorn because there is no such thing as unicorns.” Any talk of a designer or creator is off limits because “that’s not science.”
Science used to simply mean the study of creation. If something had a natural explanation, then great. If it is best explained by something supernatural, then we’d just follow the evidence where it leads. This is the definition of science that the ID movement is attempting to restore—science as an open inquiry, allowing the evidence to lead wherever it may.
Or in other words, “heads I win, tails you lose.”
A New York Times Op-Ed used this case last week to come out with the stultifying position that critical thinking is considered harmful.
It’s like the chief of police assuring the public that the entire force is out investigating a string of serial murders, leaving no stone unturned and never resting until the killer is caught… and then instructing his detectives that they must not follow any evidence that might implicate a white person.
It’s like Leslie Nielsen in the Police Squad! movies, standing in front of a huge car wreck at a fireworks factory with explosions going on all around, saying, “nothing to see here.”
It’s like O.J. Simpson’s attorneys entering a sealed envelope into evidence that nobody’s allowed to look at, and then ridiculing the case against their client because the police can’t produce the murder weapon.
Why aren’t people more piqued by this, I wonder? I mean, really – if I told my 3- and 4-year-old daughters, “OK, go look for your Christmas presents! Look anywhere you’d like, but whatever you do, don’t look in the back corner of my closet under the beach towel!” … where do you suppose they would look?
Imagine a teacher introducing a science class like this: “Students, you are about to engage in a relentless pursuit of the truth. There is no higher calling in the sciences than to discover the way things are – we are the heirs of the Enlightenment. No boundaries shall stifle your exploration! No prejudices shall thwart your inquiry! Question authority! Accept nothing on faith alone! And oh, by the way, don’t even bother going down the God road – there’s nothing there… trust me.”
It’s as if the Wizard is telling us not to pay any attention to the little man behind the curtain… but this time, it’s a bunch of little men telling us not to pay any attention to an overawing God who cannot be concealed.