Is science about finding the right answers or finding the right kind of answers? In today’s ruling, Judge John Jones made it clear that he believes it is the latter. In this case, the Judge has decided that the US constitution disallows a local school board from furnishing its students with all of the available information on the competing theories of human origins.
This exposes the truth that Phillip Johnson has been preaching for over a decade… That modern philosophy of science takes a naturalistic philosophy as a priori, and only answers that fit that system are deemed as science.
Jones wrote: “Our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach intelligent design as an alternative to evolution in a public school classroom.”
He condemned its “breathtaking inanity” and said, “Any asserted secular purposes by the board are a sham and are merely secondary to a religious objective.”
… all this because the schoolboard required teachers to say that Darwin’s theory “… is not a fact. Gaps in the theory exist for which there is no evidence.”
So this leaves me confused. What was the overriding problem?
A) The motivations of the schoolboard
B) Questioning Darwinism
I’m starting to think we should take a different path: now that teaching alternatives to Darwinism is unconstitutional, we shouldn’t even try to drive Darwinism from the debate. We should teach more Darwinism.
In fact, I’ll propose that we require all students to pass a new Darwinism final exam as a graduation requirement.
One of the techie blogs I follow for work stuff commented on the ruling here.
We need to know how the other side perceives this kind of stuff…
… and here’s how Scientific American reported on it.
… and here’s a blog post gloating over how the “god freaks” got trashed yesterday.
(last one) … and one from “our side:” Al Mohler has an excellent post summarizing the “day one” fallout here.
Here is how The Discovery Institute reported on it. Here is an excerpt…
Hugh, Eric,
Thanks for sharing.
Jose