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Monday, August 08, 2005
Academic freedom and censorship
The Religiously Correct are just hammering the last nail in a new frame for their specious arguments on intelligent design: it's all about academic freedom and censorship:"There are only a tiny minority of people who don't believe that, who don't believe in free speech on evolution," he explains. "Unfortunately, they happen to be in some of the places of power. And so it's very good and we're very pleased that President Bush has come out on the side of academic freedom on evolution -- not on the side of censorship."
West says the Discovery Institute opposes mandating the teaching of intelligent design in schools, but supports requiring students to know about scientific criticisms of Darwinian evolution. State science standards in three states -- Ohio, New Mexico, and Minnesota -- require students to know such information.
Yes, science should no longer be moored by empiricism. It's time to base all scientific discussion on the principles of freedom of speech. Rather than teach our children what a bunch of scientists have to say, let's have our children base their scientific understanding on the snazziest PowerPoint presentation. I vote for the one with the cool animated monkey!
By the by, the Minnesota standards are here (Word document). A few things our children are expected to learn in high school:
- The student will explain how Doppler evidence indicates our universe is expanding in all directions. Careful -- this is consistent with the Big Bang!
- The student will use evidence found in fossils, rock layers, ice cores, radiometric dating and globally gathered data to explain how Earth has changed over short and long periods of time. Careful -- this might indicate the Earth is more than 6,000 years old!
- The student will explain how the sun, Earth and solar system formed. Easy answer -- God did it. Next question!
- The student will use scientific evidence, including the fossil record, homologous structures, embryological development or biochemical similarities, to classify organisms in order to show probable evolutionary relationships and common ancestry. Yipes! That's not Genesis-friendly at all.
- The student will understand how biological evolution provides a scientific explanation for the fossil record of ancient life forms, as well as for the striking molecular similarities observed among the diverse species of living organisms. Ack! It's getting worse.
In other words, Minnesota's science standards do not specifically require students to know scientific criticisms of evolution. Although to the extent that scientific criticisms of any theory exist, students should be exposed to those ideas. Scientists don't object to science: they object to belief masquerading as theory.
