Teacher on the Front Line
24 August 2008 - 24 אב 5768 by Huw
ESTERDAY’S New York Times has a really good article on the teaching of Evolution in Florida’s public schools: A Teacher on the Front Line as Faith and Science Clash:
Passionate on the subject, Mr. Campbell had helped to devise the state’s new evolution standards, which will be phased in starting this fall. A former Navy flight instructor not used to pulling his punches, he fought hard for their passage. But with his students this spring, he found himself treading carefully, as he tried to bridge an ideological divide that stretches well beyond his classroom.
The Times discusses the faith of the students. And the science of the teacher. The article also notes the (reasonable, I think) struggles of the students to understand something they’ve never been exposed to before.
There is a gap they do not bridge and it’s an important one: they never discuss the faith of the teacher. Is he a member of any organised religion? Can he, at least, understand where his kids are coming from? What does he think of religion in general - and, specifically, of the the uberfrum kind his kids are raised in?
I think this is important. Because, on the one hand, his attitudes are as much a part of the story as his kids’ are. When the paper reports that the football star makes a snarky “I didn’t come from an ape” comment, we get a glimpse into his mind. When we hear no comments from the teacher - snarky or otherwise - we get a glimpse into the reporter’s mind.
Clearly the reporter thinks that those who know about evolution are normal (need no explanation to his readers at the Times) and those who don’t accept it are abnormal, to be studied like an oddity.
The article leaves unanswered a number of questions: why are tax payers required to pay for an education that undercuts their faith? Why does the gov’t care? Does the teacher have a faith himself? Or is he - as one of the student’s suggests - using evolution to avoid having to deal with God?
When the teacher - and the paper - tries to draw a difference between science and faith, they are falling into the premise that “faith” means “applying credence and credibility to things most adults would realise as nonsense if they but thought about it”. The article points out the difference between, say, Gravity and changing water to wine. Apples can not be validly compared to oranges - especially, in this case, miraculous oranges.
Science is only a method.
We use this method in many ways - and the method has been found wanting in many ways and quite applicable in others. But the method doesn’t explain anything - it helps us to come to a better understanding so we can explain. The resultant explanation is based on a priori assumptions that we hold to interpret the facts we discover. Theocentric evolution makes as much sense as random factors and chance: there is no evidence for either. Both are our interpretations on the evidence for biological evolution. Religion - materialist, spiritual, Chrisitan, New Age, Atheist - is those a priori assumptions and faith is the next step into the darkness we take based on the facts we have.
On the flip side, why would taxpayers be required to pay for an education that favors one religious worldview of everything to the exclusion of others? That’s what the evangelical fundamentalists want, at least down here in Florida, where controversy over teaching evolution reared its ugly head again last year. But that’s what private schools are for.
I think that may be why you didn’t get any perspective out of that article on the teacher’s religion or lack thereof. Given the overly emotive witch hunt atmosphere that surrounded that curriculum change down here, I imagine many teachers are remaining tight-lipped and walking on egg shells for fear of parental or religious establishment protest — and a possible loss of job.
Also, why are über-religious types so afraid of being exposed to anything that doesn’t agree with their faith? Whenever I see parents and pastors down here wring their hands in anxiety over “the public schools undermining the children’s faith,” I can’t help thinking of Basil of Caesarea’s and Gregory of Nazianzus’ parents, thoroughly Christian to the nth degree, who had no qualms about shipping their sons off to the pagan Academy in Athens to get the best education available at the time — with no fear their faith would be undermined. No, they simply took the best of the knowledge and skills they learned, applied them in a Christian framework and discarded what wasn’t useful.
I was going not so much for the education as the “public funding” part: I’m still wondering why taxes pay for public education (religious or not). This was more the point of that question. But once you assume public funding, *then* I wonder why the public has so little say over it.
Gregory makes exactly the same mistake as the author of the article. He assumes that the only two options are teaching evolution (non-secular) or teaching a culturally-bound religious viewpoint, by which they mean “creationism.”
Meanwhile, the John Templeton Foundation has put out a booklet titled, “Does science make belief in God obsolete?” which features opinions by 13 well known people from the fields of science, philosophy, and religion. The answers are quite a mixture. Many show the gray areas in the debate. And some represent the extreme “no” and extreme “yes” sides of the debate. Not one of the people represented is a “creationist.” You can view the booklet in its entirety and order it at http://www.templeton.org/belief/
Unfortunately, the secularists in the USA have managed to eliminate subtlety and eliminate debate by using precisely the type of reductionist argument used above. If anyone does not agree with secular evolution, they must then be a “creationist” or a “Christian” or a “flat-earther.” The booklet by Templeton shows that there is significantly more variety than that.
It is too bad that the Gregory’s of the world will never allow the schools to have such a nuanced discussion. It is easier to label every other viewpoint as being somehow “evangelical fundamentalism” that seeks to exclude when it is, in fact, those viewpoints that are being excluded by a scientism that is more controlling and exclusionary than anything that the other side is accused of.
Oh, in passing, the Scopes trial was nearly 100 years ago. The only ones currently seeking exclusion of all other viewpoints are the scientism folks. The situation has fully reversed. The witch hunt is not being done by the other viewpoints, Gregory. They only want a seat at the table.
I’m not sure that Gregory is in that boat, Father. But I see the theistic evolutionists to be at the same fault: there’s no evidence for God in evolutionary science. There is no scientific basis on which to assume a reason (God, or random chance, or any shade in the middle) at all.
Science can show it does happen. And how. But it cannot address the “why”. Even the NY Times assumes that it can, however. Likewise the religious evolution types assume they can prove a “Why”.
I think the moderate view would say “let’s leave ‘why’ out of this discussion’” or better, “‘why’ isn’t part of our science class at all. Take that to philosophy class down the hall.”
If science were taught with no “why,” I would agree. That is not the case, however. As the original article makes clear, the teacher is teaching a “why.” In fact, the idea that is bruited, that science does not teach a “why” but only a “how,” is a nice cover story, but not what truly happens. To list a chain of causes, as though they and only they have explanatory power, is to conflate the “how” and the “why” into one seamless story. The only god that fit into that story is a deist god who began it all, and then ignored what had been created. Science teachers do not ever say that they cannot address the “why.” That is simply not part of the scientism narrative. In fact, the opposition in Florida is to anyone actually saying anything other than science explains it all.
Read the Templeton booklet. There are a few more options than that, actually a multiplicity of viewpoints. I live in Florida, but Gregory reduced the whole range of discussion into only two sides, truth and evangelical fundamentalism. He, then, used words like “witch hunt.” There is no openness to “why” there, only the conviction that no subtlety or “gray” may be permitted. And he made quite clear which side was doing the “witch hunt.”
I did a companion post on my blog. I would have linked back, but I do not know how to do it. You will have to teach me, Huw.
The teacher does offer a why - that’s was the point of my post: they don’t talk about his faith (or lack of it): they treat his evident faith as normal.
But *science* - ie, the scientific method - is agnostic. There is no deity in science but neither is there no “not-deity” in science. There is only neutral.
It is the secularists (as you point out) who put their not-deity into science.
But also the people of “Creation Science” put *their* deity into science.
I’m saying that science, by itself, is neither of these approaches. I don’t want my tax dollars to pay for *any* pseudo science that offers a “why”. But equally: those families who are devout creationists also have a “why” in their system - they don’t get “a seat at the table” either.
Then we have this… which is why people think Christians are bonkers…