Florida School Contemplates Teaching ID

[Richard_Parker]

@jtgain

That wasn’t my point, and I think you know that.

No, that wasn’t clear. But let’s address this new point: since we cannot control through the legal system every tiny detail of pedagogy, we ought not enforce the First Amendment when a school tries to teach ID. Frankly, it doesn’t seem like a better argument than the last one.

I understand that a school can undermine a court decision. Indeed, your argument applies to almost every legal decision. But it isn’t a good argument for not enforcing the law. It is simply a fact of life that when we try to tell schools not to teach religion, some will still try anyway.

[UltraVires]

@Richard Parker

No, that wasn’t clear. But let’s address this new point: since we cannot control through the legal system every tiny detail of pedagogy, we ought not enforce the First Amendment when a school tries to teach ID. Frankly, it doesn’t seem like a better argument than the last one.

I understand that a school can undermine a court decision. Indeed, your argument applies to almost every legal decision. But it isn’t a good argument for not enforcing the law. It is simply a fact of life that when we try to tell schools not to teach religion, some will still try anyway.

If we were talking about prayer group and Bible lessons, then I could see your point about “teaching religion”.

But if we are going to encompass the idea of “teaching religion” into everything which doesn’t explicitly or implicitly deny the existence of God, then there will be thousands of court decisions followed by thousands of skirting of those decisions. It’s so vague.

If a court decision tells me that I can’t say the word “fuck” in the school system it is easy. It’s well understood. No ambiguity. Agree or disagree; say the word, then get fired or go to jail.

You take a concept like religion. We will spiral down into 25 levels of hell and never sort it out, which is why:

It is not a federal issue. Let the locals sort it out…

[Barrett_Bonden]

@jtgain

You take a concept like religion. We will spiral down into 25 levels of hell and never sort it out, which is why:

It is not a federal issue. Let the locals sort it out…

We could rehash this entire thread and revisit your hypothesis that “religion is not a federal issue.” You would just lose again, roundly, to the dream team of James Madison, God, Warren, and Diogenes.

PS - Dio, can I please put God on the team as long as Warren sits between you two?

[Boyo_Jim]

jtgain, you have been ignoring my qestions about whether parents, students, or teachers for that matter, WITHIN the school district, should have a right to sue the district because they believe the district’s policies promote a religious viewpoint in violation of their constitutional rights.

That is what happened in Dover, PA. This was not some federal agency simply swooping in and declaring that the school board was wrong, this was a challenge by people directly affected by the policies.

Do you have a problem with this?

[enigm4tic]

you know.

I’d think jtgain was a troll. Except the thread is based on a true news article, and other stories like this are continually coming out.

I do love to watch the continual dance around the facts that he continues to make, it’s quite mesmerizing.

1. Evolution: a scientific theory. Is backed up by numerous studies, evidence, and scientific reasoning, is highly likely given the numerous discoveries in the fossil record, though they are not 100% complete. Does not attempt to address God or the original creation of life.

2. ID: A vague notion, not recognized as a scientific theory; most support comes from religious views with a heavily, if not entirely, Christian slant. Assumes the existence of an omnipotent or at least superpowerful creating force, usually a single God.

3. In a government funded biology class, topics should deal with scientific information, well grounded and researched ideas, and stay silent on topics of religion.

Conclusion

We should teach Evolution, but not ID. ID is not a theory of any merit. NOT ONLY should it not be taught on the basis of lack of merit, but the fact that it implicitly, and often explicitly brings up topics of religious nature using Christian ideas, means that it also implicitly (or even explicitly) establishes that religion as something the state will teach you and supports.

You can’t honestly tell me that you think ID should be taught for any other reason than advancing a religious agenda? At least then you could make an honest argument that you believe in the Christian faith and think it should be spread. But then it’d be too easy to prohibit your argument via the first amendment.

[Princhester]

I think that’s mostly strawman, enigm4tic. It may well be that jtgain has a religious agenda. But the basic thrust of his argument seems to be that the locals in a given area (and their children) should be left to wallow in whatever crap they choose, and where religious thought is heavily pervasive in a community, trying to police religious thought out of public schools is doomed.

In this context, Boyo Jim’s line of thought seems highly apt.

Regardless of whether you accept jtgain’s arguments, I don’t see much point in misrepresenting the basic thrust of them.

[Auntbeast]

Diogenes, I hope you have many, many, many children.

One of the things I liked best about the NOVA special was that they very explicitly stated what “theory” means to scientists. Having people dismiss evolution because it is called the “theory of evolution” shows an utter lack of understanding of the scientific concept of the word.

I see the lawyers on this board quite often having conniption fits when people use terms of law in ways that are entirely outside the context of their meaning within the law. Libel is always a good word to cause a fire storm as an example.

The big white elephant of ID is that it is PRECISELY designed to inject biblical creationism into schools in a way that they feel skirts the laws. If they keep waving their arms and shouting that it is science, we are all supposed to pretend like it isn’t a big white elephant. I for one, refuse to acknowledge their attempted deception. They ain’t fooling me.

And if anyone truly thinks that they want to open the doors for teachers to lead prayers in schools, I can assure them that the world will quickly become an unhappy place. Little Juan will complain because his math teacher is Hindu. Little Susie will complain that her english teacher is Buddist, Little Bubba will complain that his teacher is anything other than a devoted southern baptist washed in the blood of Jesus.

(checking forum) Jesus fucking christ. It isn’t science. If little Johnny wants to know what the first amendment is, tell him. If he wants to know what ID is, tell him, it isn’t a secret. None of it should be. However, it is one thing for the teacher to snswer a question, it is entirely another thing for a teacher to spew shit out of their mouths to appease an underhanded minority trying to circumvent the rights of anyone who doesn’t believe in a very, very, very specific god.

Not everything a child is taught is school is 100% correct, but fuck me, an attempt is made to make sure it has SOME validity.

And for the last time. Evolution doesn’t say shit about how we started. It also does NOT say we came from apes. Stop saying it. Educate yourself beyond the meme.

[Voyager]

@jtgain

“Enforce the First Amendment” Means very different things to different people. I was in high school twenty years ago in a rural area and listened to all of the teachers and principals instruct us using very careful words.

We even had the Biology teacher say that “Now you’ve heard the theory of evolution. Some folks don’t like that. Some people believe this theory. I’m giving you this not as fact or trying to force anything on you, just telling you what some people think, and I want you to be the judge”

Trouble is, it’s not what “some” people think, but the nearly universal consensus of those who have the credentials to have an informed opinion. Saying it is just the opinion of some crazed atheist Yankees is a lie.

then he whips out a Bible and tells the Genesis story.

Is he establishing a religion? Maybe. Nobody sued.

If I were around and someone did this to my kids, I would. Either that or punch the fucker’s lights out, and then stick his Bible where the sun don’t shine.

If you think it is okay to teach Christian creationism, how about teaching that salvation is only through Jesus. How about if Jews, Hindus and Muslims were in the class? Does the fact that a majority of the county believes this makes it okay?

[PaulParkhead]

@jtgain

But if we are going to encompass the idea of “teaching religion” into everything which doesn’t explicitly or implicitly deny the existence of God, then there will be thousands of court decisions followed by thousands of skirting of those decisions. It’s so vague.

Who said anything like that? It’s just that, well, ID and the “cdesignproponentists” (see NOVA video as recommended above) explicitly and implicitly assumes the existence of a god. And let’s face it, it takes a fair degree of bloody-mindedness to argue that these ID folks are referring to any god other than the Judeo-Christian God,

[Zoe]

jtgain: Is he establishing a religion? Maybe. Nobody sued.

If he had whipped out the Koran and begun reading from it, I would bet that after a while some people might get the idea that he was indeed trying to establish a religion. The teacher was fortunate that he wasn’t sued. In my present neighborhood (where the grocery store has signs in nine languages) he could easily have been sued. And I as a Christian would have been offended by his lack of consideration for their civil rights – and mine.

Keep it up and churches will lose their tax exempt status.

jtgain: When students ask…What is ID?

Why is that such an important question anyway?

I was born in the South into a Christian home within a Christian community full of churches. Everyone I knew went to a Presbyterian, Methodist or fundamentalist church. There were no Jews. I didn’t know any atheists. There was one Catholic that I saw only at a distance from time to time. Like many children, I was baptized when I was a baby sixty-four years ago.

I’ve had classes in both biology and Bible and worked in religious publishing and high school classrooms. My degree is from a reputable university. I’ve always thought that Darwin made sense and I’ve always believed that God created the cosmos. Yet I had never heard of the specific term Intelligent Design or ID used until the last few years.

And even Creationism wasn’t a term that was used in school or even in Sunday School when I was growing up. In SS we talked about the Biblical account of Creation. At school we talked about Evolution. The adults had the good sense not to get pushy with us and we worked it out in ways that suited each of us as we grew up.

So why is it so all-fired important now?

Keep religion out of the classroom and we will keep taxes (and Darwinism) out of your Sunday School class. The First Amendment protects both the Church and the State. Fundamentalists and religious zealots abuse civil rights at their own peril!

When I was teaching, my own civil rights were violated over and over and over in this matter. If I hadn’t been so tired, maybe I would have sued. At least one of my colleagues did.

[glee]

@Liberal

Given our longstanding history of mutual respect, going all the way back to the great prayer experiment of 2000, I would appreciate your reading my posts for what they actually say. I haven’t advocating teaching ID as science, and I have in fact drawn out the difference between science and religion in quite some detail.

I do read your posts, for they are worth reading. I know you haven’t advocated teaching ID as science, but I challenge this:

@Liberal

More and more people seem to be talking about science in exactly those terms. In a recent thread, someone questioned an astronomical finding, and someone else responded that if it was good enough for the university scientists, then it was good enough for him.

I didn’t understand why you even mentioned this. It implies that there is a link between science and religion, in that both take things on faith.

I will accept (which I think is what you meant) that I personally haven’t (for example) looked through an observatory telescope to check on the evidence for astronomical claims. Nevertheless plenty of astronomers have. And they make testable predictions, such as time and date of eclipses.
By contrast no priests have ever offered any evidence for their religion, while different religions have opposing claims. Nor has any religion ever successfully predicted anything (though the End of the World has been claimed many times…)

And there is a mountain of evidence that science works. I flick a switch at home and light appears. Everyone connected to a power supply can do this.
Apparently in religion, only God can make light.

[enigm4tic]

@Princhester

I think that’s mostly strawman, enigm4tic. It may well be that jtgain has a religious agenda. But the basic thrust of his argument seems to be that the locals in a given area (and their children) should be left to wallow in whatever crap they choose, and where religious thought is heavily pervasive in a community, trying to police religious thought out of public schools is doomed.

Maybe, but look at one of his lines of argument.
“Evolution denies the existance of God”
“Evolution is only a theory”

and this

@jtgain

But if we are going to encompass the idea of “teaching religion” into everything which doesn’t explicitly or implicitly deny the existence of God, then there will be thousands of court decisions followed by thousands of skirting of those decisions. It’s so vague.

his implicit (or maybe explicit, I didn’t go through all of his posts just then) argument being “why should this be kicked out when evolution or other theories may or may not be vulnerable to the same attack”

In response I defined evolution and ID in such a way as to be able to draw a distinct and reasonable difference between a scientific and religious idea, and suggested that such a line could quite easily be drawn in a scientific course. Namely, that ideas that have religious components, and are not well grounded in solid research have no place in a scientific study. Evolution, on the other hand, clearly passes these requirements. Even if BOTH theories TURN OUT to be totally false and the flying spaghetti monster’s noodly appendages (as an example) touched us and we came to life, evolution is a grounded scientific theory with a valid body of data to support it. ID is not and has overtly religious components (as noted repeatedly by other posters as well.) Thus whether or not some things should be left to local school boards, ID is not something that can be taught in government funded public schools. (Again the point being that there is a clear line between the two, and ID can be firmly placed in the “religious idea” camp).

[Princhester]

No you are misunderstanding his relevant posts.

If you read his post #71, the "“Evolution denies the existance of God and evolution is only a theory” thang is not a statement of jtgain’s own position: it is an introduction that he is suggesting a hypothetical bible basher teacher might use to teach evolution while at the same time weasel in some discreditation of it, in order to obey the letter but not the spirit of any court order imposed upon a school in a bible belt. You and others have then blithely proceeded to rant against statements the substance of which jtgain has never explicitly stated he agrees with.

And your second quote above you are again misunderstanding. I don’t know how the heck you interpret what he says as saying that evolution is also vulnerable to attack as being a religion. All he’s saying is that it is hard to draw a line around what precisely is religious, and there will have to be numerous court orders which will be followed by numerous attempts to skirt the orders by religiously minded teachers, followed by more orders etc and that this is impractical.

I don’t agree with jtgain’s arguments, but they are and have been from the beginning based around the idea that religious counties should be allowed to wallow in crap if they want, not around any suggestion that crap isn’t crap. Check out the tone of his first post in this thread: it is distinctely contemptuous of ID and religion. You’ve got the wrong end of the stick.

[Voyager]

@Liberal

More and more people seem to be talking about science in exactly those terms. In a recent thread, someone questioned an astronomical finding, and someone else responded that if it was good enough for the university scientists, then it was good enough for him.

I trust that this person was jumped on by those who agreed with the finding? While it might be okay to accept consensus as a default, any supporter of the consensus should be happy to point to a non-scientist to the evidence and the chain of reasoning. So the faith is very superficial. Perhaps scientific faith should be defined as evidence of things I haven’t bothered to look at yet.