A federal judge banned a Pennsylvania public school from teaching Intelligent Design as a desguised name for creationism…stating that this was NOT separation of church and state.
I happen to agree with his decision in that there is no factual proof that Creationism exists
Do we tell our students that the Tooth Fairy does exist? Do we teach that there are many who firmly believe that Santa Claus exists and lives in the North Pole?
Your thoughts on the above pro and con are appreciated.
None of them have any place being “taught” in school.
If you meant this a debate, it probably belongs in GD, but there’s already a thread there:
Just to correct some misunderstandings in the spirit of GQ, the judge did not ban the teaching of ID. He ruled that teaching ID as an alternate to the theory of evolution in a science class was a violation of the seperation of church and state.
And off to Great Debates this one goes in a few short hours, I am betting… :smack:
I’m sending this wayward thread home to Great Debates.
Suppose some school district decided to teach that the tooth fairy exists. I think we can all agree that this would be monumentally stupid. But what law would have been broken?
In kindergarten, I suspect we do!
A clarification: what judge struck down was requiring teachers to read a statement he felt advanced a religious doctrine (in part based on the admission even from its defenders that the plausibility of ID relied on whether or not you were religious: something not generally a sign of science). That’s not quite the same thing as banning ID in schools. Based on the ruling, I don’t see why the subject couldn’t come up in class and be discussed. It just can’t be a state-mandated science requirement.
I was just listening to the discussion on NPR. The judge {appointed by Bush} said ID is just a word change for creationism and creationism was already judged a violation of the establishment clause. I agree. Strangly I remember my own biology teacher in high school circa early seventies, refused to teach evolution because of his beliefs. At the time we were gald to avoid any work we could avoid for any reason.
It’s really ridiculous for anyone to think God might be offended if we don’t teach creationism. Teach science, and let that include the limits of our knowledge. The history of science shows that theories change as new knowledge becomes available. Science only helps seperate myth from truth and Jesus told us the truth would set us free. So where’s the conflict?
Sure, but only in the proto-literature sense of teaching about leprechauns or Halloween witches. You’re not going to find any kindergarden teachers who toss out their lesson plans on winter weather with an “intelligent snow” hypothesis that says December frost is caused by St. Nick’s elves.
None. But again, it was a decision regarding teaching Intelligent Design (which I will abbreviate FSM) in science class. If a school board mandated that the Tooth Fairy (TTF) should be taught in science class, but all the “scientific” evidence turned out to be religious in nature, then it would be a clear violation of the “establishment” clause.
The decision still allows Dover, PA to teach FSM in a social studies class, or a comparative religion class, or whatever. Just not in science class. And, I have a feeling that FSM has been put to rest in Dover, PA. Last month, the solid citizens of Dover turned out the lying rascals on the previous board and replaced them with anti-FSM proponents. The judge’s decision probably won’t be challenged.
Boo-hoo 
Another blow to the belief in FSM! Can we survive? :rolleyes:
A final philosophical note: Some scientists who believe in FSM use microbiology as their argument. They point out intensely complex biochemical processes, and argue that these show clear evidence of FSM. This “micro” argument says that nothing like this could have come about randomly.
Having studied some of this, I tend to disagree. The Krebs cycle, for example, looks like it was designed by Rube Goldberg. Is a designer that needs 11 separate steps to move 1 electron intelligent?
Regardless, I have two thoughts to propose:
[ol]
[li]Just because a system looks like it was designed intelligently doesn’t mean it was. Without more evidence, I think the best we can say is “who knows?”[/li][li]And after all, what difference does it make? A physicist (well, mebbe a sufficiently smart one) would argue that all we can do is describe what we “see”, and attempt to make sense of it. We can never really know what is actually going on. If we have observations that we need to explain, we try to fit them into the puzzle. Generally, we agree that a fit into an existing puzzle is better than throwing out the entire puzzle to explain a new fact.[/li][/ol]
I suspect the devotees of FSM think that FSM is a way for them to sneak into science, and thereby counteract the trend towards “atheistic communism” (and uncontrolled sex between minors?) in schools. Perhaps we should simply ask them to move to Oklahoma and stop bothering us! 
ID a classic logical fallacy: “I cannot see how nature did it; hence God must have done it.” That wasn’t a correct line of thought when people didn’t know how it rained and thought it was God crying, and it’s still not valid now.
What incredible conceit to think that just because you cannot imagine nature’s intermediate steps in evolving something, they cannot have existed! These folks must think that they have the intellect of God Himself to think that in millions of years, on all the surface of the Earth, nothing can have been made with intermediate steps that they themselves cannot imagine. What incredible ego!
Well, now you’ve added an entirely new dimension to the issue that was not in the OP-- that the tooth fairy is a religious concept. The problem is, it’s not a religious concept-- it’s a folk tale. So, I’ll ask again… what law would be violated by teaching about the tooth fairy in public schools?
BTW, I know that ID is not science. But the judge ruled against ID not because it wasn’t a scientific concept, but because it **was **a religious one. Something can be unscientific and still not be religious in nature. The OP was making the implicit assumption, thru his analogies, that it can’t.
Well, it has already been clarified that the judge did not ban teaching about ID, just the mandate by the school board that it be taught as science as such violates the establishment clause. Something most of us seem to agree with.
What about John’s question. Is it legal for a school board to mandate that a false, non-scientific, but non-religious concept be taught in science class?
Now of course in reality the only reason that a non-scientific explanation would be promoted/mandated by some would be for the promotion of a particular religious POV, but the question still remains.
Just let them be voted out?
When are the wingnuts going to start screaming about the “activist” judge who decided this case? (Nevermind that he was appointed by GWB himself). 
633Squadron why did you use FSM as an abbrev. for ID? Am I missing something?
I agree that the tooth fairy is not religious. As far as I can tell, the judge ruled against ID because it’s not science, and not because it’s religious. I haven’t read the opinion, so I hesitate to say for sure.
An argument that it is religious might be better, because the “establishment” clause would apply. I’m only guessing that if you try to teach religion outside the scope of its social impact or its comparison to other religions, you’re violating the clause.
Teaching something that isn’t scientific or religious doesn’t seem to me to be against the law. So teaching that the tooth fairy exists (or designed animals) isn’t illegal in any way I can think of offhand.
A teacher who tried that might run into opposition from both sides. The “science” side would claim that it’s irresponsible to teach nonsense, and the “ID” side might claim that it’s teaching heathenism! :eek: I mean, there are some parents who object to Harry Potter!
This makes me ask: what did the school’s principal want to do? What did the teachers want to do? We hear a lot about school boards, but what do the professionals think?
Oh rats! You beat me to it! :smack:
The FSM has kept me cheerful when I would otherwise despair. Far better to look at the whole thing from the sunny side of life.