Proposal - a new strategy to counter anti-evolutionists

I would appreciate comments on the following proposal. As background
you should know that I am credentialed philosopher, an evolutionist,
and an atheist.

I would like to suggest the following practical strategy to counter the
anti-evolutionists' call for equal time in the science classroom:

When a school board presses for equal time, the evolutionists should
agree and then press for adding a philosophy of science course to the
curriculum specifically devoted to the creationism-evolution issue.
This kind of course is well within the power of school boards to
implement. Moreover the Europeans routinely give philosophy courses in
high school. IMHO, a philosophy of science course of this sort will be
far more interesting and educationally relevant for students than the
typical long dead white male course. Ideally the course will be jointly
taught by both a proponent of ID and of evolution. As you know, we have
lots of good, accessible material already developed on our side. In
fact, this might be an excellent opportunity for NCSE (National Center
for Science Education) to market it's own textbook on the subject. (Or
jointly market it with the Discovery Institute.) Imagine if this course
became standard nationwide! NCSE should start a national campaign for
"equal time" on this basis.

This approach has many advantages:

1. It puts NCSE and evolutionists on the offensive - in the politically
advantageous position of being in favor of "equal time", which as you
know is popular with the public . It is potentially economically and
politically advantageous for NCSE and other pro-evolution
organizations.

2. It keeps ID and creationism out of the science classroom, and
defuses that issue.

3. It avoids the First Amendment issues. The course has an obvious
secular purpose. It hopefully would bypass the need for endless
litigation before an increasingly conservative court system.

4. It allows us to frame the issues in broad historical context: we
start with young earth creationism as a scientific theory, and end with
ID.

5. It allows us to present Darwin's argument in its original form: as
an extended comparison of how the theory of evolution via natural
selection matches against the Biblical theory of special creation in
light of detailed empirical observation.

6. There is a good chance that in most cases students will be properly
taught, and the cause of science education and evolution theory will be
advanced. Moreover I think that, in general, students will find this
course among the most interesting in their curriculum.

7. It is also a much needed opportunity to introduce philosophy into
the high school curriculum. In the course of public policy, we all do
philosophy - most of the debate between evolutionists and
anti-evolutionists is philosophy of science rather than science itself.
So we all do philosophy, the only question is, do we do it
self-consciously and well, or do we do it poorly, typically lapsing
into semantic confusion, talking past one another.

I want to return to point 3 above. It's true that most of the main
movers and shakers of ID have a religious motivation and are
creationists in disguise. And it's even more true that school boards
are primarily motivated by a religious agenda. And perhaps those facts
are sufficient on First Amendment grounds to find that sticker and
equal treatment laws serve no reasonable "secular" purpose - which is a
basic Constitutional test.

But I think that sooner or later evolution proponents will have the
face the fact that the secular purpose test is a rather flimsy basis to
ban ID from the classroom. First of all, there are many cases in the US
where a law was passed for primarily religious reasons, but later
upheld because some secular purpose was concocted to support the law,
e.g. the many blue-laws in the US banning the sale of goods on Sunday -
see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_law for a good history of these
laws. Even though these laws were clearly primarily motivated by
religious belief, courts ultimately upheld their legality.

There are in fact a solid core of ID proponents who are not religious
but who genuinely think that evolution is bad or questionable science -
the number of such proponents is not inconsequential. Also IDers are
well-organized, well-funded, and have increasing political clout.
Moreover, they are working very hard to present ID as a purely secular
hypothesis. We simply cannot count on courts continuing to rule against
ID on purely First Amendment grounds. Whether its blue laws or "In God
we Trust" on our bills - I simply have no great confidence that the
courts won't eventually find some semblance of a secular purpose to
justify anti-evolution laws. In the end we must justify banning ID from
the science classroom for the same reasons that we ban giving equal
time to the theory that HIV does not cause AIDS, the holocaust denial,
or the moon landing hoax. All of these views have people with PhDs or
some other degree supporting them, yet none have anything to do with
religion or First Amendment issues.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Proposal - a new strategy to counter anti-evolutionists
    ... > agree and then press for adding a philosophy of science course to the ... philosophy class or religious studies would be appropriate. ... teaching ID and evolution away from the science class. ... host of other issues to do with religion including where we might all ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Proposal - a new strategy to counter anti-evolutionists
    ... >>>agree and then press for adding a philosophy of science course to the ... a philosophy of science course of this sort will be ... >>>taught by both a proponent of ID and of evolution. ... proposing originally. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Proposal - a new strategy to counter anti-evolutionists
    ... Teaching philosophy of religion (which I ... the ID proponents are proposing to introduce in US schools, in the science ... you cannot present it alongside evolution as ID in a comparitive fashion as ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Proposal - a new strategy to counter anti-evolutionists
    ... > philosophy in the US, ... > evolution and rejecting ID as good science. ... > evolution simply because it is overwhelmingly the stronger position. ... And it's even more true that school boards ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Proposal - a new strategy to counter anti-evolutionists
    ... >> agree and then press for adding a philosophy of science course to the ... a philosophy of science course of this sort will be ... >> taught by both a proponent of ID and of evolution. ... but our side can always come up with serious proposals. ...
    (talk.origins)