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Ellis,
You are right. I should have been more
specific. I am also enjoying the EC aspects of this debate with respect to
teaching in public schools. My point, which I made quite poorly, was that
discussing whether specific tenets of ID or evolution are correct or false,
seems to be leading us off into arguments which don't really advance the
on-point EC claims.
Gene Summerlin From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of West, Ellis Sent: Saturday, August 20, 2005 4:27 PM To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: RE: Findings on Hostility at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article Gene, I will make an
attempt to relate this thread to religion law. According to many scholars,
the religion clauses require that the government, including the public schools,
be neutral with respect to religion. Is that possible, especially in the
area of public education? More specifically, unless it is taught within
the context of some sort of “philosophy of science” introduction or framework,
isn’t evolution and perhaps all science inherently anti-religion? In other
words, in order not to be anti-religion, doesn’t the teaching of evolution at
least have to be accompanied by some sort caveat or disclaimer about the
metaphysical and theological implications of the
subject? A second way that this
thread relates to religion law is that it raises the question about the meaning
or definition of religion. It’s interesting to me that most of the critics
of ID on this list have assumed or argued that there is a sharp distinction
between science and religion. Although I am not an expert in the
philosophy of science, I wonder how many philosophers of science today would
accept that there is a hard and fast distinction between the two. It is
said that the claims of science, but not those of religion, are testable, but
are scientific concepts like causation, force, gravity, etc. testable? Of
course, whether an object will fall is testable, but does anyone know why it
will fall? How can government be neutral with respect to religion unless
there is a fairly clear distinction between religion and science and other ways
of comprehending reality?
From:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Behalf Of Gene
Summerlin The idea that "pharyngeal arches"
mutated into gills in fish and lungs in other animals is really far fetched from
a practical genetic standpoint. Mutations occur very rarely in a given
population and are generally deleterious. It is also true that mutations
are generally recessive traits so they are not easily passed on to
offspring. Even when both parents are carriers, there is only a 25% chance
that an offspring will be homozygous for the mutated trait and thus possess
it. In addition, you are positing that many, many mutations simultaneously
occur to allow a given species to mutate into another species. It was my
understand, though perhaps I'm wrong, that most geneticists have rejected
In any case, now that I have participated in this
discussion and made myself as guilty as everyone else who has, I don't see what
any of this has to do with religion law. Gene Summerlin From:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Behalf Of Ed
Brayton
You call "critics" those that
complain that it is "inaccurate" to "call them gill slits." Language
matters. How can science be served by making words meaningless.
Because gills are related in some way (functionality) to lungs, why not call
them lungs. In fact, why not pretend, all of us, that our lungs are
gills? We can jump into the ocean, and conduct an empirical observation of
whether calling something gills makes them
gills.
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