Perry Dane wrote:
Some scientists and philosophers -- folks like Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett most vocally lately -- argue that the conclusions of science, such as evolution, shred any possible basis for belief in God. Would it be constitutional for this sort of Dawkins/Dennett claim to be one of the propositions officially taught as a part of a science curriculum? I assume not.
I believe it would be. An official government endorsement of atheism would be no less an establishment, in my view, than endorsement of Christianity or theism itself. I also believe that Dawkins and Dennett are wrong and that they should do a much better job of distinguishing between what science says and the theological or philosophical inferences that one draws from science. Scientific theories are often used to inform our non-scientific opinions, and that is well and good, but they can often do so in contradictory ways. For example, big bang cosmology. William Lane Craig argues that big bang cosmology supports Christian theism; Quentin Smith argues that big bang cosmology supports atheism. So is big bang cosmology theistic or atheistic? Neither, of course. Big bang cosmology is a discrete theory that explains a specific set of data and that is all it does. The arguments of Craig and Smith are philosophical arguments that draw opposing inferences from that explanation, neither of which is intrinsic to the theory itself. Schools should certainly teach the theory because it is incredibly well supported (i.e. it's true, within the boundaries of reasonable doubt), but they should not take a position on the theological or anti-theological inferences that others draw from those theories. Teach the science, leave the philosophy out.
Would it be constitutional to tell students that there are no truths that are unamentable, in principle, to scientific study and verification? I assume not. (I'm not saying that these sorts of thing couldn't be discussed in public school classrooms.) All that some of us are arguing, then, is that it would be constitutional simply to advise students that the methodological naturalism built into scientific inquiry (and which properly excludes the teaching of "intelligent design theory" as a subject _within_ science) should not be taken for an official commitment to the ontological naturalism of folks like Dawkins and Dennett.
I think it would not only be constitutional, I think it is necessary. We do a lousy job of teaching how science operates, by and large, and I think we absolutely ought to teach science beginning there.
Ed Brayton _______________________________________________ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
