At 5:15 PM -0500 3/23/01, Stephen Black wrote:
>On Fri, 23 Mar 2001, Mike Scoles wrote:
>
>> Good news. The Arkansas house voted down the anti-evilution bill this
>> morning. ^^^^
>
>
>Ah, yes. Evolution is the evil work of the devil. Was that
>intentional?
>
>And while we're on the topic, a thought, although I expect (with
>trepidation) I'm going to hear from Jim Clark about it. We're
>rightly outraged by the attempt by the religious right to censor
>Darwin. But we have no problem with censoring creationism from
>textbooks, on the grounds that it's not science. True, it's not,
>but why not let it in anyway?
Because it confuses the issue.
We try to teach students what science is, and then present an example of
nonscience labeled as science.
I'd have no problem with a biology text that included Creationism,
Intelligent Design, whatever, and then analyzed it, pointing out why it is
_not_ good science.
However, I doubt that this would be acceptable to its proponents.
>The best response to an untenable position is reason, not
>censorship. Why not allot the creationists one page to take their
>best shot at evolution, and one page for the rebuttal. This will
>give them an opportunity to make their case, even if not equal
>time. Better to have it out in the open where the wrong-
>headedness can be addressed. Otherwise students may just get it
>elsewhere, and we won't have the chance to point out why it isn't
>science. To labour the point, wouldn't it be more educational to
>point out what's wrong with "creation science" or "intelligent
>design" rather than to just suppress it?
Ideally -- true.
However, I suspect that the reality would be giving some high school
science teachers carte blanche to teach religion under the guise of science.
* PAUL K. BRANDON [EMAIL PROTECTED] *
* Psychology Department 507-389-6217 *
* "The University formerly known as Mankato State" *
* http://www.mankato.msus.edu/dept/psych/welcome.html *
