There are a couple of interesting stories on the continued struggle over teaching evolution in public schools. In Louisiana, the state has approved special rules allowing teachers to challenge the basis of the theory of evolution. In California, a court ruled that a history teacher’s criticism of creationism violated the Constitution.
Louisiana, which has long had some of the lowest achievement levels in public education, will now have teachers challenging the basis of evolution. The alternative is obviously a belief in creationism. This will allow the use of supplemental materials, presumably including “intelligent design” material.
For the full story, click here.
While you can criticize evolution in Louisiana, you cannot criticize creationism in California. A court found that European history teacher, James Corbett, 62, violated by Constitution by referring to creationism as “superstitious nonsense”.
Chad Farnan, a devout Christian studying at California’s Capistrano Valley high school, had originally sued over a series of comments made by his teacher. It appears that Farnan spent many months collecting a dossier of material against Corbett before bringing the action.
The court threw out all but the last comment.
He is represented by Jennifer Monk, who works for a not-for-profit Christian law firm, Advocates for Faith and Freedom. She still claimed victory in establishing that the comment was actionable. I think she is right that it was a considerable victory. While the Court recently ruled that her client could not recover damages from the teacher, it still established the principle that a teacher cannot criticize creationism. It just shows that, if you want to argue for creationism, find a Monk.
What is interesting is that the basis for the ruling is that creationism is a religious belief. However, creationists have been advancing the same views under the label “intelligent design” and insist that this is not teaching religion. Thus, in places like Louisiana, they are likely to be calling for intelligent design material to be used in class. Does that mean if Corbett said “intelligent design is “superstitious nonsense”, it would not violate the Constitution?
Judge James Selna’s decision draws a curious line. He found that it does not violate the establishment clause for Corbett to say such things as “when you put on your Jesus glasses, you can’t see the truth” because this statement was made in a historical context. He also ruled that it was not a violation to say “conservatives don’t want women to avoid pregnancies — that’s interfering with God’s work” and that there was as much evidence that God created the world “as there is that there is a gigantic spaghetti monster living behind the moon who did it”.
Ok, I am now confused. Selna insists that “there was no legitimate secular purpose to the statement and it constituted ‘improper disapproval of religion in violation of the establishment clause.'” The big spaghetti monster didn’t raise the same issue?
It sounds to me that Corbett went a bit far and should be a bit more circumspect. However, teaching evolution necessarily rejects the concept that a divine being simply created all of nature in a few days — just a few thousand years ago. While politicians still insist that carbon dating is a myth and the Earth was relatively recently created, teachers teach facts not faith. Evolution is a fact.
The other issue is the fact that this is a high school class. I would be very concerned about such comments in an elementary or middle school. However, in high school, teachers will often try to challenge their students and engage them in spirited debate. That is usually a matter for internal review at the school as opposed to fully fledge litigation.
Selna did rule in favor of Corbett on the issue of “qualified immunity,” holding “Corbett is shielded from liability – not because he did not violate the Constitution, but because of the balance which must be struck to allow public officials to perform their duties.”
For the earlier story, click here
For the latest story, click here.
lil billy,
useyourhead.
Friday Night is Amateur Night.
Please tip your servers.
They work hard even though the acts are of uneven quality.
Half-price drinks!
Free salsa bar!
Friday Night is Amateur Night.
lil billy,
surly you jest? what is a Chippendale? I have heard of Alvin, Theodore and Simon, they man there was Dave. Chip and Dale they are some more cartoons. Which one are you, banana bucks? That sounds too deep and penetrating for me. Maybe you can stand for it. Some people like you may actually like you. But then again, do you like you? Not that I care.
Slickone, you better hurry, I hear Chippendales closes early on the east coast. You better bring a fist full of “ones”, to stuff in those “banana hammocks” you’re soon to be drooling over..
billy,
Or is this really William McCarty? I heard billy the kid was a real coward too. He shot people in the back, little billy please don’t cry. Hopefully your momma will still love you when we say good bye.
You’re still full of it..
billy:
“Last time I checked you were championing the virtues of Luther, mespo. Was he not a dogmatist? Oh yeah, I forgot you like his dogma because he was in opposition to the Catholic Church. I read your posts dude, you speak with forked tongue”
************************
My praise of Luther was as a man of integrity in opposing the most pernicious of Catholic innovations the selling of indulgences — perhaps the first snake oil sale on record. That is not to say that Luther was not a dogmatist himself. As such, he was no lover of reason saying, “Reason is a whore, the greatest enemy that faith has.” (and right he was). Luther’s value is precisely his opposition to the Roman Church which held political sway over the German principalities. From a purely rational view, Luther was, in fact, one of the men, though imbued with integrity, who set about to parse the collective delusion so dominating Western Culture.
I am glad you read my posts, “dude,” but there is a difference between complexities and deceit, and mouthing faux American Indian idioms won’t get you any closer to knowing the difference.
Thanks ‘lottaktz’, you all seem to contribute in a manner that is most thought provoking. I can clearly tell you guys are all sharp cookies and professionals. Sometimes I may come on a little strong, but it is usually just a bit of bluster. I am really a pretty tender hearted man, albeit with a rather goofy sense of humor. I do have a penchant for the bizarre and I frequently laugh at humor that some may find a little “off the wall”, shall we say. Chicks usually dig me, because of my rather “loaded” sense of humor. I frequently spice up a ‘bon mot’ with a zinger, just to make sure people are on there toes. I went to lunch today in Yucaipa at a great Mexican restaurant, saw a sexy latina honey who was waitressing, she flashed me a wicked smile over my combination plate. This little “ego stroke” did almost as much for me as a weekend in Tahoe. Still can’t get this sexy, little dusky hued devil, out of my system. Wow! I think I will return in a few days for a margarita and maybe some kissey face afterwards….
Byron:
“I honestly don’t know how I would know an hallucination from an actual event if I did not know I had been drugged. Although if I saw something that I knew could not happen in reality, say a dog reciting On the Origin of Species, I would then know I had been hallucinating. but if something happened that could happen in reality and all the senses that I would use in the actual event were involved I don’t think I would be able to tell the difference.”
I don’t understand why you imply there’s a necessary connection between drugs and hallucinations. Ever hallucinated from lack of sleep?
“Although I have never done LSD so I cannot speak to the level of hallucination it can induce. If it is like a dream state then I would be able to distinguish that from reality.”
There’s a difference between the experience of an hallucination and a self/drug induced/enhanced lucid dream state.
Even your morning coffee can be an instrumental drug to induce a lucid dream state. And in that dream state you may find that “once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right.” (Robert Hunter)
Stay in your own movie,
Bob
Nope, didn’t work, spacing is wonky, oh well.
BIL I hope you took your sword.
BIL I hope you took your sword.
Billy, I’m one of those malleable reality folks, from drugs, disease that interferes with the proper firing of neurons such as epilepsy or religious bliss (which has much more in common with neurological diseases than people want to admit) and the current state of physics. We’re all just 0’s and 1’s here so I take very few things personally. I’m generally a MYOB kind of person regarding society at large: I don’t care what anybody believes, as long as they don’t impose it on me in some fashion that disrupts the secular nature of my environment; I don’t want my universe tilted toward someone else’s belief. No offense was taken and I hope you stick around. This is a good group of people.
Mike S’s post strikes at the heart of the matter IMO- either you prefer an open mind society or a closed mind society. Either your society is molded on a open, generally un-bounded model or a closed, tightly bound model. My opinion of reality is so malleable that even being a professed atheist doesn’t rule out the deist possibility that the universe (ours being one of many) is a self organized entity that has evolved us and other thinking beings as a tool to examine itself. Anything is possible.
Jill, I like your reference to the Goddess, I generally refer to a supreme being in the feminine with religious people just to poke at them 🙂 I’ll try my Goddess sign off here, I signed all of my e-mail correspondence with it for years.
o
/O O\
( . )
_V_
“Now it could be that Christians are getting too militant and need to be slapped down and reminded that this is a society that allows all faiths.”
Bingo.
But see, that’s why the “in context” is important. I don’t see Christians as persecuted one damn bit, but quite the other way around. The media plays it that way because most of the best camera footage is to be had a Christian Right events gone bad. When was the last time a Hindu bombed an abortion clinic? Never, but they get an extra ration of shit by the TSA at the airport you can bet. I’m also thinking not a lot of Buddhist’s get into armed standoff’s with the FBI because they think it’s God’s will that a grown man have sex with children.
If you want to teach science, teach evolution, if you want to teach creationism, teach it in comparative religion.
What we have right now are situations where Christians are trying to force their beliefs on others thought the courts. Look to Dr. Corbett’s example above. And consider the whole C St. and The Family debacle. Those people are theocrats, plain and simple, and as such, they should not be allowed to impose Christian ideology upon our legal system. The Christian Right are a real and present danger to the Separation Doctrine. To preserve religious liberty for all, all religion must be kept from our government. That does not mean people should not try to use it as a guide for ethical decision making even if they carry on their internal dialog in the moral terminology and I think that’s Jefferson’s point. A government free of religion but informed by principles, his “greater truths”, but a government that not only doesn’t interfere with religion, but by definition of being a neutral third party remains free from the dictates of any dogma and the realm of argument/debate and proof.
Mr. Jensen that was very eloquently stated. Bravo..
Buddha:
But what I think I see going on is a government that is stifling the Christian religion which I don’t think it should. It should neither stifle nor promote one over another or one belief over another. Now it could be that Christians are getting too militant and need to be slapped down and reminded that this is a society that allows all faiths.
This article contains the common flaw of equating “creationism” with a true scientific pursuit, the search for evidence of intelligent design in nature.
Common sense should dictate that it is more scientific to discuss the flaws with any theory, openly, without stigma.
If the arguments brought against a theory are silly, it will disappear soon enough. But if the arguments carry reasonable scientific challenges, then show some respect, and address the issues for a change. This would be refreshing, instead of talking about the religious implications all the time.
Byron,
I am going to assume you mean “within context”.
If so, then our difference was indeed semantic.
BobEsq:
I honestly don’t know how I would know an hallucination from an actual event if I did not know I had been drugged. Although if I saw something that I knew could not happen in reality, say a dog reciting On the Origin of Species, I would then know I had been hallucinating. but if something happened that could happen in reality and all the senses that I would use in the actual event were involved I don’t think I would be able to tell the difference.
Although I have never done LSD so I cannot speak to the level of hallucination it can induce. If it is like a dream state then I would be able to distinguish that from reality.
Buddha:
I am saying exactly that a government should be a neutral third party and so I see no problem with teaching evolution or creation or spontaneous biological emination.
Byron,
Perhaps it’s still a semantic hang up.
You’re second quote, “to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency is a dangerous fallacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty, because he being of course judge of that tendency will make his opinions the rule of judgment, and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square with or differ from his own; that it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order; and finally, that truth is great and will prevail if left to herself; that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate; errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.”
I parse that desire to keep the magistrates neutral in religious matters as exactly secular but perhaps secular is a value loaded word. Perhaps, “principled but neutral” would have better encapsulated the thought. He clearly intends to grant people the maximum religious freedoms possible by keeping the government out of their worship, but I think it’s also implied by his vision of government was a place where logic and evidence held sway, “that truth is great and will prevail if left to herself; that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate”. That’s a blade that cuts both ways. By remaining a principled neutral third party, a secular government, was the very mechanism to achieve maximum religious freedoms.
Is it not the corollary of that in order to protect that freedom, government must remain free from religious influence beyond providing the principles required for a common man to have the common sense to know right from wrong? He’s calling for religion to be a guide to ethical administration, not opening the door for the dogma de jour.
Now don’t you boys make me break out the Many Worlds Theory . . .
I leave you kids alone for a day and you’re into the LSD again!
(Buddha goes to check his yard for intruders)