My reaction to the U.S. News and World Report’s article on religion and education in the U.S. by Jessica Calefati (2009).

The first of two issues discussed was devoted to the moment of silence issue. It occurred in Illinois where a federal judge ruled against schools requiring a moment of silence. According to the article this meant prayer or personal reflection. Proponents wanted a law to require prayer in public schools and a judge said it was unconstitutional. Those against it, such as the ACLU, felt it was a veiled mechanism of bringing prayer into the schools.

The next issue was whether the Texas State Board of Education should revise its science curriculum. The issue here was evolution. The current science curriculum requires science students to “explore and critique ‘the strengths and weaknesses’ of all scientific theories.” Proponents of a new wording to the curriculum not only feel there are no scientifically verifiable weaknesses to Darwin’s theory of evolution but they also want to change the wording so that it would call on students to “analyze and evaluate scientific explanations using empirical evidence."

What are my initial thoughts? I think those proposing a change in the Texas curriculum have stayed within the boundaries of science. Their suggested wording makes sense – insofar as science goes. I do take issue with the statement which said there were “no” scientifically verifiable weaknesses in Darwin’s theory of evolution. That doesn’t mean that a future Texas student, when allowed to discuss evolutionary theory, will not come up with a new idea that supersedes Darwin. It just means that right now the best explanation of the data is Darwin’s theory.Flags go up when one sees another being overly defensive, as opposed to detached.

They could have accomplished the same thing by wording it something like the following: “Whereas federal courts have banned the teaching of creationism and intelligent design, we would like to emphasize that discussion on evolution (or the changing of life over time) in science class is not prohibited, but is to be confined to the realm of science wherein the data is to be analyzed and evaluated using scientific explanations and empirical evidence.” This of course allows for my personal thinking that there are possible new and very interesting explanations for the abundant data. I generally think that people, scientists in particular perhaps, are afraid of the religion issue in general and the “separation of church and state” clause  from the Constitution – i.e. the First Amendment which says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

As to why I think scientist are afraid of it, I feel it is because they know they are actually getting outside of the area of science. When they discuss things such as evolution, this naturally leads to a broader topic which is outside of the purview of science; that being such subjects more open to opinion and speculation as philosophy, cosmology, metaphysics and ontology. In other words one who is taught, via data collected from fossils and geologic records, that our life forms have begun from a primitive state and through time have come to be what they are today, may next ask the bigger questions such as where did it all come from and is there meaning to life? These are questions that push the limits of the scientific method. They push them right into the realm of their dreaded enemy – religion. I say this because I feel the difference between religion and scientific methods stretched to the limits is very insignificant.

Generally I feel men need to understand that the various religions on the planet are not unlikely sources of subtle, hidden, time-pondered deep questions of the nature of reality. They are in fact good sources of knowledge on such deep and subtle issues.

But don’t get me wrong, there are plenty churches or religions which apparently fail to  acknowledge the value of science. And neither are they open minded in their willingness to consider others opinions.

Humility is always a good option.

Reference:

Calefati, Jessica (2009). Religion in Schools Debate Heats Up. U.S. News and World reports. Retrieved from http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/on-education/2009/01/22/religion-in-schools-debate-heats-up