Sure Andrew. Its pretty simple.
Evolution theory is a credible scientific theory. Creationism is not. And it should not be taught in schools as a scientific theory. And I would say not at all in any school.
On eugenics, Juantoo wishes to assert that eugenics is a product of evolutionary theory. I assert population control and inbreeding along these lines is as old as recorded history.
I think that covers the two main themes.
tao
Thanks, Tao.
I would have to agree, creationism has no place in the public school. Inasmuch as we trying to present a sound education, we should teach the current understanding of evolutionary theory ... keeping in mind that
`theory' isn't the same thing as
a hypotheis, or
belief, or
educated guess. What we know about the development of the earth ... the evolution of various species, the diversification and complexity that have emerged from a much beginning, and so forth ... all of this needs to be taught as fact. Dating methods, as we know, are only approximate, and always subject to later reinterpretation and correction.
But I think the conclusions must be left open-ended. And a good teacher knows how to stimulate his students interest, draw out
(educare) their innate curiosty and desire to learn, and lead them only toward the search that they must make their own -- and not toward pre-packaged, rote conclusions which substitute for, or negate any real future possibility of say,
a proper cosmology or metaphysics, a cosmogensis, an anthropogenesis, or even a theogenesis.
Religion, where it intersects with education, should be taught in a college course, either by the religious studies department, or in the philosophy department ...
or by a divinity school. World mythologies, on the other hand, both East, West, modern and ancient ... including at least
some fragments from as many diverse cultures as possible, ought to be
required reading from even as early an age as kindergarten. An entire program of arts & humanities is sorely lacking in the educational system that I remember, and even in the current textbooks what we have is an extremely biased, or at least
cursory presentation ... which hardly encourages students to look beyond their own Sunday School lessons, or Buddhist sutras, Koran verses, Torah, etc.
I mean, I hardly expect instant
Joseph Campbell and Huston Smith, but -- hmm, then again, if Huston Smith's
The World's Religions: Our Great Wisdom Traditions were required reading for every middle schooler, our children would immediately be tremendously better equipped to deal with
just such difficult questions as those surrounding the Evolution-Creationism
false dichotomy ...
The `either-or' problem is a dead end, however, and I would hope that we'd all be able to see that at this point. Personally, I
groan when I hear the term
Intelligent Design ... because I happen to believe this phrase
beautifully captures the exact point which spiritually-minded (and religiously-minded) people have been trying to make for decades!
Yes, we would all do well to have a look once again, from start to finish, at Spencer Tracy
, Gene Kelly, Harry Morgan and the gang in
Inherit the Wind ... if we haven't watched it recently. It is a beautiful testament to the triumph of Truth in our modern world, over
superstition, fear, suppression and hate. Many more such triumphs have been won in the name of science ... but I'm afraid the cold, dead fingers of the spectres of 18th and 19th century
materialism still haunt our modern mind all too pervasively.
Anyone who takes a little time to investigate -- and this already includes a
good number of modern and 20th Century scientists -- cannot but be amazed and impressed, even
intrigued, captivated by the extensive astronomical (and astrological) knowledge of the ancient Hindus. A similar knowledge can be demonstrated as being in the possession of
dozens of other civilizations or cultures, from the Egyptian, Roman and Greek, to the Babylonian, Chaldean, Azetec, Mayan, Dogon, Nordic, Icelandic and so forth. Only now, in the past few decades of astronomical observation and progress in the various branches of physics, are some of our
"cutting edge" discoveries finally catching up with what the ancients knew
tens (if not possibly
hundred) of thousands of years ago.
Now ... if modern science, which is revered as
gospel and hailed as the
new religion by its adherents worldwide, but
nowhere so unabashedly as in the west ... if
science, could only be understood in the same light as religion, as art, as economics, politics and philosophy -- we might finally be able to get somewhere in our thinking. Science is a method, and not primarily a
body of knowledge,
or facts. The collection of discoveries that have been made by
using the Scentific Method are every bit as deserving of being added to the great
storehouse of knowledge ... but we would do well to keep an ever-questioning,
open mind regarding just what this
storehouse actually "looks" like, let alone
where it exists, and what other methods - as yet unrealized by ourselves at present - might one day be used either to
make entries, or even to
extract them, if perhaps the process may go
both ways.
Yes, we usually think of learning as
putting information in, and when we take things into consideration it is almost always, though fortunately not quite so, that we are relating either directly, or indirectly to the
outside world, via the five accepted senses. But what does science have to say at this point about
additional senses as fully legitimate means of information-gathering ... or with regard to the
Intuition as a faculty of consciousness altogether different than, and superior to
the Intellect?
Eugenics, it seems to me, can have various motives for its practice, just as any other philosophy ... and when our real concern is both
self-improvement and
the improvement of the greater whole, I think we're on the right track. But that needs to be kept close in check with our greatest understanding of a Divine Plan for Humanity, for other species and for the planet as a whole,
inasmuch as we may have thus far discovered -- and understood one.
Some might want to simply
toss this bone to the religious-minded, or to the "speculations of philosophers," as we like to say, but this is the kind of
buck-passing which the scientist should not be permitted. Science, just as politics, economics and religion, has a responsibility to the greater whole ... and sometimes the hard questions must be addressed head-on. We cannot let vital questions about human
origins be kicked back and forth like a soccer ball, each team apparently oblivious to the fact that that little orb actually veils (quite innocently, but necessarily) all the answers to the debate at hand -- plus the potential realization that
that's just the tip of the iceberg.
The number five is a factor here, as it has everything to do with
Intellect, or Mind ... and as I would have to argue that human evolution has been as carefully
guided, nurtured, nourished and monitored as a set of loving parents -- of
any nationality,
any vocation and
any religion -- would surely do the same for
their newborn infant, premature for the purposes of the present example and thus
temporarily supported by the miraculous invention of the
incubator. Oh wait, animals have always had incubators.
But you get the idea ...
Intelligent Design, Intelligent Guidance and
a continued Intelligent Presence (both singular
and plural at the same time) ... and furthermore a Loving One, with definite
Purpose, and a Plan for working that Purpose out though the vehicle of expression of a planet. Every, single individual, and even every, single
lifeform on this beautiful blue planet
counts ... and that's affirmed in the Biblical statement of the Lord's awareness of a fallen sparrow, and further that the
hairs on our head are numbered (
Matthew 10:30).
Is there proof of such statements? Of course there is. But how can such things be shared in one fell swoop, when we argue over trifling little things like dinosaur bones. The absurdity of what we have heard does make you want to roll your eyes, on the one hand, but what about the indignation which the person of faith (be that Christian, Muslim, Pagan or non-specified) must suffer when the die-hard skeptic, the materialist and reductivist steps into the arena?
With a few choice words, the reverential atmosphere, the very
aura of both mystery and knowing, familiarity and awe seems to vanish, parodied and rendered superfluous, childish and absurd, by the
oh-so-superior and supposedly
obvious conclusions of our senses, and
"rational mind."
-- There is no
invisible man in the sky, there are no
magical winged creatures flitting about doing good deeds as bells ring, and surely when we look at the enormity of it all, the
sheer complexity of what nature has produced, and reconcile the many successes with the
equally staggering number and variety of failures ... clearly there is no room to entertain an unsupported & undefensible
blind faiith in a method to all the madness?
The last, desperate cry of the materialist being the most ironic, as he himself knows, deep down, that he cannot fail to see the ever-present
pattern, and Order behind all of nature, anywhere and
everywhere he might happen to look!
Am I bored on a Sunday afternoon? Or does the lawn really just need mowing? Hmmm. Both.
God practices Eugenics, and I'm afraid if we caught an
inner glimpse of the guidance we've received (and resisted, even rejected and
revolted against) over the past several million years, we might wonder that we still have a planet at all. Why have we been permitted this wonderful and some say
undeserved Blessing? Undeserved, yes, but we should remember that
all life is created for a Purpose -- not to blindly
fight it out, despite that this often appears to be the case, and certainly seems to
result. The world, as much as we are able to reflect the Divine Order, is
just, and fair, and in balance or harmony, each part with the other, all parts with the whole. Where this is not the case, we can look no further than ourselves for the blame, and either we
are all in this together ... or there is nothing worth fighting, living, dying or
loving for -- and the sooner we put our hands together,
and release this towel we seem to have, the better.
The simple version is, yes,
evolution has been guided to the greatest extent without our direct assistance, up to this point. Now, that is beginning to change. And in some ways, though we might be tempted to say
small ways -- they are small, but are of
critical importance -- in some small ways at least, we cannot move much further until we DO take responsibility for our place and part in the
pageant of life. Science has its Achilles Heel just as do the other disciplines, and perhaps it is the easier for the religious-minded to spot it ... yet a similar weakness manifests in the refusal to bring
the many tales and morality plays of Sacred Scripture into the light of modern scientific discovery -- and in many cases, Reason Itself.
We are like the residents of the Cave, doin' fine watchin' shadows on the wall ... and the lunatic raving about the
Sunlight is mad as a march hare. He's nothing new. They come and go, and disturb our ways ... but eventually they leave us in peace, and let us go on with --
hmmm
I can see how easy it is to adopt 'faith' in something bigger. And I am fully aware that such adoption need not be negative or counter to honesty at the very deepest level. To believe or not to believe is a personal choice and one I do, despite my chosen stance here as resident non-believer, respect everyone's choice to believe what they wish. And I believe I usually keep my outspoken condemnations of religion not to an individuals beliefs but to the institutions and their tools. 
