Why do so many Social-Darwinists believe in Creation and so many Darwinists believe it is important to help those who are less fortunate?
Even among the robber barons of the 19th century, there was no inconsistency between philanthrophy and capitalism. Creationists were often on the forefront of opposing slavery and eugenics as well as advancing the sufferage movement. On the flip side, I see no inconsistency between helping your neighbor and the less fortunate and believing that species evolve over time. The later relates to moral choices done in one's own lifetime and within one's own circle of influence. The latter has to do with biological changes over eons. Both may be true, but they are true in different ways.
I have two boys, one in sixth grade and the other in eight grade. For the entire life, they have gone to public schools in a school district where education is tantamount to a religion, with affluent, involved parents and children who graduate into the Ivy League and then launch professional careers as doctors, lawyers, and executives.
I asked my boys if any teachers had ever talked to them about evolution in school. Both said no. (One is is studying electricity and the other chemistry.) At the band concerts in December, none of the two bands had any Christmas music, not even "Jingle Bells." What seems to have happened is that teachers have put evolution along with Christmas music in the taboo reservation, in deference to other people's feelings. They don't want to upset litigious, vocal parents, so they just don't mention it. Perhaps the administration thinks this is an aggravation they can do without.
The paradox is that organizations that have encouraged secularism in the schools and separation between church and education have pursued a dual track of eradicating pedogogy that could even potentially could ruffle the feathers of those holding minority or ideosyncratic viewpoints. Thus, in our school district, we have orthodox Jews, Mormons, Hindus, and Americans Indians, all having their own sacred myths and deep-seated feelings that those myths should prevail. Congnizant of that, I think the district has thrown in the towel. The teaching of evolution may be implied in other classes (I'm not even sure that's true), but it appears that evolution is no longer explicitly taught at all. Ironically, kids could probably learn more on this subject at a private school, where teachers fixate on so-called conflicts between science and faith. So, it looks like the creationists have won-- evolution is out of at least in our school district.
Personally, I welcome this development. Both creationists and evolutionists exaggerate the importance of this knowledge, with evolutionists intimating that all of biology and indeed science collapses without it, while the evolutionists go in the opposite direction by intimating that their faith collapses without creationism as an article of faith. Both views are wrong. The foundation to science is not evolution but curiosity and mathematics. And a belief or a disbelief in creation has no relevancy to whether or not you embrace a faith, especially since it may be that "creation" and "evolution" are synonyms.
I don't want to make too much out of the experience of my kids in one school district, but it may be that the "creationist vs. evolution" argument no longer matters much.
It does appear however that they start to ramp up on this in high school. There is some discussion in middle school, but not to the extent I would have thought.
There is a lot of stuff to teach kids about science. Evolution is just another topic along with electromagnetism and freezing point depression. Those who deny the fact of evolution have artificially inflated the importance of evolution in a general science curriculum.
My observation about "the collapse of science" gambit in the evolution debate is that scientists will assert that evolution is based on the same principles of inquiry that all of science is based on. If you feel that the evidence for the various theories of evolution is called into question for some reason, because similar techniques are used in other areas of science, those other areas of science must be questioned as well; the usual debating technique is to call into question the theory of gravity.
Yes, and if you look at the Arizona curricula, it's clear that evolution is a brick rather than the foundation of science.
You use the word evolutionist. I think I can understand the term creationist, who are usually identified as interested only in a single issue, thus earning the "ist" suffix. I do not think I know any "evolutionists", who irrationally advance the theory of evolution to the exclusion of all else. I am a scientist. I accept the observations of fossil record of speciation and many aspects of our DNA can be explained using the various concepts embodied under the general term "evolution". Am I thus an evolutionist?"
I prefer to let people describe themselves. I think these are sometimes labels for their theism or atheism, which is unfortunate and incorrect. What kids need is instruction in critical thinking, which gets into the philoosphy and epistomology of science. Kids also need to be taught comparative world views and religons. The trick is not to commingle religion with science.
Interesting topic. As the parent of three teenagers, the only advice I can give you is that it is YOUR responsibility to teach your children the reality of the world - not the school district's. Teach them to question authority and seek the truth on their own, and they will be successful adults.
I tell them to question authority but raise their hand.
I'm not aware that evolutionists exaggerate in the way you suggest. Of course, most would endorse strongly worded statements like Dobzhansky's famous remark, "nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution", but that falls short of your paraphrase in precisely the way you appear to suggest it should, by restricting the claim to subject matter rather than process.
In the hands of the right teacher, perhaps as an AP interdisciplinary course, I think that the evolution/creation issue can provide understanding into the foundations of science, since it does raise all kinds of interesting questions on the scientific method, the nature of fact and theory, the relationship between science and public policy and science and faith, and so on. ( Perhaps the same kinds of questions can be examined by other example, on whether space aliens exist. There can only be one emperical answer, and that is no.) Perhaps the staying power of this debate, out of proportioin to what the kids really need to learn, has something to do with the ambiguity of both the questions and the answers. But, at the end of the day, I regard the question only important in so far as it warps the education or ethics of our kids, and I just don't see this happening from my point of view.
I don't understand how biology can be taught effectively without acknowledging the fact of evolution.
It's like saying that American history cannot be taught without studying the Civil War. The Civil War is integral to American history as is evolution to life sciences, but it is possible to teach biology without acknowleding evolution just as it is possible to teach American history without acknowledging the Civil War. But I would agree that wouldn't be much of an education. In Arizona, for example, there are six strands, and in the Life Science strand, biological evolution is but one of five concepts. You won't find a word on the creationist's main bugaboo, the ascent of man. In the context of the kid's overall education, evolution as a subject at least in this state appears to be a minor effort. And, from the perspective of most bored kids, it's just one more subject to test out on before moving to something else.
Are you saying that evolution does not undermine xianity? I am saying just that. Evolution-- modern science-- does not undermine xianity. If we agree that Christianity has to do with the supposed teachings of Jesus Christ, then what does it mean to be a Christian?. No where did He say in the gospels that we must believe in creation. What He did say is something much more onerous-- to "follow me". What that means-- what is culturally bound versus what are transcending ethical principles-- is a challenging matter of personal conscience and ethics. But I find no implication that to be a Christian you must be a creationist. I appreciate that "sensible" elites in every age have prided themselves on being above the superstitiousness of literal readings of various passages and you and many modern liberal Christians are very much in that elite tradition, but unfortunately I don't see you've ever actually established that sensible elites wrote most of the texts.
Of course that cannot be done. My principles of exegesis as to whether something should be taken literally or figuratively relates to how critical that dogma is to the faith. Since the Christian religion is a faith which depends by definition to a certain suspension of rationality (much like we do when we see a movie or read a novel), I am more forgiving of the miracles of Jesus' resurrection than I am of the miracle of the creation of the sun of the fourth solar day (!), something that has no bearing on a core doctrine of the faith, at least in my view. In the case of the talking snake (which, BTW, is a bit like the snake in the Epic of Gilgamesh), that can be put into the allegorical column as the Christian faith relies only on the fact that all have sinned, not the fact that there was once a talking snake. Another principles is that the more ambiguous a text is or an idea is, the less important it is, both in practicall terms or as an article of faith. Thus, you can ponder the doctrine of the trinity or the end times if you want to give your head a workout, but it strikes me as fairly peripheral in terms of the foundations of the faith. Of course, multitudes of other Christians would disagree with me, but naturally they're wrong. :)
You're just pulling a Nelson - putting a blind eye to the telescope to avoid seeing inconvenient things.
I assume you are referring to Horratio the Admiral and not Thomas the Bible publisher. In any case, it's an odd reference.
That is, figurativeness (never mind for what) is an intellectual trash can for anything that's inconvenient. I'm just taken aback because to my knowledge, no one since Augustine and before you has been up front about it, for obvious reasons - it's completely and utterly dishonest.
I don't think so. I view Revelation in the same way, in which even the literalists of Genesis generally regard as figurative, i.e. Gog and Magog are a figure for the USSR and the PRC, say. I put it in the figurative column because it is tangential to the doctrine of the atonement, which doesn't rise or fall or whether or not you view the Gensis story as literal history or allegorical myth. I don't put it in the figurative column because it is false or inconvenient. To the contrary, I view Gensis as profoundly true albeit not in the scientific sense.
The difference between Mark and Genesis is I view the latter as more or less straight reportage while I view the former as efforts to describe ancient ideas with ancient words-- day instead of eon and creation instead of evolution.
It may not be familiar to US audiences (in which case my bad) but in other circles it's the canonical comparison for what you're doing. (At the naval battle of Copenhagen Nelson pretended not to see an order to break off the attack, judging correctly that he was well-placed to win.)
What little I know about the First Viscount is that he was a shrewd leader of men and ultimately triumphant in the Battle of Trafalger. That you attribute in some way his thought processes to me makes me blush at what I take as a complement. Humor aside, reflect on what you are doing with that metaphor. Even though in sort of fell flat, you are doing what the writers of Genesis did, using images and contemporary words to capture a reality that they are struggling to comprehend. I fail to see why this is dishonest or those who view Genesis is in this way are dishonest.
Yes, Revelation is allegorical. No, it's not allegorical for anything like the reason you give, which is utterly invalid and utterly dishonest.
You like the word dishonest, but I fail to see why that is so. Generally, I ignore arguments that are larded in prejoratives, but my curiosity gets the better of me sometimes. You claim that Revelation is allegorical but Genesis is not. Prove it.
Modern liberal...
Stop right there. The only catagories I recognize is true or false. Liberal or conservative are false and meaningless political categories designed once again to marginalize and demonize as prejoratives. If my claims are false, then make the case. But don't ad hom the debate by using phony terms such as "liberal".
... but the author primarily intended it to be a talking snake. We know this...
Admit that you are wildly speculating (or that you are parroting authors or professors who are wildly speculating) and your sins will be forgiven you.
I'm just not in a polite enough mood to smile and pretend it's either defensible or honest. Again you must have actively avoided reading either text for evidence for or against, because ...
What I think is that you have a priori asssumed that the faith claims of Christianity are bogus and thus genesis the gospels are bogus. That doesn't impress me as either defensible or honest. Do you think that makes me smile?
And the P narrative creation in Gen 1 is about as explicit as it could possibly be that "day" means day, a fixed period of time and a cycle of light and dark.
Ah yes, the J author of the P narrative as defined by the K poster. Do you make this stuff up? I see nothing "fixed" in Gensis 1. You are no different than the creationists into reading something into the text that isn't there.
Creationism prospered in the early days in the US in no small part as a reaction against Social Darwinism, and the main anti-evolution argument used internally to fundamentalist churches has always been moral: evolution (supposedly) encourages treating people as of no value, like animals, which leads in turn to all manner of other social ills. (Christians have always treated God's creation as a moral textbook except when it doesn't support the point they wanted to be making, in which case it's the textbook of everything that's, well, bestial. And SD was somewhat of a misapplication of actual Darwinism, but not the less pernicious for all that.) I don't think the moral argument makes a bit of sense logically, but it's what convinces people, and it reinforces the determination to draw a line in the sand in defence of scripture. It's sad how with a bit of refocussing onto gays and abortion as the main evils supposedly fostered, it's now been coopted in the fight _for_ Social Darwinism.
I agree that SD was a misapplication of actual Darwinism, but Darwinism was invoked by the apologists of eugenics and capitalists in particular. Under the big tent of Republicanism, the creationists and the capitalists happily broke bread together, although their doctrinal views were in opposition. It was used by the fascists of Nazi Germany as well, not just as a rationale, but as a prophetic cautionary-- that their relentless final solution would inevitablly select out the strongest Jews and others that would eventually destroy Germany.
I'm sure you could make a very interesting course. However I don't know that you could do it in the post-Enlightment style that I imagine you have in mind without impaling yourself on the central paradox which is that one of the major faiths represented among the students doesn't accept as valid exactly that post-Enlightenment approach with its assumption of orthogonality between faith and fact claims.
The kids would have to sign a waiver first. Let's take free speech to its extreme, and no ruffled feathers allowed!
We get it that it's not a big issue to you. The trouble is it's a big issue to the creationists and you can't sensibly address that without trampling on the polite fictions that all faiths are worth of respect and that all faiths respect each other.
Careful about those links. In your original link, about a third of the footnotes came from creationist references. In the links you provide below, half of them come from infidels or talkorigins-- sources that have a stated bias. Just as I would discount the creationist footnotes, so too as I would discount your links on the same grounds. I don't know how authoritative their remaining footnotes are. They may just be fluff-- footnotes to create the impression of scholarship. Your remaining link are from wikpedia. Wikpedia is Ok as a starting point in trying to find out about a topic, not unlike an encyclopedia in a middle school library or a Sunday newspaper supplement. But as a scientific resource, it is worthless and I would be embrassed to use it to support a scientific position. But what has more crediability are current peer reviewed scientific monographs.
I am not saying that your understanding of the points in question is incorrect. But you do need to improve on how you arrive at that understanding. The search for truth is hard work and there are no short cuts.
