Stones Cry Out

You know Doug, this is a great point. We can't talk about Intelligent Design in Religion classes because most of the people who are making that suggestion have been saying for years that we can't have religion classes in public school anyway.

I think it's just PC to offer an alternative that really means nothing rather than just being upfront and saying that it shouldn't be taught at all.

I had begun to despair over the lack of rationality in this current blogosphere discussion. Good post. You have restored my faith in bloggers.

I don't get the idea of segregating philosophy and science, or philosophy and any subject for that matter. Does our philosophy (including among other things, how we define reality, knowledge and existence) have any impact on our practice of science or the interpretation of scientific data? Yes it does. Does it affect our view of history? Yes again. Could our choices about what is appropriate to teach be guided by a Philosophy of Education? Why, yes.

Going the other way, does science impact philosophy? How about history? Religion? Yes, you bet. All of the above.

Philosophy overlaps and undergirds every subject as well as the entire enducational enterprise. The problem is not that some people want to put philosophy in the science classroom, it's that some "scientists" appear to assume that science has replaced philosophy.

Here's another way to say what Matthew said here: let someone try to teach science without philosophy, including the assumptions that are only rational in a philosophic framework.

Let them try to explain why the scientific method is a valid approach to knowledge without philosophy (oops--that's epistemology). Let them try to explain why we look for natural causes for natural phenomena (oop--that's epistemology and metaphysics). Let them try to explain why mathematics are useful in science (careful! that's dangerously close to logic).

Maybe having philosophy classes in high school--required--isn't such a bad idea. People would at least learn it means, and quit thinking it's a dirty word.

My favorite is this one: "In short, let science classes be science classes, and leave theoretical arguments for other classes such as philosophy."

Its good to know that theoretical arguments have no place in science classes.

I took a world mythology class when I was in public high school where the subject of "intelligent design" would have been perfectly at home, right next to the theories of alchemy and luminiferous aether. There was even a nice segment about the Christian notion of the Trinity, wedged in between the Babylonian mythology and the Greek/Roman mythology. It was an English literature elective class, of course. It was taught by one of the English teachers.

Tell me again how religion isn't taught in public school classrooms. I like having my leg pulled.

I also included this bit in my post, which you leave out:

While I don’t believe Intelligent Design should be taught as a comparable theory to evolution in science classes (it’s not scientifically falsifiable¹, first of all, which means it isn’t a scientic theory, regardless of how vehemently the anthropocentic proponents of irreducible complexity insist it is—and anyway, it addresses questions about first causes that fall outside the proper purview of scientific inquiry), I nevertheless do believe that addressing the field of ID theory in science classes provides a perfect opportunity to show how ID and evolution do not necessarily contradict one another, and that—-if evolution is taught properly—-the controversy itself disappears, except as a propaganda tool ginned up either by creationists or materialists who like to use it as a rhetorical club against their ideological opponents.

Indeed you did, but suggesting that ID be brought up in science class has about as much chance of happening in the current climate as having a required religion/philosophy class. The climate, where any mention of a generic higher power is thought to run counter to the First Amendment, and where any questioning of evolution whatsoever is simply rebuffed as anti-scientific, needs an overhaul before any real discussion can take place.

Suggestions for how to change that are welcome, and are in fact a prerequisite. Discussing what might or might not happen after the climate has changed are, unfortunately, nothing more than nice words.