Intelligent Design in philosophy class
R. Baldwin
Design" class, it may be a while before any judge rules on Intelligent
Design in a U.S. public school philosophy class.
While it would certainly be constitutional to teach about Intelligent
Design, it is most likely that every case it actually happens in a
philosophy class will be unconstitutional.
The issue is not whether public schools may teach about Intelligent Design.
They can. Public schools may teach about religion or philosophy in a variety
of ways. For example, they may teach about the influence of religion on art,
music, history, philosophy, or culture, about comparative religion, about
various scriptures as literature, and about religious holidays. They may not
provide religious instruction. Any instruction about ethics must be neutral
as to religion.
The critical thing is what the public school is trying to accomplish with
the lesson. Teaching about Intelligent Design in a philosophy class would be
permissible if it had a legitimate secular, educational purpose.
Can it? No. It runs up against funding, against college and university
requirements, and against state and national priorities for public
education.
It should come as no surprise that U.S. public schools do not have limitless
resources. They cannot offer all the elective classes that might possibly
appeal to one or two students. The elective classes they do offer depend on
the number of students taking the class, the credentials of available
faculty, fiscal resources, state regulations, and accreditation policy.
Philosophy is, at present, not a state or national education priority. State
legislatures and state boards of education are not requiring philosophy
class as a graduation requirement. The Federal Government has not made
philosophy class part of the No Child Left Behind Act. The U.S. Department
of Education web site has an A-Z index. It doesn't mention philosophy. There
are no education standards for philosophy. There is no funding to develop
them. The state and national priorities are primarily on language arts,
mathematics, and science, and secondarily on social studies, health,
fitness, and the arts.
Philosophy is relegated, then, to the high school elective class, when it is
available at all. It is taught when the happy circumstances of available
funding, available credentialed teachers, and interested students all align.
That is, almost never.
What, then, is the proper curriculum for a philosophy class in a U.S. high
school, should it be so fortunate to offer one?
If the school is interested in its academic integrity, if it cares about its
accreditation, if it wants its college-bound students to succeed, that
philosophy class will be aligned with college and university philosophy
studies. In other words, the first elective year would be "Introduction to
Philosophy," and it would be similar in course outline to a typical college
freshman philosophy class. Should the school be so outrageously fortunate to
offer two philosophy classes, the second elective year would be similar in
course outline to a more advanced college philosophy class.
The students might be asked to learn about metaphysics, epistemology, logic,
ethics, and aesthetics. They might be asked to learn about Socrates and
Plato. They might be asked to learn about Kant, Descartes, Nietzsche, and
Wittgenstein.
There is no way on Earth that such a class would have room for Behe or
Dembski. There is no legitimate secular academic purpose in putting
Intelligent Design into a crowded curriculum, when the funds are needed for
higher priorities, and when the colleges and universities accepting
applications from the high school graduates are not interested in credit
hours they wasted on unaccredited classes with no bearing on the
undergraduate academic program.
Since no responsible school board, prinicipal, or teacher could have a
reasonable secular academic purpose in teaching Intelligent Design as
philosophy, given the real constraints of today, they only likely reason any
of them might contemplate it is to sneak religious instruction back into
school. And that is an unconstitutional thing to do.
All this being said, there is indeed a legitimate place for Intelligent
Design in U.S. public schools. In social studies class, public disputes are
fair game, and that is the place to "teach the controversy."
Alexander
Alexander
Fair points well made. The only thing I would highlight is that, if
you were discussing concepts of religion within philosophy it might be
perfectly reasonable to mention the various philisophical arguments
relating to concepts of a 'deaigner' from Aristotle through to Paley
and show the link between these and contemporary design proponents.
The problem only starts when you start teaching Intelligent Design as a
concept in its own right and discuss the actual 'merits' of its
non-existent scientific claims.
This would be true of a social studies class as much as any other and
I've raised this issue before. The study of the sociological
phenomenon of creationism in contemporary society is contentious at
best. This is especially true within US society due to the proximity
of the study and the subject matter. The chances are you would be
attempting to 'study' a phenomenon with students who either held
personal religious beliefs related to some form of creationism/ID, or
who weren't sophisticated in scientific knowledge to the extent where
they could apply the objectivity necessary to the subject.
Reflexivity within sociology is a huge issue, even at post-grad level
and the arguments about the degree of involvement a researcher should
or shouldn't have still rumbles on. I'm with people like Schegloff,
Potter and Wetherell in that observers should be as impartial as
practically possible, but these are complex issues. Likewise the
techniques for actually examining these areas are also fairly intensive
and not really suitable for the age range of 14-18. There is also
extremely limited research in this particular area within sociology and
are generally limited to post-grad studies. I should know, because I'm
one of the few attempting to do so.
If you taught the issue as a 'stand-alone' block outlining the
historicity of the debate within the US it would still be extremely
difficult to instill the idea of impartial observations about the
current situation. You would, in effect, be stuck with the same
problem of discussing ID as you would in any other Humanities class.
In short a back-door attempt to introduce ID as an 'alternative' to
evolution.
er...@swva.net
Exactly. What was wrong about the El Tejon fiasco is not that ID was
discussed as philosophy, but that philosophy was used as a cover for
slanted fundamentalist attacks on science and to advocate creationism.
Eric Root
Alexander
Quite. Even ignoring the ramifications of the US constitution it was
unethical (I feel) to propose a course that stated it was looking at
the 'philosophy' of design when in fact it was only intended to support
one particular religious view.
I have very mixed feelings about Humanities courses teaching 'ID'. The
philisophical/social/religious implications of a designer I have no
problems with. As soon as you start mentioning ID however you are
forced to discuss whether or not it's valid as a science, the
'challenge' to evolution and the arguments for and against its
inclusion as 'science' right down to the definition of 'theory' and
what science is in the first place.
For us its relatively easy as most of the scientists and other
observers here have at least some significant grounding in the
philosophy of science and the issues surrounding the semantics. I'm
not convinced that every humanities teacher would be as well prepared
and there are quite a few over there that would see it as an
'opportunity' to table ID as science that hasn't yet 'had its day' (as
DI would have us believe).
A.Carlson
Twelve years of teaching our children *what* to think and not *how* to
think pretty much says it all. Is it any wonder that Creationism in
all its various forms has such deep roots in the U.S.?
>Philosophy is relegated, then, to the high school elective class, when it is
>available at all. It is taught when the happy circumstances of available
>funding, available credentialed teachers, and interested students all align.
>That is, almost never.
>
>What, then, is the proper curriculum for a philosophy class in a U.S. high
>school, should it be so fortunate to offer one?
At least there seems to be a limited amount of movement to teach
critical thinking below the college level:
http://www.ericdigests.org/pre-929/critical.htm
(It's kind of dated. I wonder how things might have improved at the
pre-college level since publication of this article)
When I took critical thinking in college, it was an elective, one of
many philosophy courses I could have chosen from to fill the
requirement for one measly little class in philosophy.
It's too bad that there aren't any politicians with enough backbone to
confront the religiously based ignorance that is currently rearing its
ugly head throughout the U.S. through calls to allow I.D. or even
Creationism to be taught as legitimate science. The current crop of
ignorance laced education bills should actually be treated as a
watershed event, as primary evidence that our education system needs
serious revamping and that what is really needed are mandatory courses
in critical thinking in every High School at least
>If the school is interested in its academic integrity, if it cares about its
>accreditation, if it wants its college-bound students to succeed, that
>philosophy class will be aligned with college and university philosophy
>studies. In other words, the first elective year would be "Introduction to
>Philosophy," and it would be similar in course outline to a typical college
>freshman philosophy class. Should the school be so outrageously fortunate to
>offer two philosophy classes, the second elective year would be similar in
>course outline to a more advanced college philosophy class.
>
>The students might be asked to learn about metaphysics, epistemology, logic,
>ethics, and aesthetics. They might be asked to learn about Socrates and
>Plato. They might be asked to learn about Kant, Descartes, Nietzsche, and
>Wittgenstein.
Or if given a choice, the student might choose to just take a
comparative religions course instead - hardly useless, but it still
doesn't hold a candle to a good course in logic or critical thinking.
At a nearby community college, to get an AA degree for transfer to a
four year college, only basic philosophy is required. It is only at
the four year school level where you are actually required to finally
take a course on critical thinking, 14 years after your 'education'
began and 2 years after many students have permanently dropped out.
CreateThis
> Since the El Tejon Unified School District has withdrawn its "Philosophy of
> Design" class, it may be a while before any judge rules on Intelligent
> Design in a U.S. public school philosophy class.
>
> While it would certainly be constitutional to teach about Intelligent
> Design, it is most likely that every case it actually happens in a
> philosophy class will be unconstitutional.
ID isn't philosophy any more than it's science. It barely even rises to
the level of an assertion (unless you count "evolution can't be right").
The only reasonable excuse for mentioning it in any public school
class is either (1) as an instructive example of a failed political scam
or (2) as yet another not-so-subtle attempt to lodge the seed of
anti-evolution in young minds.
ID deserves no respect of any kind and shouldn't be given any quarter
under the misplaced rubric of 'fairness'. It and its promoters should
be slapped down like Whackamoles wherever they pop up.
CT
APOCALYPSE
Ludicrous.
For one thing, there already exists a philosophy of design, called
Teleology. Intelligent Design is a modern counterpart attempting to
prove a philosophy with science. Creationism tried to prove the
religion, ID is trying to prove the philosophy.
Philosophy is a wonderful topic and I wish schools would teach it but
public schools are for kids to learn real-world math/science/history
stuff. Philosophy is so liberal arts, it's only place is in college.
It's great for expanding the mind but public school just doesn't have
the room for it.
I think ID should be discussed in a current events class: discuss it
objectively as a movement and not as an actual way of thinking one
should take seriously.
Inez
R. Baldwin wrote:
> Since the El Tejon Unified School District has withdrawn its "Philosophy of
> Design" class, it may be a while before any judge rules on Intelligent
> Design in a U.S. public school philosophy class.
>
> While it would certainly be constitutional to teach about Intelligent
> Design, it is most likely that every case it actually happens in a
> philosophy class will be unconstitutional.
I would be interested if one of you smart people could explain what the
"philosophy of design" is beyond "God designed life." That would be an
awfully short class. Are we simply talking about Christianity, or is
there some sort of design-based philosophical movement?
jgri...@scu.k12.ca.us
R. Baldwin wrote:
> Since the El Tejon Unified School District has withdrawn its "Philosophy of
> Design" class, it may be a while before any judge rules on Intelligent
> Design in a U.S. public school philosophy class.
>
> While it would certainly be constitutional to teach about Intelligent
> Design, it is most likely that every case it actually happens in a
> philosophy class will be unconstitutional.
The basic problem with El Tejon's class is that the teacher had no
intention of teaching anything except a religious class. She even
asserted that "This is the course that the Lord wants me to teach" (I
don't think she was referring to Lord Darth Vader). The teaching of any
course that is believed to be sanctioned by "The Lord" would invariably
be unconsitutional, even if it were a P.E. class.
> The issue is not whether public schools may teach about Intelligent Design.
> They can. Public schools may teach about religion or philosophy in a variety
> of ways. For example, they may teach about the influence of religion on art,
> music, history, philosophy, or culture, about comparative religion, about
> various scriptures as literature, and about religious holidays. They may not
> provide religious instruction. Any instruction about ethics must be neutral
> as to religion.
In states like California, there are atheists going over every piece of
state sanctioned textbooks and materials, ready to mobilize political
activists at every level over the slightest inference to religion. How
do you think they caught El Tejon before the class ever met?
> The critical thing is what the public school is trying to accomplish with
> the lesson. Teaching about Intelligent Design in a philosophy class would be
> permissible if it had a legitimate secular, educational purpose.
Since one judge (Jones) has ruled that Intelligent Design can not be
taught in his state on a federal constitutional issue, until his ruling
is overturned or limited by further decisions, the ruling will affect
decisions in all 50 states.
<snip>
>
> There is no way on Earth that such a class would have room for Behe or
> Dembski. There is no legitimate secular academic purpose in putting
> Intelligent Design into a crowded curriculum, when the funds are needed for
> higher priorities, and when the colleges and universities accepting
> applications from the high school graduates are not interested in credit
> hours they wasted on unaccredited classes with no bearing on the
> undergraduate academic program.
Which raises the question of what legitimate lesson does the teaching
of the "Invisible Unicorn" for an entire class period serve. In case
you're not familiar with this deceptive method of laying claim to proof
of the non-existence of God (a.k.a. the invisible unicorn), it was once
a widely used atheist trick to use the science classroom to convert
unsuspecting high school students to the principles of atheism. It
required an entire classroom period of instruction, in order that
students could be given time to reflect and reach orchestrated
conclusions about God. If any other lesson plan were designed with a
positive religious motive, it would be out and out unconstitutional,
however since atheism is not recognized as having religious context,
atheists are free to do their missionary work in science classrooms.
Courts need to recognize all "God" related content as equally improper
for the public school classroom.
> Since no responsible school board, prinicipal, or teacher could have a
> reasonable secular academic purpose in teaching Intelligent Design as
> philosophy, given the real constraints of today, they only likely reason any
> of them might contemplate it is to sneak religious instruction back into
> school. And that is an unconstitutional thing to do.
>
> All this being said, there is indeed a legitimate place for Intelligent
> Design in U.S. public schools. In social studies class, public disputes are
> fair game, and that is the place to "teach the controversy."
Even so, I don't think it really qualifies, it never has in the past!
My science teachers gave me the impression that Scopes won, back in
1925. We weren't tested on it, but the way teachers mention things in
class, we were given the impression that only a moron would rule
against evolution. "Inherit the Wind" was a courtroom drama filmed in
black and white, so students of my generation had little interest in
sitting through it. Imagine my surprize, years later, to learn that
Scopes lost. Now, arguably, Scopes should have been "required reading",
however disputes over what students are taught or not taught has been
an exclusive matter for school boards and therefore not a legitimate
topic for classroom instruction. Since teaching the controversy is
clearly about what students are taught or not taught, the past practice
would exclude it from classroom instruction.
JTG 1/25/06
Ash
> Since the El Tejon Unified School District has withdrawn its "Philosophy of
> Design" class, it may be a while before any judge rules on Intelligent
> Design in a U.S. public school philosophy class.
>
> While it would certainly be constitutional to teach about Intelligent
> Design, it is most likely that every case it actually happens in a
> philosophy class will be unconstitutional.
>
This case was even easier as it was not in fact a philosophy class -
there was little or no philosophy in the plan, it was actually simply
Creationism
rupert....@gmail.com
jgri...@scu.k12.ca.us wrote:
> R. Baldwin wrote:
[snip[
> > There is no way on Earth that such a class would have room for Behe or
> > Dembski. There is no legitimate secular academic purpose in putting
> > Intelligent Design into a crowded curriculum, when the funds are needed for
> > higher priorities, and when the colleges and universities accepting
> > applications from the high school graduates are not interested in credit
> > hours they wasted on unaccredited classes with no bearing on the
> > undergraduate academic program.
>
> Which raises the question of what legitimate lesson does the teaching
> of the "Invisible Unicorn" for an entire class period serve. In case
> you're not familiar with this deceptive method of laying claim to proof
> of the non-existence of God (a.k.a. the invisible unicorn), it was once
> a widely used atheist trick to use the science classroom to convert
> unsuspecting high school students to the principles of atheism. It
> required an entire classroom period of instruction, in order that
> students could be given time to reflect and reach orchestrated
> conclusions about God. If any other lesson plan were designed with a
> positive religious motive, it would be out and out unconstitutional,
> however since atheism is not recognized as having religious context,
> atheists are free to do their missionary work in science classrooms.
> Courts need to recognize all "God" related content as equally improper
> for the public school classroom.
I would like a cite for any atheist organization advocating the
teaching of invisible pink unicorns (IPU) except to counter an
equivalent period of instruction in other evidence-free belief systems.
The point of IPUs is not, and has never been, to indoctrinate children.
It's a counter to "Why not believe in god? There's no evidence either
way." There's also no evidence for IPUs, so why not believe in them?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_pink_unicorn
[snip]
Earle Jones
"R. Baldwin" <res0...@nozirevBACKWARDS.net> wrote:
> Since the El Tejon Unified School District has withdrawn its "Philosophy of
> Design" class, it may be a while before any judge rules on Intelligent
> Design in a U.S. public school philosophy class.
>
> While it would certainly be constitutional to teach about Intelligent
> Design, it is most likely that every case it actually happens in a
> philosophy class will be unconstitutional....
*
Intelligent Design should be taught in a Comparative Religions class.
I don't think it belongs in any class devoted to the Social Sciences.
In reading Edward O. Wilson's "Consilience" we see that the Social
Sciences are hard pressed to show any progress in the betterment of
society at all. This is especially true given the tremendous progress
of the "hard" sciences during the past few decades.
During the time that we have gone from the horse-drawn carriage to the
Boeing 747, what have the social sciences accomplished? The answer is
just about nil. We have really made no progress in the relationship
between societies -- wars, hatred, and prejudice continue now just as
they always did.
Overloading our Social Science classes with another burden -- comparing
religions, will not accomplish anything. In fact it would probably
fertilize another garden of rampant misunderstanding.
Social scientists speak a different language. They look at themselves a
scientists but they do not speak the language of science. The biggest
problem is that they seem to be proud of that fact. Proud that no other
scientist can understand their particular jargon. Their jumbled
ramblings are often mistaken for creative and enthusiastic fervor but
the result is lacking.
Wilson believes that the Social Sciences should be called the 'hard'
sciences, owing to the difficulty of showing any kind of progress in the
past century.
Intelligent design is a Christian-based approach to overcoming the
theory of evolution. Just read the writings of (lawyer) Philip Johnson,
Michael Behe, and William Dembski, the founders of the ID cult.
Just a sample:
"My thesis is that all disciplines find their completion in
Christ and cannot be properly understood apart from Christ."
--William Dembski, 'Intelligent Design', p 206
Teach Intelligent Design along with Scientology, Wiccan, and the Flat
Earth in a course in what some people profess to really believe. And
include Catholicism, Protestantism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and other
religions.
Teach what the word 'faith' really means: That is, belief without
evidence.
And then remind them of what philosopher David Hume taught us:
"A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence."
--David Hume (1711-1776)
earle
*
Cheezits
[etc.]
> Intelligent Design should be taught in a Comparative Religions class.
Since when is ID a religion? It's a pseudo-scientific cover for a
fundamentalist Christian belief, but it is NOT a religion. There is no
church of ID, no tradition associated with it. People who pray to a
Christian God rarely praise him for his design ability. ID is little
more than textbook sticker statements like "Darwinism is full of holes"
and "I just don't see how everything could have evolved". I think it
should be taught as an example of a misguided fundamentalist attempt to
impose religion on a secular school system, or how not to do science.
It does not deserve to be put in the same class with Hinduism,
Christianity, Buddhism, etc.
Sue
--
"It's not smart or correct, but it's one of the things that
make us what we are." - Red Green
catshark
Actually, Michael Ruse has a good book on the history and issues involved
in the arguments from design. _Darwin and Design : Does Evolution Have a
Purpose?_, Harvard University Press (2003). At 384 pages it probably has
enough for a course on its own, though a bit beyond most high schoolers.
<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/067401023X/ref=ed_oe_h/103-0287353-7646237?%5Fencoding=UTF8>
I think a good course should probably consist more of the history of
science than philosophy _per se_, focusing on the time between Newton (and
his major insight that we can extrapolate from what we experience here on
Earth to explain how the heavens work), up through Laplace and Hutton and
into Darwin's time, showing how more and more of science was adopting
methodological naturalism and why but without neglecting those who opposed
either the method or the results. It should address the issues of how (and
*if*) methodological naturalism differs from philosophical materialism,
giving the IDers a fair hearing on their claim that there is none.
If you want to get really ambitious (and really piss off the creationists),
you could go into the development of Modernism and the rise of
Fundamentalism as a reaction to it and Higher Criticism, and take 'em right
up through Scopes, George McReady Price and Henry Morris, into the ID
"movement" but that would have to include material on Social Darwinism, the
eugenics movement and the claims that "Darwinism" leads to racism, Naziism,
Communism and acne in teenagers. How many years are we talking about here?
--
---------------
J. Pieret
---------------
It is the mark of the marvelous toleration of the Athenians ...
that it wasn't till Socrates turned seventy that they
broke down and forced him to drink poison.
- Isaac Asimov -
R. Baldwin
news:1138207862....@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>A religion in science's clothing deserves a place in philosophy class?
> Ludicrous.
Well, the point of the original post was that it doesn't, even if you give
ID the benefit of the doubt as to whether it can be called philosophy.
>
> For one thing, there already exists a philosophy of design, called
> Teleology. Intelligent Design is a modern counterpart attempting to
> prove a philosophy with science. Creationism tried to prove the
> religion, ID is trying to prove the philosophy.
>
> Philosophy is a wonderful topic and I wish schools would teach it but
> public schools are for kids to learn real-world math/science/history
> stuff. Philosophy is so liberal arts, it's only place is in college.
> It's great for expanding the mind but public school just doesn't have
> the room for it.
That again was my original point.
>
> I think ID should be discussed in a current events class: discuss it
> objectively as a movement and not as an actual way of thinking one
> should take seriously.
>
I thought I said that too.
R. Baldwin
news:LhRBf.63463$q4....@newsfe2-gui.ntli.net...
I think you would find that every attempt to teach ID will turn out to be
the same. It isn't science. If you did call it philosophy, it is too
unimportant as a philosophy to include in the curriculum.