Yes, but where you are not emphatic–not clear at all, in fact–is emphasizing that therefore intelligent design does not belong in a SCIENCE classroom.

Tom Yulsman continues, “You seem to want to read into what I said, perhaps because you disagree with my central thesis: that evolution and science(sic! heh, heh, heh!) do not necessarily have to be at odds.”

No, I very firmly agree (“110%,” as our math-illiterate culture would say) that evolution and *religion* (at least some religion) are completely compatible. (Note: Evolution is clearly not compatible with a 6000 year-old earth, and The Flood and Noah’s Ark. A great many branches of science aren’t compatible with those religious beliefs.)

“But let’s be clear: This column did not focus on whether ID should be taught in the science classroom, although I think it was pretty clear about where I come down on that issue.”

Wouldn’t you agree that the column DID focus on whether ID belongs in any classroom at all? If you agree with that, my only point was that your column should have made clear that ID might be fine for ***a*** classroom, but most definitely not a SCIENCE classroom.

“I’m simply asking that atheists stop being as absolutist in their perspective as the religious fundamentalists — whom we all agree are sadly misguided.”

Yes, this is what I call your “leftist” tendency. Leftists (more than rightists) hate absolutes. But there ARE absolutes. ID absolutely does NOT belong in a SCIENCE classroom. (Other than if a student brings up a question related to ID, which might then be an occasion for good discussion and thinking.)

About a week ago, I heard an interview on NPR of one of the Dover, PA, schoolboard members, who was elected on (among other things) a stance that ID did not belong in **science** classrooms. (She was equally emphatic that she thought ID did belong in a classroom, just not a **science** classroom.) Apparently, in Dover, PA, science teachers were required to stop their science teaching, and read a message of some sort (put in by ID proponents). That is the sort of thing that’s absolutely wrong.

“A confession: I own not one but TWO rock hammers. I spend every spring break with them in southern Utah. And I most definitely do not believe that the ripple marks I find on rock layers from 200 million years ago were the result of Noah’s Flood.”

Well, even if you did, you’d have no business trying to teach your students that that was so, if you were teaching non-adults. (I don’t have much of a problem with professors espousing non-sense, since the students are adults.)

That is the point I’m making. You want to pretend there are no absolutes. But there ARE absolutes. ID is absolutely not science, so it absolutely should not be taught to children in a science classroom (where they might be confused into thinking ID is science).

Tom Yulsman concludes by telling Dave Roberts, “But I’m arguing that rationalism cannot possibly win if you reject the idea that religion and science can co-exist — perhaps uneasily, but co-exist nonetheless.”

But there ARE areas where religion and science simply can NOT co-exist. For example, it’s wrong to pretend that the religious belief in a 6000-year-old earth can co-exist with evolution…or many other branches of science.

If a SCIENCE teacher asks on a test, “How old is the earth?” and a student answers, “6000 years old”…GOD (or whatever gods may be) FORBID that the science teacher would ever accept that as the correct answer!

There are absolutes. ID is absolutely not science, and absolutely should not be taught as science.

My answer, as published: “With controversies raging over the teaching of intelligent design in the classroom, people on opposite sides of the debate seem to agree on one thing: The answer is ‘no.’”

The “no” refers to the whether evolution is compatible with religion, not to whether ID should be taught in the science classroom.

I’m sorry, but your knee seems to be jerking so violently on this issue that you seem incapable of reading the words that actually are on the page. Read the piece again. I am emphatic in stating that intelligent design is a religious and political movement, not science. You seem to want to read into what I said, perhaps because you disagree with my central thesis: that evolution and science do not necessarily have to be at odds. If that’s your issue, let’s discuss it. I’m open to your thoughts. But let’s be clear: This column did not focus on whether ID should be taught in the science classroom, although I think it was pretty clear about where I come down on that issue.

My goodness, I’m not saying that religion is “good” or atheism is “bad.” I’m simply asking that atheists stop being as absolutist in their perspective as the religious fundamentalists — whom we all agree are sadly misguided. And I’m arguing that you at least consider the objective reality that there are millions of people out there, myself included, who have absolutely no problem whatsoever being religious and believing that science has given us profound and extremely well corroborated answers to how the diversity of life on Earth came to be.

A confession: I own not one but TWO rock hammers. I spend every spring break with them in southern Utah. And I most definitely do not believe that the ripple marks I find on rock layers from 200 million years ago were the result of Noah’s Flood.

Lastly, to David Roberts, I take it back: I AM on your side. We continue to be engaged in a battle between rationalism and irrationalism. But I’m arguing that rationalism cannot possibly win if you reject the idea that religion and science can co-exist — perhaps uneasily, but co-exist nonetheless.

I certainly didn’t think you were, Tom! I think you’re a typical leftist who wants to pretend that everything can be made “compatible,” if we just avoid “extremism of any stripe.”

That’s BS. ID is simply not compatible with being taught in a science class, and I don’t think you move discussion forward when you don’t make that clear. After you make that clear, making it clear that you think it’s compatible with being taught in some other study area–such as Survey of Religions–is fine.

I DID read your piece. Your writing simply wasn’t very clear.

Here is your very first paragraph:

“With controversies raging over the teaching of intelligent design in the classroom, people on opposite sides of the debate seem to agree on one thing: The answer is “no.” They frame the issue in black-and-white terms, leaving no room for nuance and ambiguity. In doing so, they implacably pit religion and science against each other, harming both.”

You make it seem like it is NOT “black and white.” But it IS “black and white,” with regard to teaching ID in SCIENCE classes.

If you’d followed that first paragraph immediately making it clear that ID does NOT belong in science classrooms (which is where ID proponents want to put it, after all!) then I wouldn’t have made my comment.

Just to clarify, I didn’t call your own religious beliefs warm and fuzzy, just that sometimes your piece presented religion as such. It’s pedantic of me to insist on such precision in a short piece, but I just wanted to raise the objection, since it’s a pet peeve of mine that we so often speak of “religion” in general terms when we should be talking about particular faith communities, the species and not the genus.

I’ll just be more annoying here and state that I think moderates are just extremists who happen to be in power and thus defend the status quo. The linear model of politics(wacko left-middle-wacko right) is also a crummy model.

I do hope you will read the Oakes piece I linked to, despite my unintentionally offending you.

I think none of those groups would be happy in the same pot. I always thought it interesting that Schneerson was trained as an engineer. He confronted the same issues, but his conclusion, would, I imagine, not satisfy Tom, e.g. that Torah contains absolute truth, and that science provides possible descriptions of reality. Therefore one can only find truth in Torah. You might enjoy this letter http://www.chabad.org/therebbe/article.asp?AID=60946
which, I think, captures why I don’t think much of your argument. Schneerson is following the logical conclusion of his belief, and belief carries all before it. There is no easy reconciliation.

But in case I didn’t make it clear enough for you: I do not believe intelligent design is science. I do not believe that it is a theory or even a well developed hypothesis of any kind (because it posits little more than a critique of Darwinian evolution — and an exceedingly weak critique at that). I do not believe it ought to be taught in science class (although I do believe high school students ought to be discussing these issues in another venue, because if it’s good enough for us, it’s good enough for them). And I DO believe in the fact of descent with modification, and that modern evolutionary theory with its cornerstone of natural selection is as well corroborated and established a scientific paradigm as, say, Einstein’s special and general theories of relativity. Indeed, it is the very cornerstone of all of biological science.

And no Mr. Chairman, I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of Focus on the Family.

As for Kevin Jones’s point that my religious beliefs are “warm and fuzzy,” I’ll take that any day over “cold and prickly.” And I will also take Jefferson’s deism and Einstein’s “cosmic religious feeling” over the angry atheism and freaky fundamentalism I’ve been experiencing the last few days, thank you very much. (As I’ve been pointing out in just about every post, millions of other Americans are with me on this.)

The angry and the freaky have only helped confirm my central thesis: Polemicists on extreme ends of the ideological spectrum have hijacked the discussion of these issues, to the detriment of the cause of enlightenment and the search for meaning in life.

I think you’re quite right that this is a reaction to the deliberate neglect of religious topics in education. I think it is a misguided reaction to a very real problem.

As for the “it ain’t science” line, I’ll just say that intelligent Design is a theory of natural philosophy right out of the nineteenth century. Considering the inability of philosophers of science to come to general agreement about the nature of scientific inquiry, I’m not entirely sure entirely cutting off “science” from the field of natural philosophy is an intellectually profitable move.

I will also note Aristotle’s belief that political science is perhaps the most important of the sciences, because politics determines which sciences will be taught, and in what manner. “Who decides what science is?” is a political question.

I have no particular reason to believe that contemporary scientists have a coherent and authoritative theory of science to which any layman or parent of a student must assent when they declare something “science” or “not science.” Scientific inquiry is great in practice, but scientists cannot conceptualize their own project without stepping outside of the categories and practices of natural science and venturing into philosophical modes of inquiry.

At the end of my read, however, I was struck by something: While all contributors seemed quite knowledgable and have obviously given the issue a lot of thought, could graduating high school students in the United States today have any idea what they were talking about? I think the answer is ‘no’, and I think that is a shame!

I do not believe that Intelligent Design is a viable scientific theory, because it is primarily derived from our ignorance, not our knowledge. Observation generated the theory of evolution, but ID does not come from observing facts. It has its roots in the ignorance between knowledge.

Nonetheless, it is a subject that has generated a lot of thought and concern among some of the worlds greatest thinkers. It is ‘the big question’, yet we are not supposed to mention it in front of the children (i.e. public school)!

So far, none of the contributors have even mentioned anything about teaching children, other than a passing reference to school boards in the original article. Isn’t that the crux of the matter? Isn’t that what this is all about?

The current I.D. debate is not talking place in a vacuum. It is the result, I feel, of the systematic rewritting of history be removing all references to Judeo/Christian religion and theology from the public school curriculum. Along with that baby, goes much of the bath water of philosophy.

I doubt that there would be a current movement to introduce I.D. as a scientific concept if modern education had not been sterilized of meaningful religious and philosophical content.