"In the Scopes trial, creationists secured legal victory at the price of national ridicule. Their descendants stress the ostensibly scientific notion of Intelligent Design, and the superficially democratic demand that it be granted equal time with the teaching of evolution. A liberal education certainly includes knowledge of the religious doctrines that have shaped Western civilisation. But the myths of the Creation and the Fall have no place in science education. Evolution, wrote the biologist Ernst Mayr, is not just a concept but "the name of a process in nature, the occurrence of which can be documented by mountains of evidence that nobody has been able to refute". Its deniers – there is no polite way of putting this - are a menace to children."Quite. For to allow even the mention of 'intelligent design' in any other context but an RE class would be an injustice. A liberal education can afford to give no space to those preaching cognitive infallibility disguised as scepticism.
"It has been the misfortune of this age, that everything is to be discussed, as if the constitution of our country were to be always a subject rather of altercation than enjoyment." - Edmund Burke anticipates the Neverendum
Saturday, October 14, 2006
A menace to children
Oliver Kamm writes:
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