Organicmachination writes:
Therefore, Creationism cannot be taught in schools because it is explicitly religious.
More accurately, I think, the basic principles (to the extent that there can be agreement as to what these really are) that underly Creationism and its "liberalized" projection, Intelligent Design, cannot be presented to students as being equivalent to things like history, math, chemistry, physics or even biology in U.S.
public schools, which are funded by municipal and state (and even a few federal) tax dollars, and are run by publicly elected or appointed school boards.
So, private schools (funded entirely by tuition, private donations and/or religious organizations) are not so constrained. Also, public schools
can present information
about Creationism and ID, in the context of studying topics like history, politics and other "social studies", and perhaps in areas like folklore, mythology, and comparative religion (e.g. a review of creation stories from all cultures) -- that is, to study them as social phenomena.
It's a comfort to me that the U.S. Constitution provides this safeguard. Of course, even in the absence of this legal imperative to keep religious indoctrination out of the public schools, it should be self-evident that anything like ID cannot be presented (let alone taught) as science. It is antithetical to science.
The pursuit of scientific inquiry is, in essence, the attempt to explain our physical perceptions. and the physical structures/processes that underlie/create those perceptions, in a manner that:
- is coherent and consistent in its logic and general applicability
- is based on and consistent with evidence that is observable and either replicable or confirmed by other observations
- invites broader and more careful observations to test the predictions of a current theory
- encourages amendment, rethinking, and novel theories as more observations are made, whenever this results in better explanations, and more accurate predictions
I have not seen a demonstration of any of these traits in the materials presented by ID. The essential basis for ID seems to be something like this: as an "ID Scientist", you must expect to reach a point in your observations where you have to conclude that no further investigation is needed or even possible, because that is a point where an "unknown designer" (e.g. Yahweh) just made it the way it is, so you have to stop there.
As I understand it, the difference between ID and Creationism is that ID does not cite a specific authority that dictates where you have to stop, whereas Creationism specifies that the authority is the Bible, as translated for Christians, and as interpreted by
particular Christians.
Either way, the problem that is inherent in their approach, and that demonstrates the profound wisdom of the First Amendment, is that
there cannot be any objective basis for authority to resolve any particular point of debate or doubt. If there were any such objective basis, why would there be so many distinct religious groups that hold steadily to so many different, incompatible and irreconcilable beliefs?
Edited by Otto Tellick, : reworded second bullet point
autotelic adj. (of an entity or event) having within itself the purpose of its existence or happening.
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