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Georgia school district to remove evolution disclaimer stickers from textbooks
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Kate Heneroty at 10:50 AM ET
[JURIST] The Cobb County School District [official website] on Tuesday agreed to remove anti-evolution stickers [ACLU press release] from its high school biology textbooks. In 2002, parents sued the suburban Atlanta school district claiming the stickers violated the separation between church and state by promoting religion in the classroom. In January 2005, a federal district court ordered the removal of the stickers [text; JURIST report]. The school board appealed the decision and in May the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit remanded the case [JURIST reports] to the district court on the issue of whether the school district's actions were "religiously neutral."
The settlement ends the legal battle which began when the district placed a sticker in 35,000 biology textbooks calling evolution "a theory, not a fact." To settle the case, the school district also agreed not to take any action which would undermine the teaching of evolution in high school classrooms.
The Atlanta Journal Constitution has more.
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I had a very intelligent professor in college who taught evolutionary science and was also a Quaker from the northwestern US.
It was his sincere belief that evolution existed and that evolution was God's plan. Note that this was not what he taught - he taught only the scientific theory of evolution - but this was his personal belief shared with the class when asking the class to share their own beliefs (in an attempt to determine what our starting ground was on evolution, as I went to school in the deep southern US).
I think that his approach may be the one way to reconcile faith with reason for those torn between the two. In any event, it is certainly more open minded, thoughtful and nuanced than either the atheist camp (no way is there a god) or the fundamentalist camp (god will damn all you atheists to hell).
Personally, I think at best I am agnostic about both scientific principals and the existence of god. I have observed the fallibility of human reason and emotion, the limitations of knowledege and the variance of 'truth' when seen from different perspectives.
What I best know is that really I don't know anything at all. I only hope to understand a few things along the way.
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Quaker's are interesting. They have a curious world view. (Not that I claim to know their beliefs particularly well.) There have been many Christians who consider evolution to be part of (their) God's Plan - after all, why not - nothign in the Bible said that change was out (for example, Genesis merely says that living things were created complete, not unchanging).
Back when I was exploring Catholicism, I held a similar view regarding evolution and 'God's Plan'. I walked away when I realised that belief in deity had to be sustained, while evolution didn't require belief - but it did have to be understood. I guess Science as a way of understanding won out for me - once I untangled the two.
Science is not a search for the 'Truth' or a 'Truth', it is a process for understanding and exploring physical reality. It is not equipped, nor designed, nor directed towards any 'greater' understanding. Which is not to say that scientists don't make the mistake of confusing science with other forms of knowing/understanding/exploring.
Because science has challenged, and overthrown, so many long held beliefs over the past few centuries, it is not hard to understand why it is considered to be so threatening to those whose world views are founded upon beliefs (especially unquestioned/unquestionable beliefs). It is also worth recalling that our contemporary science is barely a few centuries old.
In the end, science is a process - a methodology or approach to answering questions - but only certain kinds of questions.
Socrates (and myself) would agree :)
True wisdom (understanding) is a neverending process. I requires you to be able question your own understanding, your own beliefs - without fear of where that might take you. That's pretty hard for us humans.
I enjoy the journey of learning far too much to want to stop at some arbitrary point of knowing everything. I like being challenged - to reconsider what I whought I knew (though I often don't realise it until afterwards - we're all fallible :) I suspect that has something to do with why I've not limited myself to a single intellectual 'domain', why I've not settled into the first job I landed.
And perhaps it's also why I can be so annoying to some of my academic collegaues (and perhaps why they also like to have me around?). I push boundaries ... and perhaps I expect others to do the same?
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