Let's Have No More Monkey Trials

[beam me up scottie]

TIME Online Edition
Web Exclusive | Charles Krauthammer

Let's Have No More Monkey Trials
To teach faith as science is to undermine both

The half-century campaign to eradicate any vestige of religion from public life has run its course. The backlash from a nation fed up with the A.C.L.U. kicking crèches out of municipal Christmas displays has created a new balance. State-supported universities may subsidize the activities of student religious groups. Monuments inscribed with the Ten Commandments are permitted on government grounds. The Federal Government is engaged in a major antipoverty initiative that gives money to churches. Religion is back out of the closet.
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How many times do we have to rerun the Scopes "monkey trial"? There are gaps in science everywhere. Are we to fill them all with divinity? There were gaps in Newton's universe. They were ultimately filled by Einstein's revisions. There are gaps in Einstein's universe, great chasms between it and quantum theory. Perhaps they are filled by God. Perhaps not. But it is certainly not science to merely declare it so.

To teach faith as science is to undermine the very idea of science, which is the acquisition of new knowledge through hypothesis, experimentation and evidence. To teach it as science is to encourage the supercilious caricature of America as a nation in the thrall of religious authority. To teach it as science is to discredit the welcome recent advances in permitting the public expression of religion. Faith can and should be proclaimed from every mountaintop and city square. But it has no place in science class. To impose it on the teaching of evolution is not just to invite ridicule but to earn it.

http://www.time.com/time/columnist/krauthammer/article/0,9565,1088869,00.html

[wli]

1. the fundies will never give up until Falwell et al dictate all "truth"

I don't have an answer, but they're willing and able (as proved over the past 5 years) to usurp democratic processes to overrule the results of any fair proceeding.

[beam me up scottie]

2. I can't remember ever being

so ashamed of my country.

The anti-science reichwing intends to drag us kicking and screaming back to the dark ages.