The Salina Journal from Salina, Kansas • Page 9

SALINA JOURNAL Opinion SUNDAY, MAY 15, 2005 A7 i EDITORIAL Our system is good, so put it to use to inject religious beliefs into school curriculum put our education system at risk ere's an idea that shoiold save us from the ongoing debate over science standards in Kansas public schools. Let's enlist a panel of experts in science and education to review the state's science standards. It should include people who have demonstrated knowledge and achievement in the field. They should be chosen on the basis of merit, regardless of their religious beliefs. In that way the group will represent a variety of viewpoints.

This panel can hold public hearings in different Kansas cities. Then they can wrangle over every word until a majority reaches a consensus. Then they could submit those standards to the Kansas State Board of Education, which should approve them, knowing they were developed by experts with superior training and knowledge in the field. Oh, wait a minute. That's been done.

A committee of 26 experts reviewed the state's science standards for public schools and a majority of members approved a document for recommendation to the State Board of Education. However, a few members want a separate version to be considered, so they wrote a "minority" report based on faith-based assertions. Conservative members of the state board of education agree with this faith-based approach, even though it is not accepted by 98 percent of the country's scientists. The problem here is that religious beliefs should not be included in public school science standards. They belong in classes on religion or- philosophy But not science.

Kansas has a good system for developing science standards for public schools. Conservative board members should let that system work and stop trying to inject their narrow religious beliefs into our public schools. Tom Bell Editor Publisher "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press First Amendment, U.S. Constitution THE JOURNAL'S OPINION LINE To call the opinion line, dial (785) 823-6464, Ext. 333.

Speak your mind, but please keep comments courteous and brief. "With the low attendance, I believe there's been a message sent to the city of Salina that we don't want or need the Cagetz. Nobody wants to watch a bunch of ex-college guys play basketball, and I am one of them." "For those complaining about the kids skateboarding, let's get them another nice park somewhere. How many soccer fields, football fields and basketball courts do we have in Salina? Not everybody plays those. Let's take care of our skateboarders, too, where it's safe." "In order to participate in after-school sports in USD 305, parents pay $25 per child.

So we parents are helping foot the bill." "Whoever is responsible for wantin' to build a new Expo Center, I say vote 'no' about that when it comes up and do not raise the property taxes. I for one cannot afford to pay any more." "When I was in the Marines In World War II, if the troops weren't complaining, there was cause for concern about mutiny. The citizens of Salina need not be concerned. The Salina Joumal opinton page especially the 333 line is proof positive." "Ifs funny how these parents can't afford lunches for their children, but they're the same ones who can afford $3 for a pack of cigarettes every dayf 'You right-wing idiots believe in a culture of life, but you want to execute kids." "Would someone please explain why the students who were responsible for the food fight at Central High never have to dean It up? Evktentiy somebody doesnt believe In consequences." AREN'T LOCAL COMMENT Beware those theories of science Theories come and go like the seasons; don't let them blind your views of our origin he recent hearings on evolution and intelligent design conducted on behalf of the Kansas State Board of Education have generated the usual insults from secular media. A recent column by Bonnie Erbe in the Journal blamed everything from our sagging economy to low science test scores on those dreaded "creationists." Her main sources for information seemed to be The New York Times and The Boston Globe, those great bastions of xmbiased thinking.

Erbe's piece was laced with the usual smug and demeaning language that makes light of anyone not educated or sophisticat- ed enough to see amoebae and reptiles in our genealogy. It's that same attitude that prompted evolutionary biologists, who seem to consider themselves the only true scientists, not to show up at the state board hearings. They seem to believe that all issues about our origins have been settled. So who's dogmatic now? They called the committee "closed minded," but their boycott speaks more to their own close-mindedness. Brian McNicoU wrote a piece recently where he called for a bit of humility on the part of scientists.

Many wiU "amen" that one. He reminded them that, among other things it was the science of the day that led doctors to use leeches to "bleed" POINT OF VIEW RON BOWELL for tlie Salina Journal "These learned people felt the need to, discredit any thinking that might grant credence to God," George Washington when what he had was probably just the flu. Their "science" is what likely killed him. This arrogant attitude is what caused scientists of the day to label astronomer Georges Lemaitre a lunatic in the 1920s. His heresy: Hypothesizing that aU the material making up the present imiverse had once been in a single place, "locked in a primordial atom of unthinkable mass." It's what is now commonly accepted as the "Big Bang" theory But many scientists refused to even give him a hearing.

Why? Because they were worried that his thesis represented an attempt to grant credence to a theological notion of a discrete moment of genesis. Does any of this sound familiar? In other words, they scoffed at his idea because it might imply that there is a God. These learned people felt the need to discredit any thinking that might grant credence to God. In their zealous desire to eliminate the divine from their equations, their narrow-minded attitude contaminated their science and blinded them to the truth. This same evolutionary zeal was what caused the infamous Piltdown Man to be hailed as the missing link by miich of science for more than 40 years.

It was later discovered to be a hoax by scientists who weren't afraid to admit that many times even the best of science just plain gets it wrong. Science is bigger than biology and as soon as the field of biology admits that, they wiU be ready to get back to true science. The number of scientists in other various fields speaking out for the probability of intelligent design continues to increase because this is where the data in their discipline leads. Even now, noted and reputable scientists in physics, astronomy, genetics, anthropology and microbiology are speaking intelligent design language. So it's simply untrue to assert that no reputable scientist is leaning toward intelligent design as a theory of origin.

Science is bigger than biology and in other disciplines not so chained to Darwinism. There is a growing sense that this universe and the life that's in it could not have possibly happened randomly or accidentally So let the Darwinians beat their collective chests and declare, "We will bury you." Let them boycott meetings and hide behind their science. The truth is, scientific theories come and go like the seasons. And let us not forget that poUs show the majority of Americans still have not bought into this amoebae-to-fish-to-lizard-to-monkey-to-man stuff, even though it has been crammed down their throats for more than 50 years. After 50 years, Georges Lemaitre's theory of the big bang was eventually accepted by reluctant scientists.

After 40 years, the Piltdown man was eventually proven to be a big mistalce. And one day learned people will likely chuckle at the notion that random-chance evolution was once believed to be the unifying principle of biology Ron Bowell is pastor of CrossRoads Church, 1125 W. South. E-mail: ronbowell org Ignorance is bliss' is horrible lie Religious belief is no excuse to close our eyes to what can help us understand our world EW YORK My friend Kate volunteers at the Museum of Natural History, here in New York, where she leads guided tours through a breathtaking display of living frogs some the color of a ripe mango and smaller than your fingernail, others chestnut- skinned and wider than your shoulders. ALEXANDER Like clockwork, every ROSE Saturday a curious child Providence (RI) will ask how the frogs got journal that way Kate will begin her simplified explanation of the process of natural selection, only to be interrupted again, like clockwork by a tourist demanding an addendum that evolution is "a theory and not a fact." Kate's response: "Actually, everything in science is a theory, and that's what makes it science." She has far more patience for ignorance than I do; I wouldn't have the fortitude not to mention that the overwhelming majority of working scientists agree with Darwin's conclusions, that no one has yet been able to disprove them in the 150 years since they were published, or that those who subscribe to intelligent design or creationlsm deliberately ignore the abundant and continuously mounting evidence for natural selection.

To teach evolution "as a theory" in biology class, as 65 percent of Americans now propose, would be like prefacing a lesson on World War II as "an attempt to reconstruct past events through primary and secondary sources" in history class. The disclaimer is as redundant as It is misleading. Yes, evolution is a theory, as is the big bang and the existence of black holes, but It would be absurd to present every theoretical discovery with the disdainful suspicion currently reserved for evolution. What distinguishes science from other systems of thought is that the former "Religion exists to comfort people, to quell the blow of our anxieties, to give us a sense of purpose and meaning in an apparently chaotic world." draws its inferences and deductions from experience from observing the natiu-al world, making educated guesses about how it works, then subjecting those guesses to rigorous tests. From the results of those tests, scientists can then construct theories, and the veracity of a theory is measured by a combination of its compatibility with other theories and its predictive power But to assert, as the Religious Right has, that this particular theory evolution is "just" a theory, out of the thousands of accepted theories that are taught in science with no resistance, is to imply that it is somehow less true or less substantiated.

Nothing could be fUrther from the truth. The real reason why evolution remains controversial is that it most transparently exposes man's insignificant place in the universe. In actuality, of course, it is far fVom the only theory that undermtaes man's presumed status as the measure of all things. Over the past few hundred years, science has taught us that Earth is just one of trillions of rocks spiraling through an expanding universe, that what separates human beings from chimpanzees is merely a couple of extra proteins in our genome and that our lofty thoughts and ambitions are no more than electrochemical signals in the brain. One would think that if religious conservatives were so keen to dismiss Darwin for his threat to biblical history, then they would respond with equal tenacity to every such threat and, historically, they have.

From Galileo to DNA James Watson and Francis Crick, the church has always lashed out whenever its anthropocentric view of the world has been challenged. The crux of the matter is that religion exists to comfort people, to quell the blow of our anxieties, to give us a sense of purpose and meaning in an apparently chaotic world. Science, despite its petty competitions and bureaucracies, has no agenda other than to explain things the best it can, and as such tends to have a disquieting effect on the pious. But must it be so disquieting? Does seeing things as they are rather than as we'd like them to be necessarily dilute our appreciation of the natural world? On the contrary, knowledge can be as revelatory as any religion. Is not the universe, with all its staggering complexities, its collapsing stars and teleporting particles and awesome yellow frogs, even more miraculous now that we are beginning to imderstand it? The adage that "ignorance is bliss" is a very old and horrible lie.

Unfortunately, having dismissed the Kyoto Protocol, banned federal funding of some stem-cell research and, most recently slashed the annual science budget by 2 percent, it is clear where the Bush administration stands on the issue. What is desperately needed is a new paradigm for scientific literacy, one that equips Americans with at least a nominal understanding of the everyday how chemicals effect the environment, what foods are safe to eat as well as a healthy skepticism toward pseudoscience and fundamentalism in all its fiffectations. Kate is right. Religious belief is no excuse for ignorance, and the educated should not have to apologize for their erudition. Rather, both facts and well-supported theories, regardless of their origin, should be promoted with the same zeal and determination that the Religious Right uses to deny them.

Alexander Rose is a writer and filmmaker based in New York. VIewi: The Opinion page provides diverse views to stimulate discussion and foster the shaping of ideas. Editorials are the official position of the newspaper. Other views are the opinions of the Individual authors. Your letters: Letters considered for publication must include the name, address and daytime telephone number of the author and contain fewer than 250 words.

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