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In the battle currently underway in Kansas, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Ohio, as in Edwards v. Aguillard, the question is whether some form of creationism should be taught in SCIENCE class. The answer is no, since they aren't science.

Most of the people who oppose teaching creationism in science classes would be happy to have creation myths discussed in a history, comparative religion, or philosophy class.

The Establishment clause doesn't enter into the question of science class standards. Science classes should teach science. Science isn't religion, and evolution doesn't bear on religion, so there's no government Establishment.

The strongest case that can be made is that students' interests are best served by exposing them to scientific methodology and religious epistemology. But that argues for a comparative religions course, rather than teaching non-science in science classes.

That's all well and good once you make the anti-religious determination that your evolutionary science is more valid than someone else's creation science.

When a public school declares that creation isn't scientifically valid -- when it says that God didn't make the heavens and earth in days before chilling out for the seventh -- it is taking a stance on a particular religious doctrine and it may well raise questions about the establishment clause.

Science requires a leap of faith at a certain level, just as religion does. The differences lie as much in methodology as they do in credulity. Religion, of course, has the benefit of being a self-sealing prophecy -- that is, it as an ineherent answer for every objection in the form of God's will.

One of the points of the debate this morning was to question what you declared as fact, whether or not "Science classes should teach science. Science isn't religion, and evolution doesn't bear on religion," and what the state's role in that decision should be.

One student suggested teaching evolution in science class and teaching creation in a philosophy or mythology class, but that runs into the same problem.

Another interesting issue was whether creationists are a minority, requiring the court to step in and protect them against the tyrrany of the majority. Or, are creationists more of a silent majority who have, for the most part, yielded to the minority? If the court has to protect a religious minority here, though, what's to stop them from requiring the teaching of all other creation myths (many of which predate Genesis and influenced its authors)?

Personally, I'm in the science camp and think it's obvious that we should be teaching evolution (hence my friend calling me devil's advocate for taking the creation side). What's not as clear to me is the proper way to present alternate views, or whether to do so at all.

Argh... Hotbutton issue,

It is very true that science requires a certain deal of faith. However, it's faith in a broader spectrum of things than standard religion; science requires you tohave faith that the people who reported and reviewed the experiments are being honest. This is not always given...

However, where science and religion differ greatly is that, theoretically, you can repeat science experiments, though the closest you can come with archaeology and paleontology is to make predections about what else you will find. Of course, when some guy in the desert discovers something that requires a new look at some aspect the relationships between species, creationists shout "science is wrong."

As far as education and legal issues go, I don't think anyone classifies "evolution" as a religion without also being a creationist. So the people who want you to teach their theory as fact are those who think the current theory is a religion. I'm not sure the Supreme Court would buy an arguement that evoution is a religion, though.

Additionally, there is a huge difference between teaching something in science class ("this is the way things are, as best we can tell") and a history or philosphy or humanities class ("This is the way people think and behave"). Does it not count as some kind of violation of the establishment clause to go into a class and say "this part of this religion is a valid theory," especially when competing origin myths are not even mentioned?

Totally off from the legal aspect of things: I suspect that a large part of the reason this issue arises in predominantly Christian countries is that, in Christianity and Judaism (and maybe Islam- I don't know), the creative force and the moral force are the same thing, so in the Christian mythos, to deny the creation myth is also to deny the moral framework and all the other parts of the religion (including important stuff like salvation).

Repeatability of scientific observation is the methodology point I tried to get at above, but didn't express very well. It certainly lends more credibility.

No one classifies evolution as a religion. But teaching that evolution is the Truth, to the exclusion of the Genesis version of creation or any other religion's myth, is to deny the truth of that religion. This is something that our secular government is generally bound not to do. That you don't look at it this way and a religious Christian does doesn't change the situation.

This is a problem for any religion that says its sacred texts are the word of its deity, unless that deity happens to have done nothing other than sat quietly and observed throughout history. Or any religion that takes its texts as historical fact rather than allegory.

The difference you describe in teaching science vs. philosophy is preceisely why that solution is inadequate from the perspective of Creationists. Of course, your characterization of science as "the way things are, as best we can tell" a) is different from how science is often presented (i.e., the TruthTM), and b) leaves room open for at least presenting alternate theories of origin, which many supporters of "science" don't want to do.

Finally, another interesting point raised in class was that a lot of this depends on your view of the mission of public schools. Regardless of which theory of origin is true, biotech companies aren't going to hire people who profess beliefs in creation over evolution. If the mission of the schools is not only to tell kids how things are, but also to prepare them for careers and functioning in society, evolution is the more pragmatic thing to teach. For more on this, read up on Michael Dini at Texas Tech, the prof who won't write a letter of recommendation for bio grad school for students who do not offer a scientific explanation for the origin of the species. (Google results).

I'm happy we'll have a chance to discuss this in person soon.

Regarding Dini, I think he is right in demanding that students prove they understand the theory of evolution, but I think he is wrong to demand that they necessarily buy it (though again, he could view not believing evolution to be true to be a sign of incomopetence, which is a very strong reason to refuse a letter.)

Regarding the mission of public schools, does this apply to towns in Utah that are predominantly Mormon, and thus an understanding of Mormon thoughts and values are an advantage to anyone wanting to work in the area- i.e., can a public school teach religion?

Can a public school teach something that has as its only backing a book that is wholly religious? Most of the stuff cited as evidence for creationism is objections to the theory of evolution. The objections may or may not be valid, but I'm not aware of any that actually make the leap from "Darwin wasn't quite right" to "God created man."

But certainly there are other things taught in science classes that claim that part of a mainstream religion is false. Ignoring things such as the concept of "the firmament" or how old the Bible might indicate the Earth to be, there are things like the utter lack (I'm told) of archaeological evidence for mass Hebrew slavery in Egypt or any sort of Exodus. There are several interesting theories about Noah's Flood that deny the concept of a worldwide flood and offer little evidence of "rain for 40 days and 40 nights." Can this not be taught because it claims part of a religion as false? I interpret, as a layman, the idea that government cannot deny a religion to say that the government cannot specify a religion, but it can do things that a religion doesn't like. On the other hand, I think I would object if the government passed some sort of law that resulted in the banning the Yom Kippur fast or required civilians to work on whatever their Sabbath was.

You are absolutely right about the presentation of science. I think the best way to get across the idea that science is "as we currently understand things" is to have introductory courses taught as history classes- discussing the important ideas an experiments in the order they arrived. Certainly the view of the world before Bohr or before Mde. Curie was drastically different than after- enough so to say that lots of what people believed was right was in fact wrong. Science classes today are based more on solving problems than on understanding the scientific method.

But instead, we get a lot of people who present science as the laboratory-revealed truth. And they are strident and irritating about it. F=ma is not science- it is the result of science and a tool for science, but the equation alone does not confer understanding- I'll cut off here because it isn't related to the legal issues.

Possibly related to the legal issues. It may surprise many to know that Creationism was explained in my AP biology class in HS. The teacher gave a brief outline ("God created the Earth") and then went on to explain that it's fine theory but that there's just not much to say about it.