Anti-Darwinian Textbooks & Liberal Democracy

My friend and Keloland colleague Cory Heidelberger confesses that he intends to home school his daughter. He also raises the alarm about a couple of home school textbooks reviewed by the Associated Press. I commend him for both things, for slightly different reasons.

I admire any parent who wishes to take over for the state in this matter of education. It is a profoundly undemocratic act, for which reason I think it deserves special honor. Democracy may be the best form of government (at least considering all the others), but it is best when it recognizes the authority of individuals over their own persons and families.

That is precisely the issue concerning the textbooks at question.

Christian-based materials dominate a growing home-school education market that encompasses more than 1.5 million students in the U.S. And for most home-school parents, a Bible-based version of the Earth's creation is exactly what they want. Federal statistics from 2007 show 83 percent of home-schooling parents want to give their children "religious or moral instruction."

"The majority of home-schoolers self-identify as evangelical Christians," said Ian Slatter, a spokesman for the Home School Legal Defense Association. "Most home-schoolers will definitely have a sort of creationist component to their home-school program."

Those who don't, however, often feel isolated and frustrated from trying to find a textbook that fits their beliefs.

That last line is utterly stupid. Parents like the Heidelbergers who want to home school their children, as Cory puts it, "to believe in both a universe governed by scientific laws and a God who created that universe," can find plenty of textbooks presenting standard accounts of biology and physics.

By contrast, parents who want a textbook that presents a more Biblical view of creation have only a couple of choices, apparently. Why are these two textbooks so offensive?

[Professor of Evolution and Ecology Jerry] Coyne and Virginia Tech biology professor Duncan Porter reviewed excerpts from the Apologia and Bob Jones biology textbooks, which are equivalent to ninth- and 10th-grade biology lessons. Porter said he would give the books an F.

"If this is the way kids are home-schooled then they're being shortchanged, both rationally and in terms of biology," Coyne said. He argued that the books may steer students away from careers in biology or the study of the history of the earth.

Well, yes. If we (meaning we Americans) allow parents to raise their children as they see fit, that means that they may raise them in ways that Cory, or Professor Coyne, or I would not. That's what the word "liberal" means in the term liberal democracy.

I believe in Darwin's theory. I have edited a book entitled Darwinian Conservatism. I have published a paper recently in which I argued that Darwin's theory supports Abraham Lincoln's political principles. But I also know that intelligent people disagree with Darwinism. Michael Ruse, in the Chronicles of Higher Education, considers the views of three prominent academic philosophers who take a dissenting view.

We ought not to be so quick to use terms like "anti-science crap" to describe people who disagree with us, especially when we may be guilty of the same sins. Cory, for example, is a big supporter of wind power and other alternative energies. But the evidence is overwhelming that large scale wind power is bad. It is ruinously expensive, and thus bad for the economy. It results in increased greenhouse emissions and kills birds and bats. It increases rather than decreases our dependence on oil. So why does Cory support it? Because he is a believer.

I think that Cory has every right to profess his faith in wind power. I am sure he can find textbooks to support his view. I am content to let people who dissent from Darwinism do the same when they decide to home school their children. My experience as a professor has been that home schooled children blow their publically schooled counterparts clean out of the water when they get to college.

Comments

[Human Ape]

"I am content to let people who dissent from Darwinism do the same when they decide to home school their children."

It's called 'evolution', not 'Darwinism'. Evolution is a basic scientific fact. Letting Christian parents teach their children science is child abuse if the parent does not accept the facts of evolutionary biology.

[Stan Gibilisco]

How, exactly, do we define the term "basic scientific fact"? As a logician and mathematician, I have some familiarity with definitions, axioms, the rules of logic, and theorems. As a scientist (sort of), I have some grasp of the scientific method, but I would hesitate to claim that evolution is a "basic scientific fact" any more than people in 1905 would have claimed that Newtonian mechanics constituted a "basic scientific fact."

I accept that according to the evidence, the scientific method leads us to conclude that evolution is by far the most reasonable theory concerning life on this planet, and it explains better than any other theory how we humans got here.

I wince at attempts by religious people to venture into the scientific realm and inject their prejudices into the scientific method. However, I also shy away from any statement by a scientist to the effect that this, or that, or the other proposition constitutes a "basic scientific fact."

Religion and science should, in my opinion, exist and remain entirely disjoint, as should church and state ...

So much for today's dose of Gibilisco mumbo-jumbo. By the way, Human Ape, I clicked on your link and found the results interesting indeed.

[KB]

I agree with Stan that calling evolution "a scientific fact" is distinctly unhelpful. Science is not about facts, its about data, hypotheses, experiments, and theories. Unlike facts, all are subject to revision. I also certainly agree that evolution, meaning descent over time from a common ancestors, is the most reasonable interpretation of the biological data. I think that Darwinian theory, rooted in natural selection, is the most reasonable interpretation of the trajectory of evolution. I would go so far as to call these interpretations scientifically compelling.

As for Human Ape's statement that "Letting Christian parents teach their children science is child abuse if the parent does not accept the facts of evolutionary biology", that amounts to bigotry. Liberal democracy defused the great and bloody religious tensions of the early modern period by a grand compromise. So long as each person respects the rights of his neighbor and the authority of the state, each person is free to believe and practice as he or she pleases. That includes the right of parents to raise their children as conscience may dictate.

Forcing parents to teach their children to believe what the state believes would be a grave violation of that compromise. It would be tyrannical.

[Miranda Flint]

Human Ape:

If evolution is defined simply as change over time, then one could say it was a scientific fact. But Darwinism is more than evolution. It is not simply one theory but several. Some of these things are not scientifically proven. Speciation, for instance, as far as I know, has not been. Therefore, I think it quite fair not to teach it as an absolute truth.

Furthermore, there are many things that are true that schools and parents do not teach. Is every omission abuse?

[KB]

Miranda: The terms "fact" and "proof" are vital in the courtroom. Did this man in fact kill this other man, and can the prosecution prove it? I think that neither is very useful in the context of science. No, speciation has not been "proven", but neither has the molecular theory of heat. It is rather a matter of which models are useful, and which are compellingly useful. It is not that the question of truth is meaningless, but that in science, where data and theory are constantly revised, a theory that elegantly explains the data, generates research programs that in turn confirm the theory, and integrates itself with other theories and bodies of work, is as close to truth as we can get.

Speciation is about as well established as anything in biology. Unless the fossil record has been thoroughly and consistently falsified by the Creator (who else?), new species have arisen frequently over the course of natural history. Given the common structural features of distinct species (e.g., the arm of a man, the wing of a bat, the fin of a whale), something that is ubiquitous in existing species, I think speciation is the scientifically compelling interpretation. Moreover, speciation has now been observed in the laboratory. A breeding program using bacteria (they reproduce rather often) has seen the spontaneous emergence of new breeds capable of metabolizing substances that their predecessors could not. There are many things in Darwinian theory that may require revision. Speciation is not likely to be one of them.

On your second point, I think you score a decisive blow against our Human Ape. If not teaching your kids about evolution is abuse, where will it stop? Global Warming? Cold fusion?

[Miranda Flint]

Dr. Blanchard:

I agree that there is a marked difference between fact and proof. I suspect that there are many facts that have yet to be proven or even thought about. My point, however, was that as long as something is a theory, it should be treated as a theory, rather than an absolute truth that parents ought to be punished for questioning. I still think that.

You suggest that there is as much proof for speciation as anything in biology. I disagree. Some biological theories are easy to prove or disprove. We can, for instance, theorize that children tend to grow taller than their parents. Then we can measure parents and children over the course of time to arrive at a solid answer. Theories that can be tested with measurements and direct observation are, I think, easier to prove than theories about man's relation to slime molds.

There may be good support from fossil records for the theory. And while I don't think either God or Satan has been wandering about changing fossil records, I am not sure I have faith in men to always interpret them correctly.

Scientists have created unreal dinosaurs by putting bones together wrong and misreading archeological evidence. My favorite dinosaur was taken away because of this and I've held it against the scientific community ever since.

Nevertheless, speciation was probably a bad example to use. And I'll agree that it has as much evidence to back it up as many modern scientific theories - including global warming.