One grows tired of the recurring efforts of inadequately educated
religionists to base the teaching of science in schools on biblical
passages written during a time when civilization and understanding of
the natural world were both primitive.
In a country of nearly 300 million people, there will always be some
people who, because of "religious" conviction, believe the Earth is as
flat as a pancake, a few thousand years old, and resting on the backs of
four giant elephants. Their belief is unfortunate. What is even more
unfortunate is teaching our children that such beliefs, because they are
"religious", deserve respect.
Creationism and its latest effluvium, intelligent design, are not
science, not evidentiary, not even close to science, and do not deserve
respect as material to be taught to children in public schools. The idea
of imposing one's religious views on others via public education is
totally un-American, and the people who promulgate that idea need to be
called that -- un-American.
Religionists who accept the work of their God as revealed by science,
and who understand that creationism is blasphemy, need to come out into
the arena and be heard.
Scientists who devote their lives to science and scientific attitudes
and scientific truths also need to come out into the arena and be heard
with their strongest voices.
Science teachers who find these creationist crusades obnoxious and
potentially damaging to the children they teach also need to come out
into the arena in droves and wage the battle of their intellectual lives.
It is time. We are nearly 150 years after Darwin's / Origin of Species/,
and it is time for the United States, the foremost scientific enterprise
on the planet, to deal firmly with this issue. People are free in the US
to practice any particular religion. They are not free to impose that
religion on others, and they are certainly not free to force the
teaching of their religious beliefs in the public schools.
We call for an end to stickers on textbooks telling children that
evolution is only a "theory". We call for an end to mandated teaching of
creationism or intelligent design or any other attempt to subvert the
public school teaching of science as it is currently understood by the
scientific community. We call for all scientists, educators, and
thinking Americans to raise their voices in a decisive confrontation
against insidious and un-American anti-scientific dogma.
The US Supreme Court owes the American people a unanimous and
unambiguous rejection of religionist attacks on science education.
The Editors
ScienceWeek
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[Homestead] Creationism vs sanity,
tvoivozhd, 02/05/2005