misunderestimation

The latest battle front of the battle of science versus religion in education is Oshkosh Wisconsin where a required physics from from University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh wants change.

From thenorthwestern.com:

Sandra Gade, a retired University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh physics professor, is leading the drive for an advisory referendum on the November ballot that would require teaching evolution with facts for and against the theory and information on the “testability” of evolution.

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She argues the district is violating the First Amendment rights of students under its current method of teaching evolution.

“The way evolution is being taught is antagonistic to students’ religious beliefs. Students are told that it is a scientifically established fact that evolution, a purely natural process made all living things. Certainly that is antagonistic to religion. It says God is redundant,” Gade said on her Web site in comments delivered to the school board June 28.

“But you ask, what about theistic evolution?” she added. “Evolutionists would say ‘How foolish to believe in a supernatural cause which is completely unknowable and undetectable when science has proven the existence of a natural cause, namely evolution.’ Of course, the big lie that evolution is a fact is perpetuated by concealing contrary evidence. Now that you have been enlightened, you must make changes or else stand accused of violating students’ First Amendment rights.”

According to the article, Gade actually claims students are “being brainwashed” by evolution. That got me thinking; what is brainwashing anyway? Well, here is what Wikipedia has to say on the topic:

Brainwashing, also known as thought reform or re-education, is the application of coercive techniques to change the beliefs or behavior of one or more people usually for political or religious purposes. Whether any techniques at all exist that will actually work to change thought and behavior to the degree that the term “brainwashing” connotes is a controversial and at times hotly debated question.

We can certainly all agree, this is a hotly debated question, but is it really brainwashing? Maybe it’s just the case of using the wrong soap. To quote Marge Simpson in a recent episode on the Catholic Church: “It’s like Simon Says without a winner!”

The current issue of Time Magazine has an article with a different perspective; a book by an “evangelical biologist”

The pious young scientist had a question about human origins and the attention of one of the foremost geneticists in the world. Standing up in a crowded Hilton-hotel conference room in Alexandria, Va., the inquisitive Ph.D.-M.D. candidate asked Francis Collins, who mapped the human genome, about an attempt to reconcile science and faith: Did Collins think it possible that all species are products of evolution–except for humanity, which God created separately? “Based on everything we know,” the young man asked, “would that tie together evolution and [a literal reading of the Bible] and make room for God to intervene?”

Collins showed no surprise that a star scholar poised to contribute to the future of medicine should entertain the idea that evolution might not apply to humans. Indeed, the question was almost predictable, since the room was filled with Harvey Fellows, high-performing young academics devoted to bringing a Christian presence to fields where Evangelicals are underrepresented. And Collins, that rarest of raritiesa superstar evangelical biologistand author of the new book The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief (Free Press; 304 pages), was perfectly qualified to answer. He did. That notion “gets you into a series of real problems,” he replied. He sketched one out: the human genome contains nonfunctional elements in the precise spot where they can be found on the chromosomes of lower animals. If God was creating humans afresh, Collins asked, “why would he insert a pseudo-gene that has lost its ability to do anything in the same place that it appears in a chimp?” Barring evolution, “you’re forced to the conclusion that God was trying to mislead us and test our faith–and I have trouble with that kind of conjecture.”

Perhaps Sandra Gade may want to add The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief to her summer reading list. Of course, we all know that knowledge is evil. After-all, look what happened to Eve.

For more points of view on this issue, check out the following:

• It’s hard teaching evolution in public schools in some places
• Symposium on Teaching Evolution at the University of Colorado
• Retired Georgia Teacher Recounts Travails of Teaching Evolution in NYT article
• Teaching Evolution in Schools
• Teaching Evolution: A Case Study of a Courageous Science Teacher
• Teaching Creation & Redemption…In That Order
• John McCain, professional weasel
• Separation of Church and State is a Myth

You get the idea…

Update 7/25: Read Cheesehead physicist wants to teach the controversy, a very interesting post from Clever Beyond Measure.

Of course, Gade has a website that’s chock full of all of the standard creationist canards; lack of transitional forms, the idea that evolutionary theory can’t account for the origin of life, the idea that evolutionary theory isn’t testable, etc., etc. I won’t bother to quote any of it here; it’s all been done to death and you can have a look at Gade’s site for yourself if you’re interested.

More misunderestimation