Tennessee is now the second state, after Louisiana, to pass a law protecting the academic freedom of teachers in public elementary and secondary education. Other states are likely to follow suit.
The new wave of academic freedom laws require governing boards and administrators to recognize the responsibility of teachers to help students understand and analyze ideas presented in the approved curriculum. This includes respecting their authority to present and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of theories included in the curriculum.
The new laws recognize, moreover, the responsibility of schools to their students. They require governing boards and administrators to create an environment that encourages active exploration of ideas, respect for diverse opinions, concern for relevant evidence, and the development of critical thinking.
Unfortunately, there is a major problem with these laws. Fortunately, it is easily corrected, at least in principle.
Constitutional law since the 1960s has made it clear that legislatures and other governmental authorities responsible for public schools cannot forbid the teaching of evolution and cannot require equal treatment for creationism, even when it is dressed up as "creation science" or "intelligent design." After repeated failures to modify the curriculum, creationists now seek to protect the academic freedom of creationist teachers.
Specifically, the new academic freedom laws recognize the right of individual teachers to discuss the "strengths and weaknesses" of evolution and alternative views. That does not change the curriculum itself but may embolden creationist teachers to question what they teach.
To make matters worse, in recent years the political right not only continues to challenge evolution but also questions global warming and other scientific phenomena. The new academic freedom laws are not just about evolution. They list multiple aspects of science that their supporters deem especially problematic, always including evolution and global warming.
The prospect of creationist teachers questioning evolution, however, should not stop us from promoting academic freedom. Rather than opposing academic freedom for creationist teachers, we should advocate amendments that support academic freedom equally for all teachers and all students.
Two changes are needed. First, the laws should not single out particular topics or theories for special question. State legislatures may believe that scientific conclusions about evolution or global warming are more questionable than conclusions in other areas of science, but it is not for them to determine this. Science educators should discuss the scientific strengths and weaknesses of all ideas that merit such treatment.
Second, the laws should not single out science. There is no reason to suggest to students that what they learn in history or literature classes is the unquestioned truth or that scientific knowledge is less justified or more controversial than other knowledge. Teachers should be free to present the strengths and weaknesses of all ideas in all areas of study, and students should be encouraged to think critically in all their classes.
In addition to enhancing education, generalizing these laws protects them from constitutional challenge. A law that furthers religious and political ideas favored by a state legislature is likely to be seen as the next generation of creationism and struck down as a violation of the First Amendment. A law that applies equally to all teachers, students, and ideas is far more likely to be upheld.
There is in fact an interesting precedent. The federal Equal Access Act, which protects the equal right of all student-initiated groups to meet on school premises, was originally intended to protect religious groups and was initially limited to such groups. The final law, however, protects all student groups equally, which enabled it to withstand constitutional challenge.
Should creationist teachers have academic freedom? Of course, as should all teachers. Academic freedom does not permit a teacher to ignore the approved curriculum or to indoctrinate a captive audience of students in his or her religious or political views, whatever those may be. It does, however, leave teachers free to present relevant arguments and alternatives and to promote critical thinking.
Academic freedom is for everyone engaged in teaching and learning. That certainly includes teaching and learning about the origin, history, current state, and potential futures of the earth and its inhabitants. But it must include the rest of science as well, and the rest of education too.
Exactly. It's insane to think minimum wage employees who are barely educated at all have the ability and knowledge to evaluate and criticize that which comes from those who are experts within their specialty.
The alternative to teaching from GOOD textbooks is teaching who-knows-what by who-knows-who.
(quality and content of textbooks is its own can of worms!)
Some people are advocating that this class of laws be expanded to enable teachers to be free to present the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of all ideas in all areas science, not just evolution and global warming.
On a scale ranging from 1 (not hypocritical at all) to 7 (completely hypocritical), how morally hypocritical is it for the law to permit teachers’ questioning of some scientific topics or theories while restricting their questioning of other scientific topics or theories? Explain your rating.
Many teachers don't even have degrees in the subjects they're teaching. Take John Freshwater, center of three years of legal proceedings in Mt. Vernon, OH (just Google his name). According to both his own public statements and sworn testimony from several people, he 'taught the controversy' about evolution (he taught creationism), geology (the earth may be young), and physics (the Big Bang may not have occurred) in his middle school science classes. Yet he held only an Associate's degree in "recreation and wild life" and a Bachelor's degree in education. He is supremely unqualified to make the kinds of knowledgeable judgements about content that are required to teach genuine controversies.
And Freshwater didn't teach genuine controversies within biology, geology, or physics; he taught the fake controversies dreamed up by young-earth creationists. That would become endemic under Professor Moshman's proposal. Quality control at the local level would become impossible.
foolish, does not mean when it was being discussed as a live possibility, that it was not actually a real scientific theory.”
Behe also clarified the often misunderstood term, “scientific theory” by indicating that it had five different meanings, causing much confusion and even deception in the studies of subjects such as “evolution” in the public school system. Furthermore, nowhere has “horoscopes” been mentioned except by one disingenuous poster on this thread... a term shamefully made-up and falsely credited to Behe. [cs]
“Note: Behe is not arguing that Astrology as it is understood today is a scientific theory but that possibly when it was in a hopelessy tangled state with Astronomy there may have been justification for calling it a scientific theory. He argues that the ether theory of light propagation was also an example of this kind of theory from the history of science.” [Andrew Rowell]
More @: http://idintheuk.blogspot.com/2006/11/michael-behe-and-astrology.html
A “blind” scientist is useless. One who cannot “see” beyond that which has shape, color, and texture is blind to Truth. God tells us THAT in so many ways. He says, “My ways are not your ways”… :) I trust this “explanation” has also cleared up your confusion over the terms, “Creator” and “Intelligent Designer”. They are One and The Same. It takes an “Intelligent Designer” to be able to “Create” this vast universe and all there is in it… !!!:) There are many quotes used by evolution theorists as well as Creationists that come from Albert Einstein… and at the risk of opening a huge can of worms for you to wage “spiritual warfare” over exactly WHAT KIND OF GOD Einstein believed in (and please refrain from doing so as it DOES NOT matter)… consider this: (Continued)
In general, science is a series of models. You start out with great generalizations - Newton's laws of motion. Then you expand and explore. At the fringes, the assumptions break down. Hence at small distances you move to quantum mechanics. At high velocities you move to special relativity. At high mass densities you move to generalized relativity. And physicists know that those are only approximations.
The fact the the models break down in certain regimes does not make them wrong. Nor does it mean that there is a controversy about Newtonian mechanics. The same is true of evolution.
I suspect the as court cases come up, the law will be made so generic or general as to be meaningless. Until that time, the damage to science education will continue unabated.
What happens when a 'personal view on the matter' consists of repeating an abject lie?
I'm not being facetious - I'm seriously asking the question.
Scientific evidence fully supports the primate relationships. The Law fully supports the teaching of scientifically supported evidence.
Creationism, on the other hand, has...NONE. NO scientific evidence supporting it. Nada. Ziltch. Name a peer-reviewed published predictive falsifiable scientific experiment that establishes Creationism. Go ahead, we'll wait....(sound of crickets chirping...).
You are entitiled to your own beliefs - but NOT to your own facts.
You lose.
What actual argument exists?
Homosexuality is irrelevant to the current discussion, as is the irrational belief by some -- though not all -- religious individuals that homosexuality is a "sin" against religious commandments.
Please explain and substantiate this assertion and explain the relevance of this claim to the current discussion.
The current discussion relates to teaching of biological science, not of economic systems.
"It is a case of flat-earthers trying to shout down settled facts"
Exactly who are these flat-earthers?
Creationist have known for thousands of years
that the earth was a globe:
As God has told us in the Bible:
Isaiah 40:22 (NIV 1984 Bible)
"He sits enthroned above
the circle of the earth,
and its people are like grasshoppers.
He stretches out the heavens like a canopy,
and spreads them out like a tent to live in."
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah+40:22&version=NIV1984