Hi roberk
Quote from roberk:
The evolution eggheads genuinely think they have no agenda- but any objective observer can see they are promoting full blown materialism, which is just as much a worldview as Christianity or Hinduism or Islam.
I readily admit that the scientific viewpoint involves its own set of assumptions and even prejudices. As I have said, theoretical physics have shown us that assumptions made by (especially old-style materialist or 'Cartesian-type') scientists can be shown to be untenable in certain situations. Western medicine with its 'medicate or operate' modality has a hell of a lot ot learn from holistic medicine (if my arm has been caught in a thresher, though, I'll take a Western style emergency room every time). There are as many examples as we care to list.
However the idea of chemicals coming together and mixing by chance to make bacteria and then fish to man - all directed by nothing more than natural selection is equally far fetched.
Ok, that's fine... to me it isn't but that's cool.
So I think it is fair that this crucial cultural split be explained and discussed in the classroom.
See, this is where we might disagree. I don't think the fact that science is emerging from its 'epistemological crisis' means that there exists a 'cultural split'. The fact that scientific norms needed to be adjusted and that the Cartesian view of the world as a big machine which can be understood by tearing it apart and reducing it to its component parts turned out to be wrong doesn't, in my mind, create a need to introduce mystical belief systems as an alternative to science. Because in the end, the assumptions we made, those wrong, Cartesian ones, don't mean that the reality of the world isn't knowable through investigation and the search for evidence!! We simply need to change the way in which we investigate. The scientific method isn't invalid, it just needs to be tweaked.
If there is a cultural split, IMO it is between the philosophical underpinnings of eastern and western thought, not mystical vs. scientific belief systems. We found in investigating sub-atomic phenomena that Eastern philosophies already had a language in place that described better than our own the 'realities' of the physical world when viewed on the sub-atomic level. But 'realities' is in quotation marks, because the nature of reality is elusive. It can't be defined, in many ways. Now that is a new concept for scientists.
Let's say that you want to point out to students that Hindus believe that everything in the material world is actually an illusion, Maya, and that our lives on earth are essentially a process of working out in this life events from a past life. Fine! No problem. But let's call it religious studies and keep it out of the science class.
What underlies the scientific method is the most valuable thing. Should we tell our kids that some people believe that the earth was 'created out of pure potentiality by magistrates', and that we know the earth is exactly 1,967,574,731 years old, and that these statements are in the same category as the statement that water boils at 100 degrees celcius? No. In my mind, it is enough to tell them that there are people with faith-based belief systems who feel that scientific explanations for natural phenomena are invalid. That would take 1 paragraph in the textbook. There is nothing to be 'taught' in scientific terms. Let them explore these things if they and their families wish it. Offer them religious studies classes which cover all religions, not just Christianity.
Christ... Chris... Chrish... Chrishna.... Krishna....Christ...?
