Kansas on yellow brick road to animism
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The US state of Kansas has ruled that science classes in public schools should include the teaching of intelligent design. it’s a long way from Kansas to the Isle of Wight but the Ranger has always taken an interest in evolutionary biology – with a vicarage upbringing and a father with degrees in both zoology and theology, it is hardly a surprise that the apparent tension between religion and science has sometimes exercised his own thinking. He long ago managed to reconcile his own religious beliefs with the wonders of science – including the miracle of natural selection. It is therefore with some bemusement and sadness that this latest successful foray into the edifice of good science by creationists is noted.
It’s not a great event in itself – it’s one of many such debates that have gone one way or the other. The results may well be overturned in a while, as they have been before. And they don’t actually have much direct effect on what the teacher says to the kids – or not, yet, anyway.
No, the curiousness about this issue is that it is an issue at all. From this point of view some thousands of miles away, we see that great nation of adventurers, inventors and scientists edging wilfully towards a state of affairs where certain parts of human knowledge and thought are not addressed, or even denied. The reason why this is so odd is that the rest of us are not. The whole concept seems profoundly curious – recalling in an unpleasantly atavistic way the great 19th century debates of Darwin-supporting intellectuals with churchmen of the day. there’s little doubt that people on both sides have passionate views, for and against the idea of Intelligent Design. Yet, from afar, the merits of the debate are sometimes obscured by puzzlement as to why it is happening at all.
It is as though we had discovered with a start the fact that Frenchmen had unilaterally declared the value of Pi to be 3. Not only would we be nonplussed by such a curious idea, but even more disconcerting would be the fact that suddenly such a concept could take root so vigorously in a society so close to our own. Then one naturally begins to consider what the effects would be on one’s own world. Would French circles always be oval? Would they no longer want any of our English ones? But seriously, in the real world we now wonder whether American biology research will eventually be different to that from other nations, as a result of such a fundamental difference in the premises from which it must be built. This is heavy stuff. Let the closing words go to a correspondent from the LA times:
Isn’t it odd that while our president believes we should teach “intelligent design” in our biology classes, he also warns that avian flu could mutate into a plague transmitted by humans? Would this mutation happen by chance, or would God have ordained it? MICHAEL STRONG
Addition: the Ranger was entertained to see