Friday, September 01, 2006

Darwin, Eugenics and Hitler: So What?

I realized that throwing up extended quotes from my last post could be misleading. So here is an outline of why this matters to us today:

Darwinian theory, for good or evil, has influenced many people's thinking regarding many areas of human endeavor. Among these are the fields of religion, philosophy, morality, law and public policy. His theory has been called the most important idea of the 19th century. Given the impact of his theory, one must acknowledge that it has, at the least, inherent implications in all these areas. Because of its religious, philosophical and moral implications, and the requirements of the Establishment Clause of the US Constitution, it is reasonable for school boards and the courts to insist that it not be taught in such a way as to promote a particular religious or anti-religious viewpoint of any kind. Since organized religion is banned from public schools, Darwinian theory should not be taught in such a way as to promote a philosophy or moral reasoning framework that competes adversely with traditional religions.

How do you do this? A good start is to be very careful to teach it with a balanced presentation, including both the evidence for it and the evidence that tends to undermine it.

At the end of my last post, I included links to previous posts where I discussed related issues.

[Update: I wanted to add a clarification so there can be no confusion: the way people used evolution to promote eugenics tells us nothing about whether evolutionary theory is true or not.]


4 Comments:

At September 07, 2006 2:39 PM, Blogger Russell Snow said...

Wouldn't the simplest solution be to give parents vouchers and let them choose the scools they want?

 
At September 16, 2006 6:05 PM, Blogger V.A. Jeffrey said...

But come on now! You know they won't do that! The government knows best, and all that.

 
At January 31, 2007 8:00 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Evolution is a provable fact supported by empirical evidence. A belief in a supernatural all-powerful being is unprovable, no evidence whatsoever exists to support the existence of such a being. Therefore you are just another lunatic.

 
At May 11, 2007 6:51 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sean,

Are you serious or intentionally trying to parody the dogmatic materialist position? Microevolution is perhaps a "provable fact," but are all aspects of evolutionary theory "provable facts"? How did Opabinia evolve? Please show me the facts.

You take an extremist dogmatic position, and then call me a "lunatic." Pretty funny. Good parody.

By the way, name calling is not a rational argument. I take it that you do not have any rational arguments to make?

 

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