Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

So why are you going into debt for higher education?

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A recent uproar around a university course on intelligent design theory should cause anyone to wonder why.

Update: Academic freedom petition for the prof (it seems the trolls have wandered in)

Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF)_ has been raising heck about Eric Hedin, a well-respected physics prof at Ball State U in Muncie, Indiana, teaching an elective course in the intelligent design controversy. And some are listening to them.

The first thing that struck the News desk here, investigating, is that the group complaining is dedicated to “Protecting the constitutional principle of the separation of state and church.”

State and church? An odd reversal. Some of us grew up with the opposite expression, “separation of church and state.”

For centuries in the Western world, it has been the church that needed protection from the state, not the other way around. The First Amendment to the United States’ Constitution reads in part

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof … .

The rest of the Amendment addresses other matters, but the tenor is obvious. The church is the more likely victim; it lacks a police force and an army.

The FFRF hopes, doubtless, to create such an uproar that no sessile administrator would dare lean on the Constitution even if religion were an issue.

But this isn’t about religion or churches, just that one prof decided to teach a course that interested some students, on the evidence for and against design in the universe, which is only a religious topic if you think it is.

Career atheists complained, backed up by new atheist Jerry Coyne. They have no real grounds, even in the view of other atheists here and here.

But, as Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE)’s Greg Lukianoff would likely say, in Unlearning Liberty, the complainers don’t need a case so much as a compliant administration. For more on what is going wrong at campuses (for which you are probably paying), start here.

What’s really interesting is that almost anything can pass for a course these days except something that challenges the intellect.

See also: World on Campus and The Blaze on this story.

Comments
I am sure that so many people (possibly all of us) has at least once asked exact same question. But do we know the answer? I guess I can call it a tradition. But this is a tradition with too many responsibilities and consequences. I would not want education to be the same as it is today. Education should not be so closely related to a debt. It has to be related to great achievements, admission essays (order college papers from Essay Online Store), and students’ research projects and so on and so far.CandiceC
February 28, 2014
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They're just digging themselves into a deeper hole. Sob...sobAxel
May 24, 2013
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Joe:
Jerry Coyne and the FfRF are just a bunch of cowards.
What the heck, Joe. What do you you really mean? What are the hidden implications behind what you wrote? Are you suggesting that the FfRF is somehow different from the FFRF? Better watch out, or our resident capitalization nazi will be along to set you straight. :)Eric Anderson
May 23, 2013
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Jerry Coyne and the FfRF are just a bunch of cowards. And unless Hedin is teaching the how, when, where, why and who's of worship, then he ain't teaching no religion.Joe
May 23, 2013
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And if it's an elective course, nobody should have a problem with it, seeing as how it's not a core or departmental requirement for any degree.Barb
May 23, 2013
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Its all about censoring in public schools conclusions that God/Genesis are true. They are trying to make illegal exactly what the country was based upon back in the day. They got big mouths. if truth is the objective os a school course and a particular conclusion is censored then the state is EITHER saying its (censored stuff) officially not true or even if true they can't teach it. An absurdity in a institution about truth on subjects!! take this to the highest court in the land. I know the present court is hopeless but making the case is itself a win because the public pays attention more then. Also the court is VERY protestant light. HMMMM. How that happen?!Robert Byers
May 23, 2013
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