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Naturalism’s tightening grip on education and science

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Within the UK, we have a large number of vocal and influential people who want to exclude all expressions of biblical Christianity from education, whether state funded or independent. Their first target is to banish the concept of creation and replace it with the exclusive teaching of evolutionary theory. These crusaders present themselves as speaking for Enlightenment science and they make much of the supposed consensus within the scientific community about these issues. Their latest success has come with the Department for Education (DfE) requiring church schools converting to academies to adhere strictly to the evolutionary account of origins when teaching science.

The new development has been warmly welcomed by the British Humanist Association’s Head of Public Affairs Pavan Dhaliwal:

“Coupled with the fact that maintained schools must follow the national curriculum, which from September will include a module on evolution at the primary level – the other thing we called for – we believe that this means that the objectives of the campaign are largely met. We congratulate the Government on its robust stance on this issue.”

In one sense, the policy has not changed – merely spelled out again. This is how a spokesperson for the DfE put it:

“It is already the case that all state schools, including academies, are prohibited from teaching creationism as scientific fact. That has not changed. The funding agreements for academies and free schools have been restructured into one document and drafted in plain English, as part of an ongoing process of simplification.”

However, we should note that there have been some significant changes from the earlier documents. Science has been redefined, as has creationism. The wording is overtly an expression of naturalistic philosophy: the principle that nature is all there is. In 2007, some guidelines were produced that had a definition of science that was acceptable to creationists and evolutionists. It read: “Science: the systematic study of the origins, structure and behaviour of the physical/natural world through observation, theorising and experiment.” At that time, Creationism was defined in terms of some distinguishing “beliefs”. Whilst these definitions were dominant for at least 5 years, the new funding agreement presumes that the science of origins has to be naturalistic if it is to be considered science at all.

The new emphasis is apparent in the way Creationism is defined. The DfE regards creationism as “any doctrine or theory which holds that natural biological processes cannot account for the history, diversity, and complexity of life on earth and therefore rejects the scientific theory of evolution”.

“Natural biological processes” are said to be sufficient to “account for the history, diversity, and complexity of life on earth”. The DfE goes on to assert that there can be no “evidence based theory” that can challenge this principle. The sufficiency of natural processes is first presumed, and then imposed, on educational programmes. Now we know that it is not difficult to find acknowledgements in the research literature that we do not have an explanation of the origins of life via natural processes, nor the origins of the first eukaryotic cell, nor multi-cellular organisms, etc. However, this does not matter to advocates of materialism, because naturalistic science is committed to the principle that answers will be found via natural processes. Not only are they blind to the gaps in their own theories, they are slow to appreciate the importance of biological information (which is crucial to any scientific study of life).

So a philosophical assumption (regarding natural processes) is being confused with the essence of science. This leads to a second concern: that evidence-based reasoning is sacrificed before the altar of naturalistic philosophy. They insist that there can be no evidence to challenge their principle that “natural biological processes are sufficient”. This is how they can exclude intelligent design from the classroom: empirical arguments for Design (such as from Precambrian complexity, irreducible complexity, specified complexity, and evidences of an edge for evolution) are not allowed by Her Majesty’s Government as evidence for “a valid alternative to established scientific theory”. In fact, if naturalism is presumed, it is impossible for anyone to falsify this approach, because (by definition) there can be no evidence against naturalism. When creationists appeal to evidence to support their arguments, they are always dismissed as advocates of pseudoscience.

Which brings us to a third concern about the DfE documents: the prominence given to consensus views. If there is one thing that the history of science should teach us, it is that giving great weight to consensus thinking is a disaster for science. Science thrives when there are no artificial barriers to freedom of speech and open enquiry. Whenever consensus arguments hit the media, the agenda is not science, but vested interests, politics, funding, prestige or control. Strong pressures are exerted to maintain the consensus – and we have seen secularists very active over the years getting science organisations to affirm a naturalistic definition of science. They conveniently forget that the explosive growth of science (known as the Scientific Revolution) was rooted in Theistic Science. The Enlightenment came later. Those of us who want to fly the flag again for Theistic Science are swimming against the tide – but what we do not want is to lose our voices completely because of an imposition of “consensus” thinking.

Darwinism has been described as a “universal acid” which corrodes and consumes religion and all superstitious ideas. However, the universal acid is really the philosophy underpinning Darwinism – which is materialism. This universal acid is ultimately self-destructive. It destroys science by presuming naturalism and declaring what the world is like (rather than finding out about our world using the scientific method). It destroys science because of unacknowledged blind spots (where the evidence does not fit into the materialist world). It destroys science by appealing to consensus, closing down enquiry and discussion, and empowering the thought police. This is the worldview that is being imposed on British young people. If we care about these things, it will drive us to action. We should regard this as a wakeup call for British Christians and for all who care about truth and the integrity of science.

Comments
Post Script: Another website cites the "Church of England and Catholic single academy model supplemental agreement" which I've found by scrolling down this page link: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/church-academies-model-documents The quote appears to come from clauses 23E and 23F of the document.Thomas2
September 19, 2014
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David - I have followed your links but I cannot find your quote that the DfE regards creationism as “any doctrine or theory which holds that natural biological processes cannot account for the history, diversity, and complexity of life on earth and therefore rejects the scientific theory of evolution” anywhere on the DfE website. Please can you be more precise? Thanks.Thomas2
September 19, 2014
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Human Evolution: Is That All You Got? - video (lecture starts at 10:00 minute mark) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbWDER83NwE Humorous introductory quote from lecturer: paraphrase: "I grew up around professional wrestlers. IQ was not stressed in the home. But one thing I did learn as I grew up was how to spot a fraud from a mile away. Human evolution is a fraud!"bornagain77
June 27, 2014
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How about "y chromosomal Adam" and "mitochondrial Eve"? I can see an angry secular parent complaint. At least the Higgs is no longer called the God Particle.ppolish
June 26, 2014
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Graham2 @ 13: "Please tell us exactly what you think should be taught in the science classroom, and what should NOT." Until recently, I have been content to work within the National Curriculum framework for science. The problem comes when teachers lose their freedom to teach as professionals, and instead are told what they can teach and not teach by a professional elite. There is a distinction to be made between empirical science (demonstrating repeatability should be normal practice) and origins science (finding evidence relating to unique past events). For the latter, I advocate multiple working hypotheses in research and in teaching. Evidences need to be weighed and hypotheses evaluated. Teachers should be able to teach Darwinism's strengths and weaknesses. Teachers should be able to show how different scientists have responded to the weaknesses: some seeking a new evolutionary paradigm and others finding evidence that intelligent design is part of the picture. None of these positions should be taught as "fact" - but students should be equipped to weigh the arguments and think for themselves. This would be my "ideal" - but I am aware that teachers find themselves in positions where they cannot approach issues in this way. I regard the Discovery Institute advice on this as good: teachers with a constrained syllabus/specification should be encouraged to teach evolution in a better way: being honest about the strengths and weaknesses of the specified theory. Students should be helped to develop skills of analysis and evaluation, and should not be brainwashed by a "scientific consensus" being thrust upon them.David Tyler
June 26, 2014
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News @ 1: "Do you want your freedom or do you want government funding? You must choose." Most Brits do not think it is an either/or issue. We elect our government; we live in a democracy. Governments are using OUR taxes to fund education. Judging from opinion polls, theists are in a majority, yet somehow the secularists are dominating educational policy. In my view, the policy should be to provide parents with education vouchers, allowing them to make choices about which school they select to educate their child. This would sweep away the artificiality of having Anglican and Catholic state-funded schools (the free churches do not have this avenue open to them) and would change the relationship between schools and parents.David Tyler
June 26, 2014
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Please tell us exactly what you think should be taught in the science classroom, and what should NOT.
I’ll tell you specifically what should NOT be taught in the science classroom: Darwinism… and for the same reason that phrenology and astrology ought not be taught — because it consists of nothing but empirically baseless, superstitious quackery. The only justifiable reason that either Darwin or his jackass theory ought to be even mentioned in the schools is to hold them both up to ridicule and derision.
The mid 19 century gross extrapolation of the Galapagos finch adaptability story doesn't seem to qualify as pure science, hence it may not belong in that class. But they may have optional/elective paid (i.e. unsubsidized) classes on "pop pseudo-science, dead languages and irrelevant issues, unicorns, mermaids, talking horses and stuff like that" for those who want to become stand up comedians or cartoon publishers.Dionisio
June 26, 2014
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DT: Here is your chance. Please tell us exactly what you think should be taught in the science classroom, and what should NOT. Please be specific, dont waste our time with bland motherhood statements.
I'll tell you specifically what should NOT be taught in the science classroom: Darwinism... and for the same reason that phrenology and astrology ought not be taught -- because it consists of nothing but empirically baseless, superstitious quackery. The only justifiable reason that either Darwin or his jackass theory ought to be even mentioned in the schools is to hold them both up to ridicule and derision.George E.
June 26, 2014
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Many kids from nonFaith families attend Faith Schools in UK. Religion Class may be more important than the Science Class to some students.ppolish
June 25, 2014
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Please tell us exactly what you think should be taught in the science classroom, and what should NOT.
The question is not addressed to me, but I like to answer it too. Only science should be taught in the science class. Nothing else should be taught in that class.Dionisio
June 25, 2014
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DT: Here is your chance. Please tell us exactly what you think should be taught in the science classroom, and what should NOT. Please be specific, dont waste our time with bland motherhood statements.Graham2
June 25, 2014
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...they must live poor, raise tuition anyway, support the declining naturalist school systems through their taxes, and fend off constant legal attacks from everyone from union activists through to anti-Christian lifestyle zealots.
"they must live poor"
did the first Christians live rich?
"raise tuition anyway"
what for? are true Christian teachers supposed to teach for money or for the pleasure of teaching?
"support the declining naturalist school systems through their taxes"
Jesus was asked a tricky question about paying taxes to the Roman empire.
"fend off constant legal attacks from everyone"
are Christians supposed to be shielded from attacks and harassment?Dionisio
June 25, 2014
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If one does not have the freedom to say or teach what one thinks is true then one is not living in a free country. This banning is a banning of conclusions. its a state decision of what is true and what is not true. disagreement is illegal on things about common heritage and great beliefs in human history. Its truly a attack upon christianity and not mere creatyionism. its immoral and illegal if anything about British history matters still.Robert Byers
June 25, 2014
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We take freedom for granted and squander it, instead of cherishing it, then later whine when it's taken away.Dionisio
June 25, 2014
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No one said freedom was cheap.
Exactly. Because it's not even guaranteed. History is saturated with many tragic examples.Dionisio
June 25, 2014
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"God save the Queen" 36k thumbs up, 8k thumbs down http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tN9EC3Gy6Nkppolish
June 25, 2014
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OT: podcast - Professor Cornelius Hunter about his new program Darwin Scholars http://intelligentdesign.podomatic.com/entry/2014-06-25T17_08_39-07_00bornagain77
June 25, 2014
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If they take the money, they take it on the basis that they do not teach any doctrine other than naturalism. If they don't. they must live poor, raise tuition anyway, support the declining naturalist school systems through their taxes, and fend off constant legal attacks from everyone from union activists through to anti-Christian lifestyle zealots. No one said freedom was cheap.News
June 25, 2014
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1. How many Brits really care about this? 2. Is this really what Christians should be concerned about? 3. Are Christians supposed to tell others what to do? 4. BTW, how many true Christians are in the UK? 5. Shouldn't Christians be light and salt in their communities? What does that mean? 6. Shouldn't Christians love God with all their heart, with all their mind, with all their strength? 7. Shouldn't Christians love their neighbors like themselves? Check this out:
Christianity declining 50pc faster than thought – as one in 10 under-25s is a Muslim Christianity could be facing a catastrophic collapse in Britain according to official figures suggesting it is declining 50 per cent faster than previously thought. From http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/10062745/Christianity-declining-50pc-faster-than-thought-as-one-in-10-under-25s-is-a-Muslim.html
Dionisio
June 25, 2014
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What I'd like to know is, where are the religious majority while these Darwinian fanatics run rampant? Why tolerate this behaviour? Deal with these lunatics before it's too late.humbled
June 25, 2014
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Christianity, not Naturalism, was at the founding of modern science.
Founders of Modern Science Who Believe in GOD - Tihomir Dimitrov - (pg. 222) http://www.academia.edu/2739607/Scientific_GOD_Journal The War against the War Between Science and Faith Revisited - July 2010 Excerpt: …as Whitehead pointed out, it is no coincidence that science sprang, not from Ionian metaphysics, not from the Brahmin-Buddhist-Taoist East, not from the Egyptian-Mayan astrological South, but from the heart of the Christian West, that although Galileo fell out with the Church, he would hardly have taken so much trouble studying Jupiter and dropping objects from towers if the reality and value and order of things had not first been conferred by belief in the Incarnation. (Walker Percy, Lost in the Cosmos),,, Jaki notes that before Christ the Jews never formed a very large community (priv. comm.). In later times, the Jews lacked the Christian notion that Jesus was the monogenes or unigenitus, the only-begotten of God. Pantheists like the Greeks tended to identify the monogenes or unigenitus with the universe itself, or with the heavens. Jaki writes: Herein lies the tremendous difference between Christian monotheism on the one hand and Jewish and Muslim monotheism on the other. This explains also the fact that it is almost natural for a Jewish or Muslim intellectual to become a patheist. About the former Spinoza and Einstein are well-known examples. As to the Muslims, it should be enough to think of the Averroists. With this in mind one can also hope to understand why the Muslims, who for five hundred years had studied Aristotle’s works and produced many commentaries on them failed to make a breakthrough. The latter came in medieval Christian context and just about within a hundred years from the availability of Aristotle’s works in Latin,, http://www.scifiwright.com/2010/08/the-war-against-the-war-between-science-and-faith-revisited/
Moreover, Christian influences still helps science flourish:
Bruce Charlton's Miscellany - October 2011 Excerpt: I had discovered that over the same period of the twentieth century that the US had risen to scientific eminence it had undergone a significant Christian revival. ,,,The point I put to (Richard) Dawkins was that the USA was simultaneously by-far the most dominant scientific nation in the world (I knew this from various scientometic studies I was doing at the time) and by-far the most religious (Christian) nation in the world. How, I asked, could this be - if Christianity was culturally inimical to science? http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2011/10/meeting-richard-dawkins-and-his-wife.html
Moreover, Quantum Mechanics has shown naturalism to be false:
Alain Aspect and Anton Zeilinger by Richard Conn Henry - Physics Professor - John Hopkins University Excerpt: Why do people cling with such ferocity to belief in a mind-independent reality? It is surely because if there is no such reality, then ultimately (as far as we can know) mind alone exists. And if mind is not a product of real matter, but rather is the creator of the "illusion" of material reality (which has, in fact, despite the materialists, been known to be the case, since the discovery of quantum mechanics in 1925), then a theistic view of our existence becomes the only rational alternative to solipsism (solipsism is the philosophical idea that only one's own mind is sure to exist). (Dr. Henry's referenced experiment and paper - “An experimental test of non-local realism” by S. Gröblacher et. al., Nature 446, 871, April 2007 - “To be or not to be local” by Alain Aspect, Nature 446, 866, April 2007 (Leggett's Inequality: Verified to 80 orders of magnitude) http://henry.pha.jhu.edu/aspect.html Quantum Enigma:Physics Encounters Consciousness - Richard Conn Henry - Professor of Physics - John Hopkins University Excerpt: It is more than 80 years since the discovery of quantum mechanics gave us the most fundamental insight ever into our nature: the overturning of the Copernican Revolution, and the restoration of us human beings to centrality in the Universe. And yet, have you ever before read a sentence having meaning similar to that of my preceding sentence? Likely you have not, and the reason you have not is, in my opinion, that physicists are in a state of denial… https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/the-quantum-enigma-of-consciousness-and-the-identity-of-the-designer/
Moreover, a-priorily assuming Naturalism as true leads to the epistemological failure of science:
Scientific Peer Review is in Trouble: From Medical Science to Darwinism - Mike Keas - October 10, 2012 Excerpt: Survival is all that matters on evolutionary naturalism. Our evolving brains are more likely to give us useful fictions that promote survival rather than the truth about reality. Thus evolutionary naturalism undermines all rationality (including confidence in science itself). Renown philosopher Alvin Plantinga has argued against naturalism in this way (summary of that argument is linked on the site:). Or, if your short on time and patience to grasp Plantinga's nuanced argument, see if you can digest this thought from evolutionary cognitive psychologist Steve Pinker, who baldly states: "Our brains are shaped for fitness, not for truth; sometimes the truth is adaptive, sometimes it is not." Steven Pinker, evolutionary cognitive psychologist, How the Mind Works (W.W. Norton, 1997), p. 305. http://blogs.christianpost.com/science-and-faith/scientific-peer-review-is-in-trouble-from-medical-science-to-darwinism-12421/
Then there is the little problem that denying a moral foundation: leads to
"for, as we have just seen, the ways of national evolution, both in the past and in the present, are cruel, brutal, ruthless, and without mercy.,,, Meantime let me say that the conclusion I have come to is this: the law of Christ is incompatible with the law of evolution as far as the law of evolution has worked hitherto. Nay, the two laws are at war with each other; the law of Christ can never prevail until the law of evolution is destroyed." Sir Arthur Keith, (1866 — 1955) Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons - Evolution and Ethics (1947) p.15 (Note the year that this was written was shortly after the German 'master race' was defeated in World War II)
Verse:
Deuteronomy 30:19 This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live
The last graph on the following site shows that the SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) scores for students showed a steady decline, for seventeen years from the top spot or near the top spot in the world, after the removal of prayer from the public classroom by the Supreme Court, not by public decree, in 1963.
AMERICA: To Pray Or Not To Pray - David Barton - graphs corrected for population growth http://www.whatyouknowmightnotbeso.com/graphs.html
Whereas the SAT scores for private Christian schools have consistently remained at the top, or near the top, spot in the world. You can see the dramatic difference, of the SAT scores for private Christian schools compared to public schools, at this following site;
Aliso Viejo Christian School – SAT 10 Comparison Report http://www.alisoviejochristianschool.org/sat_10.html
Of course atheists try to deny all the negative effects their imposing their worldview in schools has on society, but how is a society to be blessed with wisdom if the source of all wisdom is not allowed in school?bornagain77
June 25, 2014
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UK Faith Schools are popular among the Non-Faithful. They're good schools typically. Very good in many cases. If they turn down government subsidies, they would have to raise tuition. In the US, most Faith Schools do have higher tuition, with financial aid supported by the higher tuition and fundraisers galore. Many Faith Schools in US teach Theistic Evolution (Catholic/Jewish/Hindu/Islam/etc), some teach Creationism.ppolish
June 25, 2014
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Wakeup call: Do you want your freedom or do you want government funding? You must choose. No one can choose for you.News
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