Good for them. Hope they beat 'em.

Both of these theories rest on faith. If you don't believe that look at the Nova (PBS) series on origins. It is replete with scientists who admit that they don't have any evidence, yet speak with confidence as to what the "facts" are. There is evidence of the blatant intolerance at secular institutions. They should stop talking about tolerance when they don't practice it.

JohnH wrote:

Both of these theories rest on faith. If you don't believe that look at the Nova (PBS) series on origins. It is replete with scientists who admit that they don't have any evidence, yet speak with confidence as to what the "facts" are. There is evidence of the blatant intolerance at secular institutions. They should stop talking about tolerance when they don't practice it.

Sorry, but this is utter nonsense. The kind of young earth creationism espoused by the course that the UC rejected in this case has been repeatedly and emphatically disproven. The earth is not 6000 years old and all the plants and animals on earth were not created in a single week, and that has nothing whatsoever to do with faith and everything to do with evidence. It also has nothing to do with tolerance, and I doubt you'd think it was if we just changed the facts a bit. Imagine, for example, if the UC system refused to give credit for a Muslim madrassa course in science that began with the premise that any scientific facts that appeared to contradict the Quran must be false. Would that still be proof of their "intolerance" or would it be a university doing its duty to evaluate which students are likely to be prepared to do their coursework and which are not?

Scientists will admit that they don't always have the answers - and this is possible precisely because their conclusions are not based on faith, but on facts and on theoretical structures that explain those facts. The question of how life began is a problem which most scientists will admit cannot yet be precisely described, but there are a number of explanations that seem to fit the data we have, but which are plagued by some problems. That is how science works. Perhaps in time, we will have enough data to come to some consensus - but no scientist's explanation is based on faith. Observation, and reason, constitute the foundation of scientific theories.

Jocko Homo
by Mark Mothersbaugh

They tell us that
We lost our tails
Evolving up
From little snails
I say it’s all
Just wind in sails
Are we not men?
We are devo!
We’re pinheads now
We are not whole
We’re pinheads all
Jocko homo
Are we not men?
D-e-v-o
Monkey men all
In business suit
Teachers and critics
All dance the poot
Are we not men?
We are devo!
Are we not men?
D-e-v-o
God made man
But he used the monkey to do it
Apes in the plan
We’re all here to prove it
I can walk like an ape
Talk like an ape
I can do what a monkey can do
God made man
But a monkey supplied the glue
We must repeat
O.k. let’s go!

The false assumption you make is that these courses fail to teach the scientific method or the theory of evolution. They do.

Ed, you're just not willing to look at what the scientists say. They don't know how life came about. They admit that they have NO EVIDENCE. Listen to what they say. They think they might be able to explain it, and I don't care if they teach that. But if someone wants to question that, they are not stupid or capable of analyzing things.

Has the UCal studied the issue and proven that students educated in science courses are incapable of doing the course work? (related question: Phil Johnson teaches or taught at Boalt Hall; is he disqualified because of what he believes).

I doubt they have. Thus, they are doing what evolutionists do all the time, making conclusions without evidence. The way they approach this is proof of their intolerance of any view different from theirs. Prove to me that students who use the BJU textbook cannot be a scientist. I doubt they will be able to prove it. Thus their application of this rule is evidence of a deep seated intolerance against people of faith, whether they be Muslim or Christian.

Coming from a public, gov't institution, I think it does violate their rights. I would take the case.

Ed:

Go to the Nova website and review the transcript. There is plenty of stuff that cannot be explained. Suggested explanations (massive ice bearing comets the source of water for the planet) seem a little fanciful to me or, to use your terms, utter nonsense. The point is there is still a lot we don't know. Looking critically at all of the evidence is good science. UCal has no interest in that.

I don't really want to get into this from a debate perspective as I think a university has the right to review any course and decide whether it meets the requirements for their institution. I do, however, want to reiterate the following comment by JohnH:

"Has the UCal studied the issue and proven that students educated in science courses are incapable of doing the course work?"

I guess the question is: Is this a serious rejection of a course which was approved after looking into the course and seeing problems which would deter a student from being able to be educated by the university (i.e. would not have the necessary prerequisites) or is this just a generalization (i.e. your course talks about God and creation and claims evolution goes against certain "religious beliefs" or is flawed because of x,y,z so we won't accept it).

The reason I am interested is because I went to a school accredited by ACSI and used textbooks primarily from A Beka and BJU and while I also have serious problems with some of their texts, would be very concerned/upset if a university "invalidated" my education (I know this is an overstatement) because there were religious priorities built into the text.

Finally, I have not done the research necessary to make a good argument which is why I am just throwing questions and perspective out there. I am just interested in continuing these discussions.

Also, before this post is destroyed, I completely understand that rejecting a course means nothing about the ability or intelligence of the particular student, but about having taken a course which is rigorous and up to the standards of the institution. Therefore this post should not be viewed as a argument for those suing UCal but as a question as to whether others view this as a legitmate course disqualification or a more general discriminatory action.

I agree we should not be debating the ultimate question here, but whether the UCal decision that seeks apply this standard:

"These requirements were established after careful study by faculty and staff to ensure that students who come here are fully prepared with broad knowledge and the critical thinking skills necessary to succeed."

Again, my question is whether UCal actually determined that students educated from these books had problems with critical thinking skills. I don't believe they did, but are applying an institutional bias against religion.

Look, I have a doctor in the class I teach at church. He did his undergrad work at BJU. He taught medicine at a major university and did research for years. He actually discovered how certain neural pathways work. Did he lack critical thinking skills because of his BJU education. Certainly not.

Oh, BTW, he categorically rejects Darwinian evolution. So, are the 40 years he spent in medical research a fraud? What demonstrates his lack of critical thinking?

What's next on UCal's list of polictical correctness?

JohnH wrote:

The false assumption you make is that these courses fail to teach the scientific method or the theory of evolution. They do.

And you know this how? Have you seen the textbook? I've seen one chapter of it and it certainly does not teach either the scientific method or the theory of evolution. In fact, it flatly contradicts the scientific method in the introduction to the course when it says that all scientific discovery must be subordinated to their interpretation of the bible. That is as un-scientific as it is possible to get. And the textbook teaches that the theory of evolution is false.

Ed, you're just not willing to look at what the scientists say. They don't know how life came about. They admit that they have NO EVIDENCE. Listen to what they say.

You're right, they don't know how life came about. There are several promising hypotheses that are in the process of being tested, but nothing with any certainty at this point. But that has nothing to do with the validity of the theory of evolution, which explains the diversity of life on earth, not the origin of life on earth.

Has the UCal studied the issue and proven that students educated in science courses are incapable of doing the course work? (related question: Phil Johnson teaches or taught at Boalt Hall; is he disqualified because of what he believes).

They don't have to prove that students in these courses do worse because they must make that judgement in advance of admission. They have to evaluate the contents of the course and see if it includes the pedagogical content to prepare them for college level course work. All universities do this, and they must do it. And no, Phil Johnson is not disqualifid because he teaches law school. No one is suggesting that someone should be kept out of college because of their beliefs. The UC system admits thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of students from Christian schools every year.

In some cases, students from top Christians schools would actually have an advantage in terms of gaining admission. Someone who gets high grades from a school like Dallas St. Mark's, Cathedral Prep, New Orleans Jesuit or any of the dozens of Christian schools with a tradition of excellence and challenging academics are certainly more likely to get admitted than students at all but the very top public schools in the nation. So this is not about religious bias or keeping Christians out. It's about not giving credit to substandard and pedagogically empty curricula, regardless of the religious persuasion involved.

Go to the Nova website and review the transcript. There is plenty of stuff that cannot be explained. Suggested explanations (massive ice bearing comets the source of water for the planet) seem a little fanciful to me or, to use your terms, utter nonsense. The point is there is still a lot we don't know. Looking critically at all of the evidence is good science. UCal has no interest in that.

What on earth does comets bearing water have to do with the theory of evolution? Evolution is a specific theory that explains a specific set of data, it's not just a buzzword for "everything scientists say about everything." And of course there is a lot we don't know. No one has ever suggested otherwise. But that does nothing to make a textbook that says that any science that contradicts a literal interpretation of the Bible must be wrong any more credible. Regardless of the fact that there are things science has yet to explain, we know beyond any reasonable doubt that the earth is not a few thousand years old and that all plant and animal life was not created in 6 days, but rather developed over the course of over 3 billion years. Any curriculum that teaches things that have been conclusively and emphatically disproven has no claim to being good for preparing students for genuine science work. It is as absurd as a textbook that still taught "ether" theory or Holocaust denial.

Since you appear to know more about it than anyone else, then I suppose you could tell me exactly where the deficiencies are in the textbooks.

I haven't reviewed the textbooks, but I'll bet the attack on Darwin is in the area of origins, an area where you admit even Darwinian theory is lacking. If you are saying that people who believe in creation deny all forms of evolution, then you do not understand creationism. I've been around this my whole life.

If you are talking common descent, the proof there is lacking. Ultimately you get back to a question of origins.

I've seen one chapter of it and it certainly does not teach either the scientific method or the theory of evolution. In fact, it flatly contradicts the scientific method in the introduction to the course when it says that all scientific discovery must be subordinated to their interpretation of the bible.

It's still possible to teach the scientific method yet offer the philosophical argument that if the outcome contradicts the Bible, the interpretation of the data must be incorrect. (Although I would personally say that when the data appears to contradict the Bible, then your interpretation of one of the two is incorrect.) The cases where such a conflict come up are actually minimal--perhaps 1% of my high school science curriculum concerned either macroevolution or the age of the earth.

So as long as the vast majority of these textbooks is accurate--in teaching things from the structure of the cell to how ecosystems work--I don't see any reason for punishing these students because their biology classes were interspersed with creationist philosophy.

Now, if these textbooks spend more time talking about evidence of a global flood than they do talking about how DNA works, then UC is right to reject them.

JohnH wrote:

Since you appear to know more about it than anyone else, then I suppose you could tell me exactly where the deficiencies are in the textbooks.

I already showed you two statements just from the introduction that show that these textbooks begin with a premise that is entirely opposite of the scientific method. Science begins with the premise that evidence precedes conclusions. This curriculum begins with the premise that the Bible is the absolute truth standard and that anything that appears to contradict their interpretation of it must be wrong. They say so quite explicitly:

The people who prepared this book have tried consistently to put the Word of God first and science second...These statements are conclusions based on "supposed science." If the conclusions contradict the Word of God, the conclusions are wrong, no matter how many scientific facts may appear to back them.

That alone is enough to warrant throwing out the entire curriculum as nonsense.

I haven't reviewed the textbooks, but I'll bet the attack on Darwin is in the area of origins, an area where you admit even Darwinian theory is lacking.

No, I didn't say that. There is no such thing as "Darwinian theory" and more than there is "Einsteinian theory" or "Newtonian theory"; there is the theory of evolution. The theory of evolution is simply the theory of common descent as an explanation for biodiversity. It includes some of Darwin's ideas, but rejects others. Evolution is a scientific theory, not a cult of personality, and it would almost certainly exist in more or less its present form even if Darwin had never lived.

Secondly, I did not say that the lack of a compelling explanation for the origin of life shows that evolution is "lacking" something, because evolution is not a theory of origins. Evolution is an explanation for diversity, not an explanation of origins. It's certainly a related subject, but even if we never figure out where the first self-replicating life form came from, the theory of common descent will remain true and compelling.

If you are saying that people who believe in creation deny all forms of evolution, then you do not understand creationism. I've been around this my whole life.

You need to define your terms a little more specifically. "People who believe in creation" could cover a wide range of people who disagree with each other, and "all forms of evolution" could cover virtually anything. But the BJU text does not just deal with problems in abiogenesis, it argues for an explicitly young earth, global flood creationist model. That model has been thoroughly refuted for well over a century now, and is entirely contrary to the evidence. It is the equivalent, as I said, of a textbook arguing for the existence of ether or the wisdom of bloodletting. To accept this as an acceptable course in biology would be tantamount to accepting a flat earth course as a cosmology credit.

If you are talking common descent, the proof there is lacking.

Science doesn't deal in "proof" it deals with evidence and explanatory power. And the theory of common descent is the only explanation for a vast range of evidence. There is simply no other explanation for the successional order of appearance found in biostratigraphy, for the nested heirarchies that we see in the phylogenetic tree, for the existence of endogenous retroviruses (ERVs), for the facts of biogeography, comparative anatomy, molecular sequence homology, and many other lines of evidence. If you have a theory that explains that data better, by all means offer it up for analysis.

I prettymuch agree with Eric--if 99% of the curriculum was more or less identical to curriculum at public schools, then it seems like the course should be accepted. If 1% young earth creationism is thrown in there that doesn't seem to make a huge impact on what the student knows. If, though, it turns out that a very significant portion of the course was spent on material that is viewed as false by the scientific community, then I would have to agree that the university can't accept it (though, see my caveat at the end). But 1-2% doesn't seem to impact the "critical thinking" skills nor the "broad knowledge" prerequisites.

Anyhow, I'm wondering a bit more about this statement by Ed: "The earth is not 6000 years old and all the plants and animals on earth were not created in a single week, and that has nothing whatsoever to do with faith and everything to do with evidence."

It seems to me a Christian and a non-Christian science-type person are going to approach questions about the earth's history in a very different way. A non-Christian science-type might view science as our only source of information about events before recorded history. A Christian might disagree. A Christian might think that an omniscient being has given man information about events that occured prior to written history. Certain kinds of Christians think that such revelation has occured and that that revelation teaches that the earth is 6000 years old. Now, to the non-Christian science-type this is absurd. Science, our only source of knowledge about such events, teaches us that such a thing certainly did not happen--the Christian is just wacko and irrational. But, the Christian realizes that science is not the only available source of information about such events. Science, really, only gives us information about the past under certain constraints. Most specifically, we only get information about the past if past events occurred according to natural laws that operate in the same way today. So there's the rub. If the Christian's revelation from God conflicts with the teaching of science he has two options: revise the interpretation or maintain that certain natural laws did not hold at all times in the past.

So, to get around to my quotation of Ed, I think you should modify your claim to something like this: "Assuming the scientific method is our only means of gaining knowledge about events prior to recorded history, the earth is not 6000 years old, etc. etc."

On my account, it's easy to see how a Christian student could have a perfectly good understanding of science, and yet reject certain claims that a non-Christian science-type person would accept. It doesn't seem like disagreement on this fact should be enough to not count their science course. At least, that's how it looks to me.

A school could teach the theory of evolution with a "we report, you decide" approach.

My hypothetical private school would have a special class that approaches the chief origins theories from a skeptical perspective, seeking to weed out the science from philosophy, and what we really do know from speculation.

David Talcott wrote:

It seems to me a Christian and a non-Christian science-type person are going to approach questions about the earth's history in a very different way. A non-Christian science-type might view science as our only source of information about events before recorded history. A Christian might disagree. A Christian might think that an omniscient being has given man information about events that occured prior to written history. Certain kinds of Christians think that such revelation has occured and that that revelation teaches that the earth is 6000 years old. Now, to the non-Christian science-type this is absurd. Science, our only source of knowledge about such events, teaches us that such a thing certainly did not happen--the Christian is just wacko and irrational. But, the Christian realizes that science is not the only available source of information about such events. Science, really, only gives us information about the past under certain constraints. Most specifically, we only get information about the past if past events occurred according to natural laws that operate in the same way today. So there's the rub. If the Christian's revelation from God conflicts with the teaching of science he has two options: revise the interpretation or maintain that certain natural laws did not hold at all times in the past.

The problem I have with this argument is that it's a false dichotomy: "Christian" and "non-Christian" are not the only two possibilities (and indeed, the interpretation you have for "Christian" is not the only "Christian" viewpoint; some Christians, like Davis Young, have argued that science must temper and inform a Christian's interpretation of Biblical text). It seems to me that if you changed the wording just slightly, this would become clear. A Hindu could as easily make the argument that from a Hindu perspective, they believe that they have received a revelation that rivals that of science and gives insight into events before recorded history and they could as easily invoke the notion of a supernatural change in physical laws to explain the discord between their views and the scientific view. Indeed, there are Hindu creationists who do just that, like Cremo and Thompson.

Now, how would we go about determining which of these two views, the Hindu or the Christian, is the true non-science alternative? Without applying human reason, which must presume that the physical laws have remained unchanged, it is impossible to do so. And we would have to subject these claims of revelation to the same sorts of logical tests that we subject any other claims to. Is there any evidence for the notion that the physical laws have changed? If the speed of light, for example, was significantly different at some point in the distant past, we should be able to see evidence for that in a number of ways, but we don't.

My point is that either way, we must come back to the question of rational analysis of these claims. If one wants to take the position that rational analysis is irrelevant and only subjective claims of revelation matter, then one is stuck being unable to distinguish between competing subjective claims. I think it's an overstatement to claim that the Christian realizes that science is not the only source of information about such events. More accurately, the Christian claims or believes that they have another source of information. But the Hindu does too, and their source of information contradicts with the Christian's. Likewise the Buddhist, the Sikh, the Shinto, the Native American spiritualist, and the Raelian. But only one of these allows for any sort of objective verification, and that is science. And only science has the track record of success in explaining the natural world that can give us confidence.

"...The way they approach this is proof of their intolerance of any view different from theirs. Prove to me that students who use the BJU textbook cannot be a scientist. I doubt they will be able to prove it. Thus their application of this rule is evidence of a deep seated intolerance against people of faith, whether they be Muslim or Christian."

Since when should science be "tolerant?" The scientific method is an extremely rigorous, cautious way of building a supportable, evidence-based understanding of the natural world. For science to accept Intelligent Design as Theory, the following must happen:

You start with the working hypothesis that certain features of the universe and of living things exhibit the characteristics of something resulting from an intelligent cause or agent.

Now you must go about doing the empirical research to test your hypothesis.

If your theory is cogent enough to make scientific predictions, you will design an experiment to test them. Your experiment will seek to either confirm or falsify your hypothesis. (falsifiability: the paradoxical idea that your theory can't be scientific if it does't consider of the possibility of its being false.)

Once your experiment is complete, you'll determine whether your results are what your hypothesis predicted. If the results fail to do that, go back to the beginning and try again. If the experiment's a success, you must publish all the details.

Once published, your results will be evaluated by other independent researchers who will attempt to reproduce your results by repeating the same experiment themselves. If they get the same results as you, you're in luck, your work may become accepted by the scientific community because it was verifiable. If not, well...

To date, the Intelligent Design movement has not published a single article in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, possibly because, as ID proponent Michael Behe concedes "You can't prove intelligent design by experiment."

Until it has undergone the process outlined above, Intelligent Design is simply an assertion, not a theory, and as such has no place in science textbooks.

This federal lawsuit is simply the Discovery Institute's shameful attempt to make an end run around the scientific peer review process by trotting to the courts to force a pseudo-science down the throat of the University of California.

By the way, in response to Eric and David, the course in question does not teach evolution at all. It is explicitly anti-evolution and explicitly teaches a young earth, global flood position as true regardless of what the evidence might say. There are few positions more thoroughly discredited and more thoroughly contradicted by the evidence than this one. It really is tantamount to teaching a flat earth.

JohnS-

A couple quibbles with your comment. First, experimentation is not the only way of testing a scientific theory. Particularly with historical theories, the tests are more likely to be predictions of the nature of evidence yet to be found or retrodictions of the nature of evidence already found.

Second, the ID movement has one, exactly one, article in a peer-reviewed journal, but it was nothing more than a set of criticisms of evolution, and badly reasoned and misleading criticisms at that. There was no research contained in it at all, no ID theory or model, and no attempt to explain what ID actually is other than "not evolution".

Third, the Discovery Institute is not involved in this UC lawsuit. The plaintiff is an association of Christian schools and their attorney is an old-fashioned young earth creationist. Most IDers would reject what is found in that textbook, even the few who are young earthers (I can't imagine Paul Nelson, the most prominent young earther among the ID crowd, supporting most of what is in that textbook).

By the way, in response to Eric and David, the course in question does not teach evolution at all.

Although I think the course would be in better standing if it at least taught common descent as the prevailing theory, even if it then denounced it as anti-Biblical, I question whether this alone totally invalidates a high school student's biology training. There's a difference between saying something shouldn't be taught in a public school, and saying that colleges should reject students who were taught that in a private school.

For instance, while my high school biology class spent a few days on "microevolution" concepts such as peppered moths and drug resistance in microbes, we got a 5-minute explanation of the theory of common descent, which concluded with my teacher declaring that in his opinion it was--in his exact words--"a bunch of crap." Yet I managed to get a 5 on the AP biology exam, earning myself 2 semesters worth of credit at Indiana U.

Ed Brayton-

Can you talk a bit more about this:

"...experimentation is not the only way of testing a scientific theory. Particularly with historical theories, the tests are more likely to be predictions of the nature of evidence yet to be found or retrodictions of the nature of evidence already found.

It's my understanding that the National Academy of Sciences has said that Intelligent Design isn't "science" because it's claims cannot be tested by experiment and propose no new hypotheses of their own...

Thanks.

Eric Seymour wrote:

Although I think the course would be in better standing if it at least taught common descent as the prevailing theory, even if it then denounced it as anti-Biblical, I question whether this alone totally invalidates a high school student's biology training. There's a difference between saying something shouldn't be taught in a public school, and saying that colleges should reject students who were taught that in a private school.

But in this course, they go far beyond that. As I've said repeatedly, they teach an explicitly young earth, global flood model of the earth's history, a model that has been entirely falsified by the evidence. It is the equivalent of a course using a geocentrist textbook. And UC isn't rejecting all students who took such a course, they are rejecting the credit from that particular course. A student may still take an approved biology course to make up for it, either at his school or at a community college.

JohnS wrote:

It's my understanding that the National Academy of Sciences has said that Intelligent Design isn't "science" because it's claims cannot be tested by experiment and propose no new hypotheses of their own...

My point is that experiment is not the only means of testing a hypothesis. In fact, it may not even be the dominant means of doing so, particularly in the field of evolutionary theory. Some aspects of evolution are open to experimental verification, such as knockout experiments that demonstrate how organisms adapt already existing proteins to new functions or molecular sequencing to show predicted homology. But take paleontology, for example. If you're trying to determine whether species A evolved from species B or species C from the fossil evidence, you can't very well do that in a lab. Instead, you must take your hypothesis and draw logical inferences from it about the nature of the evidence. I'll give you an example...

Paleontologists long hypothesized that whales evolved from land mammals. This is not a hypothesis you can test in a lab or through experiment. But what you can do is make a prediction about what intermediates must have looked like and in which strata they should be found. For instance, if land mammals went back into the water, you would expect to find the earliest examples of this in fluvial deposits of the type that one would find at the water's edge. And given the age and position of the earliest fossil whales, you can predict roughly which strata these specimens should be found in. Gingerich did exactly that and found what he predicted in fluvial deposits in Pakistan and India. This is an example of how non-experimental means of verification are used to test hypotheses.

As I've said repeatedly, they teach an explicitly young earth, global flood model of the earth's history

Yes, I realize that. But as I've been saying, theories about origins make up a very small amount of high school biology coursework. If the biology textbooks in question teach everything else correctly, then I don't see the justification for declaring the entire course invalid. To do so would be more of a political or ideological decision than a practical one.

Ed Brayton-

Thanks for the explanation.

Eric Seymour -

"...theories about origins make up a very small amount of high school biology coursework. If the biology textbooks in question teach everything else correctly, then I don't see the justification for declaring the entire course invalid. To do so would be more of a political or ideological decision than a practical one.

A few questions.

First, who else, if not the Univ of Cali (a court of law?), would you have decide how much "incorrect" biology is permissible in a textbook before that school is allowed to consider a course that uses them to be invalid?

Would you extend that same consideration to, say, history or math textbooks - that is, how much "incorrect" history or math should be allowed into those textbooks, and then who, if not U of Ca, should determine what amount of "incorrect" history or math is permissable before invalidating the course?

JohnS,

Yes, UC has the right to decide which high school courses will meet their standards for admission, but they must do so in a way that is fair and equitable. Is a student who slept through parts of his public school biology class and passed with a C+ really better prepared than a student who aced her biology class which happened to endorse young-earth creationist philosophy?

The question of origins in a biology textbook can't really be compared to anything in history and math, since it's a theory that attempts to explain what's behind everything else. You don't need to believe in common descent to understand genetics or cell division, just like you don't need to know quantum mechanics to balance a chemical equation.

You yourself appear to admit that young-earth creationist "philosophy" is just that, and not science. Therefore, UCal decided to refuse to certify high school science courses that use textbooks based on creationism. How is that not fair and equitable?

The theory of evolution does not "try to explain what's behind everything else" --- that's called String Theory. *Kidding*. Evolution does not try to explain "everything," simply how species evolve.

And so if you're willing to allow in a little fake science, why not a little fake history or fake math?

And again, this court case just seems like a very sketchy way of getting around scientific peer review and getting an American institution of higher learning to legitimize a pseudoscience invented to accomodate a particular religious community's beliefs.

Sorry, Eric Seymour, I didnt indicate that my remarks just upthread were directed to your remarks:

"Yes, UC has the right to decide which high school courses will meet their standards for admission, but they must do so in a way that is fair and equitable. Is a student who slept through parts of his public school biology class and passed with a C+ really better prepared than a student who aced her biology class which happened to endorse young-earth creationist philosophy?

The question of origins in a biology textbook can't really be compared to anything in history and math, since it's a theory that attempts to explain what's behind everything else. You don't need to believe in common descent to understand genetics or cell division, just like you don't need to know quantum mechanics to balance a chemical equation.

The real issue seems to be whether or not a publicly funded university has the right, or deserves the power, to determine the textbook brand and content used by all K-12 students within their state.
The content and methods taught at any institution should not be as critically evaluated by a college as the individual applicant’s aptitude for continued learning.
It seems to me that these state schools are attempting to make styles of education, or curricula, not specifically following the government’s current standards seem illegitimate.
I would think that Libertarians, such as Ed, would find this extremely disturbing.
How free is any nation that not only allows its government to educate its children, but also attempts to insure that all other forms of education become obsolete?

That's really weird. I know I got the HTML right that last time and it still would not italicize your second paragraph, Eric.

That's a feature of this comment system that prevents unclosed HTML tags from corrupting the rest of the thread. It automatically closes all tags at the end of the paragraph. I've taken the liberty of deleting your duplicated posts

You yourself appear to admit that young-earth creationist "philosophy" is just that, and not science.

All questions of origins are more philosophical in nature than laboratory-based science. This is why high school biology courses spend so little time discussing theories such as common descent.

Therefore, UCal decided to refuse to certify high school science courses that use textbooks based on creationism.

How exactly are these textbooks "based on" creationism, if everything they teach apart from the question of origins is the same as mainstream textbooks?

Evolution does not try to explain "everything," simply how species evolve.

Actually, many evolutionists claim that evolution is "the foundation of all modern biology." But that's only true in an abstract sense. In a concrete sense, you don't need to know anything about common descent to understand how a eukaryotic cell works, for instance.

So why should a student who has mastered 99% of the material in a typical HS biology text have his/her class invalidated--especially when that 1% has no practical application to the other 99%--while a student who mastered only 80% gets a pass?

And again, this court case just seems like a very sketchy way of getting around scientific peer review

If I were going to be cynical like you, I'd say that UC's policy seems to be a sketchy way of stamping out any education that does not fall in lock-step with the doctrine of materialistic evolution.

J.P. wrote:

The real issue seems to be whether or not a publicly funded university has the right, or deserves the power, to determine the textbook brand and content used by all K-12 students within their state.

I disagree that this is the real issue, or any issue at all. A university must discriminate between not only applicants, but between the academic rigor of the educational system that those applicants came through, every single day. The only alternative to this is to eliminate any notions of a meritocracy in college admissions and let everyone in by lottery. Every day, admissions committees have to make choices like this. That doesn't mean they're controlling the process at the high school level, it just means that they are distinguishing between those academic environments that are rigorous and challenging and those that are not. Unless one is willing to eliminate that in all cases, then the only question here really is this: does the mere fact that one such judgement happens to affect a particular religious group mean that the university is engaging in illegal discrimination? I think the answer to that question is obviously no.

I would think that Libertarians, such as Ed, would find this extremely disturbing. How free is any nation that not only allows its government to educate its children, but also attempts to insure that all other forms of education become obsolete?

First, I would note that it is not the case that only the government educates children in the US. There are literally thousands of private elementary and secondary schools and private universities. And even among government-funded universities, the admissions standards will vary by university. Each university decides for itself which students to admit, and how to go about distinguishing between the records and academic background of each prospective student.

Secondly, I would note that I am in favor of vastly expanding the non-governmental educational system through vouchers, charter schools and any other means to do so. I've even entertained the notion of getting rid of public schools entirely and find the logic behind it to be rather compelling, though I'm not sure I'm ready to take quite that radical a step.

But even if we did get rid of all government-run secondary schools in the nation, that still wouldn't change the fact that universities must and will determine which students to admit and which to reject and a large part of that decision will be the content and rigor of the coursework they've done in high school. They may have every right to go to a private school, but they don't have a "right" to be admitted to the college of their choice. The college has every right to set admission standards and evaluate the rigor of coursework. Surely no one would say that a university should give credit if, say, a Christian high school held a one hour bible study every day but called the class "Biology"?

Eric Seymour-

Biological evolution is not philosophy. Biologists consider it to be scientific fact that can be demonstrated, and the historical evidence for biological evolution happening in the past is overwhelming. Darwin proposed his theory of common descent in an attempt to explain the mechanism of evolution, not it's existence.

That humans evolved from ape-like ancestors is scientific fact. The Intelligent Design movement, as Ed Brayton notes upthread, has "one, exactly one, article in a peer-reviewed journal, but it was nothing more than a set of criticisms of evolution, and badly reasoned and misleading criticisms at that. There was no research contained in it at all, no ID theory or model, and no attempt to explain what ID actually is other than "not evolution."

Intelligent Design/Creationism is not valid science, and so the UCal has served notice that it won't accept it in a science course. Surprise.

I would be less cynical about the motives of the Association of Christian Schools International if they had waited for the Intelligent Design movement to follow established scientific protocol, and subject it's loosely termed "theories" to peer review rather than rushing into court to force them on the UCal.

Ed wrote:
That doesn't mean they're controlling the process at the high school level, it just means that they are distinguishing between those academic environments that are rigorous and challenging and those that are not.

It clearly means that a PUBLIC university is attempting to determine the content and textbooks used in private schools, which is controlling the process.
I am aware of private institutions, as I have spent the better part of my life attending and teaching within them. Obviously, the government doesn't educate all children, and whether it educates a majority of those within its system is an issue for debate. When STATE colleges believe that they have the authority to determine the content (note: I am NOT discussing the analysis of the difficulty of courses, since we don't know specifically what was required of the students in the courses in question) of private institutions, I have a problem, and you should too.
The schools aren't suing private colleges. They can do as they wish. It's public schools who owe all taxpayers equal access to admission.

Ed/John S:

Apes to human proven? Come on. The mechanisms have not been explained let alone proven.

John S's post is Exhibit A as to why evolutionists are incorrigible in this debate. No sense attempting to discuss the issue with the rigidly convinced.

The ones who are uncomfortable walking the philosophical interface are the evolutionists.

J.P. wrote:

It clearly means that a PUBLIC university is attempting to determine the content and textbooks used in private schools, which is controlling the process.

I just disagree. They aren't attempting to determine the content, they're just making the same sorts of determinations about content that they make in a thousand different ways. And there's no alternative to this other than a lottery system. Do you want to just do away with all college admissions requirements and force all colleges to accept all students regardless of the rigor of their secondary education? Anything short of that, any attempt by a university to distinguish between the pedagogical content of different curricula, different textbooks or different courses, by your reasoning, would amount to them controlling the educational process of private schools. So the only alternative, by the standard you've offered, is no admissions criteria at all. And that does seem to be what you're advocating when you say:

The schools aren't suing private colleges. They can do as they wish. It's public schools who owe all taxpayers equal access to admission.

And I strongly disagree with it. In fact, it's not even possible to do. Every decent university gets more applicants than it has open spots. It simply must distinguish between them. The only thing that could possibly meet your standard is a lottery system to see who gets in and who doesn't. But that would cause major problems, and would be unfair even to the students themselves. You'd have a wide range of students at, for example, Berkeley who simply don't have the educational background to do the coursework there. They would flunk out. Or they'd have to dumb down the curriculum to insure that they don't. Either possibility is very, very bad. The only way to avoid that is if everyone was equally capable and prepared for higher education, and all secondary schools did an equal job of such preparation. But that simply isn't true and all the wishing in the world isn't going to make it true. It is as unfair to a high achieving student to deny them the opportunity of a challenging higher education situation as it is to a mediocre student to put him into a situation he simply isn't ready for.

JohnS,

You're doing a good job parroting all the usual bashing of ID/creationism, but you've completely ignored the central issue in this case. To say that Student A, who has a better overall knowledge of high-school level biology than Student B, should have their high school biology class invalidated because it included creationist concepts is incredibly draconian and intolerant.

To take your history example, what if a conservative-leaning private college decided it would not recognize history courses taught at liberal private high schools, because they emphasized dubious themes that paint Europeans as the source of all violence and greed in the world, and indigenous peoples as universally peaceful and in harmony with nature?

At the very least, UC should allow students from these Christian schools to demonstrate their mastery of HS-level biology by taking an exam.

Anonymous,

Apes to human proven? Come on. The mechanisms have not been explained let alone proven.

You did not carefully read my post. Yes, you are correct in that there are still doubts concerning the mechanism of evolution. However, biologists consider
biological evolution to be demonstrable scientific fact, and have more than enough historical evidence to prove it.

The evidence exists that humans evolved from ape-like ancestors. It is scientific fact. Again, you are correct that there are still doubts concerning the mechanism of that evolution. It is a crucial distinction.

Your statement "John S's post is Exhibit A as to why evolutionists are incorrigible in this debate. No sense attempting to discuss the issue with the rigidly convinced" is also completely false. No scientist is ever rigidly convinced of anything. That is unscientific! Theories are replaced all the time, such as when Isaac Newton's laws of motion were replaced in the last century by the theory of General Relativity.

See the post upthread as to how scientists go about accomplishing this, and how Intelligent Designers have not even yet attempted it.

"Walking philosophical interfaces" is for religion, not science.

You're doing a good job parroting all the usual bashing of ID/creationism,

I don't have to "bash ID/creationism," The National Academy of Science has done a pretty good job of that.

To say that Student A, who has a better overall knowledge of high-school level biology than Student B, should have their high school biology class invalidated because it included creationist concepts is incredibly draconian and intolerant.

Ed Brayton did a better job discussing that upthread than I could.

First, experimentation is not the only way of testing a scientific theory. Particularly with historical theories, the tests are more likely to be predictions of the nature of evidence yet to be found or retrodictions of the nature of evidence already found.
Joe Carter over at Evangelical Outpost predicted at his site some time ago that what was being called "junk DNA" would turn out to have purpose, if DNA was indeed the product of intelligent design. I might have warned him that it could be the result of God's curse on creation in Genesis, but now I hear that they are finding purpose for "junk DNA". The idea that purpose for "junk DNA" is significantly more indicative of intelegent design than some as yet unknown natural process is probably colored by Joe's Christianity and may be hard to support. But the same thing happens with regularity in science as defined by Ed's second sentance and sometimes for similar reasons.

"but now I hear that they are finding purpose for 'junk DNA'"

While there have been some functions discovered in junk DNA, that much of it is useless is pretty cerrtain.

"Megabase deletions of gene deserts result in viable mice."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15496924&query_hl=6

So I went to a Christian elementary school, Christian middle school and Christian high school, and was always taught that the Creation stories in Genesis were more about explaining the wonder of the lord than about the origin of life.

So I've always wondered how a literal understanding of the bible explains space travel. I mean, did the Challenger and Columbia explode because they hit the top of the clear dome that seperates the water above from the earth below?

Or do literalists still preach that space travel is a big lie, a government concocted farce meant to fool their citizenry?

I'm not trying to bait an argument, there's a chance this thread is dead already. But I've always wanted to know this.

gjoe:

If that's what you think creationists believe and you spent all that time in Christian school, then maybe UCal is correct to question your education. Either you did not go to Christian school or you got a lousy education. No creationist I know (and I know plenty) believes there is a dome that would prevent space travel. What have you been reading?

Nice try. Hope you find a nice community college to attend. I wouldn't let you into UCal either.

Thanks for your kind words, JohnH. It's exactly the good natured explanations like that which will always win people to your side.

I'm happy you understand my ignorance on what strict creationists believe, because my Christian school taught real science, not made-up science.

I'm honestly not trying to bait an argument, but I guess I entered the wrong forum to learn.

That's disappointing. And a little insulting with the "nice try" line at the end. I know that the writers on this site can be very pointed in their posts and their comments, sometimes to the absence of civility, but it's pretty impolite to assume that everyone who asks is trying to trick you. Too late now, I guess.

JohnH--

Normally the comment threads on In the Agora are refreshingly full of insults, taunts, and other schoolyard debate tactics, especially for a site in which people of all ideological stripes mingle. I enjoy the atmosphere here, so please try to stay civil. Thanks.

Sorry for being over the top, gjoe and others, but I have been around this movement for a long time and have never heard anyone ever say anything like this. So, I misinterpreted it as an insult as I interpret a lot of what Ed has said. So, my apologies for letting my strong feelings about this get the best of me.

I do think I know what gjoe was inquiring about. There is a theory in some creationist circles that there was a vapor canopy above the earth that collapsed as part of Noah's flood. As a result, the canopy is gone so it would not be a hindrance to space travel. If you were taught this, I would have hoped that the collapse portion would have been conveyed to you. Apparently, it was not.

let me suggest that in this regard, the theory is much like the theories of everyone about what the earth used to be like. There is just no evidence that can be observed because that earth no longer exists.

gjoe:

this is the comment that set me off: "Or do literalists [meaning biblical literalists] still preach that space travel is a big lie, a government concocted farce meant to fool their citizenry?"

With all due respect, that is a little over the top, can we agree on that? Have you ever heard anyone say that (other than people who call in to Art Bell)? Since I have never heard that talked about by any creationist, I thought it might be a set up. Seriously.