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Vaniver comments on Open Thread, Apr. 27 - May 3, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion

3 Post author: Gondolinian 27 April 2015 12:18AM

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Comment author: Vaniver 30 April 2015 03:51:26PM 0 points [-]

Who's trying to bad the teaching of evolution? Oh wait, did you mean the people who oppose banning the teaching of creationism?

The primary contests are being fought in the school boards setting curriculum standards, material on mandatory tests, textbooks, and so on. I don't think it's an accurate characterization to talk about "banning" or "oppose banning." I think the "teach the controversy" phrasing seems much more appropriate--the main policy options are for the government educational arm to teach evolution, teach creationism, or teach that both are options.

(Imagine that child education was like adult education--there's no "banning" of teaching Christian theology, but making it so that no one could require anyone to learn Christian theology might seem like a 'ban' if that was the status quo.)

Comment author: VoiceOfRa 01 May 2015 01:20:05AM 1 point [-]

"Banning" was skeptical_lurker's term.

Comment author: Vaniver 01 May 2015 02:17:00PM 0 points [-]

Yes, but it was appropriate because teaching of evolution actually has been banned in the US (those bans have since been repealed). I am not aware of bills that ban the teaching of creationism--only ones that ban restrictions on the teaching of creationism--but I don't pay much attention to this issue and so may have missed something in my five minutes of Googling.

Comment author: VoiceOfRa 02 May 2015 03:33:38AM 0 points [-]

I am not aware of bills that ban the teaching of creationism

I'm not sure about bills, there have supreme court cases to that effect.

Comment author: RichardKennaway 02 May 2015 07:24:42AM 0 points [-]

I'm not sure about bills, there have supreme court cases to that effect.

I don't see that in the lede:

Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U.S. 578 (1987) was a legal case about the teaching of creationism that was heard by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1987. The Court ruled that a Louisiana law requiring that creation science be taught in public schools, along with evolution, was unconstitutional because the law was specifically intended to advance a particular religion. It also held that "teaching a variety of scientific theories about the origins of humankind to school children might be validly done with the clear secular intent of enhancing the effectiveness of science instruction."

That is, the case banned a legal requirement to teach creationism, but did not ban the teaching of "a variety of scientific theories". It ruled that creationism is a religious view, not a scientific one, but it does not suggest that it is thereby unconstitutional to teach it, only that it is unconstitutional to require it to be taught.

If the permissibility, rather than the requirement, of teaching religion in a public school is an issue, it is one that lies outside the matter of this case. Indeed, at the end of the article it says of one of the creationists in the case that he "later authored books promoting creationism and teaching it in public schools". There is no hint that there was any legal impediment to him doing so.

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