Friday, January 14, 2005
Check it out
Saying that science is in fact science is "religious".
A federal judge Thursday ordered a suburban Atlanta school system to remove stickers from its high school biology textbooks that call evolution ``a theory, not a fact,'' saying the disclaimers are an unconstitutional endorsement of religion.
"By denigrating evolution, the school board appears to be endorsing the well-known prevailing alternative theory, creationism or variations thereof, even though the sticker does not specifically reference any alternative theories," U.S. District Judge Clarence Cooper said.
Hmm, let's see. Science is the observation of things and the creation and testing of theories about them. Science doesn't generally deal with fact, but with data, and tries to explain the data. E.g. quantum mechanics and general relativity are both wrong, but they both explain a lot.
Now certainly science veers towards truth, but I don't think that reminding students that science is a work in progress is really an endorsement of religion, nor is this "denigration". It's just a little philosophy of science, maybe metaphysics, both of which His Honor should learn before spouting off.
A federal judge Thursday ordered a suburban Atlanta school system to remove stickers from its high school biology textbooks that call evolution ``a theory, not a fact,'' saying the disclaimers are an unconstitutional endorsement of religion.
"By denigrating evolution, the school board appears to be endorsing the well-known prevailing alternative theory, creationism or variations thereof, even though the sticker does not specifically reference any alternative theories," U.S. District Judge Clarence Cooper said.
Hmm, let's see. Science is the observation of things and the creation and testing of theories about them. Science doesn't generally deal with fact, but with data, and tries to explain the data. E.g. quantum mechanics and general relativity are both wrong, but they both explain a lot.
Now certainly science veers towards truth, but I don't think that reminding students that science is a work in progress is really an endorsement of religion, nor is this "denigration". It's just a little philosophy of science, maybe metaphysics, both of which His Honor should learn before spouting off.
