I came across one of my old pieces from the New Republic, “The faith that dare not speak its name,” a longish piece on Intelligent Design that started out as a review of the ID textbook Of Pandas and People but evolved into a general critique of ID and an analysis of the upcoming Dover trial. (This was published on August 22, 2005).
At the end of the article was a prediction:
Barring a miracle, the Dover Area School District will lose its case. Anyone who bothers to study ID and its evolution from earlier and more overtly religious forms of creationism will find it an unscientific, faith-based theory ultimately resting on the doctrines of fundamentalist Christianity. Its presentation in schools thus violates both the Constitution and the principles of good education. There is no secular reason why evolutionary biology, among all the sciences, should be singled out for a school-mandated disclaimer. But the real losers will be the people of Dover, who will likely be saddled with huge legal bills and either a substantial cut in the school budget or a substantial hike in property taxes. We can also expect that, if they lose, the IDers will re-group and return in a new disguise even less obviously religious. I await the formation of the Right to Teach Problems with Evolution Movement.
I was right on both counts: Dover lost and its citizens had to foot a million-dollar-plus legal bill—that was a no-brainer—and in predicting that creationists would regroup and use a new strategy: try to make schools teach the “problems” with evolution. Indeed, that’s what many creationists, including those vetting the textbooks in Texas, are doing, for they can’t directly push either creationism or ID in schools, as that would violate the First Amendment. So, as we saw in the letter from Baptist pastor David Sweet a few days ago, they lie, contending that evolutionary theory is riddled with holes and that we biologists are in a huge conspiracy to cover that up. They, of course, fail to see the beam in their own eye, for what’s really filled with holes is the Bible. And there’s a giant conspiracy to say that those holes are metaphors.
Verily I say unto you: the prophesies of Professor Ceiling Cat are many and wondrous, and far more accurate than those of the Bible. Jesus, for instance, never came into his kingdom during the lifetime of his contemporaries (Matthew 16:28).
R’amen.
You beat me to it, I was about to post “Amen!” 😀
I’d be lyin’ if I said they ain’t liars for jeebus.
Heretic!
Thanks for posting a link to your old article. Great read! Thanks!
So, if you just tell us which god gave you this information, we’ll know which religion is the correct one.
The prophecy has been fulfilled! All hail ceiling cat!
Haha! May professor ceiling cat continue to prophesy, we may soon know the right religion to follow
All praise his fluffy perspicacity.
Of course you were! We expect nothing less.
People will come from far and wide to consult the Ceiling Cat Oracle. You need to start speaking in riddles – like that annoying Sphinx one.
Sadly, the laser beam in their eyes is not of a wavelength that they’re genetically incapable of detecting, it’s one they’ve been conditioned not to receive. Hypnotic polarization?
As I recall, there was another prediction made after the Dover decision. One of the reasons Judge Jones declared that ID was not science was this one:
In other words, science has not tested, rejected, and/or replaced supernatural explanations. There is instead a “ground rule” in science which ruled such explanations out up front. They may be true or false, but science can’t be brought in to help us decide this matter: supernatural explanations are protected from such scrutiny.
It’s an accomodationist talking point.
At the time, various gnu atheists (including iirc Richard Carrier) were pointing out that this particular line of reasoning was a double-edged sword, and we were predicting that it would regularly be used to try to shut up the gnu atheists. And I’ve seen it used.
It’s an old argument, sure, but accomodationists tend to use Dover as a clincher. The case went in our favor and we’re all very happy about it … so the relationship between science and religion is now a judgment in stone.
This is the reason many people think Dover case was argued incorrectly; ID should be rejected not because it is religious, but because it is bad science. ID supporters almost never operationally define variables, but, if they do, they are not consistent in their definitions.
That’s not a reason for ID to be rejected in court, though. It’s not unconstitutional to teach bad science. Teaching religion, on the other hand, is.
Indeed. If you’re going to prevent creationism from being taught in the schools via legal channels, you must use the First Amendment test. And indeed, creationism does fail the Lemon Test.
That said, it was (before Darwin) an empirical hypothesis, and could have been considered a scientific one. After it (and ID) were refuted, though, pushing to have them taught in public schools clearly has a religious intent, and serves no secular purpose.
I disagree. I think this is a bad strategy because it walls off religion from any secular exploration in schools.
How’s that? Don’t you recognize a difference between “teaching religion” and “teaching about religion”?
“walls off religion from any secular exploration in schools.”
That wasn’t going to happen under any circumstances.
The Dover ruling does not wall off secular examination of religion in philosophy, literature, or history classes.
I don’t follow your reasoning here. Secular exploration of religion has always been legal. It was most famously stated by Justice Tom Clark, in Abington v Schempp, the case that banned Bible readings in public schools; “Nothing we have said here indicates that such study of the Bible or of religion, when presented objectively as part of a secular program of education, may not be effected consistently with the First Amendment.” This is still the law of the land.
In the UK religious education of this sort is mandatory for schools. I can’t see this working in the US however. Which sadly just goes to show the nature of the religious beast in the land of the free.
I would LOOOOVE to see a critical thinking course on religion taught in American schools. But I’d be surprised to see this in my lifetime.
It’s the only feasible strategy as it is not unconstitutional to teach bad science. Had it been argued that way, the good guys would have lost as the judge would have had no alternative but to rule in the defendant’s favor.
There was no alternative? How exactly do we know this? I really don’t see any evidence that declaring ID and creationism 100% religious and 0% science to ban them from public schools is having any effect on acceptance of evolution in the US. Some of the studies I have read indicate that current science teaching ranges from sneaking in creationism/ID, not teaching evolution at all, teaching evolution badly, to teaching it well. I would be happy to see data that this distribution has changed before and after Dover, but my reading is that this is not the case.
Disagree – fine. I think that being able to show how creationism fell out of favor in the geological and biological communities and was replaced by better explanations is more likely to change minds than acting as if it never found favor in the scientific community. Creationists both before and after Darwin were motivated by religion, so being motivated by religion doesn’t make something automatically wrong. What makes it wrong, or less right, is that it is not the best fit to the evidence. I can’t see how people can so easily partition the world into boxes and make judgements about what is allowed in each box.
Huge swaths of people in the US believe creationism to be a better explanation than evolution. To not confront that misconception explicitly in science classes means that we will be less likely to change the norm. Throwing out terms like “religion” or “pseudoscience” are not going to change minds. What we need are experiments testing different teaching strategies – most people who used, the two-model approach were creationists, but do we know that if this were used by teachers who understood the evidence that it would not work? I have read as much of the educational literature on teaching evolution as I can find and it is very inconclusive. one question as I see it is treating creationism as religion more likely to effect change than treating it as a scientific hypothesis? If anyone has data on this I would be very interested in them.
I don’t believe the goal of the plaintiffs in Dover trial was to increase acceptance of evolution in the US, I believe the goal was to keep ID from being taught in the Dover public school. The only way to do this was to show that ID is religion masquerading as science. Of course we still have some teachers sneaking creationism into science classes in the US, religious folk have never had any qualms about breaking the law to further their goals but that doesn’t mean we should make it legal for them to do so.
I don’t see why you use the word “wrong.” Whether something is correct or wrong or “the best fit to the evidence,” is irrelevant to the question of whether it can be taught in public schools or not. All that matters in the courtroom is whether or not it is a religious creed.
I guess our goals are different – I want people to understand evolution and how to think critically. I don’t think banning ideas is effective, but that’s just my opinion – nothing more.
I think attacking ID as “religious” instead of “wrong” is a fine strategy for public schools — but not for general consumption. The problem in the Dover ruling was not that ID was pronounced religious and therefore unacceptable in a science course. That’s fine.
The problematic part is that one of the reasons given for this ruling (“science has a ground rule which prohibits it from considering supernatural causes”) wasn’t a legal reason, but a philosophical one — and it’s wrong.
This is only a problem if you make it one.
Such ground rules are post facto that science works when magic, non-energetic, causation is rejected. In popperian terms, “falsified” as not working.
That doesn’t mean that science can’t study energy closure of systems and look for magic. Say, prayer studies.
But accommodationists want to have that cake and eat it too.
I’m glad Dover turned out the way it did. Given the highly religious nature of that area and the current political climate back then (at the height of the W administration when it seemed there was an awful lot of religion creeping into inappropriate places, cf. Terry Schiavo etc.) I was worried about the outcome of the trial.
Congrats on the prophesies. I look forward to seeing your image on a tortilla or piece of toast in the near future. 😉
Jerry, you need to have more faith. Intelligent Design is going to be the dominant paradigm in biology VERY SOON!
Anyone find it worrisome that Prof Ceiling cat formulated the strategy that the DI subsequently followed?
Such is the way with oracles.
If the gifts of Professor Ceiling Cat are many and wondrous, I can’t wait to see the gifts of his minion Santa Claws! O_o
Professor Ceiling Cat was obviously designed by an intelligent being. Such a wondrous being could not have evolved by pure chance.
“what’s really filled with holes is the Bible. And there’s a giant conspiracy to say that those holes are metaphors.”
But those holes _are_ metaphors. Really. Metaphorical holes. Not real. For a _real_ hole see this:
http://www.an-c.dk/vendetta/story8/51gun.jpg
(OK. I’m sorry. The Devil made me do it. Metaphorically speaking. 🙁
“Methaporical holes” are nothing else but a new kind of theologians’ “meme “( = memes are nothing else but a general “metaphor” for all kinds of surviving ideas … but surviving ideas do exist in the mind-sets and cultures of mankind )
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