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Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Textbooks: Backing away from materialism?

The story regarding flunking students sympathetic to intelligent design theory is here.

Meanwhile, evolutionary biologist Larry Moran (yes, der flunker) advises me that there was a slight error in an earlier quotation/link re a textbook by Douglas Futuyma. It should have read,
Darwin's immeasurably important contribution to science was to show how mechanistic causes could also explain all biological phenomena, despite their apparent evidence of design and purpose. By coupling undirected, purposeless variation to the blind, uncaring process of natural selection, Darwin made theological or spiritual explanations of the life processes superfluous. In the decades that followed, physiology, embryology, biochemistry, and finally molecular biology, would complete this revolution by providing entirely mechanistic explanations, relying on chemistry and physics, for biological phenomena. But it was Darwin's theory of evolution, followed by Marx's materialistic (even if inadequate or wrong) theory of history and society and Freud's attribution of human behavior to influences over which we have little control, that provided a crucial plank to the platform of mechanism and materialism—in short, of much of science—that has since been the stage of most Western thought. [Futuyma's emphasis]

Moran acknowledges that "the sense hasn't been changed much." No, I would not have thought so. My source tells me that the quote was from the second edition (1986), and was attributed to the similar 1998 3rd edition.

Now here is the really interesting part: Apparently, the 2005 edition does not contain the quote, and my source thinks that Futuyma's book has cut way back on the superfluous materialist philosophy.

Well, good for Futuyma. People who want philosophy should sign up for it, and write the exam.

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Genome mapper Francis Collins vs. evangelical atheist Richard Dawkins: Why is Collins in religion section but Dawkins in science?

A friend tells me that in the wacky world of book classification, genome mapper Francis Collins' book, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief is classed in the "Christian inspiration" section, and Richard Dawkins' anti-theistic tract The God Delusion is shelved in the "science" section.

My friend worries that the move was an attempt to denigrate the contents of Collins' book. Well, maybe, but perhaps works that entirely lack rigorous science content may be shelved in science sections if they attack traditional religions, and works that have lots of science content may be shelved in religion sections if the scientist is a Christian. And nonetheless people wonder why there is an intelligent design controversy ...

Of course, one reason that Collins' book ended up where it did is its title and back cover endorsements: (Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Naomi Judd, Bill Phillips (a Nobelist who talks a lot about God on the back jacket), and Robert H. Schuller.)

Still, Collins' book should have been in science - autobiography. But maybe his publisher (Free Press) hoped to make more by flogging it on the "inspiration" shelf. Shame.

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Intelligent design, Darwinism, and creationism in Canada: Online course riles BC teachers' federation

Here's one from back in early September, but it reveals something interesting. According to CKNW news, in the Canadian province of British Columbia (BC)
Heritage Christian Online School has to 800 public and independent schools around BC promoting their website at

and their biology course discusses beliefs other than Darwinism. (A recnet regulation change permitted online schools in the province. The Federation wants the government to stop them:
"They're being offered courses that are religious in nature, that simply shouldn't happen, it isn't consistent with the purpose of public schools."
and of course they want the government to step in.

The course description for Biology 11 a la Christianese is

Biology 11 will inspire students in the complexities and beauties of God\'s creation.
The aim of the government learning outcomes is to teach evolution starting with an abiotic soup and continuing through to the emergence of man. This course is designed not only for the student to become fully aware of what evolutionist thinking entails but to systematically address each argument by pointing out its weaknesses as it is presented. By contrasting Creationism and Evolution, students will develop a scientifically sound way of looking at our world, that is based Biblical truth.

I'd be concerned too, because I think this is a sell job for creationism, rather than an invitation to students to think critically. But I wonder whether the same teachers' federation would show as much concern for blatant promotions of materialism in a biology text? See the thinkquote below.

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Thinkquote of the day: More antireligious dogma in publicly funded biology text

This should disappear from the next revision of the Monroe Strickberger textbook:

"The advent of Darwinism posted even greater threats to religion by suggesting that biological relationship, including the origin of humans and of all species, could be explained by natural selection without the intervention of a god. Many felt that evolutionary randomness and uncertainty had replaced a deity having conscious, purposeful, human characteristics. The Darwinian view that evolution is a historical process and present-type organisms were not created spontaneously but formed in a succession of selective events that occurred in the past, contradicted the common religious view that there could be no design, biological or otherwise, without an intelligent designer. … The variability by which selection depends may be random, but adaptions are not; they arise because selection chooses and perfects only what is adaptive. In this scheme a god of design and purpose is not necessary. Neither religion nor science has irrevocably conquered. Religion has been bolstered by paternalistic social systems in which individuals depend on the beneficiences of those more powerful than they are, as well as the comforting idea that humanity was created in the image of a god to rule over the world and its creatures. Religion provided emotional solace … Nevertheless, faith in religious dogma has been eroded by natural explanations of its mysteries, by a deep understanding of the sources of human emotional needs, and by the recognition that ethics and morality can change among different societies and that acceptance of such values need not depend on religion. ( Evolution by Monroe, W. Strickberger (3rd ed., Jones & Bartlett, 2000), pg. 70-71)


Are you looking for one of the following stories?




A summary of recent opinion columns on the ID controversy






Why origin of life is such a difficult problem.

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