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| A cartoon by Pulitzer-prize winner Steve Benson was indicative of the venom spewed at President Bush last month for saying public school students should hear both sides of the intelligent design-evolution debate.
Within hours, editorial writers and educators were throwing dirty bombs his way, hoping to inflict enough damage to make the whole intelligent design movement disappear from the radar screens of the masses. The scornful cartoon was especially telling: A hairy, ape-like Bush is sitting crisscross on a barstool in the middle of a classroom, surrounded by students. Beside him, a female teacher is using him as exhibit A, proclaiming to students: “Pay attention class. You’re looking at living proof that life has evolved from lower forms — and that it hasn’t involved any sort of intelligent design.” The teacher holds a book titled “Actual Science.” Bush, meanwhile, sits on a book titled “Biblical Creationism,” and he wears a shirt bearing the words, “Uncurious George W.” Absurd, yes, but Steve Benson is only spouting the party line, which says that macro-evolution (amphibians transitioning into dry critters, for example) is as valid as gravity and ridicules loudly anyone who differs. At war are two worldviews?one governed by biblical truth and the other governed by a materialist philosophy that views ethics as a social convention pliable for different eras and societal needs. At stake, in large part, is the cultural direction of a technologically advanced civilization. Materialism (sometimes called naturalism) is the belief that physical reality is all that exists; the notion of a Designer who cannot be physically accounted for is rejected. The spiritual dimensions of the debate are evident in the apparent blindness of the news media, which swallows anything the scientific establishment feeds them. The Week, an international news digest, provided the following from a Dublin paper: “For the president to pretend human origins are an open question forces us to question his judgment?even if we didn’t already.” A Hamburg, Germany newspaper, Die Zeit, asked how America got so backward, pointing to the Scopes Trial of 1925 and the American South to explain the rise of ID as an alternative theory to evolution. Never mind that the earliest ID proponents arose from places like the University of Chicago and Berkeley. In frustration to a growing audience for ID theorists such as William Dembski and Michael Behe, some ID opponents?either dishonestly or out of paranoia?are suggesting that it is a veiled attempt to sneak Genesis creationism into public classrooms. For the record, public school teachers should not be exegeting Genesis?for the kids’ sake. Those students should know, however, the best arguments modern evolutionary theory can muster?and the best arguments against it. Education should entail the pursuit of truth, after all. But the truth seems not in the best interest of materialism. In this case, the truth has cultural and ethical ramifications that may impede man-centered, utilitarian “progress.” An August 23 New York Times article related a question posed to a panel of Nobel laureate scientists at City College of New York: “Can you be a good scientist and believe in God?” “No!” replied chemist Herbert A. Hauptman, the Times reported. Hauptman offered that belief in God “is damaging to the well-being of the human race.” The article noted, thankfully, that the audience gave lukewarm reception to Hauptman’s view. But what Hauptman suggests is that moralistic religion restricts science and culture from establishing its own ethical boundaries. Without such boundaries, researchers may freely explo |
