Faith schools

Here is something for parents to consider.

I think that, under the humour, there is a serious message.

Belief, knowledge and science

This is a repeat of a post from 18 months back:

A pernicious feature of current attacks on science is the promulgation of the idea that scientific knowledge is “just a belief.” That it has no more validity than any other belief. That non-scientific beliefs should be given the same status or legitimacy as scientific theory.

This idea is promulgated by “secular” new age, post-modernist and similar ideologies. It is also promoted by some religious groups advancing creationist ideas. For an example of the latter have a look at the documentary video “In Good Faith” showing a “science lesson” at the Australian Pacific Hills Christian School (see also Teaching science in faith schools). In this “lesson” students were offered a range of beliefs about biology and told they should consider them and choose which best fitted their religious views.

Ex-Muslims speak out

The Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain held their first conference recently. They have put videos up at their web site and, although the quality is not the best, they are well worth viewing.

Subjects covered include:

• Apostasy laws and the Freedom to Renounce and Criticise Religion
• Sharia Law and Citizenship Rights
• Creationism, Religious Education and Faith Schools

These are all of immediate concern in the UK and the rest of Europe.

UK Humanists and other secularists also participated in the conference. I recognised AC Grayling and Richard Dawkins. The presentation by Dawkins on Harun Yahya’s Atlas of Creation is interesting.

Richard Dawkins on Harun Yahya’s Atlas of Creation

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Scientific knowledge – not “just a belief!”

A pernicious feature of current attacks on science is the promulgation of the idea that scientific knowledge is “just a belief.” That it has no more validity than any other belief. That non-scientific beliefs should be given the same status or legitimacy as scientific theory.

This idea is promulgated by “secular” new age, post-modernist and similar ideologies. It is also promoted by some religious groups advancing creationist ideas. For an example of the latter have a look at the documentary video “In Good Faith” showing a “science lesson” at the Australian Pacific Hills Christian School (see also Teaching science in faith schools). In this “lesson” students were offered a range of beliefs about biology and told they should consider them and choose which best fitted their religious views.

Teaching science in faith schools

It’s easy to think that the current attack on science in the USA is a peculiarly American phenomenon – that it doesn’t, or wouldn’t, occur here in New Zealand. After all, a poll (UMR Research Survey: Morality, Religion and Evolution) last year showed 75% of New Zealanders support evolution.

So one expects that we shouldn’t have the same problem teaching evolution in our schools as occurs in the USA. But what about the faith schools? The data in the UMR research Poll indicates that between 40 and 50% of New Zealand’s Christians actually reject evolutionary science. So how does this influence the teaching of evolution, and science in general, in New Zealand’s faith schools?

This issue has come up in Australia. Maralyn Parker, a journalist for the Sydney Daily Telegraph raises this issue in her blog article Teaching Science at Pacific Hills Christian School. This includes a letter to the NSW Board of Studies expressing concern at the way evolutionary science is taught in at least one Christian school. The letter arose from the depiction of a science lesson at this school in a documentary “In Good Faith” shown on SBS television on Tuesday May 19.

The writer, Chris Bonner, says in part:

‘In the video clip the teacher is referring to a chart “Origins – a spectrum of belief”. This spectrum includes:

Young Earth Creationist

Old earth Creationist

Theistic Evolutionist

Intelligent Design

And Atheistic Evolutionist

In the video clip the science teacher variously refers to evolution as “this view” and that we have “a whole range of positions” on where we come from. The “atheistic evolutionists” exist on the spectrum as just another belief. The teacher throws in Richard Dawkins as one of these types of “believers”.

“But”, the teacher goes on, “there is a whole range of other ways of considering the evidence”, going on to cite the bible, intelligent design and so on.

The teacher then throws to the students the idea that they can decide between these “beliefs”.

We want to “allow you to ask the right questions”, he says, to “allow you to think about what the world is showing you” and (more pointedly) “what God’s revelation through his scripture shows you, so that you can come to some clear understanding about your view”.

The viewer of this clip is left wondering what credence, in the classroom and in formal assessment, would be given to the views of students who do not take “God’s revelation” into account when developing their “clear understanding”.’

This sort of teaching is completely inappropriate for a science class. It presents an incorrect interpretation of evolutionary science and the scientific method in general. I can’t imagine that it conforms to the educational curriculum and it certainly denies students a proper preparation for further science education and a possible science-related career.

I wonder if this sort of teaching is occurring in New Zealand’s faith schools?

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See also:
I am a Christian who Believes in Theistic Evolution

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