Special Report: Intelligent design and Frazier Park High School under the gun of evolution - By N.L. Belardes
Intelligent design offered up as a theory in an elective Frazier Mountain High School “Philosophy of Design” class in Frazier Park, California and suddenly the country’s non-believers from Americans United for Separation of Church and State are worried that the Christian coalition is subverting government, taking over the education system and minimizing your freedom to think that monkeys are indeed your uncle. What a mess. And with facts wrong even in CNN. I’m not surprised such a group would illegally try to end a non-mandatory course.
Cathy Warren of Frazier Park, a quiet mother of three with one child in the course was interviewed by CNN. Her views didn’t make the final cut. I interviewed her on both Friday and Saturday. I asked her how she would feel if her child’s elective course were banned. She spoke about fairness and about the mandatory ‘intelligent design’ science course in Pennsylvania that was banned. “I don’t think that would be fair to ban the class because my daughter chose on her own to be in there. It’s not mandatory. Other people who haven’t sat in the class should not have the right to take her choice away. This isn’t a science class. This is a philosophy class. The Pennsylvania class was a mandatory science class. I can see how the other class might think that direction. The parents in our situation have all been invited. And I don’t think any attended open house or sat in on the class to see what the class was really about.”
Have the parents complaining not entered the classroom? Would they have anything to complain about if they had? Has the teacher Sharon Lumberg, also a P.E. and World Geography teacher and pastor’s wife chosen sides? What about CNN? Aside from getting it wrong by writing "Fresno" when the nearest major city is Bakersfield, did they get their facts straight in a related article?
I spoke with Cathy’s daughter Sabine further on the topic. Where CNN’s report leads readers to believe that guest speakers of the ‘Philosophy of Design’ course are all advocates of ‘intelligent design’, the reality is the only speaker thus far has been an evolutionist. Sabine indicated in a phone interview that though the professor expressed he has personal doubts at times about evolution, he also expressed positive views, views that his own colleagues backed. “The speaker said he sometimes doesn’t know what to think, that he might turn away from evolution. Other evolutionists told him not to…”
I then asked Sabine about what is discussed in the course and what bothers her about the current media attention. “In the class we talk about what we think is true how we think the world originated. We don’t talk about religion a lot. We have just been talking about evolution right now. We’re supposed to get into creationism and other religions pretty soon. What bugs me about news reporters is they got their facts wrong. The news has been saying it is a religious class and the pastor’s wife is influencing us and pushing her thoughts on us, but she’s not.”
I then asked Sabine if there are any kids in her Frazier Park High School “Philosophy of Design” class who feel religion is too much of a focus or issue, who may have spoken up. “Everybody loves the class and hopes it comes back next year. No one taking the class has spoken out against it. There is a lot of talk on campus though.”
I was told ahead of time about the CNN interviews, and was reading an article by Lionel Martinez, columnist for the Bakersfield Californian. I was also not surprised that his story was filled with as many flaws as any creation/evolution theory I’ve stumbled across. (Either theory takes an abundant dose of ‘assumption’ and faith regarding human design by higher powers versus evolution and species adaptation. Let’s face it, none of us were there to prove/disprove and dating methods are just screwy in their own assumptive decay rates and such). Martinez writes, “Why would someone who believes in God want to keep him out of the science classroom? The same reason you don't study trigonometry in history class. Intelligent design is not science.”
First off, Lionel touched on the wrong topic: history. It’s a major journalistic flaw that I run in to time and again. Heck, I have walked out of sermons for preachers attempting to talk history without understanding history. Martinez, are you just writing your piece to get accepted into the CNN fold? Beside the point, I know. So let’s explore history for a moment. In the realm of history you don’t allow mathematics to not enter historical debate just because it’s mathematics in a history class. Doesn’t Martinez realize there is a history of mathematics? R.G. Collingwood wrote in his philosophy book The Idea of History, a book used in many major universities across America, “History is everything that has happened.” Yes, that means, even the history of mathematics, the study thereof, concepts and use of such skills. For instance, if I want to write about the study of early Babylon, Egypt or astronomy, I might write about Hipparchus, the father of Trigonometry who measured the heavens through new mathematics (Trigonometry). Oh yes, such a study of Mr. Hip would very well include mathematical functions, formulas, scientific knowledge and theory, including perhaps false theory. Why? Because even false history/theories are important to debate. Either way, that's mathematics in history class, Mr. Martinez. Discussing early exploration by Europeans might just have a professor lecturing about 'dead reckoning' and then quadrants and measuring ocean voyage paths through a very discussion of Hipparchus and trigonometry.
Important to the overall theory of intelligent design is the discussion that life may not be formed from chaos in a bubbly primordial stew cooked in some natural microwave set just to the right temp so as not to burn like the popcorn your co-workers can never seem to make, and that life and its complexities are part of some ‘origin idea’ yet unexplained: thus a creator, or creation-sparked idea that didn’t cook or over-burn. Except now we have some over-burned ideas as a result of a class debating such topics.
Take the theory of Intelligent Design as debated in an elective high school class in the little mountain community of Frazier Park north of Bakersfield. There’s nothing new about such a discussion. Discussing such topics goes hand in hand with studying American history or European history. Both are meshed with a deep study of Christian-related beliefs that are still integral facets of American culture. Ask yourself: should you not study Puritanism because Puritans were religious in nature, where the study of Puritans includes the studies of their theories on how to live in closed corporate communities that eventually waned, failed, etc? or their views of how people should live religious lives, or their views of the heavens? Or dare I say it, their views of the origin or man, or the end of the world, or how to cook potatoes? Maybe they couldn’t cook potatoes right, so let’s dare not talk about a failed cooking theory by religious folks in a classroom because somehow there’s the nutty notion that a Christian sector is taking over your non-believer kid’s school books. Why should Puritanism be diluted to false notions of holiday-making and turkey basting with Native Americans just because some schmuck is afraid the word “God” is going to brainwash their child? Or should our kids historical and philosophical education be limited to Christopher Columbus little boy blue sappy poems and Martin Luther King Jr. just believed in some little old civil rights rather than a god-fearing explorer who went on a religious and money-making quest and a religious leader helping forge a freedom-filled path with the help of prayer. Why ignore the spiritual side of historically important men?
Or back to the study of false theories, how about the study of Europeans in their heliocentric views of the universe, very important to the debate of the history of scientific thought moving from Ptolemaic views: man’s false theories that the sun and heavens revolved around the earth. The Copernican revolution in thought helped prove the heliocentric views. But then, Copernicus’ views were disproved too because he believed in false theories regarding how solar bodies orbited in systems. He thought paths were perfect circles and not elliptical. All important to the evolution of scientific thinking, and the thought that mankind was so selfish to think all revolved around himself, even the heavens. Evolution theories don't seem so dissimilar to the Ptolemaic universe structure, only instead of all heavens surrounding man, we have evolution theories unnecessarily and self-centeredly focused on evolution as the cause for man's greatness and takeover of Earth's fragile ecosystem. How come when we hear such a word as 'evolution' we don't automatically think about the evolution of Galapagos turtles or crabgrass? We are trained to think evolution as the discussion of the origins of the greatness and superiority of man's anatomic development over time. It's always man at the center of such debate. In the end, find me a field of science where all scientists agree that origin debates should not include all sides and schools of thought.
What Frazier Park is experiencing is the same narrow mindedness and fears that Christians themselves show towards topics like sex before marriage, or homosexuality. Don’t talk about gays or read Lords: Part One, a graphic book about murderous power hungry media and sexual predators even though written by a straight guy. Why? Because your kid might grow up gay. Such narrow-minded thinking. And now we have paranoid families worried an elective philosophy class is going to mush up their kids’ minds. So what? Debate and discuss. Debating is an option and is what happens in college history and philosophy courses in state universities everyday. It's what happens on high school campuses all over: debate, discuss, talking about ideas even though people have diverse views.
Perhaps there is a public fear of non-paid public schooling not being separate enough between church and state. Dumb. If religion is taught as part of history and philosophy where the Buddha, Joseph Smith, Jesus Christ the Reformation, Calvin, Quakers and evolution can all be discussed, why water down for kids who are just as capable of disseminating such arguments. And why do I keep talking history and philosophy? Because the class in question is not even a required science course!
To think science, history and religion don’t mix, go read Joyce Appleby’s 1994 book Telling the Truth About History. (By the way she’s professor emerita at UCLA. Not too shabby of a title). I can easily say that it is not the historians who are guilty of trying to force a wedge between religion and science. It’s the educated historians who are often the heroes sewing such thought back together after narrow-minded education thinkers, lawmakers, secularists, and journalists like Martinez who so haphazardly attempt to peel science and religion by non-existent seams, afraid of some Biblical takeover of education that will never happen because of a “Philosophy of Design” course.
*related Bakersfield article: No firm course for class suit
*related Bakersfield blog: Rob Shock
Cathy Warren of Frazier Park, a quiet mother of three with one child in the course was interviewed by CNN. Her views didn’t make the final cut. I interviewed her on both Friday and Saturday. I asked her how she would feel if her child’s elective course were banned. She spoke about fairness and about the mandatory ‘intelligent design’ science course in Pennsylvania that was banned. “I don’t think that would be fair to ban the class because my daughter chose on her own to be in there. It’s not mandatory. Other people who haven’t sat in the class should not have the right to take her choice away. This isn’t a science class. This is a philosophy class. The Pennsylvania class was a mandatory science class. I can see how the other class might think that direction. The parents in our situation have all been invited. And I don’t think any attended open house or sat in on the class to see what the class was really about.”
Have the parents complaining not entered the classroom? Would they have anything to complain about if they had? Has the teacher Sharon Lumberg, also a P.E. and World Geography teacher and pastor’s wife chosen sides? What about CNN? Aside from getting it wrong by writing "Fresno" when the nearest major city is Bakersfield, did they get their facts straight in a related article?
I spoke with Cathy’s daughter Sabine further on the topic. Where CNN’s report leads readers to believe that guest speakers of the ‘Philosophy of Design’ course are all advocates of ‘intelligent design’, the reality is the only speaker thus far has been an evolutionist. Sabine indicated in a phone interview that though the professor expressed he has personal doubts at times about evolution, he also expressed positive views, views that his own colleagues backed. “The speaker said he sometimes doesn’t know what to think, that he might turn away from evolution. Other evolutionists told him not to…”
I then asked Sabine about what is discussed in the course and what bothers her about the current media attention. “In the class we talk about what we think is true how we think the world originated. We don’t talk about religion a lot. We have just been talking about evolution right now. We’re supposed to get into creationism and other religions pretty soon. What bugs me about news reporters is they got their facts wrong. The news has been saying it is a religious class and the pastor’s wife is influencing us and pushing her thoughts on us, but she’s not.”
I then asked Sabine if there are any kids in her Frazier Park High School “Philosophy of Design” class who feel religion is too much of a focus or issue, who may have spoken up. “Everybody loves the class and hopes it comes back next year. No one taking the class has spoken out against it. There is a lot of talk on campus though.”
I was told ahead of time about the CNN interviews, and was reading an article by Lionel Martinez, columnist for the Bakersfield Californian. I was also not surprised that his story was filled with as many flaws as any creation/evolution theory I’ve stumbled across. (Either theory takes an abundant dose of ‘assumption’ and faith regarding human design by higher powers versus evolution and species adaptation. Let’s face it, none of us were there to prove/disprove and dating methods are just screwy in their own assumptive decay rates and such). Martinez writes, “Why would someone who believes in God want to keep him out of the science classroom? The same reason you don't study trigonometry in history class. Intelligent design is not science.”
First off, Lionel touched on the wrong topic: history. It’s a major journalistic flaw that I run in to time and again. Heck, I have walked out of sermons for preachers attempting to talk history without understanding history. Martinez, are you just writing your piece to get accepted into the CNN fold? Beside the point, I know. So let’s explore history for a moment. In the realm of history you don’t allow mathematics to not enter historical debate just because it’s mathematics in a history class. Doesn’t Martinez realize there is a history of mathematics? R.G. Collingwood wrote in his philosophy book The Idea of History, a book used in many major universities across America, “History is everything that has happened.” Yes, that means, even the history of mathematics, the study thereof, concepts and use of such skills. For instance, if I want to write about the study of early Babylon, Egypt or astronomy, I might write about Hipparchus, the father of Trigonometry who measured the heavens through new mathematics (Trigonometry). Oh yes, such a study of Mr. Hip would very well include mathematical functions, formulas, scientific knowledge and theory, including perhaps false theory. Why? Because even false history/theories are important to debate. Either way, that's mathematics in history class, Mr. Martinez. Discussing early exploration by Europeans might just have a professor lecturing about 'dead reckoning' and then quadrants and measuring ocean voyage paths through a very discussion of Hipparchus and trigonometry.
Important to the overall theory of intelligent design is the discussion that life may not be formed from chaos in a bubbly primordial stew cooked in some natural microwave set just to the right temp so as not to burn like the popcorn your co-workers can never seem to make, and that life and its complexities are part of some ‘origin idea’ yet unexplained: thus a creator, or creation-sparked idea that didn’t cook or over-burn. Except now we have some over-burned ideas as a result of a class debating such topics.
Take the theory of Intelligent Design as debated in an elective high school class in the little mountain community of Frazier Park north of Bakersfield. There’s nothing new about such a discussion. Discussing such topics goes hand in hand with studying American history or European history. Both are meshed with a deep study of Christian-related beliefs that are still integral facets of American culture. Ask yourself: should you not study Puritanism because Puritans were religious in nature, where the study of Puritans includes the studies of their theories on how to live in closed corporate communities that eventually waned, failed, etc? or their views of how people should live religious lives, or their views of the heavens? Or dare I say it, their views of the origin or man, or the end of the world, or how to cook potatoes? Maybe they couldn’t cook potatoes right, so let’s dare not talk about a failed cooking theory by religious folks in a classroom because somehow there’s the nutty notion that a Christian sector is taking over your non-believer kid’s school books. Why should Puritanism be diluted to false notions of holiday-making and turkey basting with Native Americans just because some schmuck is afraid the word “God” is going to brainwash their child? Or should our kids historical and philosophical education be limited to Christopher Columbus little boy blue sappy poems and Martin Luther King Jr. just believed in some little old civil rights rather than a god-fearing explorer who went on a religious and money-making quest and a religious leader helping forge a freedom-filled path with the help of prayer. Why ignore the spiritual side of historically important men?
Or back to the study of false theories, how about the study of Europeans in their heliocentric views of the universe, very important to the debate of the history of scientific thought moving from Ptolemaic views: man’s false theories that the sun and heavens revolved around the earth. The Copernican revolution in thought helped prove the heliocentric views. But then, Copernicus’ views were disproved too because he believed in false theories regarding how solar bodies orbited in systems. He thought paths were perfect circles and not elliptical. All important to the evolution of scientific thinking, and the thought that mankind was so selfish to think all revolved around himself, even the heavens. Evolution theories don't seem so dissimilar to the Ptolemaic universe structure, only instead of all heavens surrounding man, we have evolution theories unnecessarily and self-centeredly focused on evolution as the cause for man's greatness and takeover of Earth's fragile ecosystem. How come when we hear such a word as 'evolution' we don't automatically think about the evolution of Galapagos turtles or crabgrass? We are trained to think evolution as the discussion of the origins of the greatness and superiority of man's anatomic development over time. It's always man at the center of such debate. In the end, find me a field of science where all scientists agree that origin debates should not include all sides and schools of thought.
What Frazier Park is experiencing is the same narrow mindedness and fears that Christians themselves show towards topics like sex before marriage, or homosexuality. Don’t talk about gays or read Lords: Part One, a graphic book about murderous power hungry media and sexual predators even though written by a straight guy. Why? Because your kid might grow up gay. Such narrow-minded thinking. And now we have paranoid families worried an elective philosophy class is going to mush up their kids’ minds. So what? Debate and discuss. Debating is an option and is what happens in college history and philosophy courses in state universities everyday. It's what happens on high school campuses all over: debate, discuss, talking about ideas even though people have diverse views.
Perhaps there is a public fear of non-paid public schooling not being separate enough between church and state. Dumb. If religion is taught as part of history and philosophy where the Buddha, Joseph Smith, Jesus Christ the Reformation, Calvin, Quakers and evolution can all be discussed, why water down for kids who are just as capable of disseminating such arguments. And why do I keep talking history and philosophy? Because the class in question is not even a required science course!
To think science, history and religion don’t mix, go read Joyce Appleby’s 1994 book Telling the Truth About History. (By the way she’s professor emerita at UCLA. Not too shabby of a title). I can easily say that it is not the historians who are guilty of trying to force a wedge between religion and science. It’s the educated historians who are often the heroes sewing such thought back together after narrow-minded education thinkers, lawmakers, secularists, and journalists like Martinez who so haphazardly attempt to peel science and religion by non-existent seams, afraid of some Biblical takeover of education that will never happen because of a “Philosophy of Design” course.
*related Bakersfield article: No firm course for class suit
*related Bakersfield blog: Rob Shock
This entry was posted by N.L. Belardes, on
Saturday, January 14, 2006.
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GREAT BLOG!!! THANKS for stating
THE FACTS, The CORRECT ONES...
Cathy Warren, the quite mother...
that is a great article! if the class is an optional one, what's the big freakin' deal? if they're old enough to make the decision to take the class , they're old enough to choose for themselves what to believe and not believe and have an open mind...
My question: Do any of the 11 parents that brought the lawsuit have kids in the class?
I would have loved to take that class in high school. It was always fun to disagree with teachers.
Yes! Great work, this is a classic example of the History professor I met; expressing the critical
thinking and analytical skills that most people can only dream of having! Yet, usually people don't have the thought process to realize they are lacking critical thinking or analytical skills. Without exploring options and theory our society of people
will never expand to understand the society in which we live, therefor never obtaining critical thinking and analytical processing skills. So in simple words I would say..."All of you closed minded monkeys go entertain yourself!" I've narrowed my big words In hopes that all readers could understand this comment; even if they lack critical thinking and analyzing skills to fully
understand my writing. Keep telling Bakersfield how small minded they really are and they'll appreciate in about ten years when they actually catch up with the
rest of the world.
Luv,
Flower in the Dale.
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