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Re: [Phys-l] Intelligent designists fight back




----- Original Message ----- From: "Stefan Jeglinski" <jeglin@4pi.com>
To: "Forum for Physics Educators" <phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu>
Sent: Friday, January 11, 2008 5:00 PM
Subject: Re: [Phys-l] Intelligent designists fight back


I'd like your take on the following. One of the issues seems to be
that one's children are always one's children. That is, they grow up,
and go to places like college, where they get exposed, in a serious
way, to "foreign" concepts, esp evolution. In principle, parents
should not fear their children going through this process, but many
do anyway, and in fact are terrified of it, and hence try to go out
of the boundaries you have described, politically, to influence
institutions, and by extension, society, to sway others to what
amounts to their personal religious views.

How do you personally resolve this, having made the comment about who
has the right/duty to instruct ("correct") your children? And does
your personal resolution of this quandary also fit your beliefs about
how society should deal with "enforcing" lower education?

I always operate on the principle that you assume that instructors are fallible, and therefore won't handle things correctly (my way ;-})
The logical thing to do, then, is to explain things yourself before that becomes an issue. Prior to them taking biology, I explained the function (as I see it) of science, and by so doing, I hoped they did not fall into the belief that science is infallible and always literally true. In point of fact, I consider it dangerous to drape "science" with the mantle of omniscience. We certainly THINK that what we develop is true, our goal is to approach truth as closely as possible, and, in fact, the more we test our explanations, the closer we are likely to come to telling the truth. That doesn't mean that everything we say is inalterably true.

My question is an academic one, despite its personal nature. You just
happen to be my current vehicle of enlightenment, and seem to take a
mostly level-headed view of things :-)

I don't mind engaging in intellectual discussions, Stephan, and I do try to be level-headed. 8-)