Category: Culture
“The ‘Teach the Controversy’ Controversy”: David DeWolf Tells the True Story of the Santorum Amendment
I recently blogged about my law review article in University of St. Thomas Journal of Law & Public Policy. Discovery Institute senior fellow David DeWolf, professor of law at Gonzaga University School of Law, also published an article in the same issue of that journal titled “The ‘Teach the Controversy’ Controversy.” One of the most interesting components of Professor DeWolf’s article is his retelling of the adoption of the Santorum Amendment into the Conference Report of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Professor DeWolf’s full article can be seen here. What follows is a section from DeWolf’s article. It is the first of two installments here on ENV that will tell the story of the Santorum Amendment and Read More ›
Teaching More, Not Less
Any critically-thinking parent whose child has been forced to watch Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth will sympathize with petitions to ban discussions of global warming in public school science classes. Apparently such petitions are starting to crop up around the US. But I think this impulse, while understandable, is deeply misguided, as Vincent Carroll argues in the Denver Post. While it might be easier just to avoid subjects like man-made global warming (or Darwinian evolution), it’s hard to see how scientific literacy will be improved by avoiding them altogether. It’s much better to separate the data from the propaganda (a tall task, to be sure) and to help students learn to analyze the issue. As Carroll argues: Climate change happens Read More ›
Waking from Darwin’s Dream: Richard M. Weaver on Modern Barbarism
Once upon a time, political and philosophical conservatism was less concerned with practical, day-to-day politics and much more directed to developing a critique of modern civilization, seeking to save the culture from barbarism. In this series of posts, of which this is the final entry, we have been looking at the thoughts of Richard Weaver on Darwinism as a contributing factor in the drift to cultural decay. (You will find earlier entries, Parts I through V, here, here, here, here, and here.) Today, the most broadly respected deans of conservative political reflection — George Will or Charles Krauthammer — are dependable Darwin defenders and enemies of Darwin doubters. So much for the icons of our day. It was not so Read More ›
Michael Shermer’s Conflicted Message
Who wrote the following words: (A) Phillip Johnson, (B) Jonathan Wells, or (C) Michael Shermer? We should not, however, cover up, hide, suppress or, worst of all, use the state to quash someone else’s belief system. There are several good arguments for this: 1. They might be right and we would have just squashed a bit of truth. 2. They might be completely wrong, but in the process of examining their claims we discover the truth; we also discover how thinking can go wrong, and in the process improve our thinking skills. 3. In science, it is never possible to know the absolute truth about anything, and so we must always be on the alert for where our ideas need Read More ›
“No Real Conflict When One Side Gives Up”: Richard Weaver and the Darwin Debate
Richard M. Weaver, who died at age 53 in 1963, effectively launched modern philosophical and political conservatism in the United States. Everyone cites one of his titles, Ideas Have Consequences, but too few bother to read his actual works. In reading him now I’m struck by what a brilliant ally he would have made in the current debate over Darwinism. Though a philosopher and a professor of English stationed at the University of Chicago, he anticipated not only the major outlines of contemporary thinking about why the evolution debate matters. He also foresaw the outlines of the scientific critique of Darwinian theory. I’ve been writing about him the past week in this series (whose Parts I through IV are here, Read More ›