This letter is associated with the following article:
Letters
Thursday, June 12, 2008 12:00 AM

Louisiana schools open to creationism?

Wednesday, the Louisiana House passed a bill that would allow teachers to promote "critical thinking." Critics say it's just intelligent design in a new package.

Read other letters about this article

  • Thursday, June 12, 2008 03:44 PM

    Be careful

    Creationists are many things, few of them good, but the one thing they're not is stupid. And they've stumbled across some genuine philosophical conundrums -- most pointedly, the inherent and perhaps irreconcilable conflict between our biological understanding of homo sapiens as subject to the processes of nature and natural selection, and our political understanding of human beings as uniquely conscious, free agents with certain inalienable rights.

    What many creationists seek is the unity of religion, science and politics, with religion forming the moral and philosophical framework for a society; science contributing fact-based knowledge, intellectual authority and epistemological clarity to that framework; and politics both reflecting and enacting the perfect harmony of the first two. The result would be something like Plato's infamous Republic, only without the need to base the society on a "noble lie."

    Of course, this idea is based on the fetishization of science as the temporal form of Ultimate Knowledge, not on a working understanding of scientific method.

Most Active Letters Threads

725

The commendably missing element from Obama's speech

There was no pretense that human rights is our goal, or the likely outcome, in escalating the war
688

Obama's exceedingly familiar justifications for escalation

The "new" approach to Afghanistan touted by White House officials seems quite old
440

The face of rotted Washington

Evan Bayh demands more debt-financed war - fought by others - while boasting that he's a stern "deficit hawk."
329

Yes, it's Obama's war now

An uninspiring speech sells a dubious policy, but progressives who feel betrayed have only themselves to blame
252

America's regression

It's almost impossible to find a nation with as many torture advocates as the U.S. has.

View all »

Letters Help

Currently in Salon