Drivel as Dogma.

• Author: Soling, Cevin
• Position: BY THE BOOK - Texas' education issues

THE RENEWED ASSAULT on science education in Texas has inspired appropriate backlash. However, there is something essential that is overlooked in these rebukes. While defending John Scopes for violating Tennessee's Butler Act by teaching evolution, Clarence Darrow proclaimed: "We have the purpose of preventing bigots and ignoramuses from controlling the education of the United States." Despite Darrow's efforts, bigots and ignoramuses still struggle for ascendancy within America's education system. Although these invectives were levied exclusively towards the defenders of Creationism, an important distinction delineates bigots and ignoramuses. Bigots champion an ignoble agenda--one that is biased and intolerant--while ignoramuses blindly undermine noble agendas.

Bigots are easy to recognize. They consist, in part, of the policymakers in at least 16 states who have acted to impede the teaching of evolution and to, instead, promote Creationism or its variants, such as Intelligent Design, which argues that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection."

The ignoramuses stay under the radar. They include, among others, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, National Center for Science Education, and U.S. National Academy of Sciences. These entities rightly object to teaching Intelligent Design on the grounds that it is not science: the Creationist hypothesis is not supported by research or observation; it cannot be tested; and it does not allow for a conceivable means of refutation.

The dismissal of Creationism is appropriate, but it also is comically absurd given that precious little that takes place in public schools is supported by empirical research. Within this context, the arguments are Pecksniffian. They are akin to indicting the use of Darjeeling when foretelling the future from tea leaves. Such a complaint suggests that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the thought that one can prognosticate from the detritus of beverages. By limiting their focus to one offensive item, these members of the science community implicitly validate the entire compulsory school system.

The problem is that schools are rife with faith-based rituals that do not promote learning. According to education researcher Alfie Kohn, no causal evidence supports the notion that homework, in general, promotes learning, and no study affirms the...