If Evolution Has Implications for Religion, Can We Justify Teaching It in Public School... - 0 views
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Evolutionary biology is a science, so it can be legally taught in public schools when it's treated as a science and isn't promoted as a support for atheism or materialism.
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Do the larger religious (or anti-religious) implications of a scientific theory make it inadmissible for instruction in public schools? They shouldn't.
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just because we're declaring the teaching of evolution to be constitutional doesn't mean we that it has no connections to religion
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while it may sound odd to hear that we can (sometimes) declare something constitutional to teach in public schools even though it touches upon religion, there's good legal precedent for such a finding.
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a government policy establishes religion if its "principal or primary effect" is one that "advances or inhibits" religion.
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the statute must have a secular legislative purpose; second, its principal or primary effect must be one that neither advances nor inhibits religion; finally, the statute must not foster an excessive government entanglement with religion
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a government policy is unconstitutional if it has a "primary" or "principal" effect that advances (or inhibits) religion. However, in light of this second part, the Supreme Court has also developed a legal doctrine called the "incidental effects" or "secondary effects" doctrine which says that government law or policy may have "secondary" or "incidental" effects that touch upon religion and not violate the Establishment Clause.
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the Court held in Lynch v. Donnelly that "not every law that confers an indirect, remote, or incidental benefit upon [religion] is, for that reason alone, constitutionally invalid"
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if government aid "is allocated on the basis of neutral, secular criteria that neither favor nor disfavor religion, and is made available to both religious and secular beneficiaries on a nondiscriminatory basis," then any effects upon religion are merely incidental.
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evolutionary biology is based upon science, when we teach it as a science, the primary effect is to advance scientific knowledge.
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a scientific theory like evolution does speak to ultimate questions about origins, which are also addressed by religion
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it certainly touches upon religious questions. But when we discuss Darwinian evolution strictly on a scientific level, any effects upon religion are "secondary" or "incidental" compared to their primary effect of advancing scientific knowledge.
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if creation science were a scientific theory, it could have been taught because any its touching upon religion would have been a secondary effect
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approach was also followed in Crowley v. Smithsonian Institution, where a federal judge rejected arguments that Smithsonian exhibits on evolution established "secular humanism" because the "impact [on religion] is at most incidental to the primary effect of presenting a body of scientific knowledge"
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[I]f a theory has scientific value and evidence to support it, its primary effect would be to advance knowledge of the natural world, not to advance religion
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ultimate goal of schools is to educate students. Where a theory has scientific value and supporting evidence, it provides a basis for knowledge. Whether it coincidentally advances religion should not matter.
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one can legally justify teaching evolution while being sensitive to the fact that it has larger implications that touch upon the religious beliefs of many Americans.
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best of both worlds. It allows science to be taught in the science classroom while respecting the beliefs of people who have religious objections to evolution.