Intelligent Science Curriculum Design
By Brian Mulconrey
Thursday, February 14, 2008 – Today’s battles over the teaching of Intelligent Design alongside the Theory of Evolution may totally miss the bigger picture. Virtually every religion has a long track record of “revealing” divine explanations for natural phenomenon - defending those explanations as science presents new evidence – and sometimes revising those revelations in keeping with new realities. It took a few hundred years, but the Vatican ultimately accepted the idea that the earth was not the center of the universe. The creation stories that weave through almost all religions are just one example of this practice. So why would any intelligent scientist be afraid of exposing children to this aspect of the evolution of science? When a large percentage of the population of the world still accepts various supernatural explanations for natural phenomena it seems a truly incomplete education to not expose children to this process. Let’s fast forward a few years to examine an alternative curriculum scenario…
Friday, February 14, 2020 – It’s now been ten years since Intelligent Science Instruction Design was launched into the first public school classrooms in the United States. As we all know, this movement was originally greeted with jubilation on the part of those who fought to allow the teaching of Intelligent Design in classrooms. With this new curriculum it became possible for citizens who believed in a divine creation story to have their brand of science taught in classrooms. But…this was still science. Curriculums required that the source and texts of the stories be referenced. And, to the growing dismay of Christian fundamentalists, it was necessary to expose children to the creation stories of other religions and cultures.
It wasn’t long before intelligent children began asking serious questions that previous generations not exposed in a rigorous way to the creation stories of other religions had simply never explored… Why are all these stories so similar? Is there something in the human psyche that is hard wired to weave supernatural stories when natural explanations are beyond our reach? Why do we continue to accept these stories as ‘fact’ when the authors knew so little about the functioning of the natural world? What else should we be questioning about the supernatural phenomena in the religions that we were taught as children?
In 2012 the popular movement that erupted around "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth" - a book project started by Thomas Jefferson during his first term as President of the United States - added fuel to the growing controversy. Jefferson eliminated all supernatural phenomena from his version of the Bible claiming that these embellishments had been added by Jesus’ biographers who borrowed many of the ideas directly from ancient Greek myths. The web version of Jefferson’s Bible included an anthology of the deleted passages complete with links to similar stories from Greek Mythology. There was also a link to "The Gospel of Thomas" discovered on ancient scrolls in 1945 by an Egyptian herder. The Thomas Gospel, like Jefferson’s, didn't include any supernatural phenomena. It was suggested by Princeton Professor Elaine Pagels in her New York Times Bestseller “Beyond Belief” that the “doubting Thomas” story in the Gospel of John was a direct reaction to this almost-eradicated account of the life and morals of Jesus.
For Christian fundamentalists this was the last straw. By late 2014 a coalition of fundamentalist groups from virtually every major religion advanced their landmark lawsuit to shut down Intelligent Science Instruction Design to the United States Supreme Court. The majority opinion as written by the Chief Justice closed the book on further argument, “The United States Constitution does not prevent public schools from teaching any academic pursuit; particularly a subject of as much significance as the impact of religious beliefs on everything from science and morality to politics and acts of terrorism.”
The startling results of last month's "Prayer and Collective Intelligence" experiments on the Interbio have established research into "supernatural" phenomena as a path of inquiry that no longer risks derailing an academic career. Today young adults in the United States look more like their European counterparts when it comes to the percentage that still accept ancient religious explanations for natural phenomena. During the first decade of the 21st century it turns out that the advocates of teaching Intelligent Design grossly underestimated the intelligence of their children.
© 2008 - All Rights Reserved
Thursday, February 14, 2008 – Today’s battles over the teaching of Intelligent Design alongside the Theory of Evolution may totally miss the bigger picture. Virtually every religion has a long track record of “revealing” divine explanations for natural phenomenon - defending those explanations as science presents new evidence – and sometimes revising those revelations in keeping with new realities. It took a few hundred years, but the Vatican ultimately accepted the idea that the earth was not the center of the universe. The creation stories that weave through almost all religions are just one example of this practice. So why would any intelligent scientist be afraid of exposing children to this aspect of the evolution of science? When a large percentage of the population of the world still accepts various supernatural explanations for natural phenomena it seems a truly incomplete education to not expose children to this process. Let’s fast forward a few years to examine an alternative curriculum scenario…
Friday, February 14, 2020 – It’s now been ten years since Intelligent Science Instruction Design was launched into the first public school classrooms in the United States. As we all know, this movement was originally greeted with jubilation on the part of those who fought to allow the teaching of Intelligent Design in classrooms. With this new curriculum it became possible for citizens who believed in a divine creation story to have their brand of science taught in classrooms. But…this was still science. Curriculums required that the source and texts of the stories be referenced. And, to the growing dismay of Christian fundamentalists, it was necessary to expose children to the creation stories of other religions and cultures.
It wasn’t long before intelligent children began asking serious questions that previous generations not exposed in a rigorous way to the creation stories of other religions had simply never explored… Why are all these stories so similar? Is there something in the human psyche that is hard wired to weave supernatural stories when natural explanations are beyond our reach? Why do we continue to accept these stories as ‘fact’ when the authors knew so little about the functioning of the natural world? What else should we be questioning about the supernatural phenomena in the religions that we were taught as children?
In 2012 the popular movement that erupted around "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth" - a book project started by Thomas Jefferson during his first term as President of the United States - added fuel to the growing controversy. Jefferson eliminated all supernatural phenomena from his version of the Bible claiming that these embellishments had been added by Jesus’ biographers who borrowed many of the ideas directly from ancient Greek myths. The web version of Jefferson’s Bible included an anthology of the deleted passages complete with links to similar stories from Greek Mythology. There was also a link to "The Gospel of Thomas" discovered on ancient scrolls in 1945 by an Egyptian herder. The Thomas Gospel, like Jefferson’s, didn't include any supernatural phenomena. It was suggested by Princeton Professor Elaine Pagels in her New York Times Bestseller “Beyond Belief” that the “doubting Thomas” story in the Gospel of John was a direct reaction to this almost-eradicated account of the life and morals of Jesus.
For Christian fundamentalists this was the last straw. By late 2014 a coalition of fundamentalist groups from virtually every major religion advanced their landmark lawsuit to shut down Intelligent Science Instruction Design to the United States Supreme Court. The majority opinion as written by the Chief Justice closed the book on further argument, “The United States Constitution does not prevent public schools from teaching any academic pursuit; particularly a subject of as much significance as the impact of religious beliefs on everything from science and morality to politics and acts of terrorism.”
The startling results of last month's "Prayer and Collective Intelligence" experiments on the Interbio have established research into "supernatural" phenomena as a path of inquiry that no longer risks derailing an academic career. Today young adults in the United States look more like their European counterparts when it comes to the percentage that still accept ancient religious explanations for natural phenomena. During the first decade of the 21st century it turns out that the advocates of teaching Intelligent Design grossly underestimated the intelligence of their children.
© 2008 - All Rights Reserved
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