Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site opus.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!harpo!seismo!hao!cires!nbires!opus!rcd
From: rcd@opus.UUCP (Dick Dunn)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: Balanced Treatment Act, part 2
Message-ID: <373@opus.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 17-Apr-84 20:13:09 EST
Article-I.D.: opus.373
Posted: Tue Apr 17 20:13:09 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 19-Apr-84 03:23:56 EST
References: <45500002@uiucdcs.UUCP>
Organization: NBI, Boulder
Lines: 32

Response to A. Ray Miller:
>     Next, should creationism be taught on a balanced treatment with evolution?
>I think yes here.  Students should be given all of the scientific evidence in
>support of both models and then be allowed to make up their own minds...
Just great!  But why only THE creationist model and THE evolutionist
model?  What about all of the other "theories"?  It won't fly.  You can't
possibly give students "all of the scientific evidence" that they need to
make up their minds.  Look, if it's a matter that has occupied serious
archaeologists, paleontologists, geologists, etc., for scores of years, how
in the world do you expect to give a public school student enough
information to decide in a few courses?  In fact, any decision the
students would reach would come either directly from the instructor's
bias or from peer pressure.

>     However, even though I support balanced treatment of both viewpoints, my
>next statement my surprise you.  I am not sure I support legislation to achieve
>that goal...  the
>courts are not the place to decide what is or isn't good science...
You should find agreement among anyone with a responsible view of science
on that one, but then...

>...So, I support the
>CSLDF's defense of the Louisiana law (because of the legal precedent it will
>set if it is defeated)...
If you really believed what you said about not deciding science in the
courts, you wouldn't be able to support defense of the Louisiana law.  It
looks like your position is one in which you'll take victory if it should
happen to come your way, but you've got a tenable position in case of
defeat.  I find that a pretty unsavory approach.
-- 
...Are you making this up as you go along?		Dick Dunn
{hao,ucbvax,allegra}!nbires!rcd				(303) 444-5710 x3086