Discrimination In Religious Schools

A review of Victoria’s Equal Opportunity Act has made some interesting recommendations.

At the moment, religious schools in Victoria have the right to discriminate on the basis of faith. For example, a Muslim school can refuse to employ a Jewish cleaner or a conservative Christian school a woman who is unmarried and pregnant.

A parliamentary review has recommended broadening the definition into “core” and “non-core” roles, so discrimination would only be applied to roles where it actually matters. Under this model the school chaplain can’t be a Satanist but it doesn’t matter so much if the maths teacher is (although he does go on about pentagrams a fair bit … ).

People running religious schools obviously think it’s a bad idea. And I agree.

This is just too one-sided. Even now, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find any number of atheists teaching in Christian schools, where their atheism is overlooked just because of their teaching ability.

This proposal takes us in completely the wrong direction. We should give more discriminatory power to these schools, not less.

In fact, let’s go the whole hog. Religious schools should be obliged to only employ people who share their faith.

Before being appointed, applicants must prove their allegiance by swearing on their particular holy book and passing a detailed examination on the tenets of their doctrine.

All staff must be monitored constantly to ensure their behaviour is in line with the appropriate religious doctrine. Any breaches of protocol, whether on school grounds or in the person’s home, will result in immediate dismissal.

Of course religious schools might struggle to retain staff under such a regime, and student numbers would drop off as teaching standards fell.

And Government funding would have to be cut because they’d now be straight religious institutions rather than educational institutions.

And in fact, after a while we’d probably see very few religious schools remaining.

That’d be a shame.

But keeping the schools’ religious values pure is obviously critically important, so surely that’s a small price to pay.

Get Your Galileoscope

2009 is the International Year of Astronomy. It’s 400 years since Galileo produced the telescope he would use to change the face of modern science.

To celebrate, the International Astronomical Union is spreading the astronomical joy with the Galileoscope . . . a high quality, ultra-cheap telescope similar to the one used by Galileo himself.

From the website:

You can see the celestial wonders that Galileo Galilei first glimpsed 400 years ago . . . lunar craters and mountains, four moons circling Jupiter, the phases of Venus, Saturn's rings, and countless stars invisible to the unaided eye.

At only US$15 each you can buy one for yourself or donate one to a school.

An appreciation of the night sky is so often the first step to a deeper appreciation of science, so let’s get these out there!

Evolution is Just a Theory

One of the most common attacks on evolution, particularly by proponents of Intelligent Design, goes something like this:

“Evolution is just a theory. Intelligent design is another theory. Why can’t they both be taught in science classes?”

It sounds reasonable, but there’s a tricky sleight-of-hand in this argument.

When something like evolution is described as a scientific theory, it means something different from the usual everyday meaning of the word “theory”.

In scientific terms, a theory is the highest level of understanding.

For example, it’s a theory that the Earth revolves around the sun. It’s a theory that substances are made up of atoms.

It goes like this: we start with an idea. In the case of evolution it was: “animals evolve over time”.

In the beginning, that was just an idea. The next step was to form a testable hypothesis.

Using gaps in the known fossil record we could predict what must lie in between. If the idea was right, we’d find animal fossils that matched the predictions.

And we did. (Of course this is a greatly over-simplified description of both the hypothesis and the evidence. There’s a lot more to it than just that.)

The hypothesis must also be falsifiable: it must be possible to find fossils that will prove the hypothesis wrong. This is possible, but it hasn’t been done.

So after 150 years the hypothesis has been well and truly confirmed by the weight of evidence. Then, and only then, is the hypothesis elevated to the high status of “scientific theory”.

Yes, evolution is a theory. And it carries all the evidence required to be called that.

The problem with Intelligent Design?

It’s not even a theory.

There is no evidence. There is no falsifiable hypothesis. There isn’t even a testable hypothesis.

In fact, when you get right down to it, Intelligent Design is nothing more than an idea.

Humanism in schools. Hooray.

The Humanist Society of Victoria has developed a curriculum for primary school students based on humanist ethics.

Their focus is the wonderful idea that ethics can be derived without reference to any religion; that you don’t need to defer to some magical God or ancient book or (more often) the authority of the clergy to know what’s right.

This is a really important idea, and absolutely the sort of thing we should be instilling in our children.

But of course that’s not the way it’s being reported.

Instead, we get headlines like this:

Religion in schools to go God-free

Students to be taught there's no God

This angle completely misses the point. But that’s to be expected in a culture with such an entrenched religious tradition.

And the predictable backlash from religious, particularly Christian, vested interests has begun.

This is my favourite quote, from fundamentalist godbot Jenny Stoker of Christian lobby group Salt Shakers:

"If you go there, where do you stop? What about witchcraft or Satanism? If you accredit humanism, then those things would have an equal claim to be taught in schools."

Wrong, Jenny. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

If you teach Christianity in schools then all those things have an equal claim. They’ve all got precisely as much evidence as each other to support them.

Our government should never promote any one religion over another, and certainly not in our government schools.

So, Jenny, unless equal time is given to all religions (and that includes Wicca and Satanism and Scientology and The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster) then no time should be given to any of them.

A Very Probable Controversy

Brisbane schoolteacher Jim Dooley has taken a group of kids to the races as part of a maths lesson on risk and probability.

What a truly brilliant idea.

Horse-racing odds are a fascinating application of probability theory. And where better to learn about how it works, and how much it's a mug's game, than there in the midst of sweaty panic and soul-crushing dismay that is the pointy end of the gambling world?

He should follow it up with a trip to the casino.

They can talk about the probabilities of the roulette wheel, the fact that in the long run the house will always win, and point out the desperation in the eyes of the pensioner feeding the last of her housekeeping money into a poker machine.

If it's done right the kids will learn a bit of maths, and learn a lot about the risks, personal and financial, of gambling.

But like so many brilliant ideas, it's been roundly criticised by self-appointed moral crusaders.

In easily one of the most inane comments I've ever heard on this topic, Australian Family Association state secretary Michael Ord said "one may question why you would need to involve gambling to teach maths".

Has this guy ever studied maths? If he has, he clearly wasn't paying attention.

Probability theory is all about flipping coins, choosing lottery numbers and the chances of getting a Royal Flush.

You can't study probability without studying gambling. Gambling is why probability theory was invented in the first place.

And when you get down to it, it's just about the only practical application it actually has.

Why Intelligent Design is Not Science

Intelligent Design is the theory that life as we know it is too complex to have come about by random chance, and therefore implies the presence of a Designer.

Not surprisingly, it's a theory heavily promoted by groups with a religious agenda, who will then go on to say that the Designer is the God they happen to worship.

Attempts were made a few years ago to introduce Intelligent Design theory into science classes in the USA, to be taught alongside Evolution and Natural Selection as an explanation for the origins of life.

In late 2005 the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial found, quite rightly, that Intelligent Design is not a scientific theory, and therefore should not be taught in science classes.

But why, you may ask, is it not a scientific theory? It's a statement about our origins. Surely it's just as valid to say that it was God as to say that it was Evolution?

No, it isn't. And here's the difference:

A fundamental principal of the scientific investigation of nature is that nature is assumed to be a closed system.

That is, the only influences on the system that are to be considered are those that come from within the system itself.

Any supernatural influences, such as Intelligent Design's hypothesised Designer, are outside the system and hence outside the realms of science.

Supernatural = Not Science. QED.

There are two important points about this:

1. This is not the same as saying that there is no Designer. It merely means that the hypothesis that there is a Designer is not a scientific one. Christians are welcome to postulate a Designer all they like on their own time and in their own churches.

2. This definition of scientific investigation was not made up by atheistic scientists in an attempt to prove the non-existence of God.

This basis for scientific research actually dates back to the late 17th century and the very earliest days of the Enlightenment. It was put in place by people like Sir Isaac Newton, a man known as much for his piety as his science.

Separating the investigation of the natural from the supernatural was seen simply as the most efficient way to advance knowledge.

And history has clearly shown this to be the right approach. From that very point we have seen an explosion in our understanding of the world.

Passing Intelligent Design off as science is just a throwback to pre-Enlightenment thinking.

It's a throwback to a time when religious leaders controlled the state, when the masses of the world lived in fear and poverty and repression, and knowledge was restricted to that which would not offend the reigning dogma.

I don't think we want to go back there.

ID Goes South

Here was me thinking that all this Creation v. Evolution nonsense was restricted to the religious wingnuts in the US.

But no . . . Christian group "Focus on the Family" has been active in New Zealand, sending CDs and books promoting Intelligent Design theory to schools.

Bring it on, I say. The NZ chapter obviously missed the memo saying that this turned into an embarrassing failure for their compadres in the US a few years ago.

It'll be interesting to see if our local Christian lobby group "Family First" decide to get in on the act. Part of me hopes they do. It's hella fun watching people like that get debated into the ground.

Ah, it's nice having tangible facts and evidence on your side.

Manufacturing Controversy

Recently the Religion vs. Science debate has popped up again in the US.

After being roundly defeated in the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial in 2005, Creationists have regrouped and are again trying to make it okay to teach Intelligent Design in science classes.

The passing of Louisiana senate bill SB 733 is going to make this possible, although not to teach ID directly. That's now clearly and legally understood to be unconstitutional.

The idea now is to "teach the controversy". That is, to promote ID as an alternative to evolutionary theory based on (acknowledged) weaknesses in evolutionary theory. This "controversy" has been manufactured by the proponents of ID.

The implication is that those evil scientists are trying to banish religion from our lives and claim, by teaching evolution, that there's no God.

But that's the thing. Science has precisely nothing to say about the existence of God, for or against.

To quote myself from a comment in an earlier post:

The point is that science is only concerned with examining and interpreting what can be observed and measured.

In that sense, the existence or non-existence of God is simply not a scientific question. It can't be, because there's no objective evidence to examine or measure or test.

From the scientific side there is no controversy, because Intelligent Design is not science. It's religious instruction posing as science. If the proponents of ID were a little more honest, they'd be upfront about that.

But the rejection of ID in science classes is not a rejection of religion, because science has nothing to say about religion.

The rejection of ID in science classes is just a rejection of bad science teaching.

When Creationists Attack

In an awesome blow to science education in the US, the Louisiana House of Representatives has approved senate bill SB 733.

Have a read. Looks innocuous enough? There's lots of talk about critical thinking and objective discussion and all that good stuff.

Don't believe a word of it.

This is nothing more than a cynical and underhanded stealth attack on science education.

The sole purpose of this document is to allow Creationism to be taught as scientific theory in public schools.

Of course there's no mention of Creationism, or even its modern equivalent Intelligent Design.

But note that the bill makes specific mention of

" . . . evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning."

That seems like a rather specific list.

And then, the kicker is in this paragraph:

"A teacher shall teach the material presented in the standard textbook supplied by the school system and thereafter may use supplemental textbooks and other instructional materials to help students understand, analyze, critique, and review scientific theories in an objective manner, as permitted by the city, parish, or other local public school board"

What?

So if the school board is stacked with creationists, as is often the case in the US, then The Book of Genesis will be taught right alongside the standard science textbook.

And guess which one will be given more weight.

This is a science class. Surely we should be teaching science. And therefore listening to scientists. Only.

This stuff isn't a matter of opinion. It isn't a matter of theology.

It's open to debate, of course. But debate on rational, logical and scientific grounds. Not some manufactured debate of Religion vs Science designed solely to make the local ministers look like heroes to their parish.

I'm deeply disturbed by this.