A New Twist on Getting Intelligent Design Into the School Curriculum: Call it "Philosophy"!

Story here; an excerpt:

At a special meeting of the El Tejon Unified School District on Jan. 1, at which the board approved the new course, "Philosophy of Design," school Supt. John W. Wight said that he had consulted the school district's attorneys and that they "had told him that as long as the course was called 'philosophy,' " it could pass legal muster, according to the lawsuit....

In a Jan. 6 letter to lawyers who challenged the class, Wight wrote that "our legal advisors have pointed out they are unaware of any court or California statute which has forbidden public schools to explore cultural phenomena, including history, religion or creation myths."

He added that he would "promptly intervene if anyone should stray into teaching or advocating the tenets of any religion or creed, including intelligent design."

But the plaintiffs argue that the school district has no intention of setting up an open debate on comparative religion or competing philosophies.

An initial course description, which was distributed to students and their families last month, said "the class will take a close look at evolution as a theory and will discuss the scientific, biological and biblical aspects that suggest why Darwin's philosophy is not rock solid. The class will discuss intelligent design as an alternative response to evolution. Physical and chemical evidence will be presented suggesting the earth is thousands of years old, not billions."

Of course, there are real philosophical issues about naturalism and intelligent design, but they have nothing to do with the proposed course in California, and, indeed, they are far too hard for high school students.  (See, for example, the discussion by Troy Cross [Philosophy, Yale] of the fascinating book World Without Design [OUP] by Michael Rea [Philosophy, Notre Dame].   It would be a marvel if there were high school students prepared to sort through the issues about substance dualism, antirealism about material objects, and the theory of perception that are implicated in genuine philosophical discussion of the issue.)  But this course is obviously just masquerading as philosophy in order to present crackpot theories as though they had scientific support or standing.

Meanwhile, Oklahoma--not to be outdone in the department of pitiful ignorance driven by religious zealotry--enters the fray with this piece of proposed legislation in which the effort to present crackpot theories as though they had scientific support or standing is to be dressed up as an exercise in "academic freedom." 

One of the distressing side-effects of these seemingly endless campaigns to destroy science education in the public schools is the equally endless perversion of language:  calling ignorance "academic freedom"; calling crackpot science "philosophy"; and so on.  All of this is too often abetted by journalists, who are so often reluctant to describe things as they are, not as some shill from the Discovery [sic] Institute would have you think they are.