Usually when we hear about "religion" and "evolution" in the same news story, it involves Christians complaining about the teaching of evolution in schools - but not all Christians object to evolution. Catholic educators are now calling for more teaching of evolution in Catholic schools to counter the anti-evolution bias that kids pick up elsewhere.
Catholic News reports:
"Denying that humans evolved seems by this point a waste of time," [David Byers, executive director of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Science and Human Values from 1984 to 2003] said without mentioning specific controversies in the United States. Byers said, "The official church sees little danger in evolution." He cited a 1996 speech by Pope John Paul II to the Pontifical Academy of Science and a 2004 document, "Communion and Stewardship" by the Vatican's International Theological Commission.
But "our educational leadership has been very slow to correct the anti-evolution biases that Catholics pick up from prominent elements in contemporary culture," he said. ... Byers, currently executive director of the bishops' Committee on the Home Missions, called evolution "one of the hottest battlegrounds between science and religion."
Evolutionary theory by itself "does not necessarily support any philosophical or theological generalizations," he said. "Arguments that evolution disproves God's existence or humanity's spiritual dimension are simply wrongheaded."
It's a sad statement on the direction America is going if we have to start looking to the Catholic eduction system for examples of how to properly teach about science. It's not that Catholic schools can't or don't teach science well, but they shouldn't set the standard for how it is done. It's simply a sign of how much bad influence evangelicals are having that Catholic schools could end up coming out on top of even secular public schools.
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Mr. Kline,
Your article betrays a certain bias and-I’m sorry to say-niavete about education in America. Catholic schools have always been better than both public and private schools, and for very obvious reasons:
1) Catholics assume that a) There is Truth, b) Truth is knowabale by hard and systematic searching, c) The methods of reason (dicursive, analytical and contemplative) are robust and reliable within their fields and d) Truth is kata holis, catholic, that is it is all of one piece. The Catholic looks for the universal (generalized) as it is contained under the particular (specialized), whereas Protestants distrust reason (Martin Luther called reason “The Devil’s Whore”) and their materialist foes distrust any kind of reasoning accept for the most simplistic kinds of analytical and empirical reasoning, those involved in the physical sciences. Making things worse, since the mainstream school system is run on John Dewey’s positivistic skepticism, it cannot assume any great relationship between the the humanities (Philosophy, Literature, History, Languages, The Arts, Political Science etc) and the physical sciences. It is retarded with respect to TRUTH and can only concern itself with “facts” and “subjects”. The modern twelve-year-old knows what “photosynthesis” means, but is incapable of following an argument.
Catholic schools have always been better at teaching students to learn, as have traditional private schools. Homschoolers also outscore the products of public school and are also more well rounded.
On a personal note, I came from a military family and have attended 2 Public Schools (4th and 9th grade), 2 Private Schools (2nd-3rd grade and 10th-12th)grade and was homeschooled in 1st, 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th grade. There is ABSOLUTELY no comparison between public school and home school let alone between public and private catholic school. Virtually every individual I encountered in Public School (accept for the naturally bright ones) was an order of magnitude below the scholarly ability of even an average Catholic School student. When I transfered to public school in the 4th grade, I can still remember the horror at the lack of discipline, lack of thoughfulness and general barbaric quality of the public four grader. In Highschool, I was way ahead of my public schooled contemporaries. Nor am I an especially bright student. In my Catholic Highschool I was probably somewhere in the middle.
As for Evangelical policies having an effect on Catholic schools, this is unfortunate but at least mine did not seem to be fazed by what the Protestants thought. I don’t remember ever hearing a word condemning evolution and my 9th grade brother who attends the same school is a font of biological knowledge. Of course, biological knowledge is not terribly important compared to historical knowledge, philosophical sophistication and a strong love of Truth for its own sake.
Your beloved public schools have been gutted from the inside-out by the inevitable effects of applied skeptism. See G.K. Chesterton and Christopher Dawson on this point. Well, got to run. See you on the other side of history.
P.S. Please don’t say that Catholic schools produce better students because “Private schools have more money”. Public school teachers make more on average than private school teachers and it is quality of teachers and teaching philosophy, not money for school programs or textbooks, that determines the quality of teaching programs. Education cannot be reduced to textbooks and field trips, and the fact that public school teachers rely on such things so completely is itself an example of what has gone wrong in American education.
Then you should be able to demonstrate that with verifiable, reliable numbers.
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