Truth + Science = Atheist Indoctrination

Some religious apologists who want to attack atheism also try to attack science as part of the same effort. This is unfortunate, but also unsurprising: increased levels of education generally, and science in particular, are highly correlated with decreased levels of both religiosity and theism. Teaching about science generally and biology in particular doesn’t automatically lead to atheism nor do they indoctrinate people into atheism, but teaching about science can — in the long run — make holding on to traditional, conservative religion a lot more difficult.

This connection is probably inevitable because traditional, conservative religion makes so many claims and is locked into so many beliefs which are inconsistent with modern science. Defending them can only occur if science itself — not to mention modern, liberal democracy — are undermined. Some so-called "friends" of secular atheism argue that atheists should avoid connecting themselves to science, but that's the wrong advice because science will be a target anyway.

According to Dinesh D'Souza:

In recent years some parents and school boards have asked that public schools teach alternatives to Darwinian evolution. These efforts sparked a powerful outcry from the scientific and non-believing community. Defenders of evolution accuse parents and school boards of retarding the acquisition of scientific knowledge in the name of religion. The Economist editorialized that "Darwinism has enemies mostly because it is not compatible with a literal interpretation of the book of Genesis."

This is indeed so, but doesn't Darwinism have friends and supporters mostly for the same reason? Consider the alternative: the Darwinists are merely standing up for science. But surveys show that the vast majority of young people in America today are scientifically illiterate, widely ignorant of all aspects of science. How many high school graduates could tell you the meaning of Einstein's famous equation? Lots of young people don't have a clue about photosynthesis or Boyle's Law. So why isn't there a political movement to fight for the teaching of photosynthesis? Why isn't the ACLU filing lawsuits on behalf of Boyle's Law?

Source: AOL News Bloggers

The answers to Dinesh D'Souza's questions are clear. There is no political movement to fight for the teaching of photosynthesis because there are no anti-intellectual, anti-science groups fighting to keep that subject from being taught. If some Christians got together and organized a mass movement to stop students from learning about photosynthesis because it contradicted the passage in Genesis about how plants appeared before division of day and night, then you can be sure that scientists would oppose them.

The ACLU is not filing lawsuits on behalf of Boyle's Law for the same reason: anti-science Christians are not trying to stop it from being taught in science classes as part of a larger social agenda designed to undermine secularism and inject Christian dogma into government, culture, and society generally. If opposition to Boyle's Law were added to the Wedge Strategy, you can be sure that scientists would move to defend it.

All of this is quite obvious, but Dinesh D'Souza is not asking these questions so that he can get serious answers. They are merely rhetorical questions designed to help him set up his own ideological position — one which is not coincidentally aligned with the anti-science, anti-intellectual Christians seeking to stop the teaching of evolution:

The answer is clear. For the defenders of Darwinism, no less than for its critics, religion is the issue. Just as some people oppose the theory of evolution because they believe it to be anti-religious, many others support it for the very same reason. This is why we have Darwinism but not Kepplerism; we encounter Darwinists but no one describes himself as an Einsteinian. Darwinism has become an ideology.

The way he tells it, Dinesh D'Souza makes it look like "Darwinist" is a label which defenders of science and evolution have adopted for themselves like the title of a philosophy. This fits in well with the Christian agenda of painting evolution as an ideology, philosophy, world view, or religion. It's also a lie — "Darwinism" and "Darwinist" are labels used almost exclusively by creationists who are trying rig the game by giving an inaccurate impression of what evolution is.

Dinesh D'Souza is not a stupid person, but this would have to mean that he knows the above is false. He has to know that "we have Darwinism but not Kepplerism" because of creationists who oppose evolutionary theory but not heliocentrism. He has to know that "we encounter Darwinsits but no one describes himself as an Einsteinian" because creationists keep calling defenders of science "Darwinsits" out of their opposition to Darwin, but they haven't yet had a need to invent such a label using Einstein.

What is happening, then, is that creationists use the "Darwinist" label to make it appear as though evolutionary theory is an unscientific ideology and now Dinesh D'Souza is treating the mere existence of this label as proof that evolutionary theory is, in fact, an unscientific ideology! It's not merely that Dinesh D'Souza has to know this is false, but he also has to believe that his readers are both stupid and ignorant.

The well-organized movement to promote Darwinism and exclude alternatives is part of a larger educational project in today's public schools.

Dinesh D'Souza finally says something that is true and relevant — though he doesn't understand why it's true. D'Souza tries to portray this as an atheist conspiracy to undermine religion and while it's flattering to think that teaching truth and science also means promoting atheism, the connection between the two isn't quite so direct and immediate as the above would suggest.

Instead, the "larger educational project" is simply to teach good science and make Americans more scientifically literate. It is also true that American students don't learn enough science, but that won't be fixed by taking evolution out of biology classes — on the contrary, that would only add to the many problems, some of which are a consequence of religious conservatives' efforts to undermine basic science education.

Opposition to evolution doesn't just harm biology, but also geology, physics, chemistry, and every other aspect of modern science. The impact may not be immediately obvious, but when science text writers have to worry about offending the religious sensibilities of conservative evangelical Christians, then science education necessarily suffers. Dinesh D'Souza pretends to be worried about the state of teaching science, but if he were then he wouldn't wring his hands over the absence of non-existent alternatives to evolution. All he's worried about is the fact that secular public schools aren't promoting Christianity in the guise of teaching creationism.