Ohio's State School Board Eliminates Critical Thinking from Science Curriculum

... at least where neo-Darwinist evolutionary dogma is concerned:

COLUMBUS - The Ohio school board voted Tuesday to eliminate a passage in the state's science standards that critics said opened the door to the teaching of intelligent design.

The Ohio Board of Education decided 11-4 to delete material encouraging students to seek evidence for and against evolution.

The 2002 science standards say students should be able to "describe how scientists continue to investigate and critically analyze aspects of evolutionary theory." It includes a disclaimer that the standards do not require the teaching of intelligent design.

The vote is the latest setback for the intelligent design movement, which holds that life is so complex, it must have been created by a higher authority.

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Board member Deborah Owens Fink, who voted against eliminating the lesson plan, said it is unfair to deny students the chance to use logic to question a scientific theory. She said scientists who oppose the material are worried that their views won't be supported.

"We respect diversity of opinion in every other arena," [ED.: Unfortunately, no we don't.] said Owens Fink, an elected board member from Akron.

(emphasis added)

Father Neuhaus weighs in at On the Square:

Defenders of evolution as the religion that makes it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist sense that they are on a roll after the Dover, Pennsylvania, decision. The new battle ground is Ohio where several years ago the state board of education said that, in the teaching of neo-Darwinism, the theory should be subjected to “critical analysis.” The scientific establishment and unremitting defenders of free speech and critical thought are outraged that their belief system should be analyzed critically.

As Pope Benedict and many others have pointed out, one of the great achievements of western thought, the clear distinction between the physical and metaphysical, is now under attack. Evolutionary dogmatists insist that all explanations of reality must be subsumed under the physical. As a biologist friend puts it, most of his colleagues don’t even know how to spell metaphysical.

(emphasis added)

My Comments:
This Ohio School Board decision is just another reason why my kids are going to Catholic schools. As closed-minded and dogmatic as Catholics are often accused of being, I cannot imagine Catholics excluding critical thinking from the educational process.

Look, as a rule, I don't post on the evolution vs. creation vs. intelligent design debate, nor do I comment on other blogs' posts regarding that subject. Quite honestly, the subject matter doesn't interest me, and debates on the issue tend to generate more heat than light with no one convincing anyone on the other side of the merits of their argument.

To be honest, I don't care whether God created everything in 6 literal 24-hour periods, in 6 figurative days that cover epochs of time, by snapping his fingers and saying "Let it be", by utilizing evolution - random or otherwise, etc. I just don't care.

What I DO care about is what the Church teaches DEFINITIVELY about the subject:

"By natural reason man can know God with certainty, on the basis of his works."
~CCC, 50 (emphasis added)

"God, who creates and conserves all things by his Word, provides men with constant evidence of himself in created realities."
~CCC, 54 (emphasis added)

It is as plain as the nose on my face that the Church teaches that Man "can know God with certainty" on the basis of his Creation. I don't care HOW he did it, but I can certainly see the created design of the world around me, and the Church tells me its not because I'm hallucinating.

So, my problem here isn't that the Ohio School Board shafted my pet theory in favor of Evolution, or something like that. I don't have a dog in the Intelligent Design vs. Evolution hunt. Rather I take issue with the Ohio School Board's absurd shelving of a science standard that calls for nothing more than students being able to "describe how scientists continue to investigate and critically analyze aspects of evolutionary theory."

Apparently, critical thinking isn't the forte of the Ohio School Board.