Should Absurdity Be Taught As Fact in the Classroom?

A well-written article in the Boston Globe a couple of days ago has gotten a lot of play around the Internet. The author, Jeff Jacoby, works up, slowly and deliberately, winning you over as a friend first, casually setting the context for his case. He wants to argue that, whereas in the 1920s Darwinisn represented liberal enlightenment and was opposed by closed-minded fundamentalists, today the Darwinists have become the close-minded ones, the "thought-controllers," opposing the liberal and open discussion of diverse ideas. It is very clever indeed. In his words:

When John Scopes went on trial in Tennessee in 1925, religious fundamentalists fought to keep evolution out of the classroom because it was at odds with a literal reading of the Biblical creation story. Today, Darwinian fundamentalists fight to keep the evidence of intelligent design in the diversity of life on earth out of the classroom, because that would be at odds with a strictly materialist view of the world. Eighty years ago, the thought controllers wanted no Darwin; today's thought controllers want only Darwin. In both cases, the dominant attitude is authoritarian and closed-minded -- the opposite of the liberal spirit of inquiry on which good science depends. The timeless truth of creation

It really sounds unfair, doesn't it? Those mean old scientists won't let anybody believe anything different from what they believe.

Let's take another theory, one that was just as controversial in its time. Let's say that some scientists insisted on teaching that the world was approximately spherical, and followed an elliptical path around the sun. But another group believed the earth was flat, and that the sun moved through the sky, up in the East and down into the West, to be reborn day after day. Those round-earthers insisted they were correct, and refused to even debate those who differed from them. They fought tenaciously to see that the schools taught their version, and kept the other guys' story out of the classroom.

This writer would call those Copernicans "thought controllers," wouldn't he? Why, they had no tolerance at all for other people's beliefs!

This is an exact analogy to the present time.

We will see the same thing in Montgomery County, when the Ones Who Sue will try to insist, in court, that the schools should teach that sexual orientation is a choice, and that it can be changed. The scientific evidence is accumulating, day by day, and it is showing that there is not a choice. Nobody believes it is a choice, except for those who must believe it for reasons other than the inherent correctness of the idea. The facts say it's not a choice, the logic connecting the facts says it's not a choice, but if your pastor insists that God says it's a choice, well, there you go, you have to believe that.

I sympathize with those who are put in the situation of having to believe things that are obviously just plain wrong, because of their religion. But you know, they will argue it passionately, they will want you to agree it's "unfair," that it's "intolerant" not to teach their absurd beliefs alongside factual ones.

No, it's not, it's neither fair nor tolerant. It's just wrong to teach absurdity as fact in the classroom. Just wrong. Flat earth, intelligent design, "ex-gays."