Go here and you’ll be able to download a “Comparison Document” that shows how the new Kansas Science Standards deviate from the old. The change that particularly struck me was the following:
Old characterization of science: “scientific knowledge describes and explains the natural world.”
New characterization of science: “scientific knowledge describes and explains the physical world in terms of matter, energy, and forces.”
Besides defining intelligent design out of existence, this new definition defines what have traditionally been regarded as distinctly human traits, such as free will and consciousness, which science studies, also out of existence.
It’s all to the good that the scientific materialists have introduced this ideologically charged definition of science, perhaps not for the Kansas students who have this mischaracterization of science foisted on them, but for the broader purpose of hashing out just what is the nature of science and whether it should be defined reductionistically and materialistically.
Questions:
- What is matter?
- What is energy?
- What are forces?
- Why should we think these are adequate for scientific inquiry?
Materialistic answers to these questions are insupportable in the wider public square. Indeed, try to justify the “inalienable rights” ascribed in the Declaration of Independence not in terms of a creator but in terms of “material forces.” It doesn’t work.
As one colleague pointed out, like the Fugitive Slave Act, policies and laws like this point up the bad faith of those who implement them. The scientific materialists are overreaching themselves and setting themselves up for a fall.