In his fine recent article, Vince Torley notes that
The United Kingdom has now banned the teaching of “any doctrine or theory which holds that natural biological processes cannot account for the history, diversity, and complexity of life on earth and therefore rejects the scientific theory of evolution” at all schools receiving public funding, including academies and free schools (see also here). In science classes, alternative beliefs about origins may not be presented to pupils “as a scientific theory”; however, discussion of these beliefs is permitted in religious education classes, “as long as it is not presented as a valid alternative to established scientific theory.” The new guidelines (which readers may access here) “explicitly require that pupils are taught about the theory of evolution,” without specifying which theory of evolution students should be taught (Darwin’s? Wallace’s? Lynn Margulis’s? James Shapiro’s? Masatoshi Nei’s?) However, since one of the grounds for rejecting alternative beliefs about origins is that they do not “accord with the scientific consensus,” one surmises that the authors of the new guidelines have in mind Darwin’s theory of evolution, supplemented by the neutral theory.
In my view, the best way to understand the big picture is to see that the naturalists are engaged in an ultimately losing battle against the fact that the universe, as great physicists have said, is fundamentally information, not matter.
As they read, the new British school guidelines are meaningless except that they can be used to enforce against new ideas or information.
any doctrine or theory which holds that natural biological processes cannot account for the history, diversity, and complexity of life on earth and therefore rejects the scientific theory of evolution
“natural biological processes” is a tautology; biological processes are natural by definition unless the world “natural” has a coded meaning.
Indeed it does. It means “processes consistent with a naturalist/materialist consensus in biology,” whatever the evidence may suggest. The fact that cosmology has become a fever swamp, origin of life is going nowhere, and human evolution stories are mostly vulgar fairy tales is of no consequence and is not even to be discussed. Handy that.
In science classes, alternative beliefs about origins may not be presented to pupils “as a scientific theory”; however, discussion of these beliefs is permitted in religious education classes, “as long as it is not presented as a valid alternative to established scientific theory.”
In short, “established scientific theory” is the bumf we are expected to swallow in science class. And we can discuss the real way the world works somewhere else, as long as no one directly confronts the bumf in Bumfville (science class).
Okay. That works. Inconvenient, but it works.
Naturalism, which now tries to subsume the world of ideas under its sway (see perceptronium man), only ever had one really strong idea: Ban ideas.
This is just another iteration. Others (Soviet purges and slaughters, for example) have been bloody, so be thankful it’s not worse.
No surprise, given that naturalism is the dominant view on campuses today that campuses are now the least free communities in North America.
The problem is, one can’t get rid of ideas just by banning them, so expect more and stronger displays of intolerance in years to come as the evidence against naturalism grows.
– O’Leary for News