#creationism vs. evolution

A moderate refers to someone who holds political stances that happen to be near the average of the prevailing clusters of opinions on each side of the issue (within the contextual time and region). My impression is that "centrist" has a different connotation, and a worse one in the way that many -ist terms tend to have negative connotations at least among intellectuals who promote freethought: for instance, Darwinist and evolutionist are mainly used by those who oppose the theory of evolution because the -ist suffix suggests ideological adherence rather than something more scientific-minded (I've always tried to avoid calling myself an evolutionist for this reason).

Similarly, calling someone a centrist seems to suggest that they're adhering to a meta-ideological agenda, one which some people no doubt do pursue: that of choosing, as a rule, stances which reflect the average of the opposing sides. (I've certainly seen people accused of being "radical centrists" if they're perceived to take this philosophy too rigidly.) There are possible defenses for this: one could take something akin to majoritarianism as a guiding light, for instance, where they figure that humans as an overall population tend to be correct about things on average -- sure, we differ widely on certain issues, but the number of people too far on one side is always going to be balanced out by the number of people too far on the opposite side. I personally find this an extremely doubtful assumption. I also tend to think that some people use it as a cover for laziness: there's no need to research issues on your own in an open-minded manner if you can just take the average of the opinions you see around you as the formula for the correct stance.

But, one aspect of this whole political discourse that seems to pop up with surprising frequency is the question of how much right parents have to control what's going on in their children's schools (e.g. Terry McAuliffe may have lost the Viriginia gubernatorial race in part because of his contention that parents don't have the right to decide what's taught in schools), and I have been meaning for a while to comment on that. Because, however critical I am (see what I did there?) of so-called "critical race theory in schools (whatever that means)", I actually pretty strongly agree, by and large, with "parents shouldn't have the right to decide what's taught in schools".

Yes, public schools are funded (very locally) by the taxpayers who are often the parents of children going to those schools. So I see where a rather obvious argument in favor of more parental control over educational content comes from. But I have a much more strongly held view that one of the main roles of school as set up for modern society is to provide an alternative form of upbringing to whatever children are getting at home. To put it another way, as a society we can't take as a given that children are growing up in good homes -- lots of parents are abusive, negligent, or simply closed-minded about what they're willing for their children to be exposed to. School (at least public school) is there in large part to put a check on whatever shortcomings there may be in a child's home life (I would consider that this should be the primary purpose of elementary school in fact). Some of this is about ensuring basic safety for children during the working hours of their parents, and some of this is about children being under the concerned care of adults who are not their parents who might be able to notice and intervene if something is going very wrong at home, but some of it is also about correcting for what may be lacking in educational content from the parents. Where educational content is concerned, I don't trust state governments (much less the federal government) to necessarily know what's right or to be acting in good faith in deciding, but at least government probably exerts a moderating influence on what would be up to each individual set of (possibly very ignorant or closed-minded) parents.

I came to this realization the other day when I was asking myself why I focus so much of my writing on where to put praise and blame and so on. I answered that it has to be this way, because the whole practical purpose of philosophizing is to be able to determine what one should do. But wait a minute, that’s not true, there’s plenty of intellectual debates out there over what non-normative facts about the universe are true, some of which I was far more engaged in 10 years ago (e.g. creationism vs. theory of evolution). My interests, and possibly to some extent the interests of the culture around me, have shifted towards a focus on making ethical (rather than purely empirical) judgments.

Evolution and Christians of The Alphabetical Order.

    Yet another Sunday had come to its close. A certain combination of migraine medication side effect, rice pudding, the Vernal Equinox, and the impending national election had proved a potent insomnia cocktail; I lay in bed, fighting a rare inability to fall asleep.

Sundays in my life had gone through a tangible evolution. What had been a consistent pattern of weekly church worship, from…

Bill Nye and Ken Ham - Creationism vs. Evolution

Bill Nye "the science guy" and Ken Ham, founder of the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky., debate an ages-old fight between science and religion.