In a message dated 3/26/05 8:42:13 AM, chaisson@netacc.net writes:
"Some professors say, 'Evolution is a fact. I don't want to hear about
Intelligent Design (a creationist theory), and if you don't like it, there's
the door,'" Baxley said, citing one example when he thought a student should
sue.
With the experience of having heard over two thousand students gripe about one thing or another, it may well be that the professor's actual quote was, "Evolution is a scientific theory. I don't want to use class time to discuss Intelligent Design, which is not a scientific theory. If you don't like that, you may have chosen the wrong class."
Teachers and professors who chose not to treat Intelligent Design on an equal footing with the modern synthesis of evolutionary theory are not being "narrow-minded and intolerant." They offer a course, which has a curriculum and a too limited time to address concepts, facts, and examples. The instructors have no more obligation to encompass Intelligent Design within their curriculum than they do to incorporate Greek, Chinese, and Norwegian creation myths.
The fact that Intelligent Design is a hotly debated issue is an excellent reason to offer a course in the Philosophy Department on "The Roots of Modern Discourse concerning Evolution," but it is an exceptionally lousy reason to do anything more than to acknowledge the existence of ID and move on with a biologically and paleontologically grounded course on evolution.
And finally, it is never acceptable for a teacher or professor to berate a student, whatever the course or whatever the student's beliefs. At the high school level, the teacher has to be additionally careful to not directly challenge the child's belief system, but simply to offer alternative perspectives. In college, however, it is the professor's responsibilty to question a student's beliefs (in a respecful way). If the professor retreats from that responsibility (as Florida legislators seem to want for their university faculty), the professor is not doing his/her job. It is part of a college education that the student learn how to defend his/her own beliefs, modify them, discard them, or enter some agnostic state until he/she feels ready to resolve an issue. If the college student is not prepared to face professors with strongly held views, he/she is not ready for college.
Some of my most memorable college course were in Economics and Political Science courses. The views of some professors were reprehensible; other views, exhilirating. Confrontations provoked by professors were sometimes difficult, daunting, but always illuminating – which should be the whole point of a college education.
Tom DeVries