Evolution and Religion: A Science Friday smackdown

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November 11, 2005

For today’s Science Friday, I want to jump right into the center of the culture wars. From Tuesday’s elections, two results in particular will affect the way that science is taught in parts of our country. First, the Kansas Board of education voted 6-4 to weaken evolution teaching in its classrooms. Second, voters in Dover, PA swept eight pro-Creationist school board members out of office and replaced them with eight anti-creationists.

The Kansas Board of Education has approved science standards that support the theory of intelligent design and cast doubt on Darwin’s theory of evolution. The final vote was 6-4 in favor of intelligent design. [Link]

Voters in rural Dover, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday ousted eight school board members who favor mentioning the concept as an alternative to evolution. The newly elected board members are opponents of the concept, which critics say promotes the Bible’s view of creation and violates the constitutional separation of church and state. [Link]

The latter action prompted this from good ‘ole Pat Robertson:

Conservative Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson told citizens of a Pennsylvania town that they had rejected God by voting their school board out of office for supporting “intelligent design” and warned them Thursday not to be surprised if disaster struck…

“I’d like to say to the good citizens of Dover: if there is a disaster in your area, don’t turn to God, you just rejected Him from your city,” Robertson said on his daily television show broadcast from Virginia, “The 700 Club” [Link]

This week’s Time magazine features a very clear and concise appeal from commentator Eric Cornell, calling all scientists to action:

…as exciting as intelligent design is in theology, it is a boring idea in science. Science isn’t about knowing the mind of God; it’s about understanding nature and the reasons for things. The thrill is that our ignorance exceeds our knowledge; the exciting part is what we don’t understand yet. If you want to recruit the future generation of scientists, you don’t draw a box around all our scientific understanding to date and say, “Everything outside this box we can explain only by invoking God’s will.” Back in 1855, no one told the future Lord Rayleigh that the scientific reason for the sky’s blueness is that God wants it that way. Or if someone did tell him that, we can all be happy that the youth was plucky enough to ignore them. For science, intelligent design is a dead-end idea.

My call to action for scientists is, Work to ensure that the intelligent-design hypothesis is taught where it can contribute to the vitality of a field (as it could perhaps in theology class) and not taught in science class, where it would suck the excitement out of one of humankind’s great ongoing adventures.

I wondered to myself what “religious authorities” think about all of this. This morning NPR featured a story titled, “The Links Between the Dalai Lama and Neuroscience.” Here is a quote, by the Dalai Lama, that I found particularly encouraging:

“My confidence in venturing into science lies in my basic belief that as in science, so in Buddhism, understanding the nature of reality is pursued by means of critical investigation.”

So far, scientific studies appear to support Buddhist claims that the mind can be trained to ward off things like negative thoughts. But in his book, the Dalai Lama says Buddhists should embrace scientific evidence even if it contradicts their beliefs.
“If scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false,” he says, “then we must accept the findings of science and abandon those claims.”

Wow. Could you even imagine the Christian Vatican being so bold? Ummm. Actually, even to my surprise, they have been. Just this week in fact:

In a surprising move, the Vatican has come out in defence of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, saying it is perfectly compatible with the Bible’s description of how God created the universe…

Now, criticising Christian fundamentalists who reject Darwin in favour of a literal interpretation of the Bible’s account, the head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, Cardinal Paul Poupard, has said that both theories are ‘perfectly compatible’ if the Bible is read correctly. The statement has been viewed as an attack on creationist campaigners in America, who see both theories as mutually exclusive.

Not so fast there Poupard. The big man…well…the big man’s representative on Earth at least, wants you to soften up just a bit:

After a cardinal criticized the fundamentalist approach of creationists, the pope weighed in, saying the created world must be understood as an “intelligent project.” To some, his phrase echoed “intelligent design,” but to others it suggested something quite different…

“The pope was not alluding in any way to intelligent design as it is understood in the United States,” said U.S. Jesuit Father George Coyne, director of the Vatican Observatory and a keen follower of the evolution debates.

“The pope was talking about God’s love for his creation. God is in love with his creation, he nurses it along, he accompanies it. But that doesn’t make God a ‘designer.’ That belittles God, it makes him paltry,” Father Coyne said. [Link]

All of this religious talk left me wondering what Hinduism’s stance on Evolution is. Beliefnet offers this:

Q: Darwin’s theory seems to make a lot of sense to most people. What are the Gaudiya Vaisnava objections to Darwin’s theories regarding the evolution of the human species?

A: Our main objection to Darwinian evolution is that it sees consciousness as a product of matter. We cannot agree with this proposal, nor does it make much sense in terms of verifiable evidence. Where do we see consciousness arising from inert matter and what scientific experiment can prove that this occurs? Our theory is that matter evolves from consciousness—the supreme consciousness. Otherwise, we acknowledge the evidence for some kind of evolution.

Hindunet offers this:

In the Ramayana, one incident lays out the general principle in answer to the question - what is the interaction between God and natural law ? When Sri Rama attempts to cross the ocean, the waters do NOT give way; whereupon he gets angry and gets ready to burn away the oceans with the astras. Then Samudra Rajan, the ruler of the oceans, comes out and tells Sri Rama, ” why are you irate at
us for following our law, our dharma ? It would be unnatural for the oceans to part; you set up the original principles of the universe, didn’t you ? How then can you be upset at us for sticking to it ? ” Of course, in the Ramayana, Sri Rama was a mere human, and therefore not expected to remember this.
Anyway, the idea is that once having set the Law in motion, God no longer interferes with the laws of physics and other scientific principles. Thus Darwin’s theory should be perfectly acceptable to the Hindus.

The most interesting discussion I found was a one titled, “On Darwin, Evolution , and the Perfect Man” by Swami Vivekananda. I don’t agree with all of what he says but I did find it to be a pleasant read:

Disciple: Sir, I have not been able to follow all your remarks about the evolution theory at the Zoo. Will you kindly recapitulate them in simple words?

Swamiji: Why, which points did you fail to grasp?
Disciple: You have often told us that it is the power to struggle with the external forces which constitutes the sign of life and the first step towards improvement. Today you seem to have spoken just the opposite thing.
Swamiji: Why should I speak differently? It was you who could not follow me. In the animal kingdom we really see such laws as struggle for existence, survival of the fittest, etc., evidently at work. Therefore, Darwin’s theory seems true to a certain extent. But in the human kingdom, where there is the manifestation of rationality, we find just the reverse of those laws. For instance, in those whom we consider really great men or ideal characters, we scarcely observe any external struggle. In the animal kingdom instinct prevails; but the more a man advances, the more he manifests rationality. For this reason, progress in the rational human kingdom cannot be achieved, like that in the animal kingdom, by the destruction of others! The highest evolution of man is effected through sacrifice alone. A man is great among his fellows in proportion as he can sacrifice for the sake of others, while in the lower strata of the animal kingdom, that animal is the strongest which can kill the greatest number of animals. Hence the struggle theory is not equally applicable to both kingdoms. Man’s struggle is in the mental sphere. A man is greater in proportion as he can control his mind. When the mind’s activities are perfectly at rest, the Atman manifests Itself. The struggle which we observe in the animal kingdom for the preservation of the gross body has its use in the human plane of existence for gaining mastery over the mind or for attaining the state of balance. Like a living tree and its reflection in the water of a tank, we find opposite kinds of struggle in the animal and human kingdoms.

In any case, I just thought that it was necessary to point out that this isn’t an argument between science and religion. All the religious authorities above basically agree that Darwin was on the right track. It is manipulation by the The American Taliban that brings us to where we are now with respect to the culture wars.

Science

POSTED BY abhi @ 6:11 PM

31 comments

1 · DesiDude on November 11, 2005 7:18 PM · Direct link

Vivekananda was a confused personality. Meera Nanda clearly refuted all his postmodernist claims and rightly categorized him as a fundamentalist:

In reality, everything we know about the workings of nature through the methods of modern science radically disconfirms the presence of any morally significant gunas, or shakti, or any other form of consciousness in nature, as taught by the Vedic cosmology which treats nature as a manifestation of divine consciousness. Far from there being no conflict between science and Hinduism, a scientific understanding of nature completely and radically negates the eternal laws of Hindu dharma which teach an identity between spirit and matter.

2 · Umair Muhajir on November 11, 2005 7:44 PM · Direct link

Meera Nanda may have refuted Vivekananda's post-modernist claims, but note that Nanda has been no less hostile to "post-modernism", and has long critiqued what she calls "post-modernist" theories for contributing to the rise of Hindutva and other violent tendencies in India (e.g. in her piece Postmodernism, Hindu Nationalism and 'Vedic Science'). I share her concern over the trend, but I cannot agree with her when she essentially dismisses any world view that does not accept the proposition of value neutral science, rationality, and the good ol' Enlightenment virtues, as givens.

I enclose below excerpts from an email I'd written on her critique of post-modernism (related to her critique of Vivekananda, as she dismisses both as "anti-rational" endeavors) that might be relevant to this discussion:

"...My own disagreement with Nanda's views (as expressed in the piece here, and a similar one published in "Frontline" a while ago, if indeed that wasn't the same piece) is somewhat different, and the purpose of this post is to explain those. ... I dislike the labels of "left" and "right," but am not naive, and am aware that most people who read posts that I have written ... assume (sometimes all too easily I might add) that I am a "leftie." So be it: and consider me ... one of those on the left opposed to Nanda.

Nanda's central concern appears to be that if (what I shall call for ease of reference, though not, it must be said, in the interests of coherence) post-modern theories gain acceptance, then "we" (the good? the liberal? the secular?) won't be able to counter Hindutva or to resist its advance. The first thing one notices about this sort of move is that, although couched as a philosophical objection it is really nothing of the sort (certainly not a principled philosophical objection), and is in fact a tactical concern. And a tactical concern that rests upon a question philosophical assumption.

In short, Nanda appears to implicitly believe that the post-modern (again, I caution that I use the term because it is convenient; the term has over time been applied to just about every sort of thinker, in both a descriptive and a normative way; I use it here to loosely group together the critiques of Western metaphysics over the last half-century or so) ONLY effectively undermines the hegemony of liberalism, thereby clearing the way for a pandora's box of horrors. This reflects a poor understanding of what she is critiquing: the post-modern is preoccupied not so much with liberalism per se as with HEGEMONY (which hegemony happens to be that of liberalism in the sort of discourse Nanda is defending), more specifically, the post-modern is pre-occupied with the hegemonic project that liberalism has become, and it is the institution of liberalism as a horizon that post-modern thought questions (which institution, certainly in the colonial context, is sought to be made invisible: colonialism always differs from conquest in that it seeks to efface its own violence). Thus, Hindutva or pan-Islamism are not immune from its critique-- no hegemonic political project would be. The operative word in the last clause is "project," i.e. harnessing/pressing into the service of a political agenda, as opposed to merely letting BE. If any adopt the post-modern as a fad of the moment, delighted by its ability to subvert liberal complacency, they will in time find that they have made a bad bargain. ...

Nanda's response brings to mind the hostile reception that Ashis Nandy has gotten from Indian liberals. In both instances, opponents were characterized as legitimating Hindutva, or as compromising the struggle against Hindutva, yet what what was revealed in the attacks was not so much opposition to Hindutva as the fact that the quintessential liberal privileges-- of rationality (i.e. the uncritical acceptance of one's own rationality), of judgment-- had been called into question. Nandy and the post-modernists are guilty not of legitimating Hindutva (or of Communism, pan-Islamism, or any other political project) but of calling into question the privilege that liberalism arrogates to itself, the privilege of conflating one's own political agenda with "the good" (in India, "the secular" functions in the same way as "the good," though often it is neither). For the Meera Nandas of the world, this is an unforgivable sin--Hindutva is merely the nearest stick at hand.

A critique of liberalism is merely that, and it is hardly inevitable that it should legitimate or further the cause of anything else. In any event, if Ms. Nanda's concern is offering resistance to an oppressive ideology in general, the move whereby one "rallies the troops" and strives to present a united front (against the barbarians at the gate?) is hardly likely to offer much resistance at all, because this resistance will merely amount to a pale-- and symmetrical-- imitation of the other that is sought to be resisted. Ms. Nanda would do well to learn the lessons of the "two nation theory": although ostensibly premised upon an eternal and immutable Hindu-Muslim conflict (a notion that appears to have many adherents among both Muslims and Hindus these days in the sub-continent), the only thing eternal about the theory is its quest for AN enemy, a hostile other; once Hindus were removed from the picture, the Bengali Muslim would also do; once the latter was removed from the picture, the Qadiani or Ahmedi, or even the Shiite, would also do. To put it another way, I am reminded of Mahmood Mamdani's words (in his excellent book on Rwanda, "When Victims Become Killers"), to the effect that mice can worry to such an extent about cats that they tend to forget that there are other things in the world that can devour them too; so too with Nanda and her ilk: so worried is she about Hindutva that she forgets that there can be other tyrannies in the world too. And the examples of colonialism and Communism show that tyrannies with "liberal" and/or "humanistic" roots often have more blood on their hands than their imagined others."

3 · Chandini Chowk Chacha on November 11, 2005 7:48 PM · Direct link

There is an NPR show called Science Friday that I listen to regularly. It is a popular podcast too. I don't know if "Science Friday" is their trademark, but in any case please avoid the confusion by choosing a different name. In my blog reader and elsewhere when I see "Science Friday", I think NPR not Sepia Mutiny. I guess, so do others. How about using "Vigyan Friday"? ;-)

Also, the Vatican's position in this regard is not new and has been that way since the previous Pope or some other Vatican official mentioned it some years back if I recall correctly. I learnt of it on the previously mentioned NPR show.

Thanks.

4 · razib_the_atheist on November 11, 2005 8:57 PM · Direct link

please note that hypotheses of the fact of evolution have been floated for thousands of years. darwin's contribution was a cogent model driving the process, natural selection.* there are many nuances and permutations out there of people "resolving" their religious views and modern evolutionary theory. part of the reason that transparently naturalistic evolutionists and creationists are counterposed as the "alternative" views is that our positions (i am in the former camp) are relatively parsimonious and unsubtle. in contrast, a traditional roman catholic understanding of evolution & teleology is really difficult for a lot of people to grasp without a thomistic grounding (me as too).

myself, my operationally attitude is i don't care what people think about evolution so long as they characterize the social model correctly and don't threaten research. one problem is that a lot of creationists parrot the line that there is a "controversy" among "scientists" about evolutionary theory. first, asking a physicist about evolution is as relevant as asking a biologist about hot vs. cold inflationary big bang models. second, there is of course no "controversy," that's a blatant falsehood. the probability that creationists can block research is low, but the ramifications are important. consider that i know of an anatomist who tells me it is difficult to convince some fundamentalist first year medical sutdents (he teaches at a medical school) that men and women have the same number of ribs. they keep thinking they are miscounting. that sort of attitude could cause problems down the line in terms of day-to-day scientific objectivity.

* natural selection was understood by breeders & gardeners before darwin of course. he was rather more systematic in his presentation though.

5 · Eddie on November 11, 2005 9:20 PM · Direct link

Meera Nanda is Hinduphobic in the extreme. She has made a very minor career claiming that Hindutva has appropriated what she calls "post-modernism" to relativize and subsume science within a neo-Vedantic framework.

Indian leftists, by legitimating post-modernism for other reasons (like celebrating the subaltern and his knowledge systems) have helped in this venture.

Her "evidence" for this is very paltry. It includes the statements of some Hindutva leaders, and her horror at the apparent co-mingling of religion and science in public events, ie., when Indian scientists pray at Tirupati before a rocket test, for example.

She ignores the accomplishments of the Indian space program, the growth of cell-stem research and the Indian biotech industry, and the secular accomplishments of other Indian scientists, which prove that there is no resistance to secular scientific research in India. (Unlike in America).

She ignores that there has been no public evolution controversy in India. it has simply intertwined with the existing cultural and religious mythology. There was no semitic creationism to be gotten rid of!

She is viscerally phobic to Neo-Vedanta, and does not even mention that some Western physicists--like Schroedinger-- took an interest in the Upanishads. In a book devoted to crushing Hinduism, one would think she'd at least be balanced.

She is funded by the Templeton Foundation, which is clearly biased towards Christianity.

6 · Suvendra Nath Dutta on November 11, 2005 9:38 PM · Direct link

Razib,

May I prove your point? There is no "hot vs. cold inflationary big bang models" controversy in cosmology. It is almost universally accepted that we are in an inflationary Universe that is now dominated by "dark energy" (Einstein's Lambda). The, controversy, if you can call it that, is over whether the dark matter (not the dark energy) is cold or warm. Except that there isn't any controversy because observations allow both at this time, but I think we are getting very close to finding out. A couple of groups in MIT and UCSC are doing some excellent theoretical work which could provide the answer soon.

7 · razib_the_atheist on November 11, 2005 9:44 PM · Direct link

thanks suvendra. my inflationary model example is illustrative, and is also a recollection based on a cosmology book i read circa 1993 which was referencing a pro-"cold inflation" popular science book circa 1986ish if i remember correctly. this further elaboration is only important because you can map on the same sort of thinking when non-evolutionary biologists offer precise or "informed" opinions re: evolution. many times i have had to endure the rejoinder, "my girlfriend is vet student, and she says about evolution...."

8 · Saheli on November 11, 2005 10:34 PM · Direct link

This weeks Time magazine features a very clear and concise appeal from commentator Eric Cornell, calling all scientists to action:

Abhi! Eric Cornell is not just some "commentator". Eric is one of the 2001 Nobel Laureates in Physics, one of the first two physics nobel laureates at your Alma Mater the University of Colorado at Boulder, and a living legend among experimental physicists. He's even got a desi-connection--his fame derives from creating, along with Carl Wieman and their team, the first experimentally observed Bose-Einstein Condensation out of a cloud of laser-cooled rubidium atoms. Eric is also a really amazingly nice guy who's recently gone through some hard times. It's absolutely wonderful to see him writing and pumped up like this, not to mention that he expresses perfectly my own opinions. Yay Eric!

9 · yahweh on November 11, 2005 10:36 PM · Direct link

Its a simple problem. Biology class should teach biology and theology class teach theology. The creationist have been unsuccessful in stopping schools from teaching evolution in science classes so they've gotten together and cooked up this new "intelligent design" crap. the dover school district unfortunately one of the few to take the right stance. Other similar situations have turned up support for "intelligent design". This is what you have with a republican executive, legislative and executive branch.

10 · razib_the_atheist on November 11, 2005 10:46 PM · Direct link

bose was bengali, of course :)

11 · shiva on November 12, 2005 2:00 AM · Direct link

In reality, everything we know about the workings of nature through the methods of modern science radically disconfirms the presence of any morally significant gunas, or shakti, or any other form of consciousness in nature, as taught by the Vedic cosmology...

Meera Nanda is attempting to do a Dawkins/Dennet on "Hinduism" and has been getting away with it since her critics as rule praise her out of ignorance. Her use of terms such as Vedic Cosmology or Hinduism are imprecise. There has so far been only one good critique of any of her papers. I will leave readers here to find it. Nanda is being colonialist in unquestioningly adopting an inappropriate framework to analyse "Hindu" thinking. There's much much more to Indic philosophy than one will ever learn from Nanda's works. Vivekananda (the man who decried Kerala as a lunatic asylum for its caste order) requires no apologetics.

As for ISKCON and evolution they err in on many counts
-for giving too much importance to creation which isn't a one time act in Hindu mythical experience
-in literally interpreting Hindu lore, a very silly error
-seeing teleology where none is implied

12 · DesiDudeInAustin on November 12, 2005 2:47 AM · Direct link

bose was bengali, of course :)

Joy Bangla! :)

13 · Builder on November 12, 2005 5:55 AM · Direct link

Once again I'd like to link to pharnyngula, where these matters are expertly handled.

Also since you didn't mention Islam's stance, I thought I'd paste a couple of passages.

To summarize the answer to your question thus far, belief in macro-evolutionary transformation and variation of non-human species does not seem to me to entail kufr (unbelief) or shirk (ascribing co-sharers to Allah) unless one also believes that such transformation came about by random mutation and natural selection, understanding these adjectives as meaning causal independence from the will of Allah. You have to look in your heart and ask yourself what you believe. From the point of view of tawhid, Islamic theism, nothing happens "at random," there is no "autonomous nature," and anyone who believes in either of these is necessarily beyond the pale of Islam.

http://www.masud.co.uk/ISLAM/nuh/evolve.htm

As far as I'm concerned, this beats around the bush even more so than vague statements from the pope, but as razib says, as long as the general idea is accepted, no matter the contention about the specific meta cause, I'm not going to care. The non-scientific members of future generations will probably not remember their father's hangups and accept evolution for what it is. Not a great solution, specially considering that even these compromised views are held by a minority where the majority consider evolution not just patently false but also possibly part f a conspiratorial framework (J - E - W - S, hurr hurr) and an accelerator for social evil.

Then again there are those who surprise you with their (relative to their age, location, community...) progressive views, such as my uncle. He considers the literalist Adam & Eve story to be just that, and agrees there is no conflict with science. I admit such people are few and far between, and for leaders with about as much caliber as a cardinal in the Islamic world to speak out about such things would be very unlikely (though courageous).

One more:

The above verses clearly tell us that in the beginning man was created from clay. The words 'creation from clay', obviously, do not necessitate that God created an effigy of man from clay and then gave life to it. It may, as we know, imply that in the beginning man came into existence out of the earth [the mud or the clay etc. of the earth]. In other words, God inculcated in earth - mixed with water - the potential to produce life. Over centuries or even millennia, the life-bearing potential of the earth materialized and a species quite similar to, yet somewhat different from man was born[1]. This was the first stage in the creation of man, as is evidenced by the words: "He started the creation of man from clay".

...

It may be interpreted from the above explanation that it was only the first pair of near-humans - i.e. Adam and Eve - who went through the three stages explained above. That is Adam's (and Eve's) creation was initiated from clay - that is they were produced through the life-generation potential inculcated in the earth. Later on, the potential of reproduction through sexual contact was inculcated in Adam (and Eve). In the third stage, Adam (as well as Eve) was physically fashioned into due proportion and God breathed into them of His spirit and thereby developed the higher sapiential abilities in them.

http://www.understanding-islam.com/related/text.asp?type=question&qid=255

14 · Bong Breaker on November 12, 2005 10:51 AM · Direct link

Hehe, I thought of you when reading TIME this week Abhi (in a purely platonic way, you'll be saddened to hear) - when I saw Cornell's essay at the back.

bose was bengali, of course :)
Joy Bangla! :)

Hooray!

15 · RC on November 12, 2005 11:25 AM · Direct link

There was no semitic creationism to be gotten rid of!

That preety much sums it up.

That American Taliban list is preety good. I loved the quote from James Watt (Sec. of the Interior)
"We don't have to protect the environment, the Second Coming is at hand."*

I cant believe this guy actually said that.

16 · Eddie on November 12, 2005 11:46 AM · Direct link

Very good points Shiva. What Nanda has succeeded in doing is not to unite people against Hindutva, but rather to force Hindus otherwise unsupportive of Hindutva to correct her misconceptions, particularly her foundational definitions of "Hinduism"--creating, in the process, not a secular alliance, but an unwitting Hindu alliance!

Dipesh Chakrabarty wrote somewhere in Provincializing Europe ( a book Nanda does not like) that when ancient traditions simultaneously exist alongside modern ones, it is incorrect to presume that the traditional has somehow survived as an exoticised remnant which needs to be reformed away. The presence of such "unreformed" elements in any given culture (from the Western vantagepoint) was one of the governing rationales of colonialism, which presumed that the colonized where "not yet ready" for self-rule.The traditional world that has survived is as modern as anything we describe as modern. I think that her Enlightenment viewpoint--which scoffs at traditional knowledge systems and is impatient to see them reformed-- is indeed neocolonized in that sense. When Nanda sees Indian scientists praying, she gasps in neocolonized horror and thinks they are being "unsecular". When Nanda claims that there is a single Vedic cosmology, she ignores that there are disparate accounts which are invariably cyclical.

She cannot be dismissed entirely however. Her essay on Ambedkar was quite good and her deconstruction of Vandana Shiva very thought provoking.

Amartya Sen recently published "An Argumentative Indian", and therein provides a better framework for all Indians to appreciate the "rational" elements of their cultural heritage (which is not the exclusive property of 'liberals'). It is postive, and is highly appreciative of the Hindu (and the Mughal) past. He provides an Indian viewpoint--endemic, culled from Indian sources--and a better way forward.

17 · Umair Muhajir on November 12, 2005 3:37 PM · Direct link

Dipesh Chakrabarty's good is indeed very good, as is Sen's new book.

18 · Umair Muhajir on November 12, 2005 3:39 PM · Direct link

PS-- another book I'd recommend on related issues (i.e. in the vein of Chakrabarty and others, as "post-modernists" Nanda criticizes) is Uday Singh Mehta's Liberalism & Empire.

19 · Frank on November 12, 2005 5:49 PM · Direct link

American Taliban? The leftist rhetoric has no respect for facts. Which american christian group has demanded burqas for women or passed a law barring women from the workplace?

The usual anti-Catholic canard of the church as an enemy of progress is trotted out deliberately ignoring the role the church played in defending freedom against the depredations of communism.

20 · Daksha on November 12, 2005 6:00 PM · Direct link

When there is a move towards enforcing ONE view of creation of the world, "intelligent design", do you not notice the Taliban like aggressive approach towards 'uniformity' based on a literal interpretation of some scriptures?

"Freedom from Communism"- So in exchange for that we lose the freedom to choose rationality and separate theology from the classrooms?

21 · Umair Muhajir on November 12, 2005 6:12 PM · Direct link

I did not think the author used "Taliban" so literally as to apply only to those repugnant enough to pass overtly misogynistic and anti-minority laws. By Frank's logic one couldn't euphemistically refer to someone who called for the death of one million of Tutsis as a "Nazi", because no German National Socialist called for the extermination of Tutsis. Indeed, I have a hard time believing that such a position can be taken in good faith.

Alternatively: is this to be our consolation, when the teaching of science in American public schools is threatened by veiled theological agendas, that hey, Afghan schoolkids, women, Shiites had it much worse in the 1996-2001 period? I can sleep so much better now...

22 · Eddie on November 12, 2005 7:16 PM · Direct link

Hey Umair,

Very nice review of Sen's book. What haven't you read, mon? You really are a philistine! (Just kidding.)

23 · Amba on November 12, 2005 9:18 PM · Direct link

Meera Nanda's knowledge of Indian philosophy in general, and Vedanta in particular is abysmal. She's clearly read nothing by Karl Potter, JN Mohanty or Wilhelm Halbfass: Frits Staal's work showing that historically, India's great achievements in linguistics arose in a ritual, 'religious' context would likely make her head explode. At the 2004 Daniel Thorner lecture, she relied heavily on Surendranath Dasgupta's History of Indian philosophy, a work that a) was never intended for an academic audience and b) was published in 1922. It's the equivalent of an academic in the West using one of Will Durant's History of Civilization books in a lecture. There's a clear case of the emperor's new clothes going on here.

24 · Umair Muhajir on November 12, 2005 10:39 PM · Direct link

Eddie-- thanks! you are far too kind...

25 · Abhi on November 13, 2005 12:35 AM · Direct link

Abhi! Eric Cornell is not just some "commentator". Eric is one of the 2001 Nobel Laureates in Physics, one of the first two physics nobel laureates at your Alma Mater the University of Colorado at Boulder, and a living legend among experimental physicists.

Abhi hangs his head in shame at the oversight. He is running on caffeine gum right now as he tries to get through his next University intact :)

26 · Saheli on November 13, 2005 3:32 AM · Direct link

Aww, don't worry Abhi. This is soot-dot-beauty-spot on your total recall, warding off bad luck and ensuring substantial perfection on your exams. ;-)

27 · Jeremy on November 13, 2005 4:09 AM · Direct link

I think Intelligent Design is being touted partly as anti-science Christian fundamentalism, but partly because of excessive claims by Darmwinians about their theory.

Darwinism has had 150 to nail down its claims, and it certainly hasn't done so the way, say, electromagnetism has. It has nailed down the variation of species (the original title of Darwin's book, by the way), plenty of holes remain on the issue of the emergence of new species.

Intelligent design is thus an opportunistic growth, but it could never be science. Teach it in theology class, and admit some of the remaining holes in Darwinism in science class. What's unscientific about admitting what one doesn't yet know?

28 · MoorNam on November 13, 2005 1:08 PM · Direct link

If the State were not in the business of running schools, we would not be having this debate. Religious schools would have taught Intelligent Design as Science, Secular schools (which taught exact Science only) would teach neither Darwinism nor ID, and Secular schools (which taught theory in addition to exact science) would teach both. All would follow market forces and everyone would be happy.

Unfortunately, the State is heavily involved in schooling. Which brings us to the taxpayer. What does the taxpayer want? Does the majority want its kids to learn that the sky is Blue because God wanted it so? Does the majority want its kids to believe that the world is ~5000 years old? Does the majority want its kids to believe that the world came out of Brahma's navel? Does the majority want its kids to learn about the possibility of origin of life on earth was from Mars?

The State should do what the taxpayer(majority) wants it to do. The State has no right to determine what is right or wrong. That right exists only with the individual, who exercises his/her right in a Democracy to make the State serve him.

M. Nam

29 · Saheli on November 13, 2005 2:37 PM · Direct link

The state, MoorNam, is involved in education by being run as a Republic by and for the people, and as such, it requires them to be able to read and write. If you have a problem with the United States having a public school system, I suggest you go in a time machine and take it up with the founders and the pioneers. Before you tell me that the right to a public education is not actually in the Constitution, yes, I know that, but neither are a host of other traditions and common-law conventions that are woven into the very fabric of the Republic. Many things are implied, particularly in the recognition that they already existed and the Constitution did not explicitly aim to change them.

You also clearly seem to have forgotten about the Tyranny of the majority. We have Civil rights and the such specifically to protect against tyranny of the majority. We are NOT supposed to just do whatever the majority wants.

30 · hammer_sickel on November 13, 2005 4:13 PM · Direct link

"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind" - Albert Einstein

31 · MoorNam on November 13, 2005 4:57 PM · Direct link

Saheli,

I have more or less "given up" the hope that the State in the US will get out of the business of education. So, if at all I get a time-machine, I would rather put it to good use and correct my stock picks over the years!

>>You also clearly seem to have forgotten about the Tyranny of the majority.

What, me forget? Libertarians are a minority in this country, and we see day in and day out how conservatives and liberals alike push their agendas through brute force of the majority. Just look at last week's election results. Especially in California.

M. Nam

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