Science is an empirical matter. The scientific process produces
conclusions based on what can be seen and proven.
Religion is about faith, something completely different. Yes,
the two can occasionally dovetail when matters of faith are
interpreted to explain observed scientific facts.
Science is an empirical matter. The scientific process produces conclusions based on what can be seen and proven.
Religion is about faith, something completely different. Yes, the two can occasionally dovetail when matters of faith are interpreted to explain observed scientific facts.
This difference is at the root of the University of California’s decision not to give students at a Christian school in the Riverside County city of Murietta admission credit for some classes taught at the school. Not that students of the Calvary Chapel Christian School are excluded from UC: In the last four years, 32 Calvary graduates applied to UC campuses and 24 were admitted. That’s a higher percentage than from almost any public high school. Students can meet entrance requirements either via coursework or by passing national tests in various subject areas.
But this reality doesn’t satisfy Calvary school leaders and their allies in the 4,000-member Association of Christian Schools International. They’ve sued in an attempt to force UC to recognize faith-based “science” classes they teach.
One textbook used in a creationism-based science class, published by the fundamentalist South Carolina-based Bob Jones University Press, teaches that the world is no more than 10,000 years old. Never mind the existence of fossils carbon-dated eons before 8,000 B.C., some of which can be seen by Calvary students in natural history museums an hour or two from the school.
It may be fine to teach both creationism and evolution as theories, since neither can be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. It may be fine to teach that the six days of creation in the Biblical account of Genesis are allegories, each day a metaphor for a geologic era.
But teaching things as fact when they cannot be verified in any empirical way defeats the fundamental purpose of a university education, which is to train the minds of young adults to think critically and give them the ability to understand the world they see.
If parents choose to educate their children in ways that don’t match those basic purposes, they have that right. But it would contradict the mission of a publicly-funded university if UC began to treat faith-based education on an equal basis with fact-based classes.
So the fundamental issue in the ongoing lawsuit comes down to one question: What is science? Is it what some people passionately believe to be absolute truth or is it the observation of facts and their explanation by verifiable means?
This is not to suggest that private schools don’t have the right to teach whatever they like. Roman Catholic schools for more than a century have taught the dogma of their religion, but have not expected public universities to recognize things like catechism classes as part of what qualifies students for admission. At the same time, Catholic schools’ classes on the history and comparison of religions have long been accepted.
In part, that’s because those courses usually teach at least in part from complete original texts, while the comparable Calvary classes use excerpts rather than full texts of influential works.
The Christian school claims discrimination because of its religious viewpoint, but UC officials deny anything like this. “(The university) accepts hundreds if not thousands of students from these schools every year and values the diversity of views these students bring to its campuses'” said a UC lawyer. In fact, UC has certified 43 Calvary courses under its college preparatory guidelines.
But if a Calvary class were to teach that two plus two equals five because that total is fundamental to a belief system, that class likely would not be accepted, nor should it be.
For UC is supposed to be elite. It is intended for the top graduates of California high schools, public and private. Students who have been taught to deny what can be seen cannot possibly be part of that elite.
Calvary students plainly have not been taught anything like that in all their courses. That’s why so many are accepted.
But forcing UC to accept classes based solely on belief would be flat wrong. The university’s resistance to the attempt to force it to go along may be a sign that its era of dumbing down to satisfy various political interests is ending at last. If so, that is a very good thing.
