Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Is Ignorance a Value?
Lawrence Krauss, a professor of physics and astronomy at Case Western Reserve University, writing in the New York Times today observes:
Krauss argues that "[w]e must hold our elected school officials to certain basic standards of knowledge about the world. The battle is not against faith, but against ignorance."
The chairman of the [Kansas] school board, Dr. Steve Abrams, a veterinarian, is not merely a strict creationist. He has openly stated that he believes that God created the universe 6,500 years ago, although he was quoted in The New York Times this month as saying that his personal faith “doesn’t have anything to do with science.”
“I can separate them,” he continued, adding, “My personal views of Scripture have no room in the science classroom.”
A key concern should not be whether Dr. Abrams’s religious views have a place in the classroom, but rather how someone whose religious views require a denial of essentially all modern scientific knowledge can be chairman of a state school board.
Krauss argues that "[w]e must hold our elected school officials to certain basic standards of knowledge about the world. The battle is not against faith, but against ignorance."
