Her secular job, we would both agree, is to teach science to public school students.
The science of evolutionary theory has, since its inception in the Origin of Species (1859), made frequent use of theological premises to justify its conclusions. So Anna faces a dilemma. Either she pretends that Darwin (for example) didn’t refer to what God should have done, all throughout the Origin, and his other writings, or she teaches the books as they were written and published.
Sorry. I refer to your post about “littered with redactions” and “this kind of intellectual censorship”. You seem to be summoning up a scenario that nobody has proposed, and I just want to know if you were serious.
To his credit, NIH Director Francis Collins, when he speaks at a Biologos Conference, says that he is speaking as a private citizen and NOT as the director of the NIH. Further he seeks government approval for his appearance AND has government attorneys go over his slides and prepared speech months in advance. Dr. Collins said that it takes several months to get approval for any Biologos or other Christian venue appearance.
I doubt Ms Van Dordrecht is taking those same safeguards. If she did a Freedom of Information Request will reveal the approval process she had to go through to have her publication reviewed and approved from release.
Of course no one has proposed it, because Darwin’s theology passes muster. His deism is minimally intrusive.
Nonetheless, Darwin’s view is fully theological, and should trigger First Amendment alarms, if anyone bothered to think carefully about the matter.
So you just established my very point: It is entirely possible to draw careful and appropriate lines between one’s role as a government employee and one’s religious freedom expressions as a private citizen! (Dr. Collins is in a especially visible position—so he goes to great lengths to be extra extra careful. Good for him. Of course, he has the advantage of a well-funded legal department and plenty of people to whom he can delegate such extra care.)
Perhaps a few real examples would be appropriate here. I don’t see what you have presented so far as such. And perhaps this is the sort of thing that derails a thread that began with quite a different subject and should have a thread of its own.
See the citations in the Dilley article (on Dobzhansky) I just sent you.
Or this:
And with the Dover decision, such theological premises is not allowed to be used to justify its conclusion.
Further the California state curriculum just has a picture of Darwin in it and doesn’t teach “Darwinism” It teaches modern evolutionary science.
Thanks for the articles, but really, this should be discussed in its own thread, not here.
Not in science classes in California. Anna Van Dordrecht is Cirriculum Coordinator for Science at the county level - far from the actual science classroom. She is trying to advocate her Christian creationist views to Christian science teachers in the classrooms.
I seriously doubt Ms. Dordrecht has anything close to the legal department funding that Dr. Collins has at the NEH.
You are swatting at flies. I also think you are exaggerating the significance of her off-hours activities as a private citizen. I seriously doubt that anyone thinks that in her outside-of-the-workplace activities she is speaking officially on behalf of the State of California. Meanwhile, it sounds like she is actually aiding the goals of secularism by helping people understand that evolutionary biology is not in inherent conflict with anyone’s theism or non-theism.
Obviously. I know where Sonomo County is located. I never claimed that she lived in the Bible Belt. I made the point that especially in Bible Belt areas where students are likely to come to school each day with very strong family biases against what they are about to learn in biology class, skilled engagement with those societal conflicts about origins can go a long way in helping students to understand evolutionary processes.
What does this 1996 publication have to do with teaching creationism in 2018 in California public schools? @pnelson you are out of your realm of expertise here. This is a legal church state separation issue here. I sent it over to the lawyers at FFRF as a second complaint. We will see how the legal process works on this. I predict a single letter will end it.
Obviously, whether or not “a single letter will end it” is not necessarily indicative of any Constitutional merits. Most government agencies and school districts lack the excess cash to handle lawsuits which can be avoided by simply giving in to legal threats. It happens often.
(I say all this even though most of the time on this forum I agree with the separation of church and state positions.)
Just one more example of creationism trying to get back into the public schools. FFRF gets 1000 of them a year. This is an easy one.
In any case, Patrick, this is a very interesting thread topic and I appreciated learning about the Biologos article by Ms. Van Dordrecht.
That’s correct. That is why I think that one letter will suffice. The letter will trickle done to her bosses and nobody with be in the mood to fight it. She will be told to stop publishing on Biologos. End of issue. She of course is free to teach at her Church’s Sunday school if she’d like.
What possible legal justification could there be for such an order? I doubt that any government body that paid attention to its legal counsel would do such a thing. Nor do I find anything sympathetic to creationism in that article. Again, WTF?
This is an employer/employee matter. She is middle level in County government. Her higher ups in California do not want to tangle with FFRF on a church/state separation issues. She will be told to stop publishing on a Christian Creationist website. The Department of Education has that power over its employees. She would be stupid not to cease posting to Biologos. She can try to make it a personal freedom of religion issue but she will certainly lose ala Kim Davis.
I don’t see what she is saying as terribly harmful to secular science. But she should certainly know better especially after last time when we gave her indiscretions a pass. This is her second complaint. It is going to be noticed and taken care of according to the law.
What’s your legal argument for that?
Kim Davis was attacked for refusing to do her job. Big difference.
Know better than what? And who are “we”?
As an employee you have to adhere to the law and the constution to be nuetral on matter of religion or faith. As an employee of the government, your speech can interpreted as offical government policy so you can’t speak out like you or I can. A government employee has to go through rigorous approval process to speak or publish on social media or websites.