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Focus on Falsehoods

Entry 835, on 2008-08-17 at 18:57:21 (Rating 4, Religion)

A Christian group, Focus on the Family, is distributing creationist propaganda in New Zealand. Until now this blight on common sense and rationality has basically been absent from New Zealand. Many people I have discussed this with have commented on how the phenomenon, which is quite prevalent in the USA, was not an issue here. Now it is.

The spokesperson who was interviewed on National Radio was quite skillful in deflecting the criticism and making it sound as if they just wanted a fair deal. Well inflicting an idea which has been rejected by the scientific community on innocent students who are supposed to be studying science, not religion, is nothing to do with fairness.

There were a small number of scientists who took intelligent design seriously but since then the theory has been disproved and abandoned by all reasonable researchers. Now the only people still supporting it are either outside their area of expertise or just ignoring reality (Michael Behe, for example).

Even if intelligent design ever was a scientific theory it is now a rejected one. Should we confuse students by teaching them theories which are barely scientific and have been rejected because they don't fit the facts anyway? Well maybe we should.

It might be informative to spend a lesson briefly mentioning creationism and intelligent design and explaining why they are not valid theories. That way the creationist get their theory mentioned and given the respect it deserves - not very much! Somehow though, I don't think that's what they really want.

Maybe a better idea would be to use the material in philosophy or theology classes as an illustration of logical fallacies and how cherry picking the facts and ignoring contrary evidence can make any theory, no matter how crazy, seem reasonable.

The final comment I want to make is about the name of the group. Calling a group "Focus on the Family" sounds good, doesn't it? Unfortunately Christianity doesn't really guarantee any (positive) focus on the family. Well maybe Catholic priests focus on their extended family - too much! And rejecting science which can provide medical interventions to help sick kids doesn't really seem much of a focus on families.

And since when does promoting lies mean you're focussing on the family? No, they should rename their group to Focus on Falsehoods, Fibs, Fabrications, and Fiction. Yes, that seems a much more appropriate name!

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