Senator's Construed
Path Of Logic
Shows Lack Of Skill
D.J. Brown
From: "D.J. Brown"
To: "Positive Atheism" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
Sent: February 01, 2002 9:04 AM
Subject: RE: Declaration: 'All Men Created': Not Kansas, Washington!
Hi Cliff,
Just by reading this so-called bill, it's obvious that Senator Hochstatter is trying to force the reader down a construed path of logic to a seemingly obvious and just conclusion. I am also appalled by the lack of skill Senator Hochstatter has in writing such bills.
While in high school we (being myself and fellow students) were required to participate in a mock-Senate in which we all took upon ourselves the roles of senators and Speaker of the House (I was Senator Biden, but that's beside the point). This was done every day, for 90 minutes, for about four months (meaning I had the process fairly ingrained in me).
One of the first things that we learned about the actual writing of bills is that they are not to contain any reasons for the bill's existence. To clarify, the purpose of the bill was to be discussed in session when it was on the table and that only the stated laws and consequences of breaking those laws be included in the bill. The language is supposed to be clear and descriptive; as close to absolute as possible.
It should be fairly obvious that the only meaningful part of this entire bill is then:
(9) All textbooks and curriculum that teach the theory of evolution shall be removed from the public schools forthwith and replaced with textbooks and curriculum that teach the self-evident truth of creation.
Unfortunately, it is hardly "self-evident" of which "truth of creation" he speaks. Based on his earlier statements (lines 2 and 5), one would be forced to suspect he intends to remove the teaching of evolution from schools and replace it with the teaching of a few select statements derived from the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and Washington's State Constitution. So we've reduced a fundamental basis of biology to the memorization of a few passages from a letter and a couple legal documents (albeit very famous and influential documents).
But this bill goes further than that. It uses the word "curriculum" and says that such "curriculum" be replaced with curriculum that includes the teaching of "the self-evident truth of creation". So we must abolish entire curriculums that include, as any part, the teaching of evolution.
Of course, completely disregarding his earlier statements (which clearly don't belong in a bill anyway), I don't think that it is at all "self-evident" what this "truth of creation" is. Is he speaking of child-birth? Conception? The Big Bang? How to create things? Some theistically based creation scheme? The language of bills is supposed to be made as absolute as possible and not to assume anything about the reader. How are we then to determine this bill's meaning? If he has a concept about a "generally accepted" meaning of the term "self-evident truth of creation" then this bill has a serious flaw, as its meaning will change as that concept shifts over time.
He doesn't even state what kind of creation he wishes to enforce, whether it be human or universal or otherwise. One might speculate that he's speaking of the "creation" of life given that evolution is commonly construed with the creation of life. Speculation, only. Of course, in reality evolution only speaks to the changes and/or adaptations life makes, not its creation. Taking this statement at face value one would not be able to discern exactly why Senator Hochstatter would like to replace the teaching of evolution with the teaching of this "self-evident truth of creation", as they have very little in common. In my mind, this is akin to restricting a car mechanic to learning how a car is built and not teaching them anything about how it runs. Of course, we're not even sure if we're talking about the actual building of the car, the design phase, or if we're going to be teaching car mechanics anything about cars to begin with.
The only legal way to "enforce" this bill, were it enacted as law, would be to replace the teaching of evolution with the teaching of the "Big Bang" theory; the closest thing we have to a scientific "truth" in these matters. Of course, even though the "Big Bang" is self-evident to us at this point as the start of creation, what if, say, the concept of "p-branes" (The Universe In A Nutshell, Steven Hawking) shows itself to be more mathematically sound and we accept the idea that perhaps the creation of our universe was merely an anomaly occurring in a "previous" universe ("previous" doesn't apply here, literally, but I don't think a huge discussion of physics is relevant to this letter, so I'll make do with shorthand). Then, all those schools holding books about the "Big Bang" would be in violation of the law. They would require school children to read books about hyper-dimensionality and n-dimensional n-branes ("p-brane" is the generic term for an n-dimensional "n-brane"). I hope those parents in Washington are prepared to explain those concepts to their young ones when they come home asking questions.
Of course, I don't wish to be seen as blind (no pun intended). Given the current temperament in the United States it is fairly obvious that Senator Hochstatter is speaking of Biblical Creationism. So we could question why the senator did not state his 9th line as follows:
(9) All textbooks and curriculum that teach the theory of evolution shall be removed from the public schools forthwith and replaced with textbooks and curriculum that teach creationism as described by the Old Testament of Hebrew and Christian tradition.
Well, this is patently a government endorsement of these religions. So now we ask the question: Why did Senator Hochstatter not use the language he so clearly intended to use? It seems that the senator believes that by equivocating the language in these historically important documents (the ones on which our nation was founded in one way or another) to the language used by members of these religious groups, he could avoid using the terms "Old Testament", "Hebrew", and "Christian" in the bill while at the same time give the impression of a significant historical precedent to support his "reasoning". He then could give the false appearance of merely supporting other accepted "laws" (I'm not really sure when the Declaration of Independence was a law) while in fact proposing an illegal bill. This argument is supported by the inclusion of functionally useless lines in the bill (lines 1-8) that only serve the purpose of "name dropping" (the Constitution, The Declaration of Independence, Washington's State Constitution) important documents which include language that is similar in pronunciation to his desired language, but with clearly different meanings. At the same time, he uses these statements to lead the reader down a construed line of logic to arrive at his conclusion. Observe these interpreted lines (and I have been very careful not to straw-man this argument and to give accurate interpretations):
Line 1. We must uphold the principles of the Declaration of Independence.
Line 2. Said declaration uses the following language: "self-evident truth that all men were created equal" "our rights our endowed by the creator" "governments are instituted among men to secure those God-given rights"
Line 3. The PREAMBLE to the Washington State Constitution acknowledges the "Supreme Ruler of the Universe" as the grantor of our liberties.
Line 4. We must uphold the preamble of the state constitution.
Line 5. Another law says that teachers have to teach the principles of truth and free government. Now I will try to equivocate "free government" with "created" and "the Creator" by saying that the government is held accountable to "the Supreme Ruler of the Universe" and the people.
Line 6. Both the United States Constitution and the Washington State Constitution were created to protect certain rights.
Line 7. All state legislators swear an oath to uphold the Constitutions of the United States and the State of Washington.
Line 8. Evolution is incompatible with the principles of the Declaration of Independence. Because the principles of the Declaration of Independence are law, and they are also the Constitution, teaching of evolution is unconstitutional and illegal.
(9) All textbooks and curriculum that teach the theory of evolution shall be removed from the public schools forthwith and replaced with textbooks and curriculum that teach creationism as described by the Old Testament of Hebrew and Christian tradition.
I will address these.
Line 1. Very well put. I agree totally. I'm not sure what rule or punishment that statement prescribes, so I doubt that it should even be located here.
Line 2. Thank you for the history lesson, but I again don't see how this is relevant to either stating a rule or punishment.
Line 3. The preamble to the Washington State Constitution is not the same as the Washington State Constitution, as it seems you are trying to equivocate these. Now see line 2.
Line 4. I don't see how you can "uphold" the preamble to a constitution. A preamble states the intentions or reasons that a particular law was enacted. That's akin to saying, "Men have been raping ten-year-old girls. It is now illegal to rape." Then, because we like the idea that it's illegal to rape, we should also "uphold" the preamble, so we now uphold the idea that "Men rape ten year old girls." Another argument would be that you should rewrite the law that the preamble reasons for, rather than making a different set of laws address the same reason. Why not rewrite those Constitutions to include this new rule?
Line 5. A quick review of the structure of our government would indicate that, ultimately, the government is held accountable to the people they serve. Also, what office of the government does the "Supreme Ruler of the Universe" hold? And what do the principles of free government have to do with this "Supreme Ruler of the Universe?" Grantor or not of these "liberties", it is the liberties themselves that are important, not where they came from.
Line 6. I agree. Now see line 2.
Line 7. See line 6.
Line 8. This is a pure falsehood. The Declaration of Independence is not law, and is not the Constitution. How could something be unconstitutional by being incompatible with the principles of the Declaration of Independence unless the Declaration of Independence were the Constitution? Besides, if it's already illegal, why make another law to make it illegal again?
Line 9. I've already addressed.
I find this bill weakly constructed and poorly written, with obvious flaws in the logic and reasoning. This bill also contains outright lies and is unconstitutional because it provides government endorsement of specific religions. It makes me cast serious doubt as to the "truth" it speaks of. Is it the same concept of "truth" used in the reasoning for this bill? If that's so, merely enacting it would require teachers to disregard line 5, as they must teach the principles of truth.
D.J. Brown
P.S. -- Please let me know what flaws you find in this so that I can rethink my position. I wouldn't want to go around like Senator Hochstatter spouting illogic and lies.
From: "Positive Atheism" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
To: "D.J. Brown"
Subject: Re: Declaration: 'All Men Created': Not Kansas, Washington!
Date: February 09, 2002 1:55 AM
The post from CSICOP's Barry Karr a few files back says it all. This guy is a duly elected nutcake. We have no control over who the various districts send up to the hill, but it is well known that all this guy's bills get buried, and never see the light of day.
But your P.S. actually summarizes the bottom line for me, when it comes to distinguishing truth from falsehood: Would that we all brought every one of our ideas and offer them up to the scrutiny of our peers! If we would but compare notes (I like the phrase "consensus reality") we could minimize the one fact of life that makes us human, the one fact of life that prevents me from thinking that we were created by an intelligent designer: our fallibility! Science, which is little more than the process of offering our ideas up to the scrutiny of others and yielding to the results of that scrutiny, is designed for the express purpose of addressing our fallibility. Designed? Yea, continually designed and redesigned until we never quite get it right, because that's what fallibility does. Thus, science will never be "perfect" because there is no such thing. I have taken the word out of my vocabulary, and I use the word only to point out that I don't use the word. My spoof on this whole notion of a "model" human whose behavior we ought to emulate is this: I am a perfect specimen of the human species in that I am perfectly human.
Cliff Walker
Positive Atheism Magazine
Six years of service to
people with no reason to believe
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