Epistemology & the Nature of Science: A Classroom Strategy‪.‬

Efforts by state and local officials to enact balanced treatment laws represent attempts to displace the methodological naturalism of science with theological supernaturalism. Advocates of creation science and intelligent design (ID) also seek to wedge the supernatural into scientific explanations. Robert Pennock (2000) distills the controversy to its core features when he states, "debate [is] about truth itself and how we come to know it" (p. 40). In this article I assume methodological naturalism as a presupposition in modern science. This is in agreement with the decision handed down by Judge John E. Jones III in the Dover, Pennsylvania ID case. Citing trial testimony from well-known philosophers of science, Jones (2005) wrote, "Methodological naturalism is a 'ground rule' of science today which requires scientists to seek explanations in the world around us based upon what we can observe, test, replicate, and verify" (p. 65). Legal challenges to the teaching of evolution as a process explicable by naturalistic causes or to exclusive reliance on naturalism in science would alter science education by redefining science. Langdon Gilkey (1985) notes that these challenges pose additional threats. First, such laws would establish a particular form of Christian religion in the science classroom. This threatens free religious life in our society as well as freedom from religion. Second, such laws attack academic freedom. States often legislate what subjects are to be taught in the curriculum, but they should not dictate which theories are to be taught within these mandated subjects (pp. 13-14).