The Undoing of the Enlightenment
M. Orhan Tarhan
June 23, 2007
Last October, I read Paul A. Hanle’s article in Washington Post titled “Waging War on Evolution”. Of course I completely agreed with Hanle, who said, “If we are to continue to be leaders in the global economy, we must teach science, not religion, in the science classroom”. It is actually much worse than that. We are putting ourselves in danger of undoing the Enlightenment.
The Enlightenment is a philosophical movement of the 18th century that fundamentally changed the way people thought and acted from then on. Traditional values were questioned. After Rousseau, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Diderot, and Locke wrote their works, Europeans started to make their daily decisions based on science and reason, in stead of tradition, religion, and superstition. Empirical methods began to be used in science. Knowledge was no longer worshiped but systematically questioned in order to correct mistakes. Europeans decided to “use their heads” in what they were doing. This made it possible for the sciences to flourish. Europe became technically and, therefore, militarily so strong, that it was able to colonize most of the rest of the world. What we call today “The West” was created by the Enlightenment. It is of course impossible to define the Enlightenment precisely in this short article. But I hope that I do not have to do that because I would expect that most of my readers would have a more complete conception of it in their minds, that is, if they took World history in high school.
Of course America inherited all these beneficent changes. Our third president, Thomas Jefferson, contributed to that movement by separating the roles of church and state in society and put that in our constitution. We were very lucky that this change happened very peacefully here. In Europe, sciences were developed in spite of the difficulties set by the Church, starting with the Galileo episode in 17th century. There were the 100 years Wars, the 30 Years Wars, the Inquisitions, and- many massacres. Finally, the civil society in Europe prevailed over the Church and sciences could be developed freely in the society. There was one last big dispute in the Mid-19th century. Charles Darwin had developed, after long years of research, “the Theory of Evolution” The Church saw that as a refutation of the Adam and Eve story in the Bible and attacked Darwin ferociously. Actually, Darwin was a good Christian, but had no choice but to accept the logical results of his own research. This debate lasted for a few years, but at the end everyone in Europe accepted Darwin’s ideas. Hanle says that evolution became the “cornerstone principle of biology, one on which there is no serious scientific debate”.
This European enlightenment became also the foundation of the United States. American scientists added to it and we got the super power we are now.
Well, no serious “scientific” debate, but interminable non-scientific debate was carried out in the United States since 1925. (Most of us have seen the movie “Inherit The Wind”) We are 160 years behind Europe by still debating such a sure theory. This is the war between science and ignorance. About one third of the U.S. public is made of Evangelical Christians. That group has hijacked the Republican Party and is selling its religious ideas as Republican Ideas. The Evangelical Christians have a conception of the World that is as old as the Bible. And in the 21st Century, they are forcing the rest of America to become as ignorant as themselves. Philosophically, they want us to undo all the gains of the Enlightenment and live like the people of the 16th Century. They don’t know that this will terribly weaken the United States and would lead to its destruction. That is a kind of treason. It is not treason motivated by malice, but by pure ignorance.
It is hard to believe that such a large percentage of U.S. population may be called “ignorant”. Everywhere else in the World ignorant people know that they are ignorant and would like to get better educated. Ours would never accept that they are ignorant, and consequently, don’t want to change. The main culprit for this condition is the poor public education in the U.S. There is one important point that must be emphasized: The John Dewey’s system of education does not teach the children to think conceptually. I don’t know how one can still call this kind of teaching “Education”. That is why American school children are way behind European and Japanese children in mathematics and sciences. This system is so bad that in 1983 the United States government published a report called “A Nation at Risk – The imperative in Educational Reform”. It is stated in it that: “If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war”. Yet this mediocre education could not be improved since 1983. It is the core, the Dewey system of teaching that must be changed and replaced by a conceptual teaching as used in Europe. I don’t know how many people realize the important connections; The Dewey Education produces ignorant sections of the population, who vote for the wrong people, who make laws that keep their children ignorant, and threaten our national security by undoing the Enlightenment.
The Enlightenment is a philosophical movement of the 18th century that fundamentally changed the way people thought and acted from then on. Traditional values were questioned. After Rousseau, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Diderot, and Locke wrote their works, Europeans started to make their daily decisions based on science and reason, in stead of tradition, religion, and superstition. Empirical methods began to be used in science. Knowledge was no longer worshiped but systematically questioned in order to correct mistakes. Europeans decided to “use their heads” in what they were doing. This made it possible for the sciences to flourish. Europe became technically and, therefore, militarily so strong, that it was able to colonize most of the rest of the world. What we call today “The West” was created by the Enlightenment. It is of course impossible to define the Enlightenment precisely in this short article. But I hope that I do not have to do that because I would expect that most of my readers would have a more complete conception of it in their minds, that is, if they took World history in high school.
Of course America inherited all these beneficent changes. Our third president, Thomas Jefferson, contributed to that movement by separating the roles of church and state in society and put that in our constitution. We were very lucky that this change happened very peacefully here. In Europe, sciences were developed in spite of the difficulties set by the Church, starting with the Galileo episode in 17th century. There were the 100 years Wars, the 30 Years Wars, the Inquisitions, and- many massacres. Finally, the civil society in Europe prevailed over the Church and sciences could be developed freely in the society. There was one last big dispute in the Mid-19th century. Charles Darwin had developed, after long years of research, “the Theory of Evolution” The Church saw that as a refutation of the Adam and Eve story in the Bible and attacked Darwin ferociously. Actually, Darwin was a good Christian, but had no choice but to accept the logical results of his own research. This debate lasted for a few years, but at the end everyone in Europe accepted Darwin’s ideas. Hanle says that evolution became the “cornerstone principle of biology, one on which there is no serious scientific debate”.
This European enlightenment became also the foundation of the United States. American scientists added to it and we got the super power we are now.
Well, no serious “scientific” debate, but interminable non-scientific debate was carried out in the United States since 1925. (Most of us have seen the movie “Inherit The Wind”) We are 160 years behind Europe by still debating such a sure theory. This is the war between science and ignorance. About one third of the U.S. public is made of Evangelical Christians. That group has hijacked the Republican Party and is selling its religious ideas as Republican Ideas. The Evangelical Christians have a conception of the World that is as old as the Bible. And in the 21st Century, they are forcing the rest of America to become as ignorant as themselves. Philosophically, they want us to undo all the gains of the Enlightenment and live like the people of the 16th Century. They don’t know that this will terribly weaken the United States and would lead to its destruction. That is a kind of treason. It is not treason motivated by malice, but by pure ignorance.
It is hard to believe that such a large percentage of U.S. population may be called “ignorant”. Everywhere else in the World ignorant people know that they are ignorant and would like to get better educated. Ours would never accept that they are ignorant, and consequently, don’t want to change. The main culprit for this condition is the poor public education in the U.S. There is one important point that must be emphasized: The John Dewey’s system of education does not teach the children to think conceptually. I don’t know how one can still call this kind of teaching “Education”. That is why American school children are way behind European and Japanese children in mathematics and sciences. This system is so bad that in 1983 the United States government published a report called “A Nation at Risk – The imperative in Educational Reform”. It is stated in it that: “If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war”. Yet this mediocre education could not be improved since 1983. It is the core, the Dewey system of teaching that must be changed and replaced by a conceptual teaching as used in Europe. I don’t know how many people realize the important connections; The Dewey Education produces ignorant sections of the population, who vote for the wrong people, who make laws that keep their children ignorant, and threaten our national security by undoing the Enlightenment.
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