England: Metaphysics Banned from Schools–Empiricism

The government in the United Kingdom has introduced a revision of the 'The Model Funding Agreement' that effectively bans the teaching of certain types of philosophy. (It appears that this effectively means any that come before David Hume…)

The agreement states that funded schools are precluded from ‘teaching, as an evidence-based view or theory, of any view or theory that is contrary to established scientific and/or historical evidence and explanations.’ (24A of The Model Funding Agreement)

Notice it uses the word contrary rather than contradictory. This leaves room to eliminate not just those ideas which are in conflict with scientific evidence (why would anyone support an idea like that anyways…unless you are a fideist or something) but also those ideas which are merely not supported by scientific evidence as well. So…remember this thing called brainwashing? Yes that is what is going on. “We are going to teach you to think in only a scientific way because “we” have decided that it is the best way of knowing.” Does the Parliament really think that it wouldn't be of any value for the kids to learn to evaluate that position for themselves? The government of UK appears to have officially adopted Empiricism as its philosophy even though this belief itself is not based on “established scientific/historical evidence.” Should empiricism be banned from schools for the same reason? Then what would we teach? Perhaps they should have had a philosophy debate before banning these types of debates from school.

The British Humanist Association (the wonderful group that they are) —please recall this post for when the Holy Father visited England— claims that the government has introduced this ban as a result of its campaign ‘Teach Evolution, not Creationism’:

‘This highly significant change has been made in order to ban creationism from being taught in Free Schools, and prevent creationist groups from opening schools. The change follows the BHA coordinating the Teach evolution, not creationism!’ campaign, which called for this precise change.’

However, the revision is so vague and ambiguous that it would not only ban creationism being taught in Free Schools, but also the Catholic metaphysical tradition which is founded on a posteriori principles. When you phrase a legal document using the word “established evidence” or “any view or theory” doesn't that seem like too broad of a brush? Really? All theories that are contrary (Not contradictory) to scientific evidence… Sounds very open minded to me…

St Thomas Aquinas’ proofs for the existence of God are evidence-based arguments for a necessary cause for the universe based on the observed chain of causality and for an ‘unmoved mover’to explain the symphony of movement in the universe. These arguments do not depend on scientific evidence just as the belief or arguments for 'science is the only credible way of knowing' do not depend on scientific evidence. It is a metaphy

This is plain dangerous.

Empirical Science

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