so my wife is a highschool science (especially bio and chem) teacher. she’s just now starting in on the evolution unit and we were chatting the other day about it as she prepared her lessons. what struck me most is that in the ‘evolution’ unit, and not in any other unit, she’s got to devote time to addressing the idea that evolution is “just a theory,” that it’s “controversial,” and so on. note, this isn’t her school’s policy nor her curriculum’s. but a response to a number of students who have already asked, “doesn’t evolution go against religion?”
in every other chapter she just gets to teach the science, but somehow in the year 2011, evolution is still (or once again) being handled with kid gloves. that’s kind of sad, to me.
I’m sorry we are no longer allowed to talk about god/allah or any forms of religion in schools, so we will only be discussing the science behind evolution.
I’m sorry we are no longer allowed to talk about god/allah or any forms of religion in schools, so we will only be discussing the science behind evolution.
That’s a big part of the problem. My kids have had a religious education and the basic ablility to have moral/religious discussions in religion class gets rid of almost all the BS in science class. This leads to the rather perverse result that your typical kid coming out of a Catholic school probably has a better science based education on evolution than most public school kids.
Its also a myth that “religion” doesn’t acknowledge evolution. Its only the fundementalist strains in christianity that contest the science. They just happen to be a very vocal minority.
"Its also a myth that “religion” doesn’t acknowledge evolution. Its only the fundementalist strains in christianity that contest the science. They just happen to be a very vocal minority. "
that’s something, for sure. she was just recently doing a unit on cancer, and HPV came up. a student asked if there was a cervical cancer vaccine, and my wife explained that she was thinking of the HPV vaccine, which vaccinates one very common cause of cervical cancer. and then she got to go into a nice long talk about the ins and outs of HPV and other STDs, since she’s got a class of senior students who might be off to university next year.
her tack on that is, “i’m not here to give a talk on values or life choices or self esteem or anything else. i’m equipping you with the facts on virology. this is the science.”
44% of the american public subscribe to young earth creationism
39% subscribe to “god guided evolution” - an idea which would range anywhere from insane intelligent design theories to more reasonable beliefs that evolution happened but I still believe in god.
barely a minority, maybe not even one depending on the breakdown of that second category.
Its also a myth that “religion” doesn’t acknowledge evolution. Its only the fundementalist strains in christianity that contest the science. They just happen to be a very vocal minority.
That wouldn’t be factually correct. It is allowed to talk about religion in public schools.
You do it in history and humanities courses constantly, and for some reason biology teachers have to do it about once a year too =)
Shouldn’t the response go something like this.
I’m sorry we are no longer allowed to talk about god/allah or any forms of religion in schools, so we will only be discussing the science behind evolution.
ok here is an interesting stat, that I think suggests cognitive dissonance on a wide scale:
44% of americans subscribe to young earth creationism
70% of americans feel that evolution is compatible with a belief in god.
Now, these are from different polls, but assuming the results are vaguely accurate, how can that be?
it seems to suggest they don’t really understand evolution (it can’t be compatible with a ‘young earth’)
or that they don’t understand young earth creationism.
perhaps a more shocking possibility is that even young earth creationists are answering this question in a more general sense, that evolution is not inherently incompatible with belief in god, even though it is incompatible with their particular belief about god.
your wife should ask these students (in private) to find and report on peer reviewable research that casts doubt on evolution . . . hint: there isn’t any to find.
your wife should ask these students (in private) to find and report on peer reviewable research that casts doubt on evolution . . . hint: there isn’t any to find.
sure there is. creationist researchers and their peers produce lots.
now the question is whether their arguments are logical and factual =)
and whether any of it actually involved any research or just rhetoric
I can’t imagine it would take all that much time to address, presuming they’re capable of understanding the fundamental differences between sound scientific theory and mythology. I think it’s probably helpful, overall, to have that discussion, and in this context. I think it adds to the discussion more than it takes away from it, ultimately.
Not that anyone really has adequate time to teach the theory in a single high school science class.
Or by the idea that people who believe that evolution and belief in god are compatible haven’t thought this through either?
The belief in evolution and the belief in God are not incompatible. For example: http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/catholic/papal-letter.html is a letter from a biology professor at Brown University to Pope Benedict XVI on the subject of evolution. Prof. Miller is a devout Catholic, by the way.
First paragraph:
In his magnificent letter to the Pontifical Academy in 1996 regarding the subject of Evolution, Pope John Paul II affirmed that scientific rationality and the Church’s spiritual commitment to divine purpose and meaning in the Universe were not incompatible. The Pope accepted that biological Evolution had progressed beyond the hypothetical stage as a guiding principle behind the understanding of the evolution of diverse life forms on Earth, including humans. At the same time, he rightly recognized that the spiritual significance that one draws from the scientific observations and theory lie outside of the scientific theories themselves. In this sense, claiming that evolution definitely implies a lack of divinity, and/or divine purpose in nature is as much an affront to science as it is to the Church.
in every other chapter she just gets to teach the science, but somehow in the year 2011, evolution is still (or once again) being handled with kid gloves. that’s kind of sad, to me.
Agreed, except that I wouldn’t just say “kind of sad.” I thought it was sad back in 1964, when I took high school biology. In 2011, it’s outrageous.
The problem isn’t limited to evolution, either:
“Dr. Miller’s data reveal some yawning gaps in basic knowledge. American adults in general do not understand what molecules are (other than that they are really small). Fewer than a third can identify DNA as a key to heredity. Only about 10 percent know what radiation is. One adult American in five thinks the Sun revolves around the Earth, an idea science had abandoned by the 17th century.” (source)
the sun revolving around the earth isn’t exactly wrong.
nor is frame of reference that the earth revolves around the sun entirely right
the most accurate account would be that the two bodies revolve around the point that is the center of their combined mass (which in this case, is very nearly the center of the sun)
any of these descriptions can be correct if you adopt the appropriate reference frame though, which is interesting.
I’ll be happy when 9/10 american’s understand all of these subtleties.
Any attempt to reconcile evolution with the christian cration myth requires a massive amount of cognitive dissonance. They are mutually exclusive concepts.
The devout Catholic you refer to is simply using cognitive dissonance to keep his world view from collapsing.
I think the key phrase in your post is “very near the center of the sun.” Of course, I’m assuming that inertial frames of reference are preferred in such descriptions. Since the sun/solar-system revolves around the center of the galaxy (that is, the gravitational center), the sun/solar-system doesn’t provide a truly inertial frame of reference, but it comes a heck of lot closer to one than the frame of reference provided by the earth. The heliocentric description is therefore a lot more correct than the geocentric one, despite your quibbles. If you disagree, you can join guru in dismissing Occam and have fun plotting your epicycles.
Generally, I think scientific description proceeds in stages. Newton’s description is a lot more correct than Aristotle’s, Einstein’s description is more correct than Newton’s, and some future physics that also accounts well for quantum-level effects will be more correct than Einstein’s.