Well...it had to be on the web...

[OB]

Almost as bad as reading a Dan Brown "novel"

 

[monty]

http://www.cnn.com/2005/EDUCATION/12/08/creationism.professor.ap/index.html

 

[cthulhu77]

Almost as bad as reading a Dan Brown "novel"

I must be missing something here...you mean, EB-52's aren't real?

 

[main_board]

Hey Everyone,

Part inspiration from this forum, part not wanting to write on any of the other topics, I just finished a philosophy essay on the debate of whether creationism should be taught in the science classroom of public schools. Granted, the arguments aren't the strongest but time was limited so I did as best I could.

Importantly, I just wanted to point out that this issue really isn't as obvious as many people might think. I am a evolution/science believer (thats funny ) but even when I took a more in depth look at this there are some arguments to be made for teaching creationism. The best arguments against (that I'm aware of) are what does teaching creationism really achieve and that the science curriculum already includes very little time on evolution so dividing up that time for creationism isn't such a hot idea. If there was more time though, I think that teaching creationism has some merits, assuming the material is presented properly.

Anyways, I thought I'd post it here to see if anyone would like a pretty generalized look at some arguments against (even though, as stated above, I believe there is some wiggle room). Many many thanks to a friend of mine for editting, idea suggestion, and titles. I just gotta post some of them. My favourits were:

Accidents Do Happen

This Essay Has An Intelligent Design but God Didn't Write It

It Took Me Six Days Just to Create this Essay

Amen to Evolution


Theres another great title, but I used it in the essay and I didn't want to ruin the surprise of those who wish to read it.

Cheers!

 

[OB]

I must be missing something here...you mean, EB-52's aren't real?

Urm, that's Dale Brown.... Now there's a real writer

BTW, nice little piece Jesse, I enjoyed reading that.

 

[cthulhu77]

What? There are more Brown's ???? Nah, I'll stick with the plasma cannons and EB'52's, thanks.

 

[monty]

Part inspiration from this forum, part not wanting to write on any of the other topics, I just finished a philosophy essay on the debate of whether creationism should be taught in the science classroom of public schools. Granted, the arguments aren't the strongest but time was limited so I did as best I could.

Importantly, I just wanted to point out that this issue really isn't as obvious as many people might think. I am a evolution/science believer (thats funny ) but even when I took a more in depth look at this there are some arguments to be made for teaching creationism. The best arguments against (that I'm aware of) are what does teaching creationism really achieve and that the science curriculum already includes very little time on evolution so dividing up that time for creationism isn't such a hot idea. If there was more time though, I think that teaching creationism has some merits, assuming the material is presented properly.

Pretty good essay. I think it would work better if it was a bit longer, but I assume the length was appropriate for the assignment. On some level I agree that teaching creationism alongside has some aesthetic appeal in terms of "balance" and "learning critical thinking," but realistically, even in the ID form, it's so unscientific that it's an apples to oranges sort of comparison. And as you point out in the essay, given that scientific validity is not a criterion for what is or isn't taught, how do you choose what version of creationism to teach? People seem to be arguing that the only criterion is the loudness of its proponents, which, unfortunately, probably puts creationism ahead of flying-spaghetti-monsterism. Of course, it occurs to me that we do teach naive, wrong theory in a historical context-- it's not considered bad to teach that before Copernicus, people thought the Sun went around the Earth: it's just taught as a historic belief that, when investigated scientifically, turned out to be wrong. In that context, then teaching it seems fine.

Anyway, thanks for sharing your essay with us...

 

[main_board]

I think it would work better if it was a bit longer, but I assume the length was appropriate for the assignment. On some level I agree that teaching creationism alongside has some aesthetic appeal in terms of "balance" and "learning critical thinking," but realistically, even in the ID form, it's so unscientific that it's an apples to oranges sort of comparison....Of course, it occurs to me that we do teach naive, wrong theory in a historical context-- it's not considered bad to teach that before Copernicus, people thought the Sun went around the Earth: it's just taught as a historic belief that, when investigated scientifically, turned out to be wrong.

Yeah, there were definitely more areas that I could have explored, and wanted to, but time and assignment restraints wouldn't allow it. And along those lines, we always learn in chemistry about the history of the atomic model. None of those theories turned out to be true, but we are still taught them (which drives me crazy). Thanks for the comments.

Cheers!

 

[OB]

And along those lines, we always learn in chemistry about the history of the atomic model. None of those theories turned out to be true, but we are still taught them (which drives me crazy). Thanks for the comments.

Cheers!

Don't feel too upset; as the human mind and its associated consciousness is a system within the greater system of the actual (objective?) universe, it is by definition only possible to grasp part of the story. As a result, the best we can ever hope for is to achieve understanding to the best of our abilities of the behaviour of reality: science is only really able to address queries as towards the how.

"Why?" questions may sound like questions, but that's only semantics. A question with no answer is not really a question; it just looks like one (as in: "what's the colour of Wednesday?", never mind the synesthetic's answer to that one ).

The essence of a model, be it of evolution or the atomic structure, is that it models the behaviour of reality as we subjectively experience it through either our senses or sensors we derived to expand the latter's functional abilities. Einstein may have found that gravitational pull can be adequately described by assuming the curvature of spacetime by mass, but he never worried about why gravity exists: it simply is. I also guess Einstein was a closet ID proponent

 

[DHyslop]

I had a professor once who told us this simple mantra:

"All models are false. Some models are useful."

Today's scientific knowledge is not the end-all be-all. The "wrong" models of the atom you were taught about are--in the great scheme of things--not all that less correct on an absolute scale than today's model. Yesterday's models are just less useful. In 50 years today's models probably won't be useful for the things we try to do.

I believe this is true whether we're talking about the atomic model, the golgi aparatus or physical processes inside the Earth.

Dan

 

[Feelers]

I dont see how ID can be taught in a scientific context - unless it is for the purpose of showing "bad science" in action - which is exactly what we are taught here. Both in high school and at Uni, we were shown a comparison between good science - ie hypothesis testing, evidence, references ect, and bad science - ID.

I think that ID is there for one thing - and one thing only - to bring religion back into the fray.
I dont see many (if any) secular proponents to teaching ID, and the argument that it creates a balance sends the wrong message.

The only reason its still under focus is because the very powerful Christian base in America is funding it and promoting the idea.

If I came up with a wacky idea , got enough of my friends to support me and put pressure on everyone to teach it, it doesnt mean it should be taught in a science classroom.

I think many in the scientific community are too scared to get the negative PR (from the rightwing religious) that is associated with anti ID statements, this in my veiw is babying them.


ID / Creationism = scientific bollocks.

Science needs to grow some teeth, perhaps remove religion from being taught in churches - see, it isnt too nice being invaded by another institution.


Interersting point about scientific models - I remember being annoyed about the atomic model - but I think it's used as a stepping stone - you cant just chuck people straight into the deep end. Although in retrospect the information was taught as truth, we werent told that this was watered down science - which should have been apparant.

 

[main_board]

I do agree with you that under its current presentation it is being taught simply to try and convert students or bring religion back into a place where it doesn't belong. However, I'm not saying (I don't think anyone on this forum is) that ID/creationism is science. I'm not saying it should be taught as science. What I do think is that if there was enough time in the school curriculum (which there isn't) than there are some secular points to be made for teaching creationism. (I certainly didn't think so when I set out to write this essay, but I've been proved wrong before and it'll happen again.) You present both theories to the students, show how each one has evolved (), how each one is supported, and you end up teaching the students how to looks at things objectively, develop their reasoning skills, and show them how to tell real science apart from junk science. Practically speaking, this will not happen anytime soon.

Cheers!

 

[Feelers]

Well, I have been formally briefed in the (science) classroom on the main ideas behind ID/creationism - as you say its probably one of the best examples of bad science, and this is exactly why I was taught it.

I dont think that's quite the spin the pro ID people are looking for.


Luckily the NZ system is actually secular!!! , I can see teaching ID as an example of bad science probably wouldnt go down too well in the States!!

 

[monty]

models

On further consideration, mostly prompted by the atomic models comments, I think my earlier comment about "maybe ID/Creationism could be taught as an outdated model" was wrong. The example of various atomic theories (I personally like the plum pudding model!) being a stepping stone to understanding is an excellent one-- and in some sense it applies to many of the theories still mentioned-- the terracentric view of the solar system and even the flat earth model are actually useful on some level as approximations. ID/Creationism doesn't actually provide a useful model at all-- they just declare an unusable and untestable fact that must be accepted on faith. At least in the flat earth model, it's based on some observation that when you look around, the earth looks pretty much flat-- it's actually arguable that it takes a great deal of imagination and faith to imagine the curvature of the earth, particularly from the days when there weren't satellite pictures of the earth and globes and whatnot as learning tools. There is a good deal less evidence for creationism or ID... the notion of design is a subjective interpretation more than even an observation of how things obectively appear, as opposed to, say, the mathematically objective fact that any given point on the surface of a sphere like the earth is "locally flat" to a pretty good approximation.

 

[main_board]

Yeah, model wise it definitely does not stack up. And again, I don't really mean it to be taught in the science class as much as maybe a philosophy class, history, or religions class, where they can take the time to explain how it was originally used, that we could only imagine what was really going on, and then show how now-a-days it doesn't stand up so well scientifically.

Three cheers for secular New Zealand! (not to mention that it doesn't just rocks anyways)

Cheers!