Latest Challenges to the Teaching of Evolution

@farmerman,

When the actual science of the USA is No 1 who cares what position is held in some league table invented by somebody with a name to make.

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@wandeljw,

How do they "teach" atheism? Science?

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@spendius,

spendi, The US still produces most of the new inventions of the world, but I've also heard the Israel is up their in the top tier.

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@cicerone imposter,

I daresay the former is true. I don't know about the other.

According to Professor Veblen not being a persecuted minority leads to a reduction in creativity.

But try the chain of thought from crying down American science by claiming it is 30th in some league table to the justification of sexual peccadilloes. In 3 intermediate steps. (Getting evolution in. Getting atheism in. Getting Christian sexual doctrine out. )

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@cicerone imposter,

As our position in science "literacy" declines to the level of Bosnia we are now seeing that the epicenter for actual "New discoveries" is shifting to Asia . Weve given up eadership in so many technologica;l areas that we will be buying back stuff that we originally created several decades back.

Scientific discovery is collaborative after the initial dioscovery is made, and thats where we are falling down. Our elite universities are rapidly greying and research done by "emeritus" faculty is becoming serious.
It all is a matter of numbers, we dont produce a product in our education system. We fill the kids heads with irrelevancies and "Feel good" ****. HArd sciences are declining in enrollment as are engineering diwsciplines. The really smart kids today are choosing finance and economics.

Lets look at the progress of Nobel Prize awards over the next decade. In less than 2 decades, I predict that "discoveries and applied development of discoveries" will be solely in the hands of India and a bit less in CHina. (India is probably the nation of the most education loving overachievers on the planet) .

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@farmerman,

We can not win the superbowl year after year forever and that is why we need to all be as one, {the whole world} unless we want to be dictated to!

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

we dont produce a product in our education system. We fill the kids heads with irrelevancies and "Feel good" ****. HArd sciences are declining in enrollment as are engineering diwsciplines. The really smart kids today are choosing finance and economics.

Perhaps if science were presented to kids as more of an open-ended puzzle, and less as a series of facts that they're supposed to commit to memory using mnemonic tricks, then the smart, aggressive ones would show more of an interest in it. If they're confronted early on with "the unknown" it will teach them how to design solid experiments to fill in the gaps in what they know. I also think formal theories on the philosophy of science should find their way into the curriculum. Why not assign primary source readings from Popper, as well as paraphrases of more modern theories of knowledge, alongside those tedious equation-balancing exercises that kids now have to do?

My high school Physics and Chemistry classes relied entirely on rote learning and simple algebra and trig. Economics was exciting, even in high school, because there were no fixed answers, and you had to find the answer that best allowed you to conceptualise what was going on in the world.

The motives smart kids have for entering Economics and Finance aren't entirely pecuniary.

Now, no one should take this as an argument for teaching creationism alongside evolution in schools in order to make people "think harder" about what's so great about real theories. There are other ways of accomplishing that. In the end, the effect of teaching creationism in schools would probably be mainly to confuse the slower kids (the ones that view knowledge as a collection of "true and indisputable facts") about evolution's status as superior to creationism. Those kids would then grow up to question whether funding hard science was really such a good idea; and would vote accordingly.

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@Oylok,

Oylok, Our educational system is failing all of our students, and not just in science and math. The educational experts still hasn't figured out that a) students learn at different ages, b) have different interests, c) have different motivations, and d) standardized tests are the biggest handicap to our children's education.

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@cicerone imposter,

Wow I never heard it explained that way but it does seem true!

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From Yahoo, the buzz blog:

Quote:

So, is an ancient foot really a big deal? Well, yeah. An article from LiveScience.com explains that this discovery "could change the story of human evolution, or at least the story of human foot evolution." The presence of an arch is key, because it makes "climbing trees much harder" and serves as a kind of shock absorber.

The news launched a slew of Web searches on Yahoo!. Immediately, online lookups for "lucy discovery" and "Australopithecus afarensis" surged over 500%. Impressive, but we were even more impressed that so many people knew how to spell "Australopithecus afarensis" on their first attempt. You guys are good.

Lucy's partial skeleton has, of course, been around for a while. The New York Times writes that she was first discovered in 1974, and has retained her title as the "most famous fossil hominid" ever since. However, she isn't the oldest skeleton from the human family tree. Several years ago, scientists discovered a skeleton that was 4.4 million years old.

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@Oylok,

Quote:

Perhaps if science were presented to kids as more of an open-ended puzzle, and less as a series of facts that they're supposed to commit to memory using mnemonic tricks, then the smart, aggressive ones would show more of an interest in it. If they're confronted early on with "the unknown" it will teach them how to design solid experiments to fill in the gaps in what they know. I also think formal theories on the philosophy of science should find their way into the curriculum. Why not assign primary source readings from Popper, as well as paraphrases of more modern theories of knowledge, alongside those tedious equation-balancing exercises that kids now have to do?

All this has been tried, and even more, so has interdisciplenary study where arts and science are combined. NOPE, at the outset we dont prepare our kids for college because our HS's are running scared so that they teach "everybody" by formula as you said. The gifted are cheated and the smmart kids are cheated.this is all done at their expense while the school is busy bringing up the bottom 2/3.

We need to ahve a rigorous academic curriculum full of milestones and expectations , where kids can and do learn at their own paces and are able to engage in personal homors research. The majority f kids who cant keep this up should be treated like they are in some of the EUropean countries. They should be trained and taught at either their levels of interest in liberal type arts . The trades are not looked at with any respect in the US. They are taught with an attitude that "If you arent smnart enough you get into trade school". ACtually, many of the academic students cant even change a lightbulb without instructions. We need to respect the trades and (by that I mean the new 21 century trades that include business)

As far as teachers in science, we need ones who can make the arcane simple and understandable and exciting. There are many such teachers but many of these wind up burnt out after a few years of stultifying administrators who have no clue .

1 Reply

@farmerman,

Germany is a good example of helping kids who are not college bound to get training in other skills.

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

Germany was my ideal in that I spent a junior year near STutgartd with a family whose childeren were equally training in University and in trades . The trade school positions were also handed out based upon interview and application. The trade wchools were very competitive because many of the kids were looking to be designers or specialists in automobile industry.
We are only slowly developing those types of training.

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NEW MEXICO UPDATE

Quote:

Schools respond to proposed evolution teachings
(Argen Duncan, Portales News-Tribune, February 12, 2011)

Local school administrators aren’t taking a strong stance on a bill that would allow the teaching of controversial topics such as intelligent design in public schools.

State Rep. Tom Anderson, R-Albuquerque, has introduced a bill that would prevent the state from prohibiting teachers who are presenting a controversial scientific topic “from informing students about relevant scientific information regarding either the scientific strengths or scientific weaknesses pertaining to that topic.”

The bill’s list of protected scientific topics include “biological origins, biological evolution, causes of climate change, human cloning and other scientific topics that are often viewed by society as controversial.”

The bill’s opponents have said the bill promotes religion and would adulterate science education. Supporters have said teaching the strengths and weaknesses of a theory advances science and critical thinking.

Floyd Municipal Schools Superintendent Paul Benoit and Portales Municipal Schools Director of Instruction Priscilla Hernandez said their schools adhere to state standards and benchmarks, which call for the presentation of the basics of evolution.

Benoit said Floyd teachers present evolution as a concept but don’t spend a great deal of time on it. Floyd students would be allowed to choose to study either side of the issue for projects and research papers, he said.

“We wouldn’t discourage any study of evolution any more than we would discourage study of creationism among our students,” Benoit said.

Benoit declined to comment on the bill because he hadn’t read it, and Hernandez said she might comment after seeing its outcome.

Eastern New Mexico University Professor of Biology Manuel Varela teaches evolution as a portion of some of his courses.

“You can go home and believe or not believe in God, but you must believe in evolution,” he said.

Varela said there is hundreds of years of evidence for evolution, which he defined as DNA mutating from generation to generation.

He thinks evolution should be taught in science classes, and intelligent design or creationism in philosophy or religion classes.

A professing Christian, Varela said he believes God created and the creation evolved. He said it’s illogical to say one must believe in evolution and not God or God and not evolution.

“The way I see it, you can believe in both,” Varela said.

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@wandeljw,

Quote:

“The way I see it, you can believe in both,” Varela said.

Except one has verifiable and testable evidence and the other doesnt. Appears kind of schizo to me

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In an interview Bernard Shaw gave when over 80 he said that he regretted having gone to school at all and that he valued nothing he had experienced there and that the teachers, who came to hate the children as 'instruments of torture', were merely turnkeys hired 'to keep the little devils locked up where they cannot drive their mothers mad'.

Most teachers, I tend to Shaw's view myself, and those associated with teachers, might well not accept such a position preferring instead to lend gravitas to the occupation, for obvious reasons, by various forms of sophistry and propaganda, but that does not mean there isn't truth in what Shaw said.

But the idea that we should look to India and other countries in Asia as role models for ourselves is, imo, ridiculous. fm is simply paddling his canoe.

Here is the elitist again--

Quote:

The gifted are cheated and the smmart kids are cheated.this is all done at their expense while the school is busy bringing up the bottom 2/3.

Surely smart kids won the birth lottery and are capable of shifting for themselves. It is the bottom 2/3 who need help.

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@wandeljw,

Quote:

The bill’s opponents have said the bill promotes religion and would adulterate science education.

But what they really mean is that the bill prevents certain teachers from promoting their own views on “biological origins, biological evolution, causes of climate change, human cloning and other scientific topics that are often viewed by society as controversial.” They are using the word "religion" as a catch all argument and asserting that the bill promotes religion which might not be the case at all and with well recruited teachers it won't be.

Quote:

Benoit said Floyd teachers present evolution as a concept but don’t spend a great deal of time on it.

Which is reasonable as evolution is a 10 minute subject except for those who wish to keep going over similar ground by simply changing the organisms, of which there is a vast supply and all subject to the same basic principle, in order to save themselves doing any thinking and padding out their lessons with redundant material as the great hero of evolution did with teleologies tailored to fit each organism. The polar bear is white for the same reason the infantry is camouflaged.

Quote:

Floyd students would be allowed to choose to study either side of the issue for projects and research papers, he said.

Yes indeed. I'm sure critical skills would be enhanced by a study of the social ramifications of religion and atheism. The Bible is not an uncaused cause. It had social engineering as its first and only objective. It's the same with the rules of the NFL. As it is with courtship rituals, marriage practices, diet, manners. Valentine cards became popular in line with the increase in tension between partners.

Critics of the Bible, a fatuity that seems to know no limit or capacity for repetition, are actually critical of the social engineering it attempted which is a bit daft in view of the mud-honey they are getting from the success. A mud-honey I might add which nothing in the evolutionary canon has ever got near. Sunbathing being the best ever managed and that for a short spell before being devoured.

And evolution shows that if wallowing in mud-holes floats the boat a thick skin is required.

1 Reply

@spendius,

I should have said that Valentine cards also became popular as the need to sell wood pulp increased. I admit it wouldn't matter what the tensions between partners increased to if there was no wood pulp at prices every lover can afford.

1 Reply

@spendius,

spendi, Did you know that the first Valentine card was created in England? You can see it at the British Museum.

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@cicerone imposter,

I can't see it at the BM ci. because I can't make the journey because I can't be arsed getting off my sofa unless necessity calls because I am in tune with evolution's productions which all, as far as I know, unless trained otherwise, follow that same basic principle which you seem willing and eager to inculcate in all the kids who would all end up like me using science as the justification. Which would put the Dow Jones into rapid freefall.

Kids might watch all sorts of sports on TV or in the flesh but if you look at organised sport there is bound to be a tendency for the inculcation of a spirit of fair and hard play. The referee is a judge and he penalises foul play. Again and again and again in every game you see. It's a continuous lesson in playing by the rules.

And the rules of evolution are that energy is not wasted on doing anything for which there is no biological necessity. It would be contrary to my scientific principles to go to the BM to have a look at the first Valentine card, probably a false claim anyway like the shin bone of saint probably is, because I can see no biological necessity for doing so.

Psychological necessity is another matter and if you anti-IDers want to go into that I am ready to examine it in as much detail as you can deal with.

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