I have often been asked why we scientists are so resistant to introducing ideas such as "creation science" in the biology classroom. My first reaction is to say that these ideas are not really scientific and therefore do not belong in a biology class, and I would be similarly opposed to teaching lacrosse rules or musical "song and dance" routines in a biology class. I have also realized that one of my key concerns is the harm that teaching creationist ideas in a biology classroom can do to the development of scientific thought in schoolchildren. I will first briefly illustrate some aspects of scientific work in biology, and then I will use a specific example from recent Muslim creationist literature to show how it can be potentially detrimental for students who want to develop rigorous scientific thought. For the purpose of brevity, I will use the all-encompassing term "creationism" to describe beliefs based on religious scriptures about the development of life on earth. An in-depth discussion of the different types of creationism can be found in the excellent overview by Ronald Numbers entitled "The Creationists: From Scientific Creationism to Intelligent Design".
In my daily work as a cell biologist, most of my time is spent designing and interpreting a wide range of experiments that measure gene expression, regulation of cell signaling pathways, cellular movements, metabolism or cell proliferation. Evolutionary biologists on the other hand specialize in studying the biological diversity of species and the evolutionary process itself. They are much more likely to study genes and processes in a wide range of species. Even though the subject matter is very different between my own research and my colleagues specializing in evolutionary biology, we do share a common approach as to how we develop our scientific ideas and theories. There has been an extensive amount of literature published by scientists and philosophers about the nature of the "scientific method" and its limitations (see "What is this Thing Called Science" by A.F. Chalmers), but in simplified practical terms, most of us tend to develop testable scientific hypotheses based on existing scientific ideas as well as some preliminary experiments. We then conduct experiments to test the hypotheses and our hypotheses are either confirmed or rejected. The existing scientific models are accordingly revised to incorporate these changes. When certain aspects of the theory cannot be directly tested, we try to make reasonable inferences based on the available data. Theories are often revised and at times radically modified as newer data is obtained. This very basic description of the scientific method is used in cell biology as well as evolutionary biology or any other field of biology.
As simple as this method sounds, the devil is in the details. When we mentor undergraduate students, graduate students or post-docs (people who have completed their Ph.D. but are acquiring specialized knowledge and skills in a certain area), we have little trouble teaching them how to perform the experiments. Usually, it only takes a few months to learn how to measure the activity of genes. However, the real challenge in training budding scientists is to teach them how to think independently and how to design and interpret their experiments.
Since we humans take great pleasure in being right, scientists learn to be especially cautious when designing experiments, so that they are not biased towards confirming the hypothesis. We try to teach our students how they should separate their actual experimental data from their hypothesis, and conduct experiments that not only confirm their hypothesis, but also those that would refute it. We highlight the importance of also considering alternate interpretations of their experiments. Only such rigorous testing and critical evaluation of one's own experiments can lead to reasonably reliable interpretations. Learning how to identify our own scientific biases and separate the actual data from our interpretations of the data takes years to learn.
One thing that I have noticed, however, is that students who were already exposed to rigorous scientific thinking during their middle school or high school years have an easier time when they interpret experiments at the university level. In Germany, middle school or high school students can enter the German National Youth Research Competition ("Jugend forscht") or the German National Mathematics Competition ("Bundeswettbewerb Mathematik"), and similar competitions also exist here in the United States. In such competitions or science fairs, middle and high school students get acquainted with the scientific method. They are often required to distinguish between the hypothesis, the experimental results, how the results relate to the hypothesis and the various interpretations of the results. My personal impression is that this clarity of thought can be of immense benefit to these students if they decide to pursue undergraduate and graduate studies in the sciences later in life.
However, I am concerned that inclusion of creationism in biology classes may represent an obstacle to developing this clarity of thought in middle school or high school students. There is much discussion in the United States about the role of Christian biblical creationism in the classroom, however it is important to note that Muslim creationism is also becoming more visible. Taner Edis (The Illusion of Harmony) and Ronald Numbers (The Creationists: From Scientific Creationism to Intelligent Design) discuss the importance of Harun Yahya, a pseudonym for the Turkish author Adnan Oktar, who has written numerous books targeted at Muslim middle school and high school students and which are exported to many parts of the Muslim world. The author Steve Paulson recently interviewed Harun Yahya and describes his organization as a well-funded "media operation," which widely distributes the books and videos. An extensive list of Harun Yahya's books promoting creationist thought based on Quranic verses can be found on his website and can be downloaded free of cost. To evaluate the nature of these writings, I downloaded the book entitled The Miracle in the Ant. This book is visually appealing with very nice photographs and summary boxes, written in an easy to understand English. It covers many aspects of ants, ranging from their anatomy to their social biology and many interesting details such as the production of pheromones. However, interspersed between these scientific details about ant biology are many phrases referring to these scientific findings as being proof of the work of a Creator as well as verses from the Quran. Furthermore, the author frequently mentions the errors of evolutionary biologists since their theories cannot adequately explain the diversity of ants. Finally, the author has a book chapter entitled "The Evolution Deceit," which seems very much out of place in a book on ants, because it uses hostile terms to attack numerous aspects of evolutionary biology which are unrelated to ants. It refers to Darwin as an "amateur biologist" whose ideas were "unscientific" and would have been "banished to the dustbin of history" if certain ideological movements had not promoted them.
The tone of Harun Yahya's book (and some of his other books that I have perused) is very hostile, invoking conspiracies that promote "unscientific" ideas. He includes many scientific facts but combines them with his own interpretation of the Quranic scripture, without clarifying the differences between the actual scientific data, his interpretation of the scientific data and his interpretation of the scripture. Impressionable students who read this may not be able to distinguish between the scientific hypotheses, which have been experimentally tested, and the scriptural interpretations of the author, which have not been experimentally tested and are not meant to be tested. Such obfuscation of the types of knowledge could become a major obstacle for the development of critical scientific thought in students. Furthermore, the overall hostile tone that invokes "conspiracies" is not based on any data and presented as a fact without proof. This may not only deter students from wanting to pursue a scientific career because of alleged "conspiracies," but it may also promote a culture that allows blanket statements without critical evaluation. Authors such as Harun Yahya or his counterparts in the area of Christian creationism are of course free to believe in and promote any theory. However, I think that one of the main goals of a biology class is to introduce students in middle schools and high schools to basic knowledge in biology as well as help them develop critical scientific thought. Teaching creationism in a biology classroom may undermine these goals.
Follow Jalees Rehman, M.D. on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jalees_rehman
Islamic creationism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Creation and Evolution - Islamic Teachings About Creation
Muslim creationism makes inroads in Turkey - Technology & science ...
In the Muslim world, creationism is on the rise - The Boston Globe
Muslim creationism is back in the news, this time in Egypt ...
Harun Yahya - An Invitation to The Truth
Richard Dawkins: Muslim parents 'import creationism' into schools ...
There is a site that will appear INSTANTLY if you google for "speed of light" and "Quran" which has a derivation from 25000 months of the EXACT speed of light and a definition INVARIANT to the change of inertial frame.
It has been there for years but no cosmologists or physics professors have been able to refute it.
I have sent emails to physics profs at MIT,Cambridge,Oxford,Moscow,Sorbonne,Beijing,Weizmann,Caltech,Princeton etc and none had the courage to write a simple paper and refute the calculation.
The western civilization has lost all credibility after 911 inside job and nanothermite and anthrax. Counterpunch by Alex Cockburn has lost credibility due to coverup. Professor Steven Jones has credibility due to his RIGOROUS and THOROUGH scientific forensic work. Aafiya siddiqui proves western Kourts KANGAROO.
It is a fact that evolutionary theory is based on shoddy western science whose main reason for glitter are imperial and financial scams by the fractional reserve banksters like Rothschild/Madoff. Plz read the book "Allah's Mercy" by Hillaire Billoc which shows how spineless west is to the banksters that he wrote a very accurate workings of European jewish banksters BUT smeared on the name of Islam. This book was in early 1900s.
You see, if you say the world operates on principles, that is an offense to Allah since Allah must be able to break any principle at will to have miracles. You see?
You see, in science, evidence is required before you can support a position. Explanations for an event or circumstance or occurance must be based on facts.
And there are no facts that support the position that a supernatural being created naturally occurring systems, processes and circumstances.
Conclusion: The earth is 5B years old and natural selection seems to be the method that determines which species survives.
Here are the just some of the facts that support that conclusion (clearly the list if very long)
Fact: fossils exist
Fact: carbon exists and decays at a set rate
Fact: the earth has large tectonic plates that move very slowly
Fact: genes mutate
Fact: light travels at 186K miles per second
Fact: when we try to eliminate a virus it changes
Fact: the enviornment affects what life lives or dies.
Now here is the creationist conclusion; The earth is only 5K years old and natural selection does not influence life.
Fact: the bible says so
I would be very interested in studying some facts that I may have missed.
By the way, a fact is something that one can create an experiment to confirm. For example the fact of technonic plates can be proved by cameras at the deep sea rifts.
We now teach our kids to say the pledge of allegiance and say :One Nation under God indevisable, with liberty and justice for all, and then we teach them how to go out and earn all those dollars that have In God we Trust printed on them, here in the year 2011 which is the marking of the birth of Jesus Christ that many years ago.
All of this mass confusion on our kids? God have mercy on us, as we completely try to legislate even the mention of God to our kids out of our public schools, and out of existance......
I don't think that works, but I would love to hear you idea of how you could make it work.
We are assuming here that these 2 theories would be taught in Science class. Right?
OK, the fundmental process in science is; 1) idea, 2) experimentation, 3) observation of the results of the experiment, and 4) conclusions.
Now, we know all the experiments done to evaluate the theory of plate techonics, geology, biology, natural selection, and palenatololgy.
So, could you, explain to all of us, what experiments would get at intelligent design? What experiments would prove "GOD." And finally, could you be an independent evaluator of the results of those experiments, in that, if the results did not support your theory you would change your theory?
1 Corinthians 1:20 says; Where is the wise? Where is the scribe (the recorder of the day)? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom (science) did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe?
Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
Therefore, all of this so called "science" that foolishly tries to explain, and insist on it's own conclusions of how life began, is like a fool who insist it is night when the sun is shining down on everything.
I refuse to be the fool who believes in the "theory of evolution" having all the answers, just like the scientists think it's foolish to believe in God, just like the Bible says they would, and continue to do.
But, what if someone was blind and can't see the sun? Or, even through the sun is shinning here does not mean it is night somewhere else.
So, you say you are not a fool, because you don't think evolution has all the answers. Good, because we know evolution does not have "ALL" the answers.
But the point in science class is the scientific method. To go back to your example of the sun, we can create experiments to prove the sun risen in a specific place.
What is your suggestion for some tests to prove that either plate tectonics does not occur, or that there are no mutations in the genes that cause changes in the biology, or that carbon does not decay at a specific rate, or that light does not travel at 186K Miles per second? Those tests would prove the earth is not 5B years old, and evolution does occur. And what experiments would you suggest that would prove God exists and created the world?
There is no such word meaning for Creationism............ the word is manufactured, contrived to state something that is not scientifically possible.
http://nl1.harunyahya.com/Detail/T/EDCRFV/productId/36746/RESPONSE_TO_THE_HUFFINGTON_POST:_EVOLUTION_AS_WELL_AS_CREATION_SHOULD_BE_TAUGHT_IN_SCHOOLS.
An article by Jaless Rehman was published on the world renowned Huffington Post web site on 1 January, 2011. In that piece, Rehman referred to the influence and importance of the works of the globally esteemed author Mr. Adnan Oktar.
In that article, Rehman speaks of the power of Mr. Oktar’s effective and scientific campaign against Darwinism and mentions the scientific evidence, rationality, powerful style and impact of his books. In considering the influence of these books on students, Rehman expresses his own doubts and espouses a one-sided perspective to the effect that students should only be given scientific information, without entering into the subject of Creation.
Our statement on this subject is as follows:
Jalees Rehman should be aware of the dominance of the Darwinist dictatorship in schools
First and foremost, this needs to be made clear: one of the greatest victories of the 150-year-old Darwinist dictatorship has been the inclusion of Darwinist education in schools. Darwinism is now officially taught in all schools and universities everywhere in the world. School administrations and even state officials are unable to speak out on this matter, even if they are opposed to it, and are unable to prevent Darwinist education. New classes are removed from the curriculum in all countries. Just like countries’ official languages and currencies, evolution has become an official ideology taught in schools.
No doubt, but sooner or later the reality of these challenges must be faced. I am of the opinion that the SOONER a student faces these challenges the sooner she learns which path to take in life. I discuss evolution AND creation to my child, taking no hostile tone with either. I teach that scientists are studying the *how* and God is the *why*, no rivalry need exist and where it seems to exist, one or the other has lefts its proper domain.
Ok. But surely, the right time to introduce the scriptural interpretations depends on the development of the child and the ability of the teacher to communicate the ideas.
Scripture and religion of any culture is a philosophical ideology that needs mature understanding. Children are very literal in their interpretations they cannot possibly understand the metaphors and abstract ideas in the religious stories.
I agree with the writer, religious ideas of "creatonism" should wait until college when the students have enough knowledge and experiance to understand.
When youger students are given such education- it is brainwashing.
When youger students are given such education- it is brainwashiÂng. "
Shall I assume you have no problem with teaching elementary school students "global warming?"
I believe moral instruction should come FIRST.
Evolution is usually taught in phases starting perhaps as early as third grade. Children are pretty smart and realize the implication quickly -- evolution means there is no right or wrong, there is only STRONG versus weak. Have you observed what seems like an increase in bully behavior that correlates somewhat with the decline of religion in America?
Science is the most pure thing we have. It denies us the ability to bs ourselves."
Some dude
I wish this were so. The article talks about the need to test for, and fail to prove, contrary thesis (anti-thesis). Where that is lacking it is very easy to scientifically prove a great many wrong things, "cold fusion" comes to mind.
Quite a lot of bs exists in the global warming science; "hide the decline" comes to mind. These are scientists that have already decided the outcome. It may still be good science, but it is contaminated by their prior assurance of the outcome.
If you can find a better way to find the truths of the natural world other than science, I'd really much like to hear it. So I think I'll stick with my previous statement, and reiterate it more loudly in fact.
"Science is the most pure thing we have. It DENIES us the ability to bs ourselves."
Speaking of contamination: "Quite a lot of bs exists in {GW} science." The statement speaks to my earlier point, the intrusion of politics - how people make conscious decisions to delude themselves.
Otherwise a big IgNoRe to the GW deniers from me. That discussion is over with me. This Jonny has nothing to say to yas concerning that issue.
Yes indeed: Let there be light, and there was light. Done!