I'm often asked why I care so much if creationism is taught in public school science classrooms and laboratories. My passionate response touches on a host of important issues, issues that most people living in a democratic society really should care about.
The nonsensical battle between creationists and scientists is important because its very existence demonstrates just how scientifically illiterate so many citizens are. Indeed, evolutionary theory represents the best science has to offer.
Ever since Darwin published "On the Origin of Species" in 1859, evolutionary theory has offered numerous testable predictions, predictions that have consistently been supported by reams of data from paleontology to molecular biology and from developmental biology to genomics. Creationism, on the other hand, in all of its guises, makes no falsifiable predictions and offers no insight into the structure of the world around us. Simply put, pretending that the two are on an equal intellectual footing encourages people to completely misunderstand the nature of scientific investigation and promotes pseudoscience. The consequences of having a voting public that embraces the nonsense of pseudoscience should be self-evident to most.
As the great biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky so cogently put it in the title of a paper he published in 1973, "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." Replace evolution with creationism and modern biology becomes an incoherent collection of random pieces of data. The context that makes the science an integrated whole vanishes without evolution. And without that context much of modern medicine, agriculture, psychology and neuroscience, to name just four fields, becomes meaningless. To make matters worse, creationism also dismisses a good deal of modern anthropology, archeology, astronomy, chemistry, linguistics and physics.
Even if you don't care about science or science literacy, you should be concerned about what happens when creationism enters the educational arena. Creationism is the embodiment of one single religious worldview. Treating that religious worldview as science privileges one religion over all others. In addition to completely confusing religious and scientific methodology and the purposes of each, it is utterly disrespectful of those who practice a different faith as well as those who practice no faith.
Those of us who have been working to ensure that education remains both meaningful and valuable and is not controlled by those with partisan interests, and there are many of us working together toward this end, are aware of a larger truth. Those promoting creationism, regardless of the rhetoric they employ, view education dramatically differently than those who recognize the importance of science. Creationists believe that education is about teaching students what to think while those opposed to creationism believe that education is about teaching students how to think.
Students need to learn how to ask probing questions -- and how to assess the answers they receive. Students need to learn to think critically rather than blindly accepting everything that is put before them.
Creationists have long argued that they're in favor of these things as well, but their actions demonstrate otherwise. In fact, the most egregious of these actions, the platform adopted by the Republican Party of Texas this year, categorically puts an end to this debate. In clear and dramatic prose the Republican party in the state that has most aggressively attacked the teaching of evolution has stated: "We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student's fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority."
That entire sentence is absolutely frightening, but let's distill it down to is most simple meaning: "We oppose ... critical thinking skills ... which ... have the purpose of challenging the student's fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority."
The Republican Party in Texas believes that students enter school with "fixed beliefs" and nothing they experience in that setting should alter those beliefs. Anything that encourages students to think and grow, apparently, is off limits.
The 22-page Republican Platform is filled with startling items every bit as disconcerting as this. The document asserts that the concept of the separation of church and state is a myth, urges public schools to teach "the Judeo-Christian principles upon which America was founded," and urges "Congress to withhold Supreme Court jurisdiction in cases involving abortion, religious freedom, and the Bill of Rights."
If these things scare you, as they should, take a look at the Texas Freedom Network's (TFN) analysis of the platform. As it has on so many important issues, TFN has performed a great service with its examination.
Let's return to the evolution/creation controversy. A quote from the great American philosopher George Carlin fully and simply explains why I care so very much about this issue:
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Quote :
"Creationists believe that education is about teaching students what to think while those opposed to creationism believe that education is about teaching students how to think."
BRAVO to you Michael !! A brilliant exposé !!...A bright light on the ugly face of Ignorance.
Let's see more of this from your colleagues !
J.B.
...I'm getting old but I'm still a quick study...thought you were making a most egregious error in slamming me, so I had to take a peek at yer comments and it didn't jive...then ...daahh...I peeked at my "notifications"...It was the colon that should've given me the clue !!
"Idaho liberal"...damn you've had a tall cliff to climb...looks like you made it... :) ...
Who was it that said, "I'd-a-seen-the-ho but she done got away from me !!"...Still waiting by the phone for that call from HBO...You think ?
Fanned/favored
J.B.
Why learning to question is important!
http://phys.org/news/2012-08-prehistoric-bugs-million-years.html
"The ancient gall mites are surprisingly similar to ones seen today."
""You would think that by going back to the Triassic you'd find a transitional form of gall mite, but no," Grimaldi said. "Even 230 million years ago, all of the distinguishing features of this family were there—a long, segmented body; only two pairs of legs instead of the usual four found in mites; unique feather claws, and mouthparts."
thanks for bringing the stupid...
To claim it is a timeline problem ignores a lot of hard evidence.
Why learning what the theory says before you question is important.
:-)
Of course, this point often brings retorts about scientists suppressing or intimidating detractors in a massive global conspiracy to maintain those coveted grant funds. Clearly, people of this point of view fail to understand that most professional Christian apologists probably make much more money than your average scientist. Science may be many things, but a lucrative career it is not.
~~~You're either completely ignorant or you're intentionally lying. In either case, I'm not interested in speaking with you.
As I am a software engineer that works in the field of artificial intelligence algorithms, I better go inform my boss that the evolutionary principles at the base of some of our genetic algorithms are false, and therefore the algorithms that we use every single day to produce results that make our company money do not actually work. I suppose since they do not work, we will be expected to return all the profits that have been generated by said algorithms, as will other fields that have used such algorithms to design things like the turbines that are used for jet engines (which also apparently do not work).
Man, I am just going to have to start from square one now! But thanks "Eclipse" I am glad that there was such a smarty pants somewhere to figure out that all the concepts I work with on a day to day basis do not actually work.
Amen, but that is also true for the readers of the science section of HP.
Glad you're an Obama supporter. That's very reasonable of you!
http://live.huffingtonpost.com/r/segment/50337c9d2b8c2a042f0009b4
Learn something from us Serbs. I was educated about evolution in biology and never have I seen anyone argue or disprove it. Also I was allowed,as all free people,to attend "veronauka" a class we have for the religious high school students. Whom ever is atheist and doesn;t want to attend it goes on "gradjansko" and attends that (city education,community education) and there you have it. You hear both versions of the story wich are most probably both wrong and a third one is right.
Science, philosophy and religion side by side discovering the answers by finding real truths and stories that affirm where we came from!