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To: Remedy
Any teacher wo does not present evolution as a model or worse yet does not describe the concept of modeling, does a disservice to the creative, young mind.

During my early educational experience Darwinian evolution was presented as fact. It was years later that the concept of modeling was examined and still later that I realized Darwinian evolution was a "popular" model.

8 posted on 03/04/2003 7:43:13 PM PST by Amerigomag
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To: Amerigomag
"Any teacher wo does not present evolution as a model or worse yet does not describe the concept of modeling, does a disservice to the creative, young mind.
During my early educational experience Darwinian evolution was presented as fact. It was years later that the concept of modeling was examined and still later that I realized Darwinian evolution was a "popular" model."

Someday I plan to teach physics, hopefully at the college level, but we'll see. When I do so, I hope to find time in the curriculum for a whole unit on critical thinking in science. I mostly hope to teach them the seemingly lost art of debunking 'junk' science. Stuff like "free energy" and the so-called 'research' being done on psychic abilities. It is shocking to me sometimes what kind of stuff gets passed off as science these days, and too many people believe it because it's presented to them as science. Sometimes this is just foolishness, but mostly it has to do with misconceptions about science and people just not knowing any better.

I hope that I will teach my students to be skeptical, even about well established physics theories. Skepticism is a large part of what the scientific method is based on. I would hope that they do ask questions about evolution and not just take it as a bunch of facts we shove down their throats.

I would also hope they pretty much end up accepting it. It's not a complete theory, but then many of the most cutting edge ideas we work with in physics are not yet complete. That's the whole fun of it! If you accept that quarks are the basic constituents of protons, neutrons and other particles, I would hope you wouldn't throw out the whole thing just because Quantum Chromodynamics (the study of quark-gluon interactions) is not yet perfected. We know that quarks exist, we just can't describe the precise manner in which they do their thing.

Similar with evolution. Too many people attack it as "only a theory", but so is Quantum Mechanics, and you don't hear many people crticizing that. There are LOADS of evidence in favor of evolution as it is currently accepted by the scientific community today. It's not just "popular", it's the only credible explanation of the biological evidence that is currently out there.

In school classrooms, we should teach kids the basic currently accepted theories out there. There should always be the understanding that everything they are presented with in 9th grade, from Psychology to Biology to Physcis, could possibly be disproven and modified by the time they graduate. That's science. It constantly changes as new evidence comes to light. The best we can do is teach our kids to think critically, but we should present them with good theories and good evidence to back it up.

What worries me is that the recent trend of allowing "criticism" of evolution in the classroom is actually a code word for promoting ID or creationism. ID, in its most basic form is pretty innocuous. It accepts that evolution happens, but suggests that a "creator" gives it ever so subtle nudges from time to time that are pretty much undetectable to us. This actually doesn't try to refute any scientific data or even the mechanisms proposed to explain it. It just adds a layer that makes it more acceptable to the religious minded among us. I think that's fine. If it helps you resolve your faith and science, then run with it.

But this really doesn't require ANY changes in what is currently taught in schools. As soon as you start requesting that challenges to evolution be offered, you get away from ID and more towards creationism. "Serious" challenges to evolution invariably ignore significant evidence and exploit commonly held misconceptions about evolutionary theory. I wouldn't have a problem with such ideas being presented to kids, provided they were given ample critical thinking tools to begin with and could distinguish these common arguments from credible challenges.

As it stands, I really don't think the Ohio resolution changes ANYTHING and is kind of pointless. Kids should be taught to be critical anyway. If this is done properly, they will almost certainly come to the same conclusions about evolution as the general scientific community.
25 posted on 03/05/2003 9:21:26 AM PST by gomaaa
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