Posted on 09/20/2005 7:02:45 AM PDT by Right Wing Professor
ITHACA, N.Y. - Lenore Durkee, a retired biology professor, was volunteering as a docent at the Museum of the Earth here when she was confronted by a group of seven or eight people, creationists eager to challenge the museum exhibitions on evolution.
They peppered Dr. Durkee with questions about everything from techniques for dating fossils to the second law of thermodynamics, their queries coming so thick and fast that she found it hard to reply.
After about 45 minutes, "I told them I needed to take a break," she recalled. "My mouth was dry."
That encounter and others like it provided the impetus for a training session here in August. Dr. Durkee and scores of other volunteers and staff members from the museum and elsewhere crowded into a meeting room to hear advice from the museum director, Warren D. Allmon, on ways to deal with visitors who reject settled precepts of science on religious grounds.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
They also clearly lose their critical thinking skills when approaching a NYTimes article that suits their particular bias.....
"I am a college professor of mathematics who has done course development work in mathematics eduation."
As a college professor, I would expect you, of all people, to appreciate the fact that education should not be compulsory. Anything of true value in this realm will automatically be supported. But the compulsory aspect of it is what has brought the negative aspects of it to bear, such as the NEA and all the social programming that comes with it.
Since you have read Dewey, then you may be familiar with this quote:
"independent, self-reliant people aa counter-productive anachronism in the collective society of the future."
and this one in which he praises the Soviet school system:
"That which distinguishes the Soviet system both from other national systems and from the progressive schools of other countries is the conscious control of every educational procedure by reference to a single and comprehensive social purpose."
These quotes are not pulled out of context, they represent what he and many other preeminent educators of the time thought (Horace Mann was not as convinced of the need for compulsion -- he was more interested in persuasion, but he agreed with the collectivist ideals). The prominent educators were enamored with collectivist, statist ideas, as were most of the intelligentsia. Dewey and others from that era are the reason that schools started trying to shape the culture through socialist ideals instead of just teaching the basic subjects.
BTW, your quote from Jefferson is immaterial. Jefferson only supported voluntary education, and his idea was not to indoctrinate students. He instead believed that students should be taught critical thinking skills.
"But you did not respond to my primary point -- that government support of science and science education is necessary for our national security."
I agree, gov't should support science education for many reasons, of which the most important is national security.
I think you are certainly close to the core of the issue.
My understanding of the "fear" Biblical literalist have of evolution is the idea of death before Adam's fall and the effect that has on the theology of the entire Bible.
I get the impression from all the various material I've read that a large number of young earthers could convert to old earth creationists and accept much of evolution's timelines (aside from some of the species issues) if death before sin could be explained and accepted Biblically.
Now that's a different issue entirely.
I would prefer to live in a world where cutting edge scientific research didn't have to be funded by the public trust. In the cases where research has a direct application, companies can and do fund research. I also believe it's important to conduct research that may have applications that cannot yet be foreseen. In an ideal world I'd like to see American citizens and corporations with a lower tax burden, and perhaps then there would be more inclination from people and corporations to voluntarily fund the acquistion of knowledge.
Right now, though, that's just not happening; and as long as the government is funding science research, they should do it on the basis of scientific merit, not on the basis of what people want to believe is true. The question of where funding should come from is a tricky one; I agree that I would like to see the transition of funding transfer to the private sector. I think this, more than anything, would get rid of the claim to leverage that sectarian factions have; as good scientists are never going to want to work for anyone who demands faulty logic and science from them.
Until that day and age comes, we're stuck with the question of "Who gets the government dime?". I don't like it either, but that's the way things work now.
Ah.........so museum exhibits cannot be questioned. Interesting point of view.
I firmly believe that questions on the theory of evolution should be aired - but it should be done in a polite manner.
On the other hand, evolutionists are rarely polite to creationists, so whining about how they are being treated is sort of like little Jimmy whining to mom because his sister hit him back.
And being a "seminar caller" in such a situation is rude, of course.
But it's not a "nasty mob", and it's not equivalent to throwing feces, as others have been insisting and I have been arguing against.
"You might find the motivation of some who advocated compulsory education, but the appeal to the general public was much wider and diverse."
The idea of compulsory education was quite controversial and was debated hotly when it was first introduced. But people were never in favor of compulsory education for the purpose of societal change. That purpose was brought forward by the socialist utopians of the time and is continued by them today.
What's irrational about my position? What we're seeing on this thread is the result of the forced public funding of "education." Everyone just assumes that tax dollars will be used; they're essentially arguing over who gets to control how those dollars are spent (i.e., which ideas are advanced).
Forgive me for assuming that issues like this mattered on a conservative political discussion forum.
How do non religious feel about paying extra taxes so that churches (and clergy such as Jackson and Sharption) are not taxed? How exactly do passivists get their money's worth from supporting wars they think are immoral? How do libertarians get their money's worth from supporting the welfare state?
Probably because many of the big guys in the ID movement have let slip at one time or another that their real aim is to get religion back into biology.
It's too bad they let that 'Wedge Document' get out.
Governing Goals
* To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies.
* To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God.
If you really, truly believe ID is anything other than a camel's nose poking into the tent, you're being played for a sucker.
Big difference between partially regurgitating food to re-chew it and eating cecal pellets (they're completely different from fecal pellets, or "poop"). Yep, they missed a LOT.
When creationists disrupted the math classes I was teaching, they denied the other students the class time they were entitled to. Creationists, liberals, etc. ara just parts of the same mob.
I don't have a problem telling the difference, but I see evidence that a lot of the people watching those shows do. What fraction of the world's population would you estimate are well versed in hard science? What percentage of children passing through any public school will go on to study something like biology or evolution at a college level?
Few scientists will claim they know everything about anything, with absolute certainty, even about their own area of expertise. I believe another FR posting just mentioned someone proposing dinosaurs many/most/all had feathers. Does that mean the cable show was all wrong?
No. But it doesn't mean it's all right, either, yet those shows (as well as mainstream media news reports) all speak with a level of authority that the facts do not warrant. I should also point out that public school classes are not tught by real scientists. They are mostly taught by education school graduates who may or may not have any qualifications to teach science.
No, it just means there are some things yet to be discovered, which will usually produce speculation. A paleontologist/archeologist critiquing the show could probably ramble on endlessly about relative scale, colors, sounds made or not made, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. In the end, these subjects didn't make the cut for a palatible show, in the producer's mind. And his doctorate(s) was in what science?!
And in what disclipline is the doctorate of the public school teacher that's teaching evolution to his or her class? That's the point. If children aren't exposed to the full bredth of science in public schools, aren't exposed to the full bredth of science on television, and aren't going to go on to get a doctorate in a science, when exactly are they supposed to be exposed to the idea that science is full of uncertainty and speculation? Or will they simply assume that all of these issues are settled by people with doctorates in science?
That would be because ID advocates never say what it is they believe. I have been asking for over a month for an ID advocate to spell out what they would teach if they were in charge of schools. Saying there are gaps in scientific explanations is almost a tautaulogy. It's a pretty short lesson plan.
And it doesn't suggest any research that isn't already being done. Filling gaps in knowledge is what science does.
Design is a given. Natural selection is the designing agent. If you have a better candidate for the designer, please describe the characteristics of the designer. What are the design objectives, the methods and processes by which new species are created? What kinds of evidence should we be looking for that would not be expected by or consistent with natural selection?
I'm willing to concede that the NY Slimes article could possibly be slanted so as to grossly misrepresent what is really going on. Unfortunately, my own first-hand experiences with certain creationists lead me to believe that the article contains an accurate representation of how some people can act. So while the article may indeed suit my bias (as you say), you are similarly biased in refusing to concede that there could be truth in it. You have admitted to "challenging" docents on museum tours yourself; could it be that even if you are not guilty of the extreme behavior that the article describes, you are in ideological agreement with it?
That clears it up - I was under the impression that you were arguing that it was appropriate behavior and that the tour guides should expect to field hostile questions. No problem. :-)
But it's not a "nasty mob", and it's not equivalent to throwing feces, as others have been insisting and I have been arguing against.
Again I agree. I don't think that "mob" was too strong as it has many connotations. The original posters surely didn't mean it in the sense of being destructive.
I agree that "throwing a turd into the holy water" was hyperbolic. In reality it would be the same as approaching a bible Q&A session and then asking a lot of seminar caller questions with the intent of disrupting the session.
Did y'all ever see the Murphy Brown on modern art? She got her son's paintings into a modern art exhibit to try to fool some 'experts'. They were mostly not taken in -- but some guy saw two art critics arguing over the painting and paid $X thousand for it on the spot; if the critics thought it was worth arguing over, it must be good.
Just curious, why did Creationists find a need to disrupt a math class?
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