Ohio's Critical Analysis of Evolution

Critical Evaluation of Evolution ^ | March 2004 | Ohio State Board of Education

[js1138]

Here's an HTML version of the lesson plan, made by me from the Acrobat file. The original pdf file can be seen at the link.

I notice the formatting isn't the best, but it's what I've got.

Enjoy.

[js1138]

Ping for the Ohio lesson plan de-journalismized.

[edsheppa]

Sounds a bit advanced for tenth grade.

Also, it is off in one regard. There should be an analysis of prior critical examination wrt outcomes. Every one on the "five aspects" have been considered extensively but there is no consideration of the resulting scientific consensus and the reasoning behind it.

[js1138]

There's been a bunch of threads on this, I'm just posting the actual document that will be used by Ohio teachers. It was in pdf format, which is a pain to work with, so I cut and pasted it into html. It doesn't look as good as it did in my editor, but at least you can read it without acrobat.

[PatrickHenry]

PING. [This ping list is for the evolution side of evolution threads, and sometimes for other science topics. FReepmail me to be added or dropped.]

[js1138]

It looks to me like the reference list is pretty good. What do you think?

[raybbr]

tabs on this

[PatrickHenry]

It looks to me like the reference list is pretty good. What do you think?

Well, they left out Behe. And Johnson. And clowns like Hovind. I see there's nothing by Gould. At least Darwin made the list. But they also included:

Denton, Michael. Evolution: A Theory in Crisis. Bethesda: Adler and Adler, 1986.

And I don't like the emphasis on the micro-macro issue, which is a non-issue.

[js1138]

It's not as bad as some imagined.

[cornelis]

scientific knowledge must be based on evidence, be predictive, logical, subject to modification and limited to the natural world

Does the universe exceed the limit of the natural world?

[VadeRetro]

Here's the first of the series of "Challenging" paragraphs. I wasn't having much heartburn until we got to this part.

Transitional fossils are rare in the fossil record. A growing number of scientists now question that Archaeopteryx and other transitional fossils really are transitional forms. The fossil record as a whole shows that major evolutionary changes took place suddenly over brief periods of time followed by longer periods of “stasis” during which no significant change in form or transitional organisms appeared (Punctuated Equilibria). The “Cambrian explosion” of animal phyla is the best known, but not the only example, of the sudden appearance of new biological forms in the fossil record.

The "challenging" stuff tends to be an exercise in finding the BS. I have no idea if High School kids in Ohio will already have the grounding in science and logic to meet the challenge.

[Fester Chugabrew]

Thank you very much for posting this.

[cornelis]

it is off in one regard Any takers for teaching the evolutionary history of the theory of evolution?

[Fester Chugabrew]

. . . I don't like the emphasis on the micro-macro issue, which is a non-issue.

How so? It seems to me a good many folks jump from one to the other while interpreting and exlaining the evidence. Don't they need to be "set straight?"

[js1138]

I have to confess that I didn't study this much before posting it. It took several hours to de-pdf the document, and I was mostly interested in not screwing up the text or the format.

[cornelis]

"challinging" paragraphs

It's OK. "Commonplaces are the tramways of intellectual transportation." --Ortega y Gasset

[Nebullis]

Thanks for posting this.

(The intent of this benchmark does not mandate the teaching or testing of intelligent design.)

This is true, because when "challenging data" is not found in intelligent design propaganda materials it can be found in creationist or religious materials. More properly this statement should read:

(The intent of this benchmark mandates the teaching or testing of intelligent design and creationism.)

[Nebullis]

"Transitional fossils are rare in the fossil record."

For a branching tree, every branch that leads to 2 new branches is itself a transitional branch.

[balrog666]

I agree. The actual goals and ideas looked very interesting and potentially productive and I was wondering where they were going to find enough certified education-majors to teach it. But the "Challenging" answer guides make the actual lesson one in complete idiocy.

[Nebullis]

A lot of the material about evolution, i.e. what is science, what is a theory, how are data used to support or reject a hypothesis, etc., has to be presented as an instructional benchmark for science in general. There is something very odd about this emphasis on just one part of science. It makes an implicit statement about the validity of evolution vs. other science and is clearly intended to confuse the student. How can anyone call this education?