Posted on 08/24/2008 2:16:12 PM PDT by GodGunsGuts
The desire to learn is no more incompatible with faith than, to follow the lead of your metaphor, the desire to build a strong structure for one's family to inhabit or the desire that one's family be healthy. None of us can learn everything, nor can we build a tornado-proof house or wipe out all infectious diseases -- but our "failure" due to our intrinsic limitations does not mean we should do nothing.
If a teacher can assist students in changing their attitude from "I can't do that" to "How do they do that?" then the teacher has led them a step in the right direction, or so it seems to me, as I think this means they will want to learn.
I agree that at the high school level, turning on curiosity is more important than memorizing facts. Not all of my fellow evilutionists agree with me, but I think that kids finding out that biology is exciting and unfinished offsets the possibility that some will conclude that it is evil.
It just depends on how the teacher presents the conflict. I think it it is between those who argue that unanswered questions are proof they are unanswerable, and those that see them as career opportunities. There are Nobel prizes to be won in research, but not likely any to be won in trying to define science in state legislatures.
And since I am old school I always think that the memorization is logically and temporally prior — but I am grudgingly admitting that students today may well enter the classroom with different capacities, less for nomenclature and more for visual pattern-recognition. And my concern, which I did a poor job of explaining in my first comment on this thread, is that by teaching down to students we don’t give them everything they need. So the compromise I’m willing to admit to is that getting them interested in learning through morphology and discussion of speciation is better than nothing but not as good as also giving them a nice dose of biochemical and population genetics : - )
Christians of the 19th century sinned when they broke the Commandment against stealing. They stole agency from our nation's citizens by imposing Protestant Christian government schooling on unwilling immigrant children and **forcing** their neighbors to pay for it.
Now we have atheists running the show and the decedents of these 19th century Protestant Christian reformers are suffering the oppression which is the consequence of their sin.
How do we break free?
I welcome charter schools. We should lobby to have all caps on charters lifted. These schools are proof that with even a little freedom the market will rush in to serve even the hardest to educate children. These charters also provide a network of schools that could easily be privatized.
Next,....For those parents who are not in the government system is it asking too much to reduce their taxes by the amount they spend on their child's private education? For those citizens who are helping to support an individual child or donating to a private scholarship fund, let them subtract these gifts from their taxes.
The average woman in the U.S. has 2.1 children. If any individual ( parent or non-parent) privately educates, on average, 1.05 children they should get a **permanent** reprieve and rebate for school taxes both overt such as property taxes and hidden which are buried in all the products and services we buy and use.
Also....You are correct. Government schools are **welfare**. Isn't it time that we expected parents to pay at least a portion of their child's government education? Any parent living in a mini-mansion or driving an expensive new car **can** afford to downsize their living standard and pay **something** at the government school door. Some of these parents would then decide to use private schools instead of paying tuition to government schools.
If Harvard can have a $35 BILLION dollar endowment why haven't Christians done this for Christian education? Why don't we have privately endowed Christian voucher foundations? Surely, Christians could do this if they wanted! They are asleep.
There are too many Christian government school teachers sitting in the pews of our churches. It is very unlikely that churches will rescue Christian children. Forget it! Few ministers will bite the hand that puts money in the collection plate. Conservatives ( Christian and non-Christians) must organize outside of the churches.
Finally, it is time that we recognize that Christian teachers in government schools do more harm than good! When they aid, abet, uphold, and push forward and godless Secular Humanist philosophy, Christian govenrment teachers teach **all** the students that Christians will sell their principles for a paycheck. They teach the students that Christians are too weak in their faith to quit! Who would adopt the principles of a faith populated with people like that? It is time that we start asking Christian government teachers the pointed question, “WHY are you setting such a poor example?”
If we don't start now to get our nation's children out of government schools, we seriously risk losing our freedom.
Marxism is our nation's **most** serious threat. Schools are the Marxists’ **most** important and powerful weapon.
I’m not a biology teacher, but I do know that tenth graders are not likely to get more than a few weeks discussion of evolution. They aren’t likely to come away with anything more than a few buzzwords.
What this article says, for those who take the trouble to read it, is that kids bring a knowledge of creationism to class. The controversy is already in the air. The challenge is to teach the science side of the controversy.
Our church has a kind of a private endowment for its members when they need some financial help. And since the church is about 90% homeschoolers, this is a de facto Christian homeschooling private endowment.
Now, if we could just get our property taxes back, I’d donate more to this endowment... :)
The article was what sparked my concerns. Asking students what they see is fine, but I think (hope) we agree that the combination of visuals plus buzzwords needs further strengthening. More time in the curriculum would help.
Kids hardly get a few days on evolution not weeks. I've talked to kids who've taken HS Biology and that's all the time that's spent on it.
That being said, the "more time in the curriculum train of thought" is that more brainwashing is needed since what is happening now isn't enough to counteract what the kids are bringing in from home.
Those kids could be forced to spend a whole year on the theory and they aren't going to believe it if they don't want to. They may be able to parrot back the data force fed them, but that doesn't mean anything.
What needs to happen in science classes is that real science needs to be taught. Not interpretations or extrapolations.
They need to learn the scientific method and how to apply it. Since science isn't about truth, they need to be told that instead of deceitfully leading them to believe that anything in science can be said to be true.
Since nothing in science can be proved, they need to be taught that as well.
They need to be taught that a theory is a theory and not a fact and stop treating the ToE as is it were a fact. Evo has fossils... fine. The interpretation of the fossil record is just that, an interpretation. Teaching them anything else is just lying to the kids.
Teaching them to regurgitate back statements taught to them in school is not teaching them to think; it's teaching them to be good little drones.
I think the term population genetics is a bit formidable for tenth graders, but anything that improves their chances of understanding small changes in individuals spreading through a population over generations is moving in the right direction.
Of course that’s not where the controversy lies. The controversy is over the age of the earth and the descent of man.
I’m actually in agreement with the creationists on teaching the controversy. I think, however, that the kids have already had buckets of creationism. This article, and the statistics on opinions of evolution demonstrate that. They need to be taught the alternative.
I think you demonstate the point of the article. Kids come to school steeped in creationism and carrying creation talking points written by Moonies. That side of the “controversy” is well taken care of.
If you guys would consolidate your complaint with my proposed approach, I would be grateful : - ) I favor “more time in the curriculum” so that the mathematical and biochemical bases of population genetics and molecular genetics can be taught, or at least hinted at. This may involve repetition on occasion, though without the intent of turning anyone into a drone. An intelligent high-schooler can read and understand Mayr’s 1982 classic without a lot of intervention. Relating our understanding of biology to our reading of history and our application of mathematics and chemistry is a good thing.
It's not just the moonies who are supplying ammunition and training in the Great Leap Backwards. Creationists can also count radical Islamists as their bedmates.
The tenth century was very inclusive ... and may be again.
Thanks for the recommendation. I will plan on checking it out.
When someone you care for gets a terminal disease you will thank God that Biologists do indeed think, and use Science to develop cutting edge treatments for the good of all humanity.
Biology is presently THE MOST PRODUCTIVE field of Science in terms of information added and products developed.
Having little time for ‘labels’ I have never bothered with such labels as ‘Darwinism’, ‘Neo-Darwinism’ etc etc, but after reading this book, I found that my position is mostly that of ‘Darwinism’ anyway. (Some relief, I think, whatever ‘Darwinism’ may mean).
A good summary of ‘Darwinism’ is provided (p86):
1) non-constancy of species
2) descent from common ancestor
3) gradualness (but see also below for semantical distinction with punctuationism)
4) diversity (by species multiplication)
5) natural selection (but see also Baldwin Effect below).These basic tenants have been thrown around and debated for over a century, but it is becoming increasingly obvious that most variants of these ideas amongst evolutionary debates, do not, in fact contradict these basic principles (eg punctuated equilibrium-page 270-”punctuated equilibria, which at first sight, seem to support saltationism and discontinuity, are in fact strictly populational phenomenon, and therefore gradual”). I'm not sure I agree with this point, although I can see the contention is at least partly semantical.
To get some flavour from the book, rather than from me, some veritable gems include:
“sweeping generalisations are rarely correct in evolutionary biology” p271.
“there is no justification in the widespread assumption that consciousness is a unique human property”
p282.
“Selection seems able to to recruit genes in new developmental processes that previously had seemed to have other functions” p113.
“Species are groups of interbredding natural populations that are reproductively isolated from other such groups” p166.
“An organism has to be well adapted as a whole, but it also must be able at all times to cope with its ancestral genome” p154.
“There is alot of structure in the genotype that cannot be discovered and explained by a purely reductionist approach” p145.
“Surely when a population suddenly encounters an extremely adverse situation, the more genetically diverse it is, the greater the chance that it contains genotypes that can better cope with the environmental demands” p105.
“some groups speciate profusely, whereas in others speciation seems to be a rare event” p271.
“most of the variation of genotypes available for natural selection in a population is a result of recombination, not of mutations” p280.
“biological causes and natural selection are dominant in background extinction, whereas physical factors and chance are dominant in mass extinction” p203.
“most new evolutionary lineages arise by budding rather than by splitting” p191.
“rate of speciation is apparently primarily determined by ecological factors” p186.
“Any behaviour that turns out to be of evolutionary significance is likely to be reinforced by the selection of genetic determinants for such behaviour” (eg the Baldwin Effect p137-a very important concept).And my favourite-”the phenotype of the individual as a whole ..is the actual unit of selection” p126.
I don't know. I recently had emergency surgery and was impressed to find that operating rooms really do have a machine that goes "ping."
That machine was not built by a biologist. :)
I’m glad you agree. Coyoteman has an overactive imagination. He thinks Christians want to burn people at the stake, or behead people like the Taliban. I say let his overactive imagination get the better of him. It will serve as a cautionary tale to those contemplating similar mental suicide.
The machine pinged merrily as I was wheeled in, long before I was attached to anything. I desperately wanted to ask if they were Python fans, but I didn’t know them well enough to trust their sense of humor.
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