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Tennessee Passes Bill That Allows "Teaching the Controversy" of Evolution
Layzej writes "The Tennessee Senate has passed a bill that allows teachers to 'teach the controversy' on evolution, global warming and other scientific subjects. Critics have called it a 'monkey bill' that promotes creationism in classrooms. In a statement sent to legislators, eight members of the National Academy of Science said that, in practice, the bill will likely lead to 'scientifically unwarranted criticisms of evolution.' and that 'By undermining the teaching of evolution in Tennessee's public schools, HB368 and SB893 would miseducate students, harm the state's national reputation, and weaken its efforts to compete in a science-driven global economy.'"
This isn't about the facts.
I mean the creationist counter argument is that it contradicts a bunch of fairy tales written thousands of years ago by sand people.
You aren't going to be able to get the idea of evolution through that brainwashed blank stare they throw up when you start talking about science.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Let's start teaching holocaust denial in history class then. It's a "controversy" too, right? And any lessons that touch on recent events should also teach the "controversy" about 9/11 being an inside job. Chemistry lessons should be augmented by alchemy.
If all alternative points of view (including the batshit insane ones) are equally valid, you have to.
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It's too bad they didn't do this properly. There ARE controversies in evolutionary theory. They're not controversies in whether or not evolution works, but there IS disagreement in the specific mechanisms of evolution. Punctuated equilibrium or phyletic gradualism? Duke it out! Teach those controversies!
Oh wait, I guess I'm asking for science to be taught in science class. My bad.
When scientists say "theory" they mean something different than what most other people think of when they use the word. "Theory" is used in the "I'm pretty sure the thing I'm typing on is a keyboard, but I could be hallucinating and giving my cat, Whiskers, a backrub" sense. It's the best information that humans have, but we are humble enough to permit the idea that there is something unknown about the subject that could, if someday discovered by research, invalidate it.
It's correct to call evolution a scientific theory, people just don't understand why the word "theory" is used here and it gets misused into making evolution look less like "the only game in town."
There are classes on religion and that's where this stuff belongs. A class on science has no business talking about religion.
And really this whole freedom of religion is really just that the government shall establish no state religion. Not that religions should have free reign to do whatever the hell they want.
Not that this is even worth mentioning, but the Constitution says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" which goes a bit further than just "we won't have a state religion" and says that we *won't* have any law that specifically establishes (endorses) a religion as the precedent for governing (or running a government school.)
A science class that doesn't teach the history of science is practically religion itself. You don't teach science (well) by listing a load of current theories. You start with simple theories and go through the observations and experiments that invalidated them. Creationism definitely has a place there, because that is what people believed. You start by explaining that people believed that species never changed, and then list some of the examples that disproved this. Then you go on to things like ring species that demonstrate that the concept of a species is itself somewhat flawed and that speciation is a gradual process.
Science is a process, and without teaching the history surrounding each step in the process it's very hard for students to distinguish it from dogma.
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I beg to differ. "Intelligent Design" implies that some level of intelligent forethought went into the eventual products of evolution. Saying "God guided the process" or otherwise suggesting that evolution can work in a deterministic fashion is utterly wrongheaded and unscientific, and it gives people the false impression that evolution, as a process, is in some way goal-oriented. But it isn't, and it never has been. You'd be surprised how many people believe evolution is about making less complex organisms into more complex ones, or making the next generation "better" in some objective way than the current one. They imagine it as an iterative improvement process, building toward something specific.
If people understood that evolution does not actually work that way, "Intelligent Design" would be a completely moot point.
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Its amazing that she could get a degree in biology without "believing" in evolution. It's a bit like a physicist that doesn't believe in gravity. Next biology topic: Locusts only have four legs!
For the specific example of the biology teacher - I don't care whether the biology teacher believes in evolution or not. I want a teacher who can present the evidence and the theory in a clear and interesting way, without getting preachy for either side of the debate.
So you believe that for someone to properly study Islam, they must believe in Islam? For someone to be a student of Greek gods and goddesses, the person must believe in those gods and goddesses?
I think my eighth grade teacher handled the question perfectly. When he introduced the topic he said we didn't have to agree with the theory but that to be educated people in the modern world we had to understand it. If I remember correctly, some (perhaps most) of the test questions started with the phrase, "According to the theory of evolution...".
Assuming that the evidence and the logic speak for themselves, the students will be able to decide for themselves so long as they have the evidence and the theory presented to them, so there is no need to get upset that the teacher isn't trying to force the students to believe in the theory - they can figure it out.
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