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Classroom Clashes Over Science Education
cheezitmike writes "In a two-part series, the American Academy for the Advancement of Science examines two hot-button topics that create clashes in the classroom between science teachers and conservative-leaning students, parents, school boards, and state legislatures. Part 1 looks at the struggle of teachers to cover evolution in the face of religious push-back from students and legislatures. Part 2 deals with teaching climate change, and how teachers increasingly have to deal with political pressure from those who insist that there must be two sides to the discussion."
The great mistake being made here is that they need not be mutually exclusive. It may trouble people here to no end to know that some of the greatest scientific minds throughout history were also deeply religious. There are those of us with enough presence of mind to be able to separate our faith in god with our faith in science. We readily admit as scientists that we do not know the origin of life, the universe and everything, and at the same time we as Christians (at least me) readily admit I don't know what god is or who Jesus is, or how the whole god thing works. I take it on faith that both of these things will be true. I have the observable evidence of the universe around me to prove out, or at least not falsify, a lot of what science has taught me. I have the same observable evidence of the universe around me to prove out some of the stuff that Christianity has taught me. A lot of the stuff is pure bullshit, but the idea that we should all just get along is certainly not a purely scientific concept (and not exclusively Christian). That's not a bad idea. At the same time almost nothing that science has taught us has been bullshit, but the stuff that is bullshit is just about as bad as the worst Christianity, or religion in general has handed us. Stuff like eugenics and biological weapons, for some people GM foods and other "evil capitalist" ventures science has made. I can list the transgressions of science and religion all day long, but they are not interchangeable entities.
What if it turns out, as I suspect, that god is math. Most all of the attributes science applies to math the religious apply to god. What if the background radiation is god? As a scientist I know that these things, until falsified, can most certainly be true. Just as true as the almost near certainty that there is life on other planets. There's just too many planets for there not to be. I know this with just as much certainty as I know god exists, not 100% confidence. But wouldn't it be great if it turned out that the stuff in the bible was perhaps a superior being trying to talk to people who viewed his/her/it's form as a god? Do dogs and cats (ok, dogs) not look upon us as gods? All honest geeks know the saying "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" (Google just told me it's one of Clarke's three laws). So who knows, maybe god isn't math but a super intelligent omnipotent uber begin.
My big hang up with people who just hate god/religion/whatever is that you have no proof these things do not exist and there is certainly proof, according to the conjecture put forth by the religious, that god does exist. And science doesn't work by "proving" things it works in the opposite way, you disprove things. So until god has been falsified, please stow the "god doesn't exist" talk because you sound very arrogant. People much smarter than you (not me) believe in god. You certainly don't know that with 100% certainty, so don't tell everyone else as if it was a proven fact.