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Limiting the Teaching of the Scientific Process In Ohio
frdmfghtr (603968) writes Over at Ars Technica, there's a story about a bill in the Ohio legislature that wants to downplay the teaching of the scientific process. From the article: "Specifically prohibiting a discussion of the scientific process is a recipe for educational chaos. To begin with, it leaves the knowledge the kids will still receive—the things we have learned through science—completely unmoored from any indication of how that knowledge was generated or whether it's likely to be reliable. The scientific process is also useful in that it can help people understand the world around them and the information they're bombarded with; it can also help people assess the reliability of various sources of information."
The science standards would have "...focus on academic and scientific knowledge rather than scientific processes; and prohibit political or religious interpretation of scientific facts in favor of another." Political interpretation of scientific facts include humans contributing to climate change according to the bill's sponsor, who also thinks intelligent design would be OK under the law.
What the hell is up with you people over there in the US. Still using Imperial measurements? Banning science in favour of teaching about a wizard who made everything not so long ago. producing 40% of the worlds pollution whilst only having 4% of the worlds population
Your priorities are fucked.You do good war and spying though, I'll give you that.
just because the dept of ed has utterly failed any of us who went through school in the past 40 years, doesnt mean the right thing to do is go back and not teach you know, the basics. The dept of ed is horrible, but people like this dont belong setting the curriculum either
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
I've argued many times before that the problem with "Intelligent Design" is not that whether it's "true" or not, but rather that it's not science because it ignores the Scientific Method and thus does not belong in a science class. I'm glad that this lawmaker, at least, is willing to address that argument directly instead of obfuscating.
He's still wrong, of course, but at least he's less intellectually dishonest than the average creationist. That's convenient, since it makes his position -- which is that Ohio should prohibit schools from teaching science entirely (since science is the Scientific Method) -- easier to both understand and oppose.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
A lot of fuss is made about how creationists aren't hurting anyone by teaching creationism in schools. At least a lot of fuss by creationists.
But to knock "how science actually works" off the curriculum in order to make creationism slightly more viable as a meme, knocks a very important and practical tool out of childrens' toolbox for learning about the world.
I'd go as far as saying learning about the scientific method is equally or more important that learning how to write papers expressing your opinions, or solving equations, or how congress works, as far as parity to other common subjects goes.
This is sabotaging a lot of children's' education in a big way for a miniscule victory in the culture wars. This is why creationists need to be far from policy maker positions.
I see stories about bills like this all of the time, but they usually die in committee after fulfilling their purpose of giving the guy a bullet point for his next campaign poster. Is this one expected to actually have a shot in hell at passing? Sometimes they do slip through the cracks, especially in the bible belt.
I read the internet for the articles.
This is wide open to interpretation. Obviously it would be insane not to teach the scientific process. I think there are some who feel education has strayed too far from mastering basic facts into abstraction, such as "new math" instead of mastering times tables.
Anyway this is just one guy's brain fart and not a law. I am kind of curious what he meant by it though.
Religion has no place in schools. How many times have you seen scientists starting wars over theories and results?
"1 + 1 equals 3!"
"Only for larger values of 1, you heathen!"
Summation 2
The scientific method is the single, most important discovery of the human race. It underlies everything we have achieved. Downplaying it means to reject modern civilization and rationality. But that may be just what these cretins want.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
They will not even have the bible, as paper and printing (or ink) is a result of applied science. So is incidentally horse-husbandry, the fire and the pot the soup is in.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
If we make sure we don't teach our students how to think, acquiring a larger voting base will be much easier in the future!
If you don't want science, then you shouldn't be allowed to benefit from anything created or influenced by it. Say goodbye to your phones, your computers... your massed produced clothes made by machines that use electricity, your fancy guns designed on a computer, your cars.. all of it. Go back to horses and shit soup over a fire while reading your bible and dying of the plague.
You seem to easily (purposefully) forget that most of the early and bright scientists were religious and finding out how the Creator made things work. So no we would not be going back to the stone age.
If they're going to be teaching creationism in schools, they can hire ICP to teach. I can see the classes now, where they teach the children that everything from quantum mechanics to tectonic plate shifts are caused by miracles, regardless of what anyone else says. Magnets? They're like, double miracles man. Miracles on top of miracles.
Predicted by Dr. Kenneth Miller in his 2006 presentation about the Kitzmiller et al vs Dover.
"The Collapse of Intelligent Design: Will the Next Monkey Trial be in Ohio?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ohd5uqzlwsU
11 years in the making, the weakening of the definition of 'science'.
Can't wait for the PhD in Horoscopes, Witchcraft, etc.
I've been in high school. It's not like they really try to teach people how to apply the scientific method. They describe how the scientific method is supposed to work and then continue shoveling facts at the students. If they aren't going to engage, I'm not sure there's much point in telling students something that they'll ignore.
I have the same problem with teaching evolution in schools. They don't have time to explain it well, so students walk away thinking, "We used to be apes, but one of our ancestors magically changed into a human being because apes' necks are too short to reach the leaves at the tops of the trees." What, that was the giraffe explanation? Damn it!
If they can't be bothered to explain how something works, I'd rather they dropped it in favor of doing an in depth understanding of something else. In an ideal world perhaps everyone would get a renaissance education that would allow them to understand the scientific method. Here in the real world we have to settle for what students will actually bother to learn.
> Religion has no place in schools.
So then you agree with this bill, which says:
A (iii) ... prohibit and prohibit political or religious interpretation of scientific facts in favor of another.
A (iv) ... ; and prohibit a specific political or religious interpretation of the standards' content.
If you skip past the BS /. headline and read the bill, TFS, or even the subtitle of TFS, the bill basically requires teaching science, not politics with a dash of pseudoscience used to support the teacher's political or religious opinion.
Or you could be forgetting that a lot of them pretended to be that way, or they lost their head for blasphemy.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
I guess it depends if they classify the Scientific Method as a "political theory", like creationists like to do.
I read the internet for the articles.
It doesn't matter. The WHOLE reason we're having this debate is not about science. It's not even about creationism or "intelligent design" or however we "evolve" the term.
The Discovery institute (the real organization behind all this) believes fundamentally, society went awry when we did the whole "separation of church and state" thing and that religion in school meant students were better behaved and more obedient, and society as a whole was just better off.
So that's the real end goal - to get religion - or more correctly, Christianity, back into schools so everyone becomes a "good little Christian boy".
(Yes, it glosses over a LOT of things, like racial issues, the fact that there are more religions than just Christianity, etc).
Basically all of society's ills are the direct result of secularism and the pursuit of "things" (money, toys, stuff) instead of spirituality.
It's just that creationism is the wedge issue that can get them in the door the easiest since a lot more Americans believe in it (than say, a great flood happened, or that everything we see was made in a week a few thousand years ago). And once you're in the door, spreading the other beliefs becomes a lot easier.
The religious view was in the part of the law that you reduced to ellipses:
The essential thesis of creationism (and "Intelligent Design") is that the Scientific Method is bunk because "God did it." This law comes very close to prohibiting teaching the Scientific Method (i.e., "scientific processes"). Connecting the dots is left as an exercise to the reader.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Educator John Taylor Gatto has explained both in writing, (PDF link), and in Death by Pedagogy, as well as in many interviews available on YouTube, that the purpose of the education system is to extend childhood and discourage critical thinking. This is done in order to produce more compliant citizens; otherwise their innovation and inventiveness would both disrupt capitalists' ability to control markets, and deny corporations a complacent and pliable workforce.
Before you dismiss this as just another wild-eyed conspiracy theory you should check out what he has to say. For one thing he gives copious references, most of which can be checked, and most of which use such direct language that there is no possible ambiguity as to the intent of the authors. For another thing, it is perhaps the best and simplest explanation for why the Ohio legislature might enact such otherwise inexplicable legislation.
Ask yourself 'cui bono'. Who will be best served by a citizenry that is less and less critical, and less and less scientifically competent? Then look back at the education you received, look at what has happened to schooling in the meantime, look at what is happening to education now, and place it all into the context that Gatto creates. if after that you can honestly call it a conspiracy theory, go in peace.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
Did you miss the part where the bills author finds that the bill would allow the teaching of intelligent design?
When you cant win, ad hominem.
Logic isn't hard. Proofs can be hard to devise, but logic itself isn't complicated to follow.
Real philosophy(with prepositional logic) should be something we're teaching before we get to unnecessarily specific esoterica like solving systems of equations.
It pains me to think that for at least a generation or so, you will still be able to just buy your educated workforce from other countries that have invested in their public education as infrastructure. Otherwise you'd collapse much faster with all this nonsense.
I want to play Free Market with a drowning Libertarian.
When did science stop being a methodology and become a belief system?
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Why on earth is the following being removed?
"The state board shall ensure that the standards do all of the following: ... Be clearly written, transparent, and understandable by parents, educators, and the general public."
Before I can answer, please first tell me what you mean by that.
Yep, those ancient Egyptians and Chinese and Mayans weren't civilizations. Thank you for your totally informed perspective.
"My definition of civilization hinges on the thing I declared caused civilization, thus proving me right" might not be the clever argument you think it is.
And why exactly does the scientific method do that? I think you'll find that the utility of falsification is established philosophically, not by observational fiat.
Yep, and for roughly the same reasons. An ignorant populace is far easier to manage and control from the top. Look at North Korea for a live example of this. With no external facts or even a method to determine if a particular "fact" is grounded in reality, you can insert whatever you like and ignorant people will swallow it wholesale simply because they literally do not know any better. (an aside, the latin root for the word science was scientia, knowledge, very telling in this context)
TL;DR - Orwell said it best, control the present and you control the past; control the past and you control the future. The most effective way to do that is through control of information
So that's the real end goal - to get religion - or more correctly, Christianity, back into schools so everyone becomes a "good little Christian boy"
More correctly, their version of Christian theology. When I point out to them that the Catholic Church has stated that evolution and the scientific method are not in conflict they get upset. They point out the Catholic Church is not the decider and get even more steamed when I remind him that Jesus founded the Catholic Church as His Church and thus it and the Pope speak for God; and it says so in the Bible and why do they not believe in the Bible? They claim to be Christians, after all.
That's the real problem. When people want to bring back God into school they mean their version of God which isn't necessarily someone else's. They often claim they want to give religion equal time but get very upset when someone brings religious beliefs in they don't approve of.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
I would also argue that "Intelligent Design" isn't Christian. Arguing that God exists because the world is made the same way a human would make it isn't biblical. An all knowing God doesn't need reason to create anything. An all powerfull God does not care about efficiency. Human asthetics from human culture/biology isn't going to influance how God creates the world. Intelligent Design anthropomorphizes God into a man. You wind up with Zeus instead of a pillar of fire/burning bush/rock of ages.
I firmly believe in the theory of evolution. But does the theory of evolution discount intelligent design? I see no evidence in the theory of evolution to discount intelligent design. In fact, just the opposite. We've discovered rapid evolutionary periods that don't quite fit with the time evolution takes. These might be explained by external influence.
Also, we humans are intelligent. Everything we do is by "Intelligent Design".
How did we clone a sheep? By intelligent design. ... oh wait, no, this was by intelligent desing.
How did we create GMO plants? By intelligent design.
How did we eradicate small pox? By intelligent design.
How did we harness electricity? We evolved until our skin could control it and
How did we create a computer? By intelligent design.
How did we travel to the moon? By intelligent design.
We have so many proven examples intelligent design and we are getting more every day. Someday we might, by intelligent design, find a plant that can live in the Mars climate. That plant might help terraform the planet. We might later genetically engineer animals to take to Mars before we put humans there. We might even have to use evolution in terraforming.
By the way. DNA looks like good code reuse, a Biological engineering language, a clue that it may have been created by intelligent design.
To this date, we have uncountable examples of intelligent design. If you are a true scientist and truly believe in the scientific method, then intelligent design is one of the most proven theories. Proven by us.