# Evolution Teaching: Asinine, Unfocused and Erroneous. Time to get HOLISTIC!

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-teaching-asinine-unfocused-and-erroneous-time-to-get-holistic/381680>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [November 24, 2006, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-teaching-asinine-unfocused-and-erroneous-time-to-get-holistic/381680 "2006-11-24T21:08:12Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![Aquila\_Be](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a698b9/32.png) [@Aquila\_Be](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aquila_Be)\
**Post date:** [November 29, 2006, 9:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-teaching-asinine-unfocused-and-erroneous-time-to-get-holistic/381680/41 "2006-11-29T09:58:54Z")

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[QUOTE=Zoe]  
Would it be a grand thing if students leaving high school knew the history of the science of the earth “from the ground up”? Absolutely! It would be an incredible improvement!

It would also be just marvelous if they were familiar with every piece of important British and American literature, every principle of math, the details of every defining moment and turning point in American and world history, and so on. But that’s not what high school is about. Even in undergraduate school, we still take courses that say “a survey of…” and “an introduction to…”  
[/QUOTE]

I don’t agree that learning the basics of the origins of elements, stars and planets before moving on to evolution of life is the equivalent of "becoming familiar with “every piece of important British and American literature —” and the rest of the items quoted.

The comparison isn’t remotely similar.

One would take no more than a semester to cover adequately and your list would take years to cover.

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**Author:** ![Aquila\_Be](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a698b9/32.png) [@Aquila\_Be](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aquila_Be)\
**Post date:** [November 29, 2006, 10:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-teaching-asinine-unfocused-and-erroneous-time-to-get-holistic/381680/42 "2006-11-29T10:02:58Z")

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[QUOTE=Mangetout]  
But that contradicts your original argument that it all needs to be built up sequentially, step-by-step - each step dependent upon the previous one. Have you changed your mind?  
[/QUOTE]

The only step that is unknown is exactly how, or even where, life started. That’s no reason not to procedd with all the other material that is known and can be taught with reasonable confidence.

Where something is only partly understood, that should be freely acknowledged. I don’t see why that should present a problem.

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**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\
**Post date:** [November 29, 2006, 10:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-teaching-asinine-unfocused-and-erroneous-time-to-get-holistic/381680/43 "2006-11-29T10:08:27Z")

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[QUOTE=Aquila Be]  
The only step that is unknown is exactly how, or even where, life started. That’s no reason not to procedd with all the other material that is known and can be taught with reasonable confidence.  
[/quote]  
I agree, but I don’t think there’s anything necessarily wrong with deliberately leaving whole areas _unknown_ until such time as the pupils are ready to grasp them. Your bottom-up approach to evolution would mean that we can’t even _begin_ teaching it until quite a late stage.

> [@](#):
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> Where something is only partly understood, that should be freely acknowledged. I don’t see why that should present a problem.

It doesn’t. It’s you (and lots of creationists) that were arguing that it would.

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