The very fact that you can talk about a cell from one creature or another and relate them somehow in a scientific way is entirely due to evolution. If you dissect a fetal pig to learn something about anatomy, this only makes scientific sense if there’s evolution. If you study the genetic code, and it happens to be pretty much the same for all life, again, evolution is the only reason one can look at the process of DNA replication in a bacterium and gain any useful insights about any other form of life. Why study the rough or smooth endoplasmic reticulum in one sort of cell and assume anything about any other cell? How could you? Even if you’re not learning about evolution, the fact that you can study biology by learning about a particular cell from a particular organism, and know something more than just a list of facts about that particular cell from that particular organism is entirely a consequence of evolution.
Here’s a blurb from TalkOrigins, that links a very nice article on the subject of this sad fallacy, if you’ll look to the bottom of the page.
In a modern sense, it’d be like chemistry without quantum electrodynamics and the basics of nuclear physics. You’d know all these facts about atoms, their weights, the number of electrons. You’d know how combine them or dissociate them in various ways, and you’d get a crude idea of some of the rules, but you’d have no good idea of how or why it all worked.
What’s really sad is that evolution is a damn sight esier to learn about than QED. Anyone can learn about it, and understand how powerful and unifying it is in the study of life. But hardly anyone really does. I think it’s probably the one Big Idea of science that’s accessible to almost anyone who wishes to put a few hours of time into grasping, and people fight to take it away. It’s tragic.
This debate about the centrality of evolution to biology has been done many times before on this board, I believe. Which is unfortunate, because it shouldn’t even be a debate. Biology without evolution becomes nothing more than a series of observations without the “glue” to stick it all together. Because of evolutionary theory, we can understand these observations and construct the underlying relationship between them. High school biology without evolution would be like teaching chemistry without the periodic table, or physics without Newton’s second law.
Those of you who don’t think it matters will probably argue (and have done so) that knowledge of evolution yields little or no practical application for high school students. I always found this viewpoint very odd, because really, how much practical knowledge does teaching high school students the function of the endoplasmic reticulum in cells or how to calculate the molecular weight of ethane yield? For the average student with no plans to go into a science-related field, probably nothing. But the point is, if you’re going to force students to learn science in high school, you should actually teach science.
The truth is, if it weren’t for certain religious fundamentalists, evolution would be taught with no problem in high school science courses, probably with the same kind of centrality that it occupies in college level biology (I don’t think I’ve ever gone through a class at UCSC, be it human physiology or biochemistry, where adaptations and evolutionary traits were not discussed).
So the Quebec case (yeah, I don’t want to perpetuate this hijack too much) is, in my opinion, a good thing, even if it means that students are told only about the basics of evolution and then given an elaborate and persuasive lecture on the virtues of ID “theory”. The point is that they are at least given a choice. When I was in high school, we learned about evolution, but it wasn’t taught particularly well and didn’t come off as immediately plausible as it does now. But it was enough to make me think. And now, after much soul searching and reading, I’m majoring in evolutionary biology (to be completed this quarter, yay!), so you never know what might happen.
And how many jobs outside the science fields make use of this knowledge on a daily basis? It is nice to know such things, but it is not necessary to the same degree as reading, writing, arithmetic, or even basic civics.
I don’t think something has to have an immediate job application to be useful. Studying literature or history doesn’t usually have a “practical” use either, but I doubt anyone argues about taking those subjects out of the general curriculum.
At the very least, if the inclusion of certain topics such as evolutionary theory is to be subject to legislation, it behooves those who write, examine, and vote on such legislation to be at least passingly familiar with the subject.
Precisely (and I like your analogy better than mine too).
What I find amazing is that most people have no problem with many of the specific applications of evolutionary theory, such as breeding for particular traits, and yet resist the idea that such concepts could apply on a broader scale.
Why study Shakespeare, or any English beside basic grammar and spelling. How many people actually use algebra? How many people have to know the Consitution? (A lot fewer than there should be based on our past six years of experience.)
No one should have to swear they believe in evolution, just know it. Kids should learn about a lot of religions without adopting them.
Forcing a kid to go to an unaccredited school is like forcing them to drop out - and its not a lot better than child abuse.
The thing about the idea of private schools/parents setting their own curriculum that REALLY bothers me is the fact that some who choose to do it choose to do things like Lissa’s (I think that’s right) school did–and you have kids who have future goals of their own having those goals sidetracked in service of whatever the parental agenda happens to be.
Personally, I’d go so far as to say that sending a child to a non-accredited school system on the basis of whatever beliefs you hold should be considered child abuse–it’s certainly potentially damaging to the child’s rights and future prospects. Or don’t they count until they’re 18?
I’m not talking about evolution or any one issue here, mind you, I’m talking about the more egregious examples upthread of kids being taught scripture and belief to the exclusion of most other topics.
I think one of the first lines in the TalkOrigins blurb put it very succinctly: Learning about evolution is important to biology because biology is a science. Without evolution, it just isn’t. It’s actually kind of frustrating in some ways. One wishes, when surveying the absolutely overwhelming complexity of the biological world that there were several layers of somewhat-unifying principles of intermediate accuracy, sort of like chemists had with Lewis dot models, all of which eventually converge on the firmest foundation. A nice reductionist path to knowledge. But biology is pretty much evolution, and then the basic facts of life you just have to know. Because it’s a mess. There’s no neat first-principles approach to deriving DNA. Sure, in retrospect, it looks like a damn good way to store biological information, but probably the best guess at it came from Shrödinger, who hypothesized about an “aperiodic crystal” residing in cells somewhere. You don’t get the genetic code somehow by writing equations on a chalkboard, deriving it from some pattern of inheritance with a neat mathamatical formulation. It’s pretty much random, more degenerate for some amino acids than others for reasons that are likely purely accidental, and could probably be designed much more intelligently and robustly by physicists and chemists if they put their mind to it in a few days.
That’s biology: (Mostly) random variation, reproduction, natural selection, and what pops out of that. Everything else is just a fact of likely environmental derivation, and otherwise not particularly deep or unifying. It would be utterly baffling without evolutionary theory. It wouldn’t be a science.
In my parents’ defense, they didn’t send me there because of some religious agenda. They really did believe the principal when she boasted about the academic standards of the school and thought that it would actually help get me into a better college. They knew I hated the school, so they didn’t believe me when I tried to tell them that the claims of success for the graduates were all a lie. “She’s a Christian. She wouldn’t lie, Lissa. You must be mistaken.”
I think that one part of this that everyone’s forgetting is the responsibility of the student themselves. Having attended a piss-poor school myself, I don’t believe that you should blame someone’s ignorance solely on the education they recieved. Opprotunites to educate ourselves are all around us in books, the internet, museums, and even on television. Anyone who wants to can rise above a poor education and learn independantly.
I’ve been fortunate. I found a career that I love which doesn’t require a college education. If I had really wanted to, I could have gone to college. I would have had to take a lot of GED prep classes (which might not be easy for others if they have a lot of responsibilities) but it could have been done.
I don’t think it IS more dispensible. I think that if you take any one part of any one discipline that one typically learns in HS, and eliminate it from the curriculum, that it’s really not going to hurt anyone in the long run.
For example, it is generally accepted that to get a really strong education in English literature, you have to read some Shakespeare. But if a person gets through HS without reading any, is this really going to hurt them?
My attitude about this is much like Martin Hyde’s. I just don’t see it making that much of a difference. I don’t really think it’s going to practically handicap anyone in future life.
Which actually doesn’t have all that much to do with my opinion that parents should be allowed to decide what their children learn, but I do think it gets blown up out of proportion, because of the issues involved (religion vs. secularism).
Another nice atricle on the subject above. I’m sorry it’s a bit of a hijack, but if ignorance of the field biology is this rampant, the word neads to get out.
Well, that’s the question, isn’t it? If so many subjects are truly superfluous, then why even bother? Should there be minimal standards for a “good education” at all? Should students simply learn the basics of English and simple arithmetic, and then be turned out into the workforce?
I’m sorry, but I can’t agree with this. Like it or not, we live in a technological society, and if we, the members of said society, are going to be making legislative decisions regarding the development or usage of (for instance) biotechnological advances, we have a responsibility to be familiar with the concepts. In other words, John Q. Public’s ignorance may not hamper his day-to-day life, but it has the potential to handicap someone else’s.
The Amish comparison is really not valid, because, as a group, they have chosen to largely isolate themselves from the rest of society, and we in turn don’t expect them to involve themselves. If the creationists wanted to run off and form their own little enclave along similar lines, and remove themselves from mainstream society, I wouldn’t care what they taught each other either.
I am not arguing against a well-rounded curriculum. I was lucky enough to get a very good education, myself, and it has served me well in life. What I am saying is that if a person has a legitimate religious objection to a very specific subject, I don’t see the necessity for this person to be forced to teach it to their children.
I would feel more sympathetic to your point if I though that more than about 5% of the population actually has any kind of a decent working knowledge of evolution. Let’s face it, John Q. Public IS ignorant…and not because of lack of education, but because of his own indifference to things that don’t directly affect him.
How isolated do they need to make themselves? I think it’s a little closed-minded, to be honest with you, to say that if someone doesn’t think like you do, they shoudn’t be trying to contribute to society.
At what point though can we say a religious objection is illegitimate when it comes to education? Like for example a religion objecting to teaching the basic use of a computer or basic safe sex methods. Some religions may not allow that and yet those are valuable skills for most (if not all) of society. Where do you specifically draw the line?
I could be wrong, but that isn’t how I interpeted it. The Amish are allowed to keep their children un-educated, because they take care of themselves. They aren’t producing large numbers of ignorant “graduates” and foisting them off onto society. They created their own society, and provide a livlihood for the people within it. I was always led to understand that that was the reason they were allowed to do this at all.
For the record, I would have (and do have) just as much of a problem with some sort of ultra-liberal hippie commune that allowed their children to play all day and never learn. I guess some people don’t believe in mandatory education and minimum standards, but for me at least, that’s what this is about. I’m not anti- religion, I am anti- ignorance.
Actually, one very interesting aspect of the Amish faith is that they insist on a period of rumschpringe, the adolescent “running around” period during which they’re released from Amish restrictions. Only after this time can they be Baptized, and while most of the kids don’t do anything really outrageous, a few move right out into society at large, and partake of it sometimes to the hilt. Most return. Some do not. I wonder how they do in general, compared to their “English” peers?
No, it is because of lack of education, or more specifically because for decades Mel and Norma Gabler have largely controlled the books that are approved in Texas,
and,
That’s why Americans don’t get evolution.
CMC fnord!
Well, first of all, we were talking about what gets taught in schools, not by parents. Parents can teach their kids whatever they want. Presumably, though, if a society has collectively decided that education is important enough to set up a public school system, there should be some sort of societal standards for educational goals.
What would constitute a “legitimate religious objection” anyway? How would you distinguish it from an “illegitimate” one? What about a non-religious objection?
That’s exactly the problem! Do you think that allowing people to “opt out” is actually going to improve this situation?
Look at the link thoughtfully provided by crowmanyclouds. Mel and Norma Gabler, in the quoted text, show zero evidence of understanding evolutionary theory, yet they wield tremendous influence in how national curricula are designed. This goes far beyond what Mel and Norma want to teach their own spawn.
Granted, perpetuating this level of ignorance can only help their own cause…
Again, a statement that could be applied to lots of subjects, so why bother with school at all?
I have no idea where this bizarre leap of logic came from, but miss elizabeth explained my position very nicely, so I don’t feel the need to elaborate.