How important is it for all well-educated people to know and believe Theory of Evolution?

Great Debates
1

I’ve wondered about this from time to time over they years. Now, this nearby thread inspires me to put the question to The Dope.

(Stop me if we’ve done this already.)

How essential is it, really, for everyone (meaning, educated first-world people in particular) to all know, understand, and believe the Theory of Evolution and other similar controversial stuff (like Age of Earth).

If I were a college-level biology prof, I think I would argue that the Theory of Evolution is the sort of thing that all educated people ought to know and understand. But I don’t see a specific need for everyone to believe it. If we have some deeply fundamentalist believers of Abrahamic religions who seriously believe the Bible is literal truth (six day creation and all the rest), is there any real reason for anybody else to care?

I want students to learn scientific thought, in general, critical thinking, the various arguments for Evolution (and arguments agains, if they must), and how to evaluate them, how to accept plausible arguments (including Biblical text, if that is a fundamental premise the student lives by); how to recognize and reject fallacious arguments, and so on. When all is said and done, I don’t care what they actually believe.

I saw a Jehovah’s Witness essay once that refuted evolution with this blatantly brain-damaged argument (paraphrased since it was years ago and I don’t have the actual exact text):
Of course evolution if non-sense! Who ever saw a bird turn into a fish, or a fish turn into a bird? Did you ever see such a thing? Of course not.
I want students to be understand the Theory well enough to see what’s wrong with arguments like this. If they want to argue for evolution, fine (not necessarily in my bio class), but at least, try to make some good arguments if you can find any.

Anyone care to discuss/debate this?

(In my next post, I’ll mention a spin-off to this idea, about how students should be tested.)

2

It’s important for a well educated person who wants to have a good basic understanding of science and the scientific method to understand the theory, at least the basics (seriously, there are tons of YouTube videos that do a good job of explaining it, if you don’t want to read up). Belief is not really necessary.

Like I said, belief isn’t necessary. Understanding is, if one wants to be knowledgeable and well rounded. If it’s not a subject that interests someone then I guess a basic understanding of the theory is all that’s necessary, but I think that the basics ARE necessary if one wants to have a science based and educated outlook. Personally, I find the subject pretty interesting so I’ve done a bit more than just the basics, but I can understand that not everyone cares about the stuff I find interesting.

Agreed. And I think that people should understand the basics enough to be able to field this question or at least understand why it’s wrong and a diversion.

3

How are they demonstrating that they can evaluate arguments, recognize and reject fallacious arguments, and employ critical thinking if they can’t figure out something that’s so scientifically uncontroversial as evolution?

4

Now, suppose we have, say, some Jehovah’s Witnesses in my class. I’m all for respecting diversity and people’s religious preferences, even kooky ones like JW up to the point where they begin trying to force their beliefs on the rest of us (like, demanding that evolution not be taught, or be taught in parallel with “Creation Science”).

And I understand that seriously devout JW’s are adamant about holding true to their beliefs. They make a big deal about how many of them died in the Holocaust because of it, just as Jews have died in various pogroms for holding fast to their faith. (Daniel’s friends; Maccabees; Inquisition)

So: Should I put a question on an exam like:

Of course, any attentive student, JW or otherwise, knows what answer I want. A devout JW would be on the spot: Give the answer he knows I’m looking for and risk his soul to be damned? Or stick to his guns, answer False, and flunk the class?

A variation of this question came up in the Trigger Warnings thread. vivalostwages says a student who does that is perfectly free to flunk her class.

My preference: Don’t ask questions like that. Instead, ask:

This questions tests whether the student knows something about the theory, without demanding that the student profess to believing it. I’m happy enough with that.

Comment?

5

[QUOTE=Senegoid]
Of course, any attentive student, JW or otherwise, knows what answer I want. A devout JW would be on the spot: Give the answer he knows I’m looking for and risk his soul to be damned? Or stick to his guns, answer False, and flunk the class?
[/QUOTE]

Well, my answer to this is that your theoretical JW shouldn’t be in that class if s/he isn’t there to learn. So, if they already know the answer (in their own mind) then what is the point of education or learning? And if they ARE there to learn, then it’s a no brainer. From the perspective of the teacher, a wrong answer is a wrong answer, so if they are using faith based methodologies then they flunk unless they are willing to fake it so they make it.

My suggestion is, before giving up on them, have them read Demon Haunted World and do an essay on it first. If they STILL persist and aren’t even willing to give the subject serious thought then flunk them out and advise them not to take scientific courses in the future. Even trying to engage them would only disrupt the class and hurt the other students, at least some of them who might get something out of it all.

6

Good question, and an obvious counter argument. Evolution of so clearly proven true, that any rational student, presented with the facts, has no choice but to accept it.

Right?

I’m not entirely convinced. Religious views, based on some ancient barely-intelligible holy text, are a way of understanding Life, the Universe, and Everything that is largely or wholly orthogonal to Scientific Thought. It’s like basing the whole of knowledge on an entirely separate set of premises, leading to wholly different conclusions.

And there are some lines of interpretation that allow Biblical Creation to be reconciled with evolution. One line is that the Bible isn’t to be taken all that literally – The idea that “Six Days” really means “Six Ages” or something like that. The other popular line is that evolution may look like random mutations to the occasional gene here and there, but maybe there’s actually a God up there pulling the strings. Why should He bother working supernatural miracles when He has perfectly natural processes to work with? What, it’s so slow? God has plenty of time.

Those are plausible sorts of critical thinking, as opposed to the “fish to birds” argument. (Yes, I really saw that argument in a JW tract once.)

7

And furthermore: If I take a few minutes of a lecture to discuss the sorts of ideas in Post #6, am I guilty to that horrific blasphemy of . . .

[gasp!]Teaching The Controversy ?[/gasp]

8

I wonder too. What does it hurt if an average educated layman doesn’t really believe that the Earth is round and revolves around the Sun, or that matter is made of atoms? (This is not a rhetorical question; I’m genuinely not sure what the answer is.)

I don’t know whether this is just a meaningless nitpick or not, but my understanding is that “the Theory of Evolution” is an oversimplification/generalization. There’s more than one theory involved, and some of them (e.g. Lamarckianism) are no longer accepted by scientists.

9

I wondered about that in the past, but a recent documentary on evolution shows good examples of the progress and applications that the theory is giving to medicine. What it showed me is that there is indeed a need to accept the theory because if you are in medicine ignoring evolution would close many doors that could had helped you find new treatments or avenues for research and prevention of disease.

If one of those doctors or researchers had dismissed evolution a very key piece of research would had been missed, I wonder how many times that took place in the past and in the present for many evolution deniers, specially in the USA.

I also do think that many patients would also ignore many treatments if they are wilfully ignorant of evolution. More than one science commentator has noticed that among anti vaccine people there is a good number of anti evolution people too.

10

If it’s orthogonal, why is it contradictory? That doesn’t make sense.

And yes, plenty of traditions say there is no contradiction. I have no issue if someone says there is no contradiction. But in what way can we say “this person identifies valid arguments and identifies goofy ones… and chooses the goofy ones.” Isn’t what the person believes the very best way to determine how he thinks? If you claim you want to aid thinking, demonstrating where the thinking leads is important. If you only want someone to parrot facts, then the belief doesn’t matter.

In college, I was a lit major. You could make any argument you wanted in a paper, you just had to defend and support it. The defending it and supporting it part is the part where you show you understand how to think and how to write.

11

Your argument, GIGObuster, really means that only people in certain lines of work need to understand evolution, or other scientific principles. Certainly, anyone in medical research needs to be highly knowledgeable about biology, and evolution is a significant part of that.

Similarly, my brother – a Ph.D.-level math person – has argued that it’s not really important for everyone to learn Calculus. Only a small number of people – those in STEM fields mainly – will really ever have any need to know any calculus.

How about all the people doing front-line work in restaurants, hotels, retails stores? How about managers in those kinds of businesses? What about sports and entertainment celebrities and other employees? What about even higher-level workers, like financial managers, corporate vice-presidents (in non-STEM-related companies), bankers, soldiers, sailors, tinkers, and tailors?

There are zillions of jobs and professions and only a in a relative few of them would it matter if one knows or believes anything about evolution or the age of the earth. I’m sure that anyone interested enough in a field like medical research would take enough related classes and come to understand that evolution is real, and important enough to believe it, if he didn’t already.

12

I remembered too that Agriculture and Conservation are also areas were ignoring evolution would be like riding a canoe without a paddle.

Here is a good source for examples on those areas and more in medicine:

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/search/topicbrowse2.php?topic_id=47

That and much more on the link. I also have to mention that in the area of Artificial intelligence some of the new advances made there also use the theory.

13

Not really, virtually all the people that you think that have no reason to learn about it will be patients some day, what they decide to follow does influence the treatments that are developed or not. And as recent fights about teaching the controversy shows the ones that ignore evolution can toss a lot of monkey wrenches into our educational system. There is a lot of young people out there that were denied or had a lot of doors closed because of their ideology.

And as I mentioned in my previous post you are also ignoring agriculture, conservation and many other fields.

14

There is also the issue that ignorance in evolution can bite us in many different ways.

15

Consider the two proposed test questions I gave in Post #4. Which one do you think asks the student to just parrot facts? Both of them? (Granted, to keep my argument simple, I chose over-simplified True/False questions.) My point was, I would try to ask questions (no doubt more complicated and in-depth than that) that would probe a student’s understanding of the subject, yet without forcing the student to profess to actually believe it.

Now, if a student is a die-hard YEC Ken Ham type, I’d say that sort of student really can’t tell a reasonable argument from a goofy one. And if that student can’t or won’t learn at least that, they that student probably will fail, or maybe scrape by with a C.

I admit, my attitude is largely from the STEM point-of-view, where it’s more clear-cut what’s scientifically right and wrong. So if I were teaching bio, I wouldn’t be quite so open to students arguing anything they believe (YEC, whatever). I’d be asking, for example, for papers or other assignments that deal with actual scientific knowledge, evolution included. If they can do that fairly well, then I take that as evidence that they know and understand (or are learning) the right stuff. If the student really adamantly rejects the science in favor of really goofy stuff, they probably won’t do a good job of assignments like that.

But that’s not the same as demanding that a student flat-out profess to believe in evolution and old-earth science.

16

I have to comment something here: yes, I have to stop you as you requested :slight_smile: because I have also heard this excuse too many times before and also coming from a lot of religious people.

Your excuse is what Jefferson worried about not having an educated citizenly, it leads to an unhealthy democracy.

17

Yes, both of them.

You said you want to teach how to recognize good arguments, but if you aren’t judging the thinking, how do you know that’s what you’re teaching?

18

In a science class? What you would be guilty of is pandering to religionists and wasting the precious time of those that are there to learn science.

19

And I do not think that should be a requirement, what is important is that they are indeed aware of what the science is reporting (I have seen many examples of students that later in life did outgrow those anti evolution ideas, knowing the basis of the science well did help them reach an epiphany later), and it is IMHO our duty to not give too high a grade to that student that does not do a good job as you said. It is crucial so that he does not get the idea (and the universities that would consider him or her) that his/her name will be added to the shrinking pantheon of scientists that supported creationism and gave support to already discredited ideas.

It will mean less of a chance for wilfully ignorant guys to get a degree only to then abuse of it by misleading others with their misguided authority.

20

Not quite sure I follow your first sentence above. Are you saying a medical patient’s outcome to some treatment will be affected, if a knowledge of evolution had some bearing on the development of the treatment but the patient doesn’t believe in it? Or that such a patient might reject a life-saving treatment if it violates his religius beliefs (a well-known phenomenon in Christian Science and the JW rejection of blood).

Or are you saying that absence of knowledge of evolution could cause some potential treatments to never be developed at all? Could be, but it doesn’t matter what the patient believes. It’s sufficient that scientists doing medical research know, y’know, science.

As for your second two sentences above (bold added) – I addressed that in Post #4, Paragraph 1. I drew the line where religious fanatics obstruct the teaching of good science or otherwise force their beliefs on the rest of us (like, anti-abortion activism or anti-LGBT activism, etc.)

As for this:

I didn’t make any specific list of fields that I meant to be all-inclusive. I listed just a few fields as examples, where scientific knowledge might be important or not. Ag and conservation are obviously fields with a lot of STEM content. A die-hard religious fundie might be able to raise cows, but could he breed a better cow without knowing at least something about evolution? (Well, he could know about principles of breeding but not grasp that it has a lot to do with knowledge of evolution.)