Promote critical thinking? Or introduce religion into science class?

Great Debates
1

http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2012/mar/27/tennessee-evolution-bill-goes-to-bill-haslam/

Sooooo…

The sponsors say this bill will “promote critical thinking” by allowing students to critique “scientific weaknesses”.

Opponents say the bill “undermines science education in Tennessee public schools” and refer to it as the “monkey bill”.

The AAAS says that evolution is “established science that shouldn’t be taught as a controversy”.

The bill’s sponsor has ‘said he tried to address scientists’ concerns with new language that directs science teachers to discuss evolution, climate change and other areas within the state’s science education “framework.” ’

So, what is this about?

Clearly, there are those who are afraid this is a backdoor attempt to get creationism into the science class. Are they right? Is this all this bill is?

Criticizing theories is perfectly acceptable and appropriate, if it is done appropriately. After all, the heart of the scientific method is tearing down theories with the idea that the theory that can’t be torn down is likely to be the best theory.

And evolution is certainly fair game, though as the AAAS says, it is established science. Therefore, when criticizing it, “extraordinary claims would require extraordinary evidence” (I forget who first said that).

But I do think it is fair to say that science at the grade-school level is taught rather dogmatically, and I think that is not the best thing to do, particularly when the scientific topic is something that is current events such as climate change where much is not known and every theory is subject to legitimate criticism.

So, is this law a good thing, a bad thing, or a mixed thing? Is it what it says it is - a way to reduce dogmatism in science class? Or is it a wedge to try to squeeze pseudo-science and non-science into science class?

Should we applaud this? Watch it carefully? Or stomp it into submission?

And even if the bill is what it claims to be on its face and nothing more, are the science teachers in Tennessee adequately qualified to handle such things in an intelligent and scientifically appropriate fashion?

2

This is standard stuff. Creationists try to couch their agenda in terms of academic freedom. “Teachers need to be able to teach the controversy” (there is no scientific controversy on evolution, of course). “Teachers need to be able to point out strengths and weaknesses in our current theories” (those determined to point out the “weaknesses” in evolution tend to use standard debunked creationist bullshit).

This has been the standard tactic of creationists ever since a more direct approach was immediately rejected by the courts. The intent is still the same - they want to, at the very least, put “god did it” on the same level as “here’s how evolution works” - and they want to be able to protect teachers who go further than that.

So this is unambiguously a creationist agenda using language that makes it sound like a fair minded academic policy, but in reality is designed to cover teachers who attempt to debunk evolution and/or promote creationism. It should be squashed the same as if it were more to the point and less surreptitious.

3

But at the same time, there is a move afoot to change how science is taught to children - to make it more “enquiry based” rather than dogmatic “this is how it works”. And, to my mind, this is a good thing. It gets the kids engaged and does make them think.

Superficially at least, this TN bill would appear to fall into a framework which would support that. And the sponsor put language in that requires staying within the State’s science education “framework” - though I’m not sure what that means.

So is there merit to this? Or is TN about to return to 1925?

4

Allowing the Bible in schools COULD be handled well, if it’s calmly and reasonably used as an exercise in critical thinking. However, since the conclusion (at least in a science class) would be necessarily anti-biblical it would piss off a hell of a lot of people, and the chances of it being handled well are approximately nil. Due to that, I don’t think it’s a very good bill.

Even that said, if I DID think it would be handled tactfully, I don’t think elementary school is the best place to introduce anything like this. I wouldn’t start any sort of evolution vs religion comparative analysis until high school.

5

No, the forces behind this legislation are purely creationist - there’s no honest attempt to reform the way science is taught to be more critical. There’s no chance this results in, say, teaching the “strengths and weaknesses” of gravity, or getting kids to inquire about the heliocentric model of the solar system. The only issues are essentially right wing nonsense staples - evolution, global warming. This is unambiguously agenda driven.

Again, all of the nice sounding language about critical thinking and scientific inquiry are all bullshit - this is a bill designed to protect teachers who want to teach creationism.

6

Being from TN originally, I was disappointed and embarrassed by this at first. Then I thought about what I’ve learned since being on the Dope, and personally, I don’t think truth fears questions. That’s how we learn.

7

I agree. I’ve thought many times that I would like to hold a seminar in which I would discuss the scientific method, what it is, how it works, what it does - and just as important - what it doesn’t do. I would emphasize that a theory is the highest and best output of science and the dismissive statement “it’s only a theory” may be appropriate for a theory as concocted by a police officer or lawyer, but is not appropriate for a scientific theory.

I then could show how evolution IS a scientific theory based upon the scientific method, while creationism IS NOT a scientific theory - at a minimum because it is not falsifiable.

And, when you look at it properly, there need be no conflict between evolution and creationism - they merely do not fit into the same conceptual framework. And creationism could actually be correct. An omnipotent creator could have said “let it all be” and it was, complete with a historical record. And we’d never be able to prove otherwise.

Why not?

8

Becky – The problem is that you have two options –

  1. Teach it as an equal viewpoint. In which case it becomes seen as a valid model of reality to the students, and they wonder why their college biology class doesn’t give the time of day to Creationism.

or

  1. Basically spend time showing how ridiculous it is in class which, while educational for the kids and entertaining from the bleachers over here, is going to cause such an uproar (and not just from the parents – at a high school level even students will get mad) that it’s probably not worth it with the current social climate.
9

Because I don’t think kids are reasonably equipped to fairly debate and truly analyze this kind of controversy*, it’s going to devolve into a pissing match of “well, my Pastor said” and “well, my mom said.” I think kids are smarter than we give them credit for, certainly, and we do desperately need to teach critical thinking skills in lower grades, but I think such a socially important debate as creation vs evolution should be approached after their skills have matured and refined a bit, not as a tool to develop them in the first place.

To me it’s like using integrals to introduce how to take the area of a polygon. Yeah, you can do that, but it’d be much easier to explain the concept of an area and then later introduce integrals.

  • And by that, I mean it’s a social controversy, not a scientific one. Ignoring that fact, even in a science class, I don’t think is wise.
10

The truth doesn’t fear questions, but it is often obscured by noisy, dishonest debate tactics. Otherwise, creationism wouldn’t even exist - and this looks to be primarily a way to give more elbow room for noisy, dishonest debate.

Yes - it’s good to challenge/question, but science already does this, or it isn’t science.

11

And I’d love if there were a class on skepticism, critical thinking, and the scientific method. That’s what this sounds like. But it isn’t. This bill is designed to give cover to teachers who attempt to debunk evolution by trotting out these arguments.

The role of the teacher, in this scenario, isn’t to try to guide the kids into coming into their own understanding of how we know what we know, but to give them cover under the guise of academic freedom to steer them towards the wrong conclusion.

Any good science teacher worth his salt is already trying to teach kids how to critically evaluate things in a scientific way. This bill doesn’t bolster that. What it does is provide cover to teachers who want to try to teach unscientific things, in the name of “teaching the controversy” and all that nonsense.

12

I agree with this. I think that a core class in school should be some sort of philosophy or logic course. As wonky as learning about Dualism, or as silly as it feels having Thales argument that everything is made out of water seriously and critically analyzed, I think that having that kind of reasoning introduced is very important. Of course, such a course is ultimately going to have to necessarily introduce common problems with religion (even if accidentally or tangentially), even if it ultimately doesn’t decide one way or the other, and I’m not sure that would fly with parents or the current voting public.

13

“The truth” doesn’t fear honest questions. It should certainly fear dishonest ones.

And that is the problem with this nonsense in a nutshell. Very few high school teachers are have the requisite knowledge to be able to "help students critique “scientific weaknesses” and I will go so far as to say that no elementary school teachers are capable of doing so.

The current curriculum for schools is set by various boards and panels with various state and federal government oversights. That produces a reasonable science curriculum because it allows input from various experts not just in education, but in the subjects being taught. In contrast an elementary school teacher with a 3 year community college degree simply does not have the requisite expertise to be able to critique scientific theories. They simply do not have the breadth or depth of knowledge necessary to know where the current controversy sits on a topic or what issue shave been resolved.

So what we end up with is teachers pointing out all the standard "weaknesses’ of evolution fund in Answers in Genesis. All those weaknesses are either strawmen that are not weaknesses of the actual science. or else issues that were resolved decades ago. But how many teachers do you think will actually be aware that speciation has been observed taking place? Or be able to explain the evolution of the eye? Lacking that knowledge they are going to “help students critique scientific weaknesses” in evolution by trotting out those exact chestnuts that are not in fact weaknesses at all.

I wouldn’t object to this legislation if it came with a list of acceptable sources of “weaknesses” akin to school textbook lists. So, for example, a list of sources might include various books, journals and so forth and anybody can petition to have sources added to that list just as they do with textbook lists. By doing that we could ensure that the weaknesses that teachers point out to students are actual scientific weaknesses. Discussion of genuine scientific controversies like the role of Lamarkian mechanisms or the relative importance of genes versus organism as selective units or even the problem of abiogenisis would be a great thing. Those are real scientific controversies and real weaknesses in evolutionary theory.

But we know that isn’t going to happen. Instead teachers are going to be pointing out AIG type weaknesses such as “there is no use for half an eye”. Weaknesses that have no basis in science whatsoever. That is wrong and it is dangerous because it starts with asking dishonest questions that make dishonest assumptions about what evolution is and how scientists understand it.

Honest questions are good. Dishonest questions are to be feared just as much as lies. The problem is that very few teachers have the ability to distinguish between them much less the knowledge needed to address them.

14

Schools already teach the Scientific method, and how the method was used to discover evolution as opposed to other theories. Most intro Bio classes mention Lamarckian Evolution, Darwin’s Finches, etc. etc. What the OP wants done in schools is already the standard.

What the Tennessee bill supports is allowing teachers to present long since debunked arguments against Evolution on equal footing with the theory itself in an effort to instil their religious beliefs. That’s pretty clearly not desirable.

15

Even the term ‘scientific weaknesses’ betrays woeful/wilful ignorance about what science is.

16

Insofar as it is possible to glean the actual operative provision of the statute from the news stories linked, it seems to be that the:

It seems to me that there is nothing wrong with this. It is just saying that you can’t prevent teachers from discussing the strengths and weaknesses of scientific theories. But presumably the next thing that is going to happen is that fundie teachers are going to take this statute as giving them protection when they allege that evolution has “scientific weaknesses” that it doesn’t actually have. And then there will perhaps be a test case after a fundie teacher gets sacked for teaching Creationist psuedo criticisms of evolution.

The teacher will argue that he or she was teaching “scientific weaknesses” and so was protected by this statute, and the Board of Education or local education officials will say they sacked the teacher for teaching purest horseshit untainted by anything even vaguely scientific, and thus not engaging in “objective” review of “scientific” strengths and weaknesses.

Hopefully the court will agree with the latter and that will be the end of that.

17

Isn’t there already a class on the scientific method? I distinctly remember learning that particular method in Science class. And this was in Virginia.

18

Let’s just teach them general relativity and QCD, too. Or let them ferret out the difference between Bohmian mechanics and the standard interpretation. I learned a lot of stuff in high school. Most of it was heavily simplified and, in some cases, wrong. Why was the Bohr model of the atom something to be discussed? We should fix this, not make it worse.

This is really a stupid proposal.

19

Some people think critical thinking = my ideas are just as valid as yours.

I’m tutoring a college student–one significantly older than I am. She blew my mind when she said that she doesn’t “believe” in dinosaurs and frequently informs her professors about this. “How do we know that those bones are actually bones or that they don’t belong to elephants!” Note that she is majoring in biology, not underwater basketweaving.

And yet she has no problem professing her belief in an invisible supernatural entity.

Yes, question and then question again. Be skeptical of everything you read and hear. But no, your wild-ass fantasies are not on the same footing as established scientific theories. Your crazy speculations are not “hypotheses”–they are just crazy speculations. They do not need to be entertained in a classroom in a serious debate.

The truly religious should have a problem with mathematics and physics, too. God can do everything, which means he can defy logic. He can make two plus two equal quadrillion. He can make anything travel faster than light. There is no natural law that God is bound by, because he made the laws. But rarely do you hear anyone question these scientific ideas or try to insert dogma in arithmetic text books.

20

When there are this many people that go through the full education system and still misunderstand it on a fundamental level, there’s clearly something wrong somewhere. The natural first reaction is to look at the teaching.

Myself, I think that’s a symptom rather than a cause. The root cause is, IMO, the anti-intellectualism that runs through the country. For a large part of the population, it’s a faux pas to apply critical thinking to tasks, or even to just be able to recall facts. From the kids who tease each other for actually doing well in school, to the blue-collar workers who consider mental arithmetic the domain of the genius, to the grumbling retirees complaining of “ivory tower” political candidates “who think they’re better than you”, the USA has a major problem, that reaches across all regions and all generations, of people viewing willful ignorance as a desirable and proper state of mind.

Our education system is reasonably good. Sure, it could be better, but it could be a lot worse too. That’s why I think we should be deeply concerned about indicators such as how poorly “science”, as a general term, fares in public polling, because the only way that can exist alongside a reasonably good education is that the culture simply doesn’t want to be educated. That has some dire implications for all aspects of society, and it’s not something you can fix by just adding a new course or textbook.