So we should give each idea the time it deserves. Like maybe 2 minutes, tops, for the biblically-inspired crap.
You mean…they don’t already?!? :eek:
I think its important to teach real scientific controversies that have occurred previously or even currently to show they are worked through, and this can be very useful to show why it doesnt apply to when the phrase is most commonly used.
Otara
The problem is that people who say that the controversy should be taught don’t mean it. They don’t want schools to actually teach students about pseudoscience and present the evidence that demonstrates why it’s not true. What they want is for pseudoscience to be presented alongside genuine science with the evidence set aside so they appear to have equal merit.
If the controversy is taught correctly, the class should be laughing at it longer than that!
An interesting proposal, to be sure, but I just think it’ll backfire, is all. Certainly, Bpelta, you are an optimist.
I would totally buy that as a really huge poster…or a quilt.
The people who study science in great detail don’t have time for bullshit. And they already know enough to not have the slightest interest in those so called “controversies”.
I stopped watching the news when Walter Cronkite retired. Did they change things?
The people who say “teach the controversy” are basically hoping to Swiftboat science. You remember Swiftboating, the Republicans attacked John Kerry’s war record. Now the facts were clear: John Kerry had served on the Swift Boats in Vietnam, in danger of his life, Vietcong shot at him wounding him, while George Bush spent Vietnam flying the skies over Texas, safe from all attack, because in those days the National Guard was a haven from service in a combat zone. But the Republican ginned up a controversy over whether or not the EXTENT of Kerry’s wounds merited the Purple Heart he received.
The media fell for it. They took the lazy way out. They said there was a controversy over Kerry’s military record (did his injuries received in combat merit a Purple Heart?) and over George Bush’s military record (did he go AWOL, did his father use his political pull to get his son placed in the Reserve?) because that made them seem “fair” and “balanced” and “not taking side.” They ignored the fact that the facts took sides, i.e., Kerry was a wounded veteran in Vietnam, however serious or not serious his wounds, and that Bush was a non-participant. On the war service front, Kerry clobbers Bush in reality, but the Republicans made it look like a tie.
Shame, shame on the media for letting it happen. They were made fools of.
Now, if various nutjob groups, for example the Intelligent Design people, get educators to “Teach the Controversy” the Intelligent Design folks (and their ilk) will say, “Here we have two controversial theories, evolution and Intelligent Design. You must give them both equal weight, because both are theories, and both are controversial.” They will have Swiftboated evolution, and whatever other much-more-founded-in-science theories they oppose. And a lot of idiots will fall for it, just as a lot of idiots fell for Swiftboating.
Shame, shame on educators if they fall for it. They will have been made fools of.
I forget an important bit of my argument:
the Intelligent Design nutjobs will say:
"“Here we have two controversial theories, evolution and Intelligent Design. You must give them both equal weight, because both are theories, and both are controversial and both are being taught as such in the classroom.” And it will not matter that one theory is NOTHING BUT controversial and the other has tested out in tens of thousands of ways, any more than it mattered that Kerry really was a warrior and that Bush was not.
There’s also different controversies involved. Intelligent Design is controversial because it has no objective evidence to support it. Evolution is controversial because Intelligent Design supporters protest against it.
In order to teach critical thinking in science classroom, just do some of history of science. Teach about phlogiston and ether and geocentric circles (planetary movement before Kepler) and explain how with the scientific method, each of these theories was disproven with more evidence, and how suddenly, a new and better theory came up.
You can tell how exciting it was to see scientist battling about which theory was better until all evidence was in (or until the old geezers died out, which had to happen a few times, too, sadly). Tell how, when Alfred Wegener’s theory of plate tectonics wasn’t accepted, despite evidence from disparate fields, he didn’t throw a hissy fit or claim conspiracy, he just waited until the evidence won out, and later new evidence (the mid-atlantic rift discovered by the boat expedition in the 60s) further confirmed.
And then tell of Lusenkow and how, when a whole regime threw its weight behind one crazy scientist, millions of people* died of famine because his ideas didn’t work out, and a whole generation of biologists was crippled by not being taught about proper Mendelian genetics. (Analogies to the current situation in other countries left as exercise to the students.)
- Use that moment as reminder, too, that despite Reagan et al. calling the Soviets evil and so on, the Russian people themselves were just normal guys trying to survive, so them dying of hunger was bad.
Sure, you’re absolutely right, but of course the Intelligent Design supporters are not about to give that the least little bit of attention. Their goal in having it n the classroom is to bolster public support for it, to make religioius believers (cause that’s it’s origin, let’s be frank) more comfortable in accepting it and denying evolution.