A school exercise seems to have roused the ire of creationists. It included a statement about common creationist behavior.
Not Just a Theory
Next time someone tells you evolution is just a theory, as a way of dismissing it, as if it’s just something someone guessed at, remember that they’re using the non-scientific meaning of the word. If that person is a teacher, a minister, or some other figure of authority, they should know better. In fact, they probably do and they are trying to mislead you.
I would like to see some clarification of the objection.
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Are they arguing that it’s true that evolution is just “something someone guessed at”?
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Are they arguing that there is not a difference between the colloquial and scientific meaning of “theory”?
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Are they arguing that teachers, ministers, and figures of authority should not know better?
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Are they arguing that authorities teaching false information is not intentional, but simply a case of ignorance?
I would not like to be in the position of making a case against that statement. It’s actually accurate, and the alternatives are ugly.
But of course, school administrators chickened out and reassured the idiot parents that the statement would no longer be used in future worksheets. So I’d also like to know…are they intentionally keeping their children ignorant and wrong, or are they just stupid?
But it is a sincerely held religious belief, therefore it is untouchable. Now, if you have a sincerely held belief that has roots other than religious sophistry, you can go fuck yourself.
Last month, a friend confessed to me that she was no longer a creationist as she’d been earlier in life. She noted that one of the reasons she had the most trouble in doing so was because she wanted to honestly believe that her pastors and such were not lying to her. All the other conservative Christian baggage they gave her that she’s shed was at least about imposing arbitrary rules on morality, so she could justify it as subjective. But because creationists worked so damn hard to give their beliefs scientific legitimacy, they were actually deceptive.
Mostly that just pisses me off, since people my friend trusted were deceptive to her (even if they also deceived themselves), because frankly, lying to children and young adults* stinks. And it did prevent my friend from embracing the full coolness that is science, since she couldn’t get into a lot of areas without being told they were evolutionist lies.
* Noting that you are simplifying things is different, of course, if you are upfront about how you are leaving things out because you want to get a basic idea down before you add new things.
They wussed out? That’s a real shame. I like that they put this into worksheets, as it’s a very common anti-scientific notion. Children are supposed to learn how to think critically and how to apply scientific principles, aren’t they? If they understand the approach, they will use it not just in school, but they’ll be able to spot unscientific approaches in their day-to-day lives, too. Which, presumably, is why a lot of people want it removed…
“In fact, they probably do (know better) and they are trying to mislead you.” I don’t know that this statement is true. There seems to be plenty of people in authority who are genuinely unaware of the difference between a scientific theory and a “hunch.” Insisting that they “know” otherwise and that they are just being deceitful reminds me of the apologists’ tactic of insisting that we “know” God exists and that we are lying when say otherwise. It doesn’t foster dialog; it’s a conversational kick in the balls.
What Andrew David @ # 4 said.
I strongly suspect that the average “authority figures” pushing creationism at a schoolchild believe what they say – but I don’t have hard data on that, and almost certainly neither does the person who wrote that assignment.
Unfounded generalizations have no business in a science lesson to start with – hostile accusations based on same even less.
Yes.
Yeah, I’d object to “probably do”. I like to think that most of them are sincerely misguided, not consciously lying.
I’ll go along with Andrew David at #4 and Pierce after him and say that yes, this is basically their argument. Creationists are comparing human terms and understanding to a divine, Perfect standard.
Just as it’s not seen as relevant to quibble about different meanings of “random processes” because anything other than an intentional act of will is random enough, distinctions between colloquial and scientific meanings of the word “theory” blur into the same thing. Human explanations, no matter whether they’re well supported or not, pale to insignificance under the light of the omniscient and certain Knowledge of God. This is how they reason.
Therefore, technically speaking the authority figures are not intentionally lying and children should not be taught that they are.
It is common for people to confuse semantic quibbles with substantive argument. Words have multiple meanings, so it is very common for people to argue by substituting one meaning for another. If they don’t have critical thinking skills, they can’t see why what they are doing is erroneous. I once listened to a guy who argued that favoring organic agriculture was absurd because organic means “carbon compounds” and all living matter is therefore organic, as are pesticides. I could not get him to see that the word was being used in a different sense. His meaning was the “correct” one, which enabled him to simply avoid engaging the substance of the issue.
When I was young (8th grade, 14 years), I was confused by the differences I heard about the universe on Sunday vs the rest of the week. But my science teachers offered evidence and understanding, the church offered memorizing and accepting blindly. Any questions I had were answered that god worked in mysterious ways.
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Gradually, science won out, just on the basis of being reasonable; I didn’t need to have my science teachers confront the dichotomy. It might have taken longer, but it sat better. This sort of assignment turns science teachers into the preachers they want to avoid.
I agree with Andrew David (#4) and Pierce R. Butler (#5).
These people likely know something about the theory of evolution, but have chosen not to believe that evolution is true. They are not lying because they believe what they are saying. They are deliberately teaching their children ‘facts’ that are considered false by the majority of well educated human beings living today. But while creationists beliefs about evolution may be mistaken, that doesn’t make them liars.
Telling children that their ministers and/or parents are lying to them about evolution is just not acceptable IMO. wcorvi (#10) makes a good point about this approach.
Apart from the question, is that how average kids in Grade 8 print? I first thought it must be a Grade 2 or 3 student based on the quality of printing. I know people don’t write letters anymore but would think that someone in Grade 8 should have better printing than that.
the parents objections to the lesson, are mind boggling.:
So, parents have the right to feed fantasies to their children, and tell them it is truth? I did not know that. :-(
slithey tove says: So, parents have the right to feed fantasies to their children, and tell them it is truth? I did not know that. :-(
Yes, they do have that right. Would you want schools telling kids their parents are lying about Santa and the Easter Bunny?
technically speaking the authority figures are not intentionally lying
I am not so sure. The information is out there and they are choosing to remain ignorant; in fact they know what the information is that they are choosing to ignore. Which means that they are lying to themselves, and by extension everyone that they “inform” with information that they have edited. That’s lying to omission to others, and lying by commission to oneself.
If I know there is a truth and choose not to pursue it, that is a lie.
slithey tove, #13
Sure, they do.
But the school telling the child they’re wrong isn’t taking that right away from the parents as that parent you quoted is claiming.
Does it really make much difference if it’s a lie or not? Either way, it’s widespread misinformation about a core theory in science. A science class should work to correct such misconceptions. I’d honestly prefer it if a science class was more about scientific methodology and thinking than it was about facts to memorize. Recognizing pseudoscience is a valuable life skill, much more so than remembering something like F=MA or ‘the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.”
Does it really make much difference if it’s a lie or not?
It makes quite a difference. If you can argue convincingly that someone is telling a lie, you’ve demonstrated that even they don’t believe it which makes it quite a bit harder for someone to then go believe it.
Let me turn that around for you: if lying didn’t make much difference, nobody’d bother to lie.
Okay, so there’s a lot of right in this thread, but also a lot of near misses. I, infallible Right Reverend as I am, shall end all debate:
While I’m largely with Andrew David #4 & Pierce R. Butler #5, I think they’ve been, shall we say, misled by the title of this post?
People seem to be conflating “lying” and “misleading”. The original sentences of the lesson that are under dispute include “trying to mislead you” but not “trying to lie to you”.
So, think about this: Is the phrase “intentionally mislead” an oxymoron?
Does the word “try” here necessarily imply that the place to which these authority figures is known to those authority figures to be the wrong place? In other words, if you intentionally try to lead someone to Paris by heading east from Brussels, and if you believe that Paris is east of Brussels, you are trying to lead them, and you are misleading them, so is it fair to say that one is trying to mislead them?
I think it could be technically accurate, but that given the way most people would understand the language, it’s not fair. I think most people who engage in “its just a theory” rhetoric are simply ignorant. Crucially, I think that the set of people who constitute all “authority figures” to PZ and the set that constitutes all authority figures to a random 8th grader differ drastically. While the people PZ think of as “authority figures” might indeed be frequently lying, to an 8th grader the cashier in the cafeteria might very well be an “authority figure” and we’re back to a group that looks a lot closer the general public – especially because you have to add in “parents” of all 8th graders, which is a pretty mixed set science literacy-wise.
So, no, I don’t think the statement “trying to mislead” is a fair statement to make to this audience about the set of authority figures relevant to them. On the other hand, I don’t think it’s quite as inflammatory a statement as Andrew David & Pierce R Butler would have it. It could have been meant in a technically correct sense, but if it was, it was pretty thoughtless as to how it would be received by its audience. That’s poor communication, but it’s not being inflammatory.
Obviously accusing them of being inflammatory is reasonable since one could reasonably believe that the writers/distributors didn’t intend the message to be the technically correct but abstruse one, and therefore must have intended the common interpretation. If they did that, then they were being inflammatory.
So it’s a reasonable accusation, I just think it’s a case not fully made. The school district did the right thing, IMONSHO, when it apologized.
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@slithey tove #13, Beth #14, & Saad #16:
First amendment baby, gotta love it.
Whoah, now! You’re confusing 2 different issues: OTOH whether a general right exists, and OTOH whether slithey tove “wants” (or perhaps, the general public “wants”) the school to debunk a couple of specific lies.
Note also what Saad says:
As is so often the case, Saad manages to say something I’m tempted to say, and uses 95% fewer words to say it.
The right to lie and the right to prevent other people from telling the truth are very different. Parents and ministers in the use have a general right to lie, subject to only a few more restrictions than the general right to express themselves truthfully (since, say, false commercial speech is restricted in ways that true commercial speech is not; likewise truthful speech can never be defamation).
Parents and ministers do not have a general right to prevent their children from hearing true things. You’re pretty far off base here, Beth. It may even be that the general public doesn’t WANT the school telling 8th graders that Santa Claus doesn’t exist. That is very different from having a right to prevent true things from being spoken (or distributed in writing) in an 8th grader’s class.
Actually, I think the confrontation in the last two sentences was probably unnecessary and counterproductive. For one thing, it encourages the other side to say “See? They really are out to get us. Time to step up our own rhetoric.”
For another thing, it sells the kids short. They know there’s a controversy, and they know what the two sides are saying. Give them credit for being able to make up their own minds about whom to believe.
That statement is quoted from notjustatheory.com.
No, and you’re not looking at an average, but a one.
I work with a bunch of kids in 3rd grade; one or two kids have good handwriting. Most of them have horrible handwriting, about what you see in the image above. I suspect that this is because handwriting isn’t emphasized as much as when I was a kid. As I understand it, most schools don’t even teach cursive, which is an affront to all that is good
and holy.Either way, they obviously don’t have to be trying or doing it intentionally, in order to successfully mislead.
You’re not necessarily being intentionally misleading in that case. But you could be.
Then they should cure of themselves of their ignorance, before they can honestly and reasonably believe they are capable of informing others about it. You’re being dishonest, if you present yourself as well-informed or non-ignorant when you’re actually not that (especially on complex and obscure subjects like the origin of the universe or the origin/diversity of life). You can know that you’re not (or that you are) in a position of having reliable and truthful information about a certain topic, which you could tell another person about. You’re capable of evaluating the things you know and don’t know, how certain you are about any of it, and how you obtained whatever information you did actually obtain. Simply telling people what you sincerely believe, with no regard for whether it’s true or supported by anything like reliable or credible evidence, is being deliberately dishonest.
If you thought Paris was east of Brussels (it is, if you go far enough in a roughly eastern direction, so you presumably mean a shorter route), you can ask yourself how you know that. Maybe you’ve traveled to both places, or maybe you’ve seen them on a reliable and widely-used map, but maybe your memory of such facts is honestly mistaken for whatever reason. That’s not being intentionally deceptive about anything. But perhaps your belief is based on something you (or someone else) know is made up, which doesn’t even appear like it could have ever been an honest mistake based on reliable and careful thought and/or observation. Why not tell the person about that, if you’re telling them you sincerely believe it’s east of Brussels? Because you don’t want them to know you’re bullshitting.
If you’re doing something like the last one, that’s intentionally misleading. You may not be deliberately misrepresenting what your sincere belief is, but you are deliberately misrepresenting the kind of access you have to such information. And that’s very important. Being right, accidentally, about some fact is not itself a justification for thinking of yourself (or another person) as any kind of authority on the subject, nor is it even merely a rational basis for belief. Your process (or the reliability of your sources) makes a big difference to the person who decides whether or not to believe as you do, and withholding that, or misrepresenting it or failing to even care about it to begin with, is a dishonest way of convincing them to believe as you do.
PZ, you didn’t transcribe the best part: what the kid wrote!
@12, 22: I have a 6th grader, I wish his handwriting was that good. I frequently have him redo parts of his homework if it’s completely illegible.
My 8th grader’s handwriting is perfectly fine, has been for years. Same schools, mostly same teachers. Dunno what the difference is.
Sorta on-topic: they do both understand what a theory is. :-)
Marcus Ranum #15 wrote:
But creationists think they’re ignoring unreliable information and therefore they don’t believe it’s willfull ignorance. They’ve been taught (and have bought) a lie. The most trustworthy information comes from the most trustworthy source, God — and now they’re out of it. They’re so little they don’t have to factor their own fallibility into the conclusion and can duck the responsibility to weigh evidence rationally. The work is over and truth won.. As Crip Dyke points out, we distinguish between intentional misdirection and misdirection.
What we want to get into is the idea that creationists (and homeopaths and racists and conspiracy theorists) OUGHT to know better than they apparently DO know. They misdirect and don’t bother to check with anyone other than “God.” What we can see (and they cannot) is that this doesn’t really count as humility or virtue.
Oh, and our school system quit teaching cursive somewhere between my oldest and youngest. I confess I don’t miss it, seems to me the only value is to be able to read historical documents .. But that’s dicey anyway, they had such horrible handwriting back then. :-)
What was cursive
writingillegibility got to do with anything?I concur the answer’s legibility leaves a lot to be desired, but I do not see how cursive would magically make it legible. Using myself as an example, it would be completely unreadable, even to myself, supposing I could even recall how to do cursive. When I did do cursive it was illegible, and it was one of my (high-school!) English teachers who encouraged me to not bother with cursive.
What we want to get into is the idea that creationists (and homeopaths and racists and conspiracy theorists) OUGHT to know better than they apparently DO know
They actually do know better. That’s why they are lying. They deliberately avoid information – why? Because they know it is corrosive to their beliefs. That means that they actually do know – they wouldn’t be able to avoid it otherwise.
My girlfriend was homeschooled by dishonest christians that deliberately edited huge amounts of information out of her education in order to protect her ignorance. That is not the behavior of someone who has seen but discredited information. It is the behavior of someone who understands the information enough to accurately assess it as a threat, then to choose to lie about it.
Look at the way PZ frequently exposes the ideas of creationists here on this blog. That is what you’d expect from someone who has seen information and evaluated it as not threatening. It is what “not lying” looks like.
@Marcus Ranum:
I don’t think the evidence necessarily leads to the conclusion you’re making. If you’re nutty enough to believe there’s a literal Satan literally plotting to deconvert Christians as part of a celestial power-grab, if you’re nutty enough to believe that Satan is literally composing the arguments of persons who don’t believe in your brand of Christianity, and if you’re nutty enough to believe that propagating the words of Satan is itself a sin, well!
…you’re right that the omission indicates a conscious evaluation of specific words, arguments, and ideas as “threats”. But they aren’t necessarily perceived as a “threat” to the nutty Christian’s argument that fossils are laid down in strata, therefore all things fossilized were killed all at once in a super-powerful flood. No, if you “know” that this is a false argument composed by Satan and choose to pass on those words to your charges, the threat is to your immortal soul.
Yes, conscious editing is going on. No, the conscious editing doesn’t necessarily mean that they actually realize the significance of the edited material for evaluating the truth or falsity of a particular Christian claim.