Schools in Hampshire, England are receiving information on how to incorporate creationism into the classroom. It’s hard to judge whether this is good or bad without seeing the actual materials, but I’m inclined to say it’s probably a bad idea, since it’s supported by people claiming the point is to “analyse different views in a balanced way.” That is the wrong way to teach this stuff.
I incorporate creationism into my introductory biology course, too, but I don’t think I do it quite the way creationists want. What they want is that we be respectful of their views, explain it as an alternative, and nod sagely in the direction of Charles Darwin and Philip Johnson. We got a picture of what they want in Dover, Pennsylvania, when the school board mandated a vague statement about critical thinking that did not actually exercise any critical thought, and that waved a hand in the direction of some fifth-rate books that students ought to examine. No, that’s not how you teach a subject in science.
For instance, I’m teaching a course in transmission genetics right now. If I taught it the creationist way, I would have said something like this:
Uh, this is a course in the theory of genetics. There are some other theories out there, maybe you can find some books on them somewhere, but, ummm, keep an open mind. We teach something about genes getting passed down from generation to generation. That’s enough. There are some other details, I suppose, but right now we should spend some time on preformation and acquired characters, which I suppose are equivalent theories.
And then I could be done and sit down for the rest of the term. It sure would be easier. That’s the thing about creationist “ideas” — they’re so danged fuzzy and unteachable, either falsified already or so incoherent that they’re untestable.
The way I actually teach genetics is essentially a temporal series of criticisms. I start with Darwin’s pangenesis for a little historical background, and tell them this is wrong, and here’s why, criticizing it on the basis of it’s ad hoc nature and its failure to fit experimental observations. Then I introduce Mendel, and we see his view of particulate, quantifiable inheritance, and how it superseded Darwin, and then I show how parts of it are wrong, with experiments that show how it fails, which leads into linkage. And then I show how some of our initial concepts of chromosomal inheritance are wrong, with work done on extrachromosomal factors. Step by step, we build a case for a complex and detailed understanding of the rules of heredity by experiment…where even the experiments that go “wrong” (that is, don’t show us the results we expected from existing theory) help us acquire a deeper understanding of the process.
In a way, it’s a pretty ruthless business. Weak handwaving, of the sort that Darwin was doing in his theory of inheritance, doesn’t cut it and gets chopped apart savagely with the bloody cleaver of experiment. Creationism is far, far weaker than Darwin’s 19th century proposal, so you can guess how it fares.
When the proponents of creationism ask that their nonsense be taught in school, there is an implicit expectation that the scientists will put away their implements of destruction and suspend the savagery while their delicate little flower of unsupportable fluff is discussed reverentially. That is not going to happen. If it did, it wouldn’t be a science class.
A lesson plan that includes creationism should plainly show that experiment and observation have irrefutably demonstrated that it is now a splintered pile of cack-minded gobshite, wrecked by a century and a half of discovery, and that its supporters now are reduced to pathetically feeble rationalizations that rely almost entirely on people’s emotional dependence on the legitimacy of their religious beliefs. A science class isn’t the place to rip into airy-fairy religiosity — we have other venues for that — but it should uncompromisingly demolish every attempt to link natural, material events to pious metaphysics. If a student comes out of such a class believing that maybe there is still something to the Genesis explanation of the origins of life, then the instructor has not done her job. Her job was to explain with science how the world works, and if anyone wants to smuggle in the seven days and the magic fruit tree and the talking snake, it should be so the teacher can show the students that that is not how it works.
I’m willing to grant creationism an hour or two in the classroom, as long as its role is to be an easy victim, to demonstrate how science can be used to eviscerate bad ideas (I also know from experience that most students find that extremely entertaining, as well as informative). From what I’ve seen of most of the creationist curricula advanced by these quacks, that isn’t what they want. To which we have to say, then it isn’t science.
Sigh… I wish that I was in your classes, PZ.
Anyway, I’m currently in teacher-cert, so I’ll take your advice in my classroom.
Eviscerate bad ideas, indeed!
Sure, try criticizing Darwin, and just wait until the atheists in Expelled start ruining your life, as documented in the movie.
I can see you punished soon by Dawkins, Provine, and PZ Myers. Oh, wait, who are you again?
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
You know, it strikes me that biology got the short end of the stick when it comes to disproven theories. I mean, you got saddled with creationism and “intelligent design.”
Chemistry’s disproven theories based on old ideas were actually pretty cool (but false), such as the theory of phlogiston, or the whole thing with gravitational aether and luminiferous aether (which lead to the invention of the interferometer).
Creationsim should be shown in a science, but only as a classic example of pseudoscience. The lack of scientific rigor, and the non-scientific suppositions should be explained in detail. Might take all of 20 minutes.
Damn! Now I share something with creationists — They are cack-minded – I am cack-handed!
I need – a atheist-only synonym for cack, stat!
[braveheart]Academic Freedom!!!!![/braveheart]
Hall of fame post. Especially the 4th paragraph, beginning:
I wouldn’t even dignify “intelligent design” by comparing it to phlogiston or pangenesis or the universal aether. Those were honest but wrong theories that were steps toward the truth and were supported by what at the time seemed reasonable evidence.
ID is more like Lysenkoism, in that it’s deliberately set up to counter real science which its adherents dislike for ideological reasons.
Lstorm:
The creotards feel threatened by Biology, because it continues to chip away at their concept of god.
Physics and Chemistry seem so remote, and restricted to ‘boffins’. Not so Biology (at least in their tiny little minds)
@#8
Well, my implication was that Intelligent Design was likely thought of by some one by the end of the 19th century and summarily disproven, so people still clinging to it are trying to mislead others because of their ideology.
I was born in Hampshire some 70 years ago. There was no such thing as a science class in any school I attended until I reached 11. There was however a daily religious service before school and I think I remember RI being on the curriculum. So things have improved, and I think we can trust the majority of UK science teachers to rubbish any alternative hypothesis whatsoever to organic evolution.
I know a great deal more about evolutionary biology because of creationist challenges. I’ve always understood evolution to be true, but it’s nice to know why, with specific, worked examples. That elephant post the other day was a magnificent way of spelling it out to me, an English major.
The motives of those who want creationism taught in schools are suspect, though. As the British comedian Chris Addison says, teaching creationism in science classes is like teaching Narnia in geography. If you’re learning Spanish, you don’t learn a load of words that aren’t Spanish but sound like they might be.
You could teach that elephant example without mentioning creationism, that’s the thing. Why does it need either a disclaimer ‘some wrong people think differently, they also think bats are birds if they really are Biblical literalists’ or a sneer ‘so the creationists are *wrong*, *wrong* I tells ya’?
It’s a different situation in Britain. There’s no separation of Church and State. But there’s only one group of people pushing for creationism in schools, and I think it’s all too easy to pander to them in the name of ‘including every viewpoint’. On balance, creationism shouldn’t get mentioned at all.
Of course creationism/ID should be taught – it’s a perfect example of a non-scientific hypothesis, and how utterly useless such ideas are.
It also makes a beautiful example of how science assesses “new” ideas.
My eureka moment about creationism (not that it was full of crap but just how full of crap it was) came from reading the old “you can shine a light on a pile of bricks for a million years” arguement after just finished studying a unit on photochemistry.
WIN!
“a splintered pile of cack-minded gobshite”
Inspired. That part made me smile.
I recently received an email from my state senate representative that said:
“I have always believed that, if we allow the teaching of evolution in public schools, we should also provide a good balance by allowing the teaching of creationism or intelligent design. Why wouldn’t we want a fair and balanced discussion on this important issue.”
I plan to forward PZ’s Creationism lesson plan to him.
There’s a great story about gay ducks on the linked page.
If we alert our local Christians to THAT, they might organise some sort of protest movement, and be too busy to screw up science education.
I wonder how the Phelps crew would react to those gay ducks?
Maybe what we need to do is start teaching ID in the churches–little things like how incompetent the designer would have to be to give the human back or knee to a critter capable of bipedal motion; or what a right bastard he would have to be to “engineer” smallpox or malaria or HIV so they afflict humans so well. It is not science, but more pertinent to the communities of faith, it’s also piss poor theology.
I say teach creationism using guest lecturer Roy Zimmerman
O/T re: learning spanish & spanish souding words.
I invented a word many moons ago when learning spanish in Spain (relaxing after a day of wine & beer & tapas* – I mumbled a word mid-nap: scoristas. It means beer & things.)
we now have scoristas parties!
* note: don’t try to learn a new language in the midst of lots of other people attempting the same – whose native languages are different from yours! I was confused by greek, german, italian, swedish, norwegian, french, and dutch – as well as a few different varieties of english.
I completely agree – this is how all science classes should be taught. In my high school chemistry class we were required to write a paper on the phlogiston theory. We were supposed to explore how ideas took hold, how they persisted despite observations that conflicted with them, and how they are eventually replaced. Unfortunately, half the students didn’t see the point in studying an idea that was discredited.
All science classes should discuss how some people attempt to hijack science’s mantle to promote crackpot ideas. Creationism attacks not just science, but geology (everything can be explained by “the flood”), chemistry (questioning our understanding of DNA and the genetic code), and physics (denying the evidence for the age of the Earth and universe). Teaching students the difference between real science and psuedo-science should be a part of every science class (especially for non-science majors).
Speaking of Phlogiston, anybody read Discover magazine? What’s up with their new series of cartoons portraying famous historical scientists as crackpots? Even if they were, does it really help to know that? Wait, that didn’t come out right. I see the value of showing scientists as fallible humans with their own prejudices and misconceptions, that the method of science forces “truth” despite these failings, but I don’t really get that from these cartoons. It just makes them seem like cranks.
The Creationists should hope they do not get for what they wish. They mistakenly think that Science (along with other university subjects) is uncritically taught, equating it to spoon feeding regurgitated liberal agenda so getting their nonsense into a science class, to them, is the important part. They have no idea how merciless a science instructor would be in terms of showing how unscientific creationism is, just as lucidly as that instructor would be in showing how scientific knowledge has evolved due to vigorous testing and reevaluation.
Great post.
Ah ha! There are some cool 19th-early 20th century theories on biology/evolution out there;
Élan vital, a theory on evolution based on a hypothesized life energy.
Emergence, which sounds like the whole ‘gestalt’ thing applied to something other than human consciousness.
Vital Essence which is apparent the actual concept that the élan vital powers.
So yeah, apparently biology did get some cool sounding obsolete theories.
Now someone needs to include notes requiring these be mentioned alongside creationism any time it’s brought up in a course….
I live on the Surrey/Hampshire border, so the stupid is only a couple of miles away from my door. Ick.
Here’s the link to Hampshire County Council’s “Contact Us” page: http://www3.hants.gov.uk/childrens-services/contact-cs/cs-offices.htm
I agree that if creationism/intelligent design is going to be mentioned in the science classroom, it should be criticized fairly and thoroughly just as the creationists are (disingenuously, I believe) calling for with respect to evolution. Both sets of ideas should be examined for their weaknesses and strengths as a good example of how the scientific process works. How could a competent science instructor leave doubt in the minds of their pupils following a thorough analysis?
Of course, a pitfall is the caveat that the instructor needs to be a competent one. Another pitfall is that the instructor not be a religious idealogue.
Can somebody use a bait and switch to get creationsists to go to a talk on creationism without knowing who the speaker is. Then PZ pops up and systematically dismantles it and maybe they will shut up a bit?……or is that too wishful….
Basically, all you need to say about ID is this:
1)A theory must be self-consistent and it must make predictions if it is to be a scientific theory.
2)ID assumes an “designer” who is omnipotent or nearly so.
3)A theory with an omnipotent designer cannot make predictions without invalidating the assumption of designer omnipotence.
Therefore either the theory is inconsistent or it cannot make predictions. In either case it is not science. You can even show the same thing mathematically using information theory (e.g. Akaike’s information criterion–AIC). In this version, every “decision” by the designer (including one not to intervene) is a parameter of the theory, so the number of parameters is unlimited. Therefore, the theory is not scientific.
Nice article. Bravo, Doc! (Which is better than a crocoduck any day.)
#4 NoR, OM: I know that it is a simple typo, but “creation-sim” has a certain ring to it. Maybe some of our snarkier residents can come up with a better joke than I can.
The council’s guidance appears to come from the religious education (RE) side mainly, where, of course, creationism (and why it’s garbage) is a valid topic, yup, it is religion. The council doesn’t seem to be promoting any of the classic creationist stalking horses (debate about alternatives, weaknesses in evolution, that sort of nonsense).
My impression is that this is genuinely about openness, that the kids should be educated about the evolution and anti-evolution issue. I don’t think there’s any hint that they should have science lessons hijacked by religious maniacs, but there is of course the fear that this might be the thin end of The Wedge.
At the end of The Torygraph’s article, there’s a brief mention of the mendaciously monikered “Truth in Science” group who are a bunch of fundamentalist loonies (plus that furious self-promoter and shit-of-shits sociocrapologist, Steve “Bighead” Fuller-Shit) who carefully portray themselves as concerned academics (no real biologists of course!) who care deeply, oh so deeply, about the welfare of our kids and how they have the right to hear the alternatives. These liars apparently have easy access to the Telegraph, which is quite keen on pseudo-science.
As far as I am aware, Hampshire is not particularly infested with religious hysteria. But a couple of silver-tongued fundamentalists could sway a committee, of course.
On March 29, my local Freethought group will have their 6th meeting in which we will revisit a horrific presentation given by one Rob Bell, shown to us at an interesting event called “Doubt Night” provided by a local Baptist church.
Bell took much of the progress of Science over the past few hundred years and bent it mercilessly to his will….
Or would have if a couple of our ilk were not in attendance.
We have at least two of the church-going folks from that group attending OUR meeting – and we hope to get their “views” on our analysis of the “lying for Jesus” in which Bell engaged.
I fully intend to take a clue from your post herein and use it to our greater benefit! I hope you don’t mind.
JC
“Teaching creationism in science classes is like teaching Narnia in geography.”
Man, that would have made my geography class so much more interesting. As long as I also got Alchemy in chemistry class.
And those things are chemistry how???
Honest question for those knowledgable in Darwiniana: would Darwin have been surprised or displeased–or neither–that this has been the fate of his ideas about inheritance? I haven’t read his actual works, but from secondary materials I’ve gotten the idea that the guy was a really admirable scientist in his devotion to following where the evidence leads. When it came to descent with modification, Darwin obviously amassed a huge amount of documentary/physical evidence that the process he was positing was real. But regarding the mechanism of inheritance, surely there was much less conclusive evidence available for his hypothesis, seeing as how it was largely wrong.
I’m wondering whether Darwin’s works show a recognition of the provisional and fairly unsupported nature of his conjectures about inheritance. I’m betting there are several Pharyngulites who can answer that question.
“…cack-minded gobshite…” Heh. Good one, PZ.
I always thought that teaching a class specifically on The Flud would be fun. Maybe even tag-team it with a physicist to deal with the aspects of the myth that aren’t geological. The concept of the Noachian Flood, as put forth by Xian creationism, is an actual testable proposition, and it’s been shredded so utterly and spectacularly by geology and paleontology that the result is a beautiful example of science falsifying a complex hypothesis.
P.Z. says: When the proponents of creationism ask that their nonsense be taught in school, there is an implicit expectation that the scientists will put away their implements of destruction and suspend the savagery while their delicate little flower of unsupportable fluff is discussed reverentially.
Brilliant!!! That’s the issue in a nutshell!
The fact is they DON’T want to “teach the controversy” becuse if it were taught in any honest way, creationism would be eviscerated.
Many thanks for highlighting this one PZ. I live in Hampshire (Portsmouth, unfortunately home of http://www.creationsciencemovement.com/ – sorry Sam C, we do have a small number of nutcases) and will be wanting to keep a close eye on what goes on. You can bet I’ll be putting pen to paper if it’s looking at all dubious, and I know our MP at least takes our side.
Well, I suppose their supposed existence alone was more of a physics thing, but the luminiferous aether was supposedly the carrier medium for light waves (in the same way air and such works for sound), and would’ve been studied by the field of chemistry had it actually existed.
Of course, with the advent of FT-IR, FT-NMR, and other instrumentation using the Fourier Transform that was pioneered by the Michelson–Morley Interferometer, I’d say chemistry got the most mileage out of the theory.
How is teaching creationism to biology students, any different from teaching students on a TV repair course about the little people who live inside TV sets and act out all the programmes?
say what? never heard that before. Nothing I’ve read about one ever mentions the other.
Yes, it’s called being an educator with intellectual integrity.
Well done, P.Z….
Reply to the senate representative mentioned in #16:
Saying that we “allow the teaching of evolution” is the same as saying we “allow” teaching of the Pythagorean Theorem in match classes. It’s not a debate, folks, any more than whether the Earth circles the Sun or vice versa is a debate — one is right and one is wrong.
I learned “creationism” throughout my education at my secular, private high school. I had to read Genesis twice — once in English Literature and once in World Religions. I also learned about other creation myths in my class on Ancient Cultures. I was also exposed to the “controversy” in my American History class. This is probably not what the ID people have in mind though!
I agree that Creationism provides the perfect foil for explaining the power of science. My high school Biology class didn’t talk about creationism — but it did start out teaching the concept of a syllogism and how that closed system of deductive reasoning from accepted (but not established) premises contrasts poorly with reasoning based on empirical observation and testing (with church teaching and Galileo contrasted to particularly good effect).
(Hurray for me for remembering this course 22 years later!!!)
Well, you science nerds must really drive the girls crazy with all this nerd talk.
I was pretty much apathetically agnostic for a while, tired of trying to figure it all out. This creationist/ID/evolution “debate” seemed interesting enough to look into. Needless to say, the information I’ve taken in has completely freed me from superstition and any residual fear from my religious upbringing! Thanks, nerds!!!!
I think Darwin would have been horrified (at first) about what happened to his theory. There is evidence in his correspondence with Galton that he was a bit protective of pangenesis, and I suspect his initial reaction would have been very defensive.
I’d like to believe that eventually he would have come around, but you know, genetics and evolution weren’t reconciled until about 1930, when Darwin would have been 121. People get a bit finicky at that age.
Pssst, Uppity Cracka — don’t forget some of the science nerds ARE girls.
:)
Laurie, if only somebody had told me that earlier it could have saved me years of AVOIDING science!! damnit!!
Ah, my bad, the original Michelson–Morley experiment didn’t use Fourier Analysis, but the Michelson Interferometer set up is what allows FT-IR and FT-NMR to work and such.
Head against wall. There is NO CONTROVERSY. Bang. Repeat ad infinitum.
PZ, I love you and all that but the scare quotes aren’t strong enough. Experiments which disconfirm current theory aren’t “wrong” in any sense, no matter how qualified. They’re the paydirt that we’re sifting through all of the others to find.
In many ways the greatest scientific experiment of all time was the Michaelson-Morley experiment. Anyone who doesn’t understand that down bone-deep has no business calling hirself a scientist of any kind.
PZ, that is a magnificent, amazing and inspirational piece of writing.
That is one of the clearest explanations of science in action I have read.
Thank You!
Moan: I think that the term “gobshite” refers to a repeatedly loud and obnoxious person, but our Irish cousins will no doubt provide a more colourful definition.
It may refer to creationists, but I believe it is incorrectly applied to the -ism.
When I took biology in high school (mid-1960s) our teacher never mentioned evolution. At all. Our textbook had some good material on the general issues, but called it something like the “developmental hypothesis” rather than using the e-word. Our teacher silently skipped over these sections, giving us an extremely fragmented view of the whole branch of the science. There was nothing holding it all together; we learned stuff about cell walls and about populations, but as he presented it biology came off as a bunch of unrelated information, shading off into chemistry on the one side and into something like the social sciences on the other. I thought then, and think to this day, that it was a colossal waste of time.
I mention this class because it is the only formal training in biology that I ever had, and it did have the effect of terminating my interest in the subject. I don’t have a large experience of biology classes to fall back on in making the following comments–
However, I do think creationism (ID, strengths and weaknesses) should have a place in at least high school biology classes. I wouldn’t call it that–I would refer to its elements as say “common errors about biology” (or science, or the geological record, or whatever), or “popular fallacies” or even in some cases say “exploded superstitions”. The peculiar notion that evolution is somehow at odds with the 2nd (or 3rd or 1st, depending on whom you’re reading at the moment) law of thermodynamics might well be covered as an aside. The common idea that “transitional species” should look like a cross between a whale and an alligator (or whatever stupid thing they’re saying today) could be conveniently ridiculed as an exploded superstition. “Nebraska man” could be dragged in as an example of the self-correcting nature of the scientific method. And so on. A little inoculation against these IDiotic errors might go a long way in preparing students for reality.
Of course I’m well aware that this isn’t what the anti-science crowd wants. This is the same bunch of anti-intellectual thugs who pass laws requiring that pregnant women be given misinformation about imaginary links between abortion and cancer, for example. This is the same gang of creeps who oppose treatment for STDs. These are the same folk who went out and promoted AIDS as an instrument for social transformation. It is a mystery to me why anybody takes their ravings seriously.
@48
I’ve read about Einstein really not liking quantum mechanics when it first came about because of some of the implications, such as Heinsenberg’s Uncertainity Principle and the oddities demonstrated by Schroedinger’s Cat, even though it was heavily based on his own work. He eventually came around to accept it.
So yeah, that’s the march of science.
Charlies back! PZ banned troll CW as Marshall Nelson.
Charlie Wagner
Marshall give it a rest and go read some basic books on biology. Not that it would make a difference.
‘Delicate flower of unsupportable fluff’. PZ, I LOVE that term, and shall use it a lot from now on.
Yeah. Was just gonna say Charlie the Douche is back.
Yay, it’s Charlie’s favorite sentence again. He’s been reapeating this exact statement of personal incredulity for so long, and has received so many adequate replies to it, that it’s become a little ritual now. We get it, Charlie: you don’t get it. Still, in the interest of ritual:
“trivial”? Not always, but even when trivial, cumulative. Over hundreds of millions of years.
“plausible”? It certainly seems so to all of the people who know the most about it.
Yes, the same evidence that you accept just so long as it “isn’t too much”. Namely, life is just an accumulation of variations, no thought, planning, or rationality behind it.
Your question is similar to asking if we actually have any evidence that although French and Portuguese are related (with some of the changeover being documented), do we have any real evidence that Latin and Greek are. Of course we do, since the same processes of inheritance and variation leave the same sorts of changes behind, no matter how far the changes go.
Yes, I know I fed the troll, but there are others, and I thought it was an opportunity for showing what a moron Charlie and his ilk are.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
AnthonyK – A gobshite is an ignorant or incompetent person, sort of like Facillis or Simple Simon. :)
Charlie, do you mind if I leave your church? Anything, if it will make your religion stronger.
So what’s the gen on this one guys:
Lunatic, liar, or Lackwit?
(nitpicking mode on)
It’s?
tsk… tsk…
(nitpicking mode off)
And charlie, you haven’t asked me. I won’t be mean to you like the others.
What’s on your mind?
Patricia, I believe that though you are correct, the technical meaning has a sense of insistence and boorishness.
If only an example would wonder in here so that I could demonstrate.
Sigh. No chance.
I think there is some merit to teaching creationism in science class.
A few years ago in college, a bio professor actually taught creationism in class. She first proposed its ‘theories’ which took a whole 10 mins of the class. No Surprise there since there’s really not much else to the whole creationism/ID ‘theory’ than “You were created by some designer, why? Because this holy bible sez so!”
The rest of the class was used to viciously tear it apart and present evidence on why its highly improbable that there was a creator (with many of the same arguments as presented in Dawkins’ God Delusion which I just read last year). One girl did storm out of the class and didn’t show up for the whole week.
That professor is actually one of my favorite teachers (despite the ridiculously hard exams) and was the catalyst that put me on my road to atheism. So under that format, I say we should go ahead and present creationism ideas. It’ll quickly become obvious how stupid it is next to real science.
P.Z. @ #48:
Aw–disappointing. Oh, well.
(my emphasis)
I’ve been saying that for a long time. It’s frightening how many decisions that have far reaching consequences are made by people whose chief criteria is “how they feel about X.” Informed by ancient mythology and guided by some current emotional state leaves them poorly equipped to deal with here and now.
From personal experience, casual observation and some familiarity with history I can say with a high degree of certainty that how one feels about a decision or situation is a poor foundation for deciding. While subjective considerations can add depth to some moment in life that demands action, objective facts and a good sense of how they interact provide a more reliable basis for judgment.
Thanks for stating same so plainly and forcefully.
And Happy Post-Birthday wishes!
There’s a very nice variant on this.
Rather than bring it up, $PROFESSOR leaves it to the (inevitable) student to do so. $STUDENT does, of course — at which point, $PROFESSOR expresses reluctance, on the grounds that a proper scientific treatment of the subject would be upsetting and not really relevant, since “creationism” is a cultural rather than scientific topic. $STUDENT persists, at which point $PROFESSOR (totally covered on indictment of insensitivity) takes the gloves off and blood flows.
For a spot of homework I recently gave my A level biology class a list of typical ‘arguments’ against evolution e.g no transitional fossils, 2nd law of thermodynamics.
They needed no prompting from me to tear them apart piece by piece.
Which is why it has always struck me as idiotic to try to force this crap into classrooms and push the issue. I see the Prop 8 crowd the exact same way – if you don’t like that a long-held belief you have is being challenged, especially if it is being successfully challenged on reasonable grounds and with credible precedent, why in the hell would you want to force the issue? If creationism gets fair treatment in classrooms, the wool really comes off and you see how stupid it is, and if you force the issue with Prop 8, eventually it will get to the Supreme Court – where the denial of rights to a certain class of citizens based on religious belief should and would be struck down.
When I went to school in England in the 60’s the three R’s were optional – the only compulsory subject was the fourth R!
In Biology lessons we were not taught anything about Evolution. We were taught that animals are divided into vertebrates and invertebrates – nothing about the real classification system. I used to think things could not get worse, but perhaps I was wrong! B-(
If creationism gets fair treatment in classrooms, the wool really comes off and you see how stupid it is . . .
Oh, but they don’t want fair treatment. As PZ pointed out, they want reverential treatment — and they want to indoctrinate students with the idea tha there is some serious doubt in the scientific community about the validity of the theory of evolution.
This is exactly what I found when I visited my local creation museum last week.
Bravo! Excellently said, PZ. A pretty ruthless business indeed. Science is a savage affair–nothing one loves more than truth itself should ever be subjected to it, lest you be forced to watch it die. If you would instead prefer to keep it safe from science, there’s always the humanities wing.
Alan, I am really shocked to hear that your English school in the ’60s omitted evolutionary theory. I thought the opposition to evolution was a purely American phenomenon that was only now spreading to other countrues. (Hmmm, maybe I can recover from viewing the creationists as an enormous blot on the American reputation?)
Okay – how the hell did this creep up on me without me noticing.
I live in Hampshire and have a daughter about to reach secondary school age.
Edd and PaulJ, I’m with you – I had no idea that Portsmouth was home to our own home grown creation museum and that there were any such plans to potentially mess with science education in the county. I’ll be following this up, too.
Indeed, but therein lies the rub. For every court case where they’re trounced, and for every IDiot that makes waves out of the Discovery Institute, they get exactly the wrong kind of publicity with whom it really matters. They might succeed in getting it talked about in the classroom, but they then have no control over how, at least not until something like the idiocy of Dover actually works and is then upheld. (Which I think has about the same chance one of Lucifer’s snowballs…)
Broken Soldier,
I so hope you are right! But I don’t have as good a sense as I would like on the views of our fellow citizens. I live in New England where rational people seem to be in the majority — but every once in a while I meet someone who appears completely normal and well-educated who then starts spewing creationist nonsense. It scares me. It reminds me that no one ever went broke overestimating the gullibility of the American people.
From that perspective, the Discovery Institute people make me incredibly nervous. I hope that the American public can differentiate between real scientists and people who ape real scientists, but I am just not sure if that is true! I think these charlatans are pretty good at PR!
re: me@76
And presto!
I was just reading about the Coming Evangelical Collapse on the Christian Science Monitor and ran across this:
(my emphasis again)
At one time I might have felt that such a coincidence was fraught with hidden meaning. Nowadays I feel no such compulsion, given that coincidences are so common.
This particular one is no different that the time that a radio preacher and my brother . . . oh, sorry. I mean it’s no different from thinking of Mom and getting a phone call from her on the same day. You do think of Mom every day, don’t you? Even so, the reward of even the least confirmatory reference to my earlier post only minutes after pressing Post does, indeed, feel good.
Hee hee ;^>
Oh, yes. Link: http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0310/p09s01-coop.html
Posted by: Laurie | March 10, 2009 4:09 PM
Good point.
That’s a hope I indeed share – though that is exactly why I cheer at each and every Dover-like incident. Each time they fail in tainting the education system, there’s that much more hope that education will continue to inoculate against their superstition. Call me an optimist…
Reminds me of an upper division molecular genetics course I took in my undergrad days (1990s). For one section, the professor took us through an entire two year research project of his, from hypothesis through the final statistical analysis. It was about five hours of lecture time. The final twenty or so minutes were saved for the punchline: the hypothesis was wrong. Brilliant!
A few of the students were openly displeased that they were being taught “wrong” science. Needless to say they were amongst some of the pre-med kids. They were probably better off majoring in classics or a foreign language with the science courses as elective.
“And then I show how some of our initial concepts of chromosomal inheritance are wrong, with work done on extrachromosomal factors.”
Is it wrong because it was believed that chromosomes just get passed down as they are instead of being shuffled during crossing-over in gamete production?
Andy bloody MacIntosh. I might have known. One of the UK’s most notorious creationist lunatics.
“…delicate little flower of unsupportable fluff”
“…delicate little flower of unsupportable fluff”
Repeating. Just because I love the phrase.
That’s dandelion fluff. Kids blow it away.
Is this who PZ is referring to when he writes “Philip Johnston” ?
http://trinitytheology.org/?p=91 (This one is a Johnston Philip, and quite the apologist-look-at-me-I’m-an-expert-scientist.
…the basis of it’s ad hoc nature…
It IS, PZ…?
PZ, that sounds like a great course. Have you ever considered making it into a book? I’d definitely buy it.
I don’t think we’re supposed to talk about teh obok ;)
Nope, this one
Nope, he means Phillip Johnson.
Charlie the Idiot is BAAAACCCCCKKKKKKK.
I must apologise for my fellow posters, they are sometimes rough and uneducated. That a teacher should think so little of the theory of evolution as to use creationist arguments against it is shocking.
But you sound like an interesting fellow.
How about you give us a few fresh arguments, and teach these callow fools a lesson?
What are the three or four best agruments against evolution that you know? If I can be of any assistance in countering others’ mendacious reasoning, please let me know.
CB……ready?
Don’t make a creotard actually support their argument, all they know how to do is take potshots at evolution. Coming up with something in it’s place… that’s heretical!
You mean there are no good arguments against evolution?
Charlie’s obviously got at least one or he’d accept i,t wouldn’t he?
Anyway I’m a relatively new poster, so even a bad one might fool me. I’m just a hayseed, Charlie, I’ll believe you!
charlie, what you know about epigenetics wouldn’t occupy enough classtime to even be noticeable.
so, we shoot the question back at YOU:
do you have anything important to discuss?
as usual, the answer is most assuredly not, so STFU.
Watch out, Icthyic, he’s got a website. With fractals.
Not that it matters, but didn’t Darwin express some doubts about whether inheritance was really analog rather than digital? AFAIK he noticed how blending inheritance would mean trouble for natural selection, and said so in some letter or other.
Charlie, what’s so earth-shattering about RNPs?
“Further covert surveillance of the ape revealed he spent some time tapping areas of concrete floor with his fist. Occasionally, the animal would thump harder, releasing chunks of concrete that he broke into rough discs…
…Santino’s attempts to fashion concrete discs has been recorded 18 times, according to a report in Current Biology.”
Lemme get this straight: This chimp is fashioning stone tools for use as projectile weapons?!? COOL! I have never heard of chimpanzees doing this. Has similar behavior been documented before?
Oops! clicked on the wrong tab. I’ll go post that in the right thread.
“I start with Darwin‘s pangenesis for a little historical background, and tell them this is wrong.”
OMFG!!! Rabid Militant Atheist PZ Meyers admits Darwin was wrong and Jesus was right!
Rieux @36:
As a geneticist who recently read the Origin for the first time, I have to say I felt sorry for Darwin through the “heredity” chapters. He was in a complete muddle and couldn’t make sense of what seemed to be conflicting data.
I think he would have been delighted to see how elegant and simple it turned out to be – and I think he would have turned cartwheels to see how molecular phylogenetics preserves essentially a digital readout of an organism’s evolutionary history.
Teaching creationism in class is easy. Tell them to read Genesis 1 and 2 for homework. It took me about 20 minutes, I believe.
Then ask them questions like “We have redundant muscles that are used in other animals, such as a cat, to move their ears. a) How does Genesis explain these redundant muscles? b) How does the theory of evolution explain them?”
Why aren’t scientists strenuously advocating discussion of science in church? The controversy about religious ideas versus evidence in reality should be made part of all religious education. A law should be passed to make sure that all church sermons are legally required to be backed up with scientific evidence peer reviewed by proper scientists (not IDiots). Rationality should go on the offensive overdrive, we need slogans like “Less churchs more science labs!”.
My children are at school in Hampshire, and I’m very glad that the youngest is already 15, so at least he will be spared this crap. Mind you, he would probably give it short shrift, as he is already firmly atheist.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/4961698/Creationism-should-be-taught-in-science-lessons.html
Last paragraph…
“Andy McIntosh, co-director of Truth in Science, a group of academics and clergymen campaigning for intelligent design to be included in syllabuses, said: “There should be an open and fair discussion about the issues and we should not be presenting pupils with only one view in a closed manner. It is certainly possible to look at the evidence and come up with a different conclusion to the evolutionary position. Indeed, many would see that the evidence fits perfectly well with a design position.'”
My wife took religious education while at college in the UK. They had to study all the religions from Christianity, Muslim, Hindu etc. If they add in all the other supernatural ideas like ghosts and all the extinct mythologies from Egypt, Roman, Greek etc add the IDers and you could build up a very good class about supernatural unproven concepts. Sounds like fun.
I think this is the only way religion should be taught in school. As had been said many times before none of these are science and they should not be part of the scientific curriculum.
I don’t know how typical this is, because I only have one physics degree from one school, but I continually appreciate the approach which was taken while I got my degree. There was very little “this is so because we say so”. Instead, almost every topic was introduced with either a simple experiment or a rather famous experiment (most of which we would then do in the lab portion of the course) which would demonstrate the veracity of what was being taught.
When I discuss things with creationists, they seem to think that science is always about memorizing random facts, where my education only did that in biology class (high school, unfortunately that approach turned me off of biology. I only started getting fascinated with the topic since I started reading Darwin, Gould, Dawkins, and Feynman…yes Nobel Prize winning physicist Feynman.. and learning that there was more to biology than rote memorization). They don’t seem to understand that science is not the same as their mythology. It has all been demonstrated as true, until the next guy comes along to shoot alpha particles at gold foil..
Which means…Dammit, I wish I could have taken a Biology class from you, PZ!
Laurie (#81):
Part of it, I suspect, may have been the way school textbooks tend to present evolution – as a chapter or two tacked on at the end. This makes it the section most likely to be dropped (or at least glided over) as teachers work their way through the curriculum and then find time getting short as exams approach.
That was certain the case when I was studying biology at school during the late 1970s/early 80s. Biology textbooks in the UK may have improved since.
I doubt it was opposition to evolution as such – more an old-fashioned approach to teaching and textbook composition that over-emphasised the learning of descriptive facts over ideas.
On the other hand, my A level biology teacher was a crypto-creationist (although I never quite figured out if he was genuinely skeptical of evolution or just trying to curry favour with the Christian Union mob, who were kind of prominent in the school’s student politics). I should point out, however, that this was in Northern Ireland, the UK’s Bible Belt, which is pretty much the only significant bastion of fundamentalist fuckwittery that we still have.
I have some quibbles with your methods of presentation. I think there is a difference between explainations which are wrong and those which are incomplete. The Popperian idea of verisimillitude, truth likeness, applies. Mendel was not wrong, but rather incomplete. He himself realized that his theory of inheritance was not universal because he had rejected a number of examples which did not agree with his theory. On the other hand, the tetranucleotide theory of DNA structure was wrong, and raised doubt that DNA could be the genetic material. Mendelian genetics has considerable verisimillitude, and is still useful, in contrast to the tetranucleotide theory. Nevermind that your house was built on a flat earth.
Back in secondary school, in the UK, we had the same thing (for all you Americans, secondary school is roughly equivalent to junior high and high school combined). That is the main thing that opened my mind to the possibility that the Christianity that I had been brought up in might be bullshit, despite the fact my religious education teacher was a fairly devout Christian, as it made the question arise, ‘if all these people all believe so many different things, how can any one of them be sure they are right?’ The answer is, of course, they can’t – they just have faith they are.
Here is the report to Hampshire County Council by “SACRE”, the Standing Advisory Committee for Religious Education:
http://www.hants.gov.uk/decisions/decisions-docs/090224-standi-R0212114725.html
Here is the “Summary of Points”:
· Evolution is a theory propounded by Charles Darwin based on empirical scientific method
· Natural selection is the key idea that Darwin uses
· Natural selection is in tension with any design hypothesis
· There is a scientific hypothesis based on `intelligent design’
· Creationism, as a literal reading of the account in Genesis, is at odds with Darwin’s theory
· Metaphorical readings of Genesis can be aligned with evolution as a scientific theory
· The idea of a creator God or intelligent design does not accord with the principle of natural selection
· Sometimes creationism (the literal reading of Genesis) and intelligent design are conflated as religious understandings that oppose evolutionary theory
We’ve compiled a letter to Hampshire over at the Science Forums ( http://www.sciencefile.org/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl )
Dear Sir,
I am writing to you in connection with your recent decision to issue advice to secondary schools across Hampshire on the teaching of creationism within science and religion lessons. Members at the Science Forums are taking a keen interest in this decision and I hope you will find the following useful.
Having read the report presented to SACRE on this matter, there are several matters which arise. Perhaps the most important of these arises in the ‘summary of points’ section of the report, where it is stated that “There is a scientific hypothesis based on `intelligent design’” This is, of course, completely incorrect – there is no such scientific hypothesis. We can well understand that Mr Erricker, not being a scientist, might be confused about what is, and what is not, a scientific hypothesis. Whilst this ignorance is understandable in someone without a scientific background, it does lead us to question whether there was any proper scientific input to this report.
Perhaps it would be helpful if we explain what a scientific hypothesis actually is, and why Intelligent Design (ID) does not qualify. Any scientific hypothesis must be testable and must explain some phenomenon or observation. Once such a hypothesis has been tested, by a process of experiment and peer-review, using the scientific method, then it can be said to become a scientific theory.
Evolution by natural selection, as proposed by Darwin, was clearly a testable hypothesis. In fact many of the subsequent tests, observations and experiments revealed weaknesses or omissions in the original hypothesis. Biologists/geneticists, geologists, palaeontologists and other scientists have since contributed to a greatly refined and improved theory, which is broadly known as the ‘modern synthesis’.
Intelligent Design, on the other hand, makes no testable predictions and therefore cannot be called ‘scientific’ in any sense. ID is simply a development of the earlier creationist religious movement and Mr Erricker’s contention that “the scientific theory of intelligent design is agnostic regarding the source of design and has no commitment to defending Genesis, the Bible or any other sacred text” is inaccurate and misleading. Presumably it is based on propaganda from the numerous creationist/ID websites and other publicity materials. I would refer you to the considered comments of the Justices in the ‘Dover Trial’ in the US when addressing this very issue:
“After a searching review of the record and applicable caselaw, we find that while ID arguments may be true, a proposition on which the Court takes no position, ID is not science. We find that ID fails on three different levels, any one of which is sufficient to preclude a determination that ID is science. They are: (1) ID violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation; (2) the argument of irreducible complexity, central to ID, employs the same flawed and illogical contrived dualism that doomed creation science in the 1980’s; and (3) ID’s negative attacks on evolution have been refuted by the scientific community. As we will discuss in more detail below, it is additionally important to note that ID has failed to gain acceptance in the scientific community, it has not generated peer-reviewed publications, nor has it been the subject of testing and research.”
Interestingly Mr Erricker states the case far more accurately in a later paragraph, when he says that
“It is a modern form of the traditional teleological argument for the existence of God, modified to avoid specifying the nature or identity of the designer. The idea was developed by a group of American creationists who reformulated their argument in the creation-evolution controversy to circumvent court rulings that prohibit the teaching of creationism as science. Intelligent design’s leading proponents, all of whom are associated with the Discovery Institute, a politically conservative think tank, believe the designer to be the God of Christianity.”
Given that Mr Erricker understands this, we are puzzled by his reference to ID as a ‘scientific’ and ‘agnostic’ theory.
Related to this, we would like to see some information in the guidance about the tactics used by proponents of creationism/ID. Students/pupils should surely be made aware of the often misleading and dishonest approach taken by this group. This is very important since, in science, the assumption is that materials presented are factually accurate and complete (as far as is possible). This assumption cannot and should not be made when examining creationist/ID literature. We would like to see reference in the guidance to the many cases of dishonest behaviour by proponents of ID* so that students/pupils are primed to treat creationist/ID propaganda with due scepticism.
We are also puzzled by the singling out of the Christian creation myth for special guidance and, apparently, special treatment in this report. Whilst we would certainly not dispute that this should be examined in Religious Studies, or similar lessons, we wonder why Hindi, Sikh, Islamic and other religious creation myths are not being given the same attention. We feel that there is no case for consideration of any creation myth in science lessons, given that there is limited time in such lessons and given that creationism/ID is not a scientific hypothesis. The correct place for consideration of this, and other creation mythology, is in lessons devoted to religion – be they religious education or religious studies. Input from the science staff would certainly be useful in preparing such lessons, of course, but the lessons themselves should surely not be taught in the time devoted to the study of science – time which is limited and precious.
We would like to emphasize that we have no principled objection to the report and the advice arising. We believe that Mr Erricker has tried to produce a fair and balanced consideration of the issues, and we think that, on the whole, his report is well informed. Our objections are to specific details within the report, and to the suggestion that this material might be introduced within the science curriculum, rather than in its proper context.
*We suggest a properly sceptical consideration of the ‘Answers In Genesis’ website, highlighting the inaccuracies, misrepresentations and omissions in many of the articles. We also suggest that students/pupils be given chance to consider the ‘Dover Trial’ in the US.
Yours sincerely
Thanks for the link geek – having read this in full and followed some of the links, I have to think that any teacher using the material in an objective way in the classroom cannot help but make a solid case for evolution over creationism.
It’s hard to find any single supportive statement for creationism or ID in that summary, in fact there are a fair few ‘negative’ statements regarding both … although at one point there is an assertion that more and more scientists are researching the ID question, then it goes on to list Behe, Minnich and Dembski – so nothing new there, then.
It looks like this is supposed to be used as a collaborative approach between the RE and Science depts in the school to enable them to be able to treat pupil’s enquiries about the subject from a consistent perspective, thereby “…support[ing] the Corporate Strategy (maximising well being) by ensuring children’s provision in religious education is secure”. I can only think that what this means is that the state should not conflict any individual child by telling them bluntly that the creation stories they are being taught as fact at home and church are completely wrong, as it might put them under some psychological duress. Better to have a planned, objective discussion about it and let them ask the questions so that the child is the one performing the rationalization on their own behalf, perhaps.
My concern is that individual teachers may see this as carte blanche to go further than the remit and go straight into the ‘strengths and weaknesses’ approach, in the process introducing creationist dogma as fact – I like to think most science teachers in the UK are rational but we all know statistically this is not going to be the case!
The one theme I don’t like is that ID is positioned as a scientific hypothesis, whereas we all know there is no such thing. ID consists of supposed disproofs of current evolutionary theory rather than as any standalone hypothesis – as Behe admitted again only recently.
I do particularly like the following quote, though:
Creationism, creation science, and intelligent design theory are three religious theories of creation offered to explain the origins of the universe.
Kampar@119
You are probably more reasonable than me: I can’t help being angry.
The report calls for teachers of science lessons to participate in the debate and therefore acknowledge “God did it” as a possible explanation of the diversity of life.
Any science teacher who dismisses ID will be breaking with the specific requirement of the report: you can’t host a debate if you’re declaring one side to be totally wrong.
This report is effectively promoting religious dogma at the expense of science.
There’s a further discussion on this over at Dawkins.net … some more interesting points coming out …
I won’t get angry until I’m sure of what exactly is being proposed :-) More research required …
http://richarddawkins.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=74418&sid=7a89d50f536a9ef9b1089ea64365bdb1
I really wish I could be a student in your classes. Once I had a dream where I was! But you were teaching how to build dinosaurs.
We made a few… and then they went crazy around the city eating people. Fun stuff.
I am having a hard time reconciling these statements:
Councillor Anna McNair Scott, chairman of the county’s Standing Advisory Council for Religious Education, said: “There is no suggestion in the report that creationism is a science, still less that it should be taught as one. (Direct quote from the Telegraph article), and
“Unlike creationism, the scientific theory of intelligent design is agnostic regarding the source of design and has no commitment to defending Genesis, the Bible or any other sacred text. Instead, intelligent design theory is an effort to empirically detect whether the “apparent design” in nature observed by biologists is genuine design (the product of an organizing intelligence) or is simply the product of chance and mechanical natural laws. This effort to detect design in nature is being adopted by a growing number of biologists, biochemists … (Direct quote from the report itself – my emphasis).
It appears a little disingenuous to state that creationism is not science but to avoid extending the answer to the topic of ID which is clearly identified as a scientific theory in the report, when it is no such thing. Perhaps the Councillor was incorrectly quoted.
I really doubt it. She first made the distinction between creationism and ID, and then referred to the “effort to detect design” that “many biologists” were involved in, so I’m pretty sure all that nonsense and tap-dancing was accurately quoted. Some people just are that stupid, apparently.
From The blue roads of thinking
I am even coming to think that creationism in a science class in school is a good idea. Anyone capable of science will recognize it for the BS it is and move on. Those that need the BS to get them through the day will use it to get through science class to finger painting or shop or home ec. or whatever they are capable of doing.
Sample quiz
Final:
Q 1. Hominids diverged from Pan
A 7.5 million years ago.
B 10.5 million years ago
C. 5500 years ago.
D. God made each kind separately.
Reasons why this is not the best post ever….. hmmm
reasons why this isn’t the best post ever
reasosn why this isn’t the best post ever …. hmm
What on earth are you doing teaching superstitious garbage as possible fact, what has any of this to do with science?
If you must continue make sure you also teach about the tooth fairy, santa claus,crystal healing etc.
Carry on like this and we will be back in the dark ages before you know it,i suppose burning witches will bw bqnned though as it’s hardly carbon neutral.
Correct. The word “gobshite” is a noun, not an adjective. Thus “Joe is an awful gobshite” is fine, but you wouldn’t say “that story is gobshite” any more than you would say “that story is dickhead”.