Creationism to be taught in UK schools

[Aldebaran]

to my knowledge they don't teach philosophy in most schools

At every university I am familiar with philosophy is an imposed, basic element of a first year student's curriculum.

and could you really claim to have a rounded knowledge of science without debating what it actually means

You only need to look up the definition of the word to understand what it means.

to gain an understanding of a subject then shouldnt it be placed in its historical context, and isnt the most appropriate and logical place to do this on the science syllabus?

1. It completely depends on the subject
2. It is not logical to place "history" within science studies.

as a (crass) example, would you wish kids to only study the equations of eimstein, or would you rather they were taught something of the man, his opinions and the history of the time in which he lived, purely as a way of rounding out the subject and placing his scientific ideas in context (and also perhaps just to make it a bit more interesting and relevent)

The biography of Einstein is not relevant in context of an application of his work and conclusions in science study.
It is only relevant in a study concerning the history of that particular part and aspect of science.

salaam.

 

[smokedout]

At every university I am familiar with philosophy is an imposed, basic element of a first year student's curriculum.

you may not know but this is being proposed at GCSE level which is generally 14/15/16 year old kids

"The biography of Einstein is not relevant in context of an application of his work and conclusions in science study.
It is only relevant in a study concerning the history of that particular part and aspect of science."

it may not be relevent but it is interesting and at this level of education its about inspiring hearts and minds

i used einstein as an example because of how ultimately some of his work came to be used and his own personal feelings on that matter

i belive that in particular ethics should be a part of every course of science and ethics cant be discussed without placing things in their historical and sociiological context

 

[Fong]

as a (crass) example, would you wish kids to only study the equations of eimstein, or would you rather they were taught something of the man, his opinions and the history of the time in which he lived, purely as a way of rounding out the subject and placing his scientific ideas in context (and also perhaps just to make it a bit more interesting and relevent)

Not in the science class.

I want chldren taught about the time of Einstein in their history lessons, I want them to debate the political landscape that was around at the time and what fueled the growth in science, in history classes.

When they walk into the science class I want them taught E=MC²

 

[smokedout]

maybe you do, but thats not what the kids want

thats the kind of approach that turned me off science altogether and led to me leaving the education system at 15

 

[toggle]

maybe you do, but thats not what the kids want

thats the kind of approach that turned me off science altogether and led to me leaving the education system at 15

And I don't think spending half their science lessons learning about the life of einstien will do those kids who want to learn the science any good. unless you devote a huge amount of time to teaching science, you cannot go over the detail of the historical context of every scientific discovery that you need to teach.

What einstien did, what his theories led to is best taught in history classes, as was the historical background to studies on how disease spread, like the work of John Snow.

 

[Aldebaran]

you may not know but this is being proposed at GCSE level which is generally 14/15/16 year old kids

I studied philosophy a lot earlier yet in my view at the pre-university level of education most are not interested in exploring the depths of philosophical reasonings (and in my experience a majority is not interested in it afterwards either).

i used einstein as an example because of how ultimately some of his work came to be used and his own personal feelings on that matter

That should not take time in a science class where teaching the practice of science is the goal, not the biographies of those who contributed to its development.

i belive that in particular ethics should be a part of every course of science and ethics cant be discussed without placing things in their historical and sociiological context

Ethics is a separate discipline and isn't confined to a possible relation with "science" at all. (It would be far more logical to see ethics as intertwined with philosophy then to forcibly relate it to anything else.)

salaam.

 

[smokedout]

to teach science without any ethical dimension is dangerous in my view

i know that we did cover ethis in my gcse biology (relating to animal experimentation as i recall) and i seem to remember it being one of the few science lessons where kids actually woke up

stick a bunch of equations in front of a thirteen year old and most likely theyll run a mile, engage them in debate about the practical applications and implications of those equations and you might get somewhere with them

theres plenty of time to learn the technical stuff post school, what matters at that age is engaing kids and giving them a love of science and learning

dont underestimate kids, theyre more than capable of coming to their own conclusions

and i know for a very small minoirty of kids they want to learn the techy stuff, well they can, but to breakdown some of the elitism of science then i think it should be presented in a way that shows hows its relevent to our lives and the imapct in may have

 

[Fong]

to teach science without any ethical dimension is dangerous in my view

i know that we did cover ethis in my gcse biology (relating to animal experimentation as i recall) and i seem to remember it being one of the few science lessons where kids actually woke up

stick a bunch of equations in front of a thirteen year old and most likely theyll run a mile, engage them in debate about the practical applications and implications of those equations and you might get somewhere with them

theres plenty of time to learn the technical stuff post school, what matters at that age is engaing kids and giving them a love of science and learning

dont underestimate kids, theyre more than capable of coming to their own conclusions

and i know for a very small minoirty of kids they want to learn the techy stuff, well they can, but to breakdown some of the elitism of science then i think it should be presented in a way that shows hows its relevent to our lives and the imapct in may have

Yes but you still completely fail to explain what the fuck ID/Creationism has got to do with engaging students in debate about science.

You seem to go from one to another and think that somehow there is a bridge between them, there is only the bridge you wish to create.

I learnt about physics in school when I was 11 by our teaching heating a can, we learnt expansion and compression of gases, we learnt how liquid can become a gas and why.

That is engaging students in the practical applications of science, that is explaining how science impacts our lives.

What has ID/Creationism got to do with that?

Absolutely nothing.

 

[phildwyer]

1) A debate about the nature of science isn't science, it's philosophy. A debate about the history of science isn't science, it's history.

2) There is a distinction between religious creation theories and the specific and fairly recent movement orginating in the US which is pushing intelligent design and other ideologies generally described as 'creationist' as part of a concerted programme explicitly designed to instill cultural conservatism.

1. But science should *never* be taught separately from the history and philosophy of science. To do so leads to an instrumental view of reason that has led to the heinous misuse of science in our own time and in the recent past.

2. There is no reason at all why creationism or ID should lead to "cultural conservativism." In fact there is a very good case to be made for the proposition that instrumental science is deeply complicit with capitalism: evidence for which is provided by the fact that they emerge, historically, at the same time and in the same place.

There are also real problems with Darwinism, as is well recognized by most evolutionary theorists. I conclude that both creationism and intelligent design should be taught alongside Darwinism in schools.

 

[Dissident Junk]

to teach science without any ethical dimension is dangerous in my view

I can't really understand this view point. I presume you are arguing with the aspects of scientific experimentation that affect human and animal biology, particularly in the realms of reproductive technology.

If so, then you need to say this. For one, I cannot understand how you could teach the ethical dimension to the 2nd law of thermodynamics, which leads me on, nicely, to . . . it is interesting how many creationist claim that a scientific approach is simply still a "theory", but yet use "concrete" scientific theory to argue against evolution.

Why do creationists argue against evolution, but do not attempt to claim that "God" keeps airplanes in the sky?

If they did, I, for one, would sit up and listen. For then, I might see some angle of perception I could engage with, knowing that Pythagoras was looking for the presence of divine truth (laws that revealed a sense of 'divine' order) when he discovered his theorem

 

[Ing_soc]

kids are generally smart enough to suss things out on their own, and to not acknowledge the role of religion in human affairs, well thats hardly preparing our kids for the real world is it

how then do you account for the fact that something like 40% of americans (can't remember the actual figure) think that the world was literally created in 6 days. which is shite.

 

[axon]

1. But science should *never* be taught separately from the history and philosophy of science.

Maths should never be taught in isolation from science, however it would be more practical to teach it in "Maths" lessons and concentrate on teaching science in "Science" lessons. I'm all for teaching philosophy and history of science, teach it in a "Philosophy and History of Science" course.

There are also real problems with Darwinism, as is well recognized by most evolutionary theorists.

It's a good job that evolutionary theory is taught in schools as opposed to Darwinism then.

 

[Fong]

2. There is no reason at all why creationism or ID should lead to "cultural conservativism." In fact there is a very good case to be made for the proposition that instrumental science is deeply complicit with capitalism: evidence for which is provided by the fact that they emerge, historically, at the same time and in the same place.

And?

What has cultural conservativism got to do with the question of whether we teach our children something entirely unprovable, as a science?

The idea that science and capitalism emerged at the same time is utterly irrelevent to the question.

Should we teach our children a science that is pure conjucture with absolutely no imperical data to suggest it is true?

You can complain that Evolution doesn't explain everything and isn't complete, thats fine, but it has parts of it that are practically supportable by independant evidence.

Not one single part of Creationism can claim the same.

 

[smokedout]

I'm all for teaching philosophy and history of science, teach it in a "Philosophy and History of Science" course.

why not just build the philosphy and history of science into the current gcse science syllabus then?, instead of coming up anither gcse, which will clearly be irrelevent without the technical aspects of science

Yes but you still completely fail to explain what the fuck ID/Creationism has got to do with engaging students in debate about science.

i thought i had previously

the theologians were the carriers of knoweldge largely until the enlightment and the birth of empirical science, but the study of science didnt begin with newton et al, they were just continuing an attempt at understanding the world that had been going on forever

 

[netbob]

I'm with Richard Dawkins - teaching creationism / ID as fact is tantermount to mental child abuse.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Phil,

My argument was not that ID leads to cultural conservatism, my argument was that ID has demonstrably been used by cultural conservatives to attack science (see link a couple of pages back) for reasons of cultural warfare.

Now, I'd be the last person to argue that the history and philosophy of science is a worthless subject, but I would also probably want to argue that it's most usefully studied by people who have understood at least the basics of logic and scientific method, along with at least some knowledge of science itself.

I do see your point about instrumental reason and capitalism, but I think that critique would be better separated from the agenda of conservative ID propagandist who are in my opinion, doing enough damage to our society already without you giving them a helping hand.

 

[smokedout]

I'm with Richard Dawkins - teaching creationism / ID as fact is tantermount to mental child abuse.

richard dawkins is a wanker ... fact

 

[axon]

why not just build the philosphy and history of science into the current gcse science syllabus then?, instead of coming up anither gcse, which will clearly be irrelevent without the technical aspects of science

This wouldn't be so bad if there wasn't already the well documented campaign by religious nutjobs to force ID/creationism into science. Also science, (and mathematics) are fundamentally different subjects to history (of anything) and philosophy. They do not rely (when done properly) on subjective opinion.

And contrary to what Phil thinks, it is perfectly capable of someone being a great scientist/appreciating science without looking into the history of science. Now I'm not saying that this would make a well-rounded individual, but to understand that E=MC2 needs no knowledge of Einstein.

 

[Fong]

We can teach that scholars were of a religous nature, without ever mentioning creationism.

You make bridges that don't exist and are paper thin. They are only a creation born from your desire to propogate the idea of creationism, not born out of any real scientific or educational reasoning.

 

[Aldebaran]

Amazing.... There is a "link" between "the rise of capitalism" and "science"?

Can you educate me about when, where, by whom "capitalism" was invented in the Islamic world... centuries before the West invented it?

Here is a nice link to explore a few things... The website seems to be made for schoolchildren, so I think it fits into this discussion.

http://www.1001inventions.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=main.viewSection&intSectionID=308


can you point out where "capitalism" is mentioned here?

salaam

 

[ViolentPanda]

richard dawkins is a wanker ... fact

No dear, Richard Dawkins is a wanker in your opinion, not in fact.

Frankly, if you make such an elementary error as mistaking opinion for fact, then how do you expect people to take your views seriously?

 

[oi2002]

Why? Do you claim that Belief in The Spaghetti Monster should be part of a school's curriculum? If not, why not? What more value has "ID/Creationism over the Spaghetti Monster?...

That's interesting. I did assume that having a belief in the literal truth of scripture you'd be a Creationist of some type, most Muslims I know are. I found this might be a subject for another thread sometime.

 

[smokedout]

i think you find its been empirically proven that richard dawkins is a wanker

i believe that to test an experiment it must be able to be repeatable under the same conditions

well, whenever ive seen richard dawkins speak hes been a wanker, ive spoken to others who have also tested the hypothesis, ie watched richard dawkins speak and come to the same conclusion, hes a wanker

therefore i believe that it can be a proven case in point that dawkins is a wanker

should anyone be able to come up with an example of dawkins not being a wanker then i would of course have to reconsider this theory, but i find that thats so unlikely as dawkins has been shown to be a wanker on so many occasions that i consider the hypothesis proved

You make bridges that don't exist and are paper thin. They are only a creation born from your desire to propogate the idea of creationism, not born out of any real scientific or educational reasoning.

what crap, who said i was a creationist, thats far from the truth

have just got an open mind thats all

 

[phildwyer]

Amazing.... There is a "link" between "the rise of capitalism" and "science"?

Can you educate me about when, where, by whom "capitalism" was invented in the Islamic world... centuries before the West invented it?

Everyone understands that capitalism has existed for thousands of years--long before Islam. But only in Western societies over the last three hundred years has capitalism been so *dominant* over all other forms of economic activity as to render them insignificant. Thus it is perfectly acceptable to speak of such societies as distinctively and uniquely "capitalist." The argument that capitalism is linked to the rise of Baconian science is well known, perhaps the most accessible treatment would be Adorno and Horkheimer´s Dialectic of Enlightenment.

 

[ViolentPanda]

have just got an open mind thats all

Another case of mistaking opinion for fact?

 

[phildwyer]

No dear, Richard Dawkins is a wanker in your opinion, not in fact.

No really, he actually *is* a wanker in demonstrable, objective fact. It should be taught on the GCSE curriculum.

 

[smokedout]

interesting link on ID

http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/nhmag.html

 

[phildwyer]

Phil,

My argument was not that ID leads to cultural conservatism, my argument was that ID has demonstrably been used by cultural conservatives to attack science (see link a couple of pages back) for reasons of cultural warfare.

Now, I'd be the last person to argue that the history and philosophy of science is a worthless subject, but I would also probably want to argue that it's most usefully studied by people who have understood at least the basics of logic and scientific method, along with at least some knowledge of science itself.

I do see your point about instrumental reason and capitalism, but I think that critique would be better separated from the agenda of conservative ID propagandist who are in my opinion, doing enough damage to our society already without you giving them a helping hand.

Actually I think it is metaphysical materialists like Richard Dawkins, and other scientific fundamentalists, who are aiding the culturally conservative religious advocates. By pretending that there is no valid argument for intelligent design they discredit science in general. Whatever one´s own opinion may be, there clearly are many valid *philosophical* arguments for ID--in other words, there is a philosophical critique of science that trumps science itself. The thing about science is it is *always* wrong. By its own definition. So we should be wary of taking scientific claims about the nature of the universe as absolute. Such beliefs are *always* superseeded. And religion is too important to be abandoned to the cultural conservatives.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Actually I think it is metaphysical materialists like Richard Dawkins, and other scientific fundamentalists, who are aiding the culturally conservative religious advocates. By pretending that there is no valid argument for intelligent design they discredit science in general. Whatever one´s own opinion may be, there clearly are many valid *philosophical* arguments for ID--in other words, there is a philosophical critique of science that trumps science itself. The thing about science is it is *always* wrong. By its own definition. So we should be wary of taking scientific claims about the nature of the universe as absolute. Such beliefs are *always* superseeded. And religion is too important to be abandoned to the cultural conservatives.

And the ID advocates rub their hands. "Good!" they think, "we've snagged another liberal!" Because the point of promoting ID is not to discuss the philosophy of science, not to widen the debate and have pupils think about the provenance of theories and so on, it's to get the idea officially implanted in the minds of bored kids who aren't paying much attention anyway that all this scientific evidence-based stuff is "just a theory", and you might as well believe in creationism, it's just as good. And then you're one step closer to getting them for your own.

 

[smokedout]

The thing about science is it is *always* wrong. By its own definition. So we should be wary of taking scientific claims about the nature of the universe as absolute. Such beliefs are *always* superseeded.

a very important point, and one that imo the scientific community often loses sight of

theres a tendancy to assume that what current science tells us is absolute and entirely correct and that anything which doesnt fit into that dogma is to be shunned and ridiculed

which is a bit of a flat earther mentaliity if you ask me

thats not to say things like ID should be tauught as establshed fact, its clearly no way near that, but i think it is useful to remind people that the knowledge of science is far from absolute and that theres still much we dont know and much we have probably got wrong

and many people for various reasons have different viewpoints philosophically to mainstream science, which dont always turn out to be incorrect

without wanting to derail the thread as an example acupuncture works, and most scientific, empirical studies have proved that, more controversially studies into esp and the like have proved (if you take into account laws of probability that would be acceptable in mainstream science) that there is some kind of phenomenon going on

now these two things if accepted as proven show that we have a fuck of a lot to learn about the true workings of the natural world, our minds and bodies and many scientists seem to prefer to stick their heads in the sand and ignore them

which is my mind is as unscientific as the IDers and creationists

the fact is creationism is worthy as part of a discussion of the philosophy and history of science and i still believe that these are important elements of building a rounded knowledge base of the subject

otherwise you create a bunch of uber sceptics who refuse to even discuss any ideas or concepts which have yet to be proved by empirical science and if scientists of the past had taken that road then wed be a lot further away from the level of understanding we have now