Ok. Why not. Let's teach ID in Science class!

Holocaust denial was pretty big in its day. I don't think they ever made it to the Supreme Court, but I suppose they could be next if ID makes it in. Well, keeping in mind that by "one day" you really mean "one period of about 40 minutes", which is how much time they spend in bio class in one day. I don't think that's enough time to both get at the crux of ID and show its shortcomings and deal with students who think you're leveling a scientific case for atheism. In a day and age where genetics inflects almost every aspect of our daily lives? I think the importance of a good grounding in biology is increasing exponentially. If the last epoch was about computers and information tech, the next one is going to be about genetics and biotech.I just don't see that we have the time to waste.

I might be straying a little from the topic here, but I'll try my luck.In denmark the public schools teach a class in christianity. Parents may excempt their children from this class, and it is meant as an introduction to christianity. the class is taught from 1st grade and until 7th or 8th grade as I remember.We have a small fraction of creationists and IDists in Denmark who have recently been demanding to have ID introduced into the schools. More mainstream christians have been accepting the ID propagande.I recently read a good come back to these demands. A person writing on a christian messageboard, compared the teaching of ID in science class to teaching the theories from "The Da vinci Codes" in christianity class.The moderate christians on the board opposed this idea, claiming that Dan Browns theories were bad science and bad theology - That might be so - but that is also the exact same situation with ID - its bad science and bad theology - so why teach it in schoolI think that is a rather good anology, even though it has its problems./Sren

is there such a thing as bad theology?ABE: why is ID bad theology? It makes perposterous unsupportable claims and uses the book of books to back it up.. Sound's like 100% A grade theology to me?OH yeh.. Love the DB idea This message has been edited by ohnhai, 25-10-2005 12:04 AM

A current issue to whom? Certainly not biologists. Since when was the general public, or those with a religious agenda, qualified to decide which "issues" are worth teaching in a science class? Isn't the purpose of a science class to teach a science? Students can decide how interested they are from a better-informed point of view if they get exposed to more of it. Teaching things like ID only detract from the time you can spend on the real science, and you yourself say there isn't enough time to teach even the fundamentals. Why make the situation worse? What good would it do? I think furthering their education of the actual subject matter is a good enough reason. That is the purpose of the class, after all. So are you saying that instead of teaching biology, students should take Sociology of Biology or some such? Or are you saying that while claiming to be a biology class, the curriculum should not reflect the subject matter.Edit: made a more descriptive subtitleThis message has been edited by BuckeyeChris, 10-25-2005 03:34 PM

Hi BuckeyeChris,I think your subtitle and questions hit the nail on the head: "What is biology class for?" Now remember the context--high school--because that's important.You seem to take it as self-evident that the subject matter is the #1 important thing in any class. Why? In high school, many classes--such as biology--are not electives, but mandatory. You're getting a group of students to whom biology doesn't necessarily have any practical application. So it's a great question--what is the purpose of biology class?I think the #1 important thing for any mandatory science class is to learn critical thinking skills. Secondary is to learn how to apply them. Third is the subject matter at hand, and enabling those who are interested in the subject matter to progress and move forward in their studies.Critical thinking skills are useful out there in the real world. Is biology? For the general public, I would say no. I can't really see any general scenario where a knowledge of biology is helpful at all.

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Besides all that, covering ID is a GREAT way to apply concepts learned in a biology class in a real-world, socially important scenario. Learning abstract knowledge is only half the battle--being able to apply it is the other half. I'd say that learning to apply biology knowledge to debunk ID in the classroom is a great, great way to solidify critical thinking skills and show how biological knowledge is used in an actual application.And, as I said, it's socially relevant.So either way, I think it's a great idea to teach the flaws of ID in class. You can easily do it as a non-lecture "debate" type of process. Getting students involved and applying their knowledge has actually been shown to be a more effective teaching technique than classic lecture-style courses.I hope that addresses your post. I appreciate the manner in which you addressed mine.Ben

I just had the most wonderful evening listening to Will Provine on(sic!) ID (...much sacracsam under or over god)....
EvC Forum: Prof Denies Human Free WillAt the end the question came from the audience, "How would you teach "the thing" ID in high school." Will has been fully consistent over the years. He explained what he always has. He lets all the students talk. If they talk about ID he allows that to be discussed. Once a student talks, what is talked about is open for discussion. Will's message however, is what has changed and been lost in biological thought since the 60s instead. He said he usually simply introduces himself as "your atheist evolutionist" and goes from there.On the college level he still does not tell the students "ID is not science" because as soon if someone as if they said that, other students point out the science involved. He explained students are so quick to say this that he does not need to.I guess teaching is one thing, discussing another. Again on a higher level he thinks it need not be taught that one uses asthetics in choosing hypothesis becuase even if the hypothesis is ugly, if true, it will be accepted immediately, as soon as it is percieved as true. Evolution might not be a hypothesis strictly then. Things within evolutionary theory are however.This message has been edited by Brad McFall, 10-26-2005 07:11 AM

ID is a philosophy at it's core, that looks for scientific validity of the philosophical concepts.In this regard science is a tool of ID -- if properly pursued (see {Is ID properly pursued?} forum thread for more).To me this is like the relationship between math and physics. Physics uses math, but does not tell mathematicians what is good math or bad.

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Which is the one thing that is impossible to teach in a teacher/classroom environment.How are you going to teach critical thinking in a paradigm of "I'm the teacher, I have the facts, take notes while I tell them to you?" The purpose of education is the dissemination of fact and training in techniques of math, art, and scholarship. Critical thinking? I don't see how it can be taught, it's self-defeating. If you teach somebody that critical thinking means not taking someone's word for something, and then you proceed to expect your students to take your word on the fact that ID is wrong, what do you expect that you're going to get?And how on Earth do you expect a high school student to draw the distinction between refuting ID and refuting God? After all, if you refute the position that organisms were designed, then the only conclusion is that they were not designed. And if they weren't designed, there's no need for a designer. And isn't that way too close to a "scientific" argument for atheism for every single student to be able to tell the difference?

That's only half of it. The other half is to enable people to use those facts and techniques. That's why you get assignments, do presentations, etc.There's also alternative teaching techniques to classic lectures; more interactive classes. It's not necessary to lecture and "disseminate information"; that's just often the way people do it. I would never have such a silly expectation. The point is to use the facts in an applied setting. How you do that is up to you. As I mentioned in my post, you can try to do it in a lecture-style, or you can do it in an interactive-style. The takeaway isn't "ID is wrong"; it's the methodology for applying the biological information they learned in class. It's also learning what is science and what is not, and what the purpose is of doing science. Those are all huge, huge lessons. Because nobody's refuting ID. The point is to show that it's not necessary. That doesn't say it's right or wrong, only that it doesn't need to be postulated. Furthermore, it's not scientific. There's nothing that can be done or said from an ID base theory.People should learn the difference between religion / beliefs and science from as early as possible. The theme is implicit in all the science courses already; not making it explicit is like playing with fire anyway. It's a good point. It's implicit in the system as it is right now, but because it's implicit people can just ignore the problem. If you make it explicit (and this whole ID thing would), it's going to be hard to deal with.So maybe it's not viable on this ground. But...I would love to see people learn in school how to deal with this implicit issue of how to reconcile scientific knowledge with religion / beliefs. As long as we're teaching science in schools, we're implicitly teaching some forms of atheism (i.e. we're teaching against any religion which conflicts with the facts we teach in class). Look at this board--it's clear that there's a real failure to address this in our culture.So I'm all for teaching about what science really is--a set of observables, and useful theories for describing the observations and predicting new ones. Stop playing with the line between science as agnostic and science as atheism, and show people exactly how agnostic science can be. Because by leaving the interpretation of "is science agnostic or atheistic?" up to individuals, you get a real mess.But that makes things much more difficult, and much less implementable. It doesn't make it less important, just more "ideal" and thus less practically doable. So, I think your last point is a good one, and may be a killer.Teaching an agnostic science is something I think is worth working towards, though.Ben

Nominally. The real purpose of assignments, homework, presentations, etc. is for teachers to put on the apperance of adopting "new" techniques in the classroom, and to assign homework so complicated that parental assistance is a must as a diagnostic to see which child's parents aren't involved in their schooling.Critical thinking is a skill you have to develop on your own. It's fundamentally incompatible with the teacher/classroom paradigm. The authority cannot instruct you to disregard authority and think for yourself; it's something you learn only when you're betrayed by your authorities. And too large for a high school science classroom. As we see here on the board every day, it takes a sophisticated understanding of evolution and molecular biology to even understand the arguments of ID, much less refute them.For instance, a fact we regularly toss around here is that ID proponents conflate semantic meaning with Shannon information and try to apply the rules of one to conclusions about the other.What the hell is that going to mean to a high school student? Claude Shannon wasn't exactly on the curriculum when I was 16. I was a pretty bright kid but I wasn't that bright. My best friend was a math genius, he's gone on to Ph.D's in math and physics, but even he wasn't talking about Shannon at age 16.Adults barely have a handle on ID, including most of its lay proponents. It's not only outside the scope and purpose of a high school education, it's beyond the ability of the students.

I promise you, if you told neo-nazis and flat-earthists that they could get these topics taught by calling them science. Boom, they would be science

You are giving teachers and students way too much credit. In the red states, where a high school diploma means you're a scientist, its amazing that these students graduate with a basic understanding of addition.These people are functionally retarded, throwing gas on the fire isn't going to put it out. They'll wake up for the 10 seconds of ID taught in class, then go back to huffing paint thinner and beating their chestsThis message has been edited by Nuggin, 10-26-2005 11:15 AM

ohnhai:

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But Holocaust denial and Flat-Earthism are not held up as shining examples of science that YECs want taught in schools.
And how long would it take? An afternoon at most?

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Once again the arrogant condescension of ad hominem attack rears its ugly head in what is supposed to be a "debate."Michael Behe is not known for his "Holocaust denial and Flat-Earthism."Moreover the dishonest pretension of putting everyone who does not subscribe to Darwinian evolution in the "YEC" boat is extremely dishonest. But then again, so too were Haeckel's drawings of embryos, and the recent hoax published in National Geographic, and...

The idea of teaching unsupported things (like flat earthism or denial) in science class is why they were used as other silly examples.If you think you have something to say in support of ID in science class then let's hear it.Otherwise stay on topic!

You appear to have misread that, Mirabile_Auditu. There was never any suggestion that Behe is involved in holocaust denial.The metaphor (used by crashfrog, not ohnhai) was that evolution denial could be compared to holocaust denial, in that both deny the clear evidence.I suggest you take more care before tossing accusations around.