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Author Topic:   Education about LIFE? while we can!
Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 17 of 33 (403808)
06-05-2007 8:53 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by ogon
06-03-2007 2:04 PM


I see no reason to, and lots of reasons not to.
Is it not so the best way forward when teaching creation and evolution to students in our schools? Give them the facts about creation, give them the facts about evolution, provide them with common answers, sit back and let them come to their own conclusions.
Because the facts about evolution would not only encompass the entire high school biology class, but would extend beyond school leaving to university age. The facts about creation are that various groups have proposed religious creation stories. A fact that is irrelevant to science.
There is very little time given to evolution in the biology class room - that little time is taken up by giving the clearest examples of natural selection, genetics and the conclusions of natural history. It is a small few hours of education time, so the information has to be compressed but clear and easy to understand. Suggestions on a postcard - personally I think that given the tools they are given, it is a miracle that anyone goes into evolutionary biology!
Let's call it a draw shall we!
If the class is about what people believe, then we should certainly discuss what people believe. I took a class about this, they called it 'Religious Studies'. I learned about various different schools of thought in Christianity, the basics of Islam, Judaism, Hinduism and Sikhism. I was given the facts about what people believed. I was given the facts of what the scientific consensus on evolutionary biology was. I was left to make my own mind up about what I believed.
Could we not have equal time allocated to both and then students can decide later on in their education whether they would want to develop their studies about either, or both? Could we not just call the subject LIFE?
MMmm, the 'study of life' class. Sounds interesting, but we should give it a posh name. Something like biology.
I know what you mean - but what do we teach? Do we have a whole year of classes taken up teaching the myriad of creation concepts humanity has conceived over the millennia? What other classes are we going to cut into to provide this? I don't think there is any practical reason to do it. Most people learn their culture's creation mythology from their parents. They learn the science from their teachers (and sometimes the parents).
Let’s forget the rest of natural life just for now because they have an uncanny way of coming through floods, volcano eruptions, meteorite collisions . . . let’s debate about us, humans, and our future, and let's start in our classrooms.
I studied climatology in physics and in geography (more the latter). We don't need to even address people's creation stories to discuss ways the climate can be affected by man.

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 Message 1 by ogon, posted 06-03-2007 2:04 PM ogon has not replied

  
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