Christopher Bauer’s Weblog

Greetings,

I have just been reading Amy’s article that comments on this article.

Although I have to agree with Amy’s basic idea that students “should be able to investigate all possibilities for the origins of this world, in order to decide what they believe and don’t.”  We, as educators, must accept the fact that there are multiple stories on the origin of the world and note that someone will always disagree with our views.  I, however, support evolution being taught as fact, or nearly fact, because, essentially, it is a fact.  Yes, evolution is a theory, but so is the theory of electromagnetism (the idea of electric and magnetic fields), atomic theory (the existence of atoms), kinetic theory of gases (gas molecules collide), global warming (warming of the earth due to the greenhouse effect), theory of relativity, and plate tectonics.  None of these theories have been proven as the Law of Gravity has, but, generally, all these are accepted as fact.  I do not think that a science class is the proper place to examine all the different stories on how the world is created.  In a science class, students should do what scientists do, learn more about our world and empirically explain what is going on.  Scientists do not debate theories, but rather use quantitative measurements to lend support to them.

So, as I have already stated, I do believe in some form of intelligent design, but I don’t believe the purpose of science classes is to teach students that when we don’t know the whole story we should merely say ‘Some God Figure did it.’  This will not create students who want to figure out what is really going on, but rather it would create students who take the easy way out.

Websites:

Basterache, Amy.  “Evolution vs. “Intelligent Design” in Ohio Schools.”  Edublogs. 22 February, 2006.  http://ajb6185.edublogs.org/2006/02/16/evolution-vs-intelligent-design/>

“Evolution lesson plan goes in for redesign”  CNN. 22 February 2006.  http://www.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/02/15/evolution.debate.ap/index.html?section=cnn_education>

Theory.  Wikipedia.  22 February, 2006.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theories>

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 22nd, 2006 at 7:00 pm and is filed under Personal Comments and You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.