placeholder wrote:Rational people bristle at the notion of magic being taught as fact in public schools.

kenoki wrote:Is a teacher supposed to discredit stuff a number of his or her students were brought up to believe? Ignore the topic entirely? Go on teaching one way as if it was a (and I have a tough time writing these next couple words because I've noticed them paired in similar ways in previous posts... gut wrenching) "PROVEN" theory (proven to be a theory?) but still more viable than the other purely theoretical theory...

There are facts we are taught... elementary stuff that could alone inspire a new thought process for some quiet youth group kid... carbon dating, the layers of the earth... a critical thinking child can take what they've learned, those indisputable, and begin asking themselves how or if these articles of fact contradict anything they may have thought in the past... and on and on and........................

kenoki wrote:Go on teaching one way as if it was a (and I have a tough time writing these next couple words because I've noticed them paired in similar ways in previous posts... gut wrenching) "PROVEN" theory (proven to be a theory?)

endofanera wrote:TMH, these statements just show an appalling lack of familiarity with how science works. All of that shit that you like to learn about on Nova are just theories; none of the accepted scientific wisdom that surrounds us is unassailable "fact." That's the whole idea, it must be repeatable and provable by experiment and measurable evidence. But just because it's a theory doesnt mean it's an "unproven" theory. It's "proven." We have stacks of fossil records, carbon dating, DNA research, and observable phenomena of species' evolution in response to changes in their habitat in recent times, all of which are evidence, strong I might add, that evolution has passed muster. Is it so entrenched that no new theory will ever unseat it? No, because science doesnt work that way, but it's far, FAR more proven and probable than the fairy tales based on mere belief to which you and the goofball you were arguing with equate it. We didnt spring from the benevolent hand of an otherwise wrathful God in a magical garden. We did evolve, as did all the other species on the planet, from other, earlier species, and yes, many of the species that preceded Homo Sapiens in their evolution looked a little like monkeys.

Sorry to echo what placeholder had already said, but the "evolution's only a theory" argument is one of the more pernicious and ridiculous ones used by Christians in their attempt to eradicate science from the public schools. I'm inclined to reply "at least evolution's a theory, creationism couldnt even meet that standard."

First, you teach them how science works. Then you teach them the theory of evolution and speciation via natural selection, and show them how the evidence has brought the scientific community to accept this theory.

Down the hall, years later, you teach them in social studies that every primitive society had an origin myth, and that some people cling to remnants of their culture's origin myth as a shibboleth or signifier of identity. You explain that these remnants are harmless, so long as they are not mistaken for science or history.

kenoki wrote:You teach children the foundation of science, fostering, in some, a deep inner burden of their "primitive" selves vs their newly educated selves, only to acknowledge the psychological connundrum several years later? This sounds like a good idea, reworded, but also insatiably sterile. Why is it inappropriate to educate (and by educate, I mean provoke thought) a child through a more rounded process? They are emotional and they are learning and they have questions and these things can all be nurtured at the same time without parsing them out to different rooms and dates.

Christopher wrote:

kenoki wrote:You teach children the foundation of science, fostering, in some, a deep inner burden of their "primitive" selves vs their newly educated selves, only to acknowledge the psychological connundrum several years later? This sounds like a good idea, reworded, but also insatiably sterile. Why is it inappropriate to educate (and by educate, I mean provoke thought) a child through a more rounded process? They are emotional and they are learning and they have questions and these things can all be nurtured at the same time without parsing them out to different rooms and dates.

I don't buy any of this. Sorry. Your argument about creating some kind of dualing inner personality of imaginative child vs learn-ed student is ridiculous. How the passing on of knowledge can ever be seen as a bad thing is beyond me.

I remember being about seven years old and coming up with the idea that you could live underwater forever as long as you always breathed in and out of a balloon, recycling your air. I thought it was a brilliant idea. Then an adult told me that we breathe out carbon dioxide, which would eventually poison my underwater guy. "Oh," I said. I didn't feel cheated or feel like my imagination was stifled. I was told a fact and felt better off for knowing it.

There are so many natural, scientifically-explainable things in the world to capture the imagination. Implying that the teaching of knowledge diminishes child-like curiosity is insulting to rational thinkers. At least to me it is.

ironyengine wrote:

george bush, the actual person and not the fake account wrote:"I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought, and I'm not suggesting — you're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, and the answer is yes."

I think this is the first time I have ever agreed with something this man said.

steve wrote:"The appropriate follow-up question for our idiot President should have been:

So, do you approve of the teaching of the biological origins of homosexuality? The Marxist perspective on capitalism? What about the theory that the holocaust didn't happen? The idea that the earth is hollow and the sun is a reflection of the burning core? These clearly fall under the umbrella of "different ideas.""

kenoki wrote:That's a lot different than being told by your entire network of people from day 1 that the world was created one way and by one thing and that is the center of your existance, and then have that picked apart by yr only other social and educational network. Which do you believe? How do you believe both? I'm saying, these questions exist sure as pages in a textbook (perhaps in conjunction with) and both can be relevent topics at the same time.