What do you think of this?
Tennessee has enacted a law (HB 0368-SB 0893) which states (emphasis mine):
This bill prohibits the state board of education and any public elementary or secondary school governing authority, director of schools, school system administrator, or principal or administrator from prohibiting any teacher in a public school system of this state from helping students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories covered in the course being taught, such as evolution and global warming. This bill also requires such persons and entities to endeavor to:
(1) Create an environment within public elementary and secondary schools that encourages students to explore scientific questions, learn about scientific evidence, develop critical thinking skills, and respond appropriately and respectfully to differences of opinion about controversial issues; and
(2) Assist teachers to find effective ways to present the science curriculum as it addresses scientific controversies.
In short, Tennessee has forbidden politicians from interfering with teachers who point out that all is not certain in matters scientific. Regular readers of this blog will know that scientism and over-certainty is rampant, such that any program which encourages people to understand (let us call it) scientific cockiness is to be welcomed. This bill forbids Lysenkoism, which is the deciding of scientific “truth” by vote or popular acclaim.
It rewards teachers who imbue in students how to best “review in an objective manner” evidence, which is the stated purpose of science. So what are folks saying about this legislative breath-of-fresh-air?
I can’t see elementary and secondary students really understanding the meta-theoretical constraints on science and the nature of truth. These are actually quite difficult topics, and scientists themselves don’t study them. And teachers aren’t equipped, by training or otherwise, to handle the topic appropriately.
I can see this as a means to inject political propaganda into the curriculum. Note that evolution and global warming are explicitly mentioned. Note also that how these are taught is reserved for the teacher’s discretion alone, enabling the teachers to preach whatever their pet theories happen to be.
Teachers who put children at the front lines of a culture war should be stoned to death — using unabridged dictionaries and college-level chemistry textbooks.
I would have emphasized the following:
“…prohibiting any teacher in a public school system of this state from helping students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories covered in the course being taught.”
I have never seen a clearer statement of the anti-education agenda of those who have taken control of the public educational system.
Teachers are actually to be prohibited from educating students!
The result can only be a generation of students who lack the most rudimentary understanding of science or skills in critical thinking and the scientific method.
Tadchem – the law does not prohibit teachers from teaching, it seeks to stop administrators from prohibiting active inquiry.
Eric – Teachers already put students on the “front lines” of a culture war, from preschools that monitor the “healthy content” of lunches brought from home to colleges that require regurgitation of “global warming” propoganda on Medievil History Exams. As for “pet theories,” many states already have their own “pet theories.” To claim that teaching students to question authority and analyze evidence on their own is somehow dangerous sounds a lot like Inquisitional tactics.
The three R’s of education (reading riting and rithmetic) have long ago been turned into the three I’s of education (Ignorance, Indoctrination and Intimidation). Children need to be taught how to think for themselves, not what to think.
My only concern about an otherwise admirable notion is that it might leave the door open for the “Creation Science” or “Intelligent Design” nonsense to be taught as if they were legitimate science (they are not). Bob Anderson
This is a classic example of the 3 I’s “Do not let anyone talk to you or read about creation or intelligent design. Don’t judge any of it on its own merits or even think about it! because it’s unscientific, we said so!” (Ignorance) “Just accept the premise that we have taught you that nothing made everything out of nothing. Never question or doubt it!” (Indoctrination) “Or else!” (Intimidation) And this is only one area where it is practiced. It is practiced in economics, history civics et al.
“Creation Science” or “Intelligent Design” theory are not taught because they HAVE NO SCIENTIFIC VALIDITY. First, the Bible does NOT anywhere say the Earth is only 10,000 years old; a member of the clergy made that unsubstantiated claim, and it has no Biblical substantiation. Second, the Bible DOES NOT say “there is no such thing as evolution”. Indeed, the story of Genesis – the void, the light, the earth, the animals created from the dust of the earth – all are not a bad summary for people who had no knowledge of science.
Again, accurate; can you show me a passage that states “evolution does not exist” or “the earth is only 10,000 years old”? I have read my King James cover to cover, and NO such passages exist.
Next, “Creation Science” and “Intelligent Design” theory are not scientific. If one is going to enter the scientific arena and make claims towards being scientific, then one must abide by the rules of science; imagine, say, a soccer player in an American Football game (or vice versa). S/He would have to abide by the rules of the game they entered. First, a theory is not a speculative notion (that would be a hypothesis, and even that must be based on reason).
My assertion that they are not science stands; it is irrefutable on a scientific basis; citing the Bible IS NOT science.
What’s there to think about; the Bible is NOT science, a clear concise factual statement. What don’t you get?
For example, earthquake theory is not about WHETHER there are earthquakes, rather, earthquakes are the observed fact, and earthquake theory explains, rationally, and using factual data, how they occur. A theory can CHANGE over time (as with plate tectonics totally transforming our knowledge of earthquake causes). Not only can theories change with new knowledge, they can PREDICT. For example, not long after Darwin’s Origen of the Species was published, Archeopteryx, a primitive FEATHERED reptile protobirdd was discovered, just as his theory predicts. So called Creation Science or Intelligent CANNOT change and cannot predict; they are by their very nature immutable.
Furthermore, neither can produce evidence FOR their perspective; they only offer invalid, non-scientific criticisms of evolution. That is not enough for a theory. Evolution was a fact known long before Darwin; he (and Lord Alfred Russell Wallace) were the first to articulate the various reasoned scientific bases for evolution. Again, prediction wise, various things such as genetics and DNA, not known to them, only serves as further confirmation of their work; again, nothing like this can occur with religious based notions (they aren’t actually theories, in the scientfic sense). My wife is a devout Lutheran with a biochemistry degree; I am a highly educated individual who is Protestant; my mom and sister are Catholic, NONE OF OUR CHURCHES HAS A PROBLEM WITH EVOLUTION. It is only a tiny minority of people who do not even know their own Bible who ‘think’ otherwise.
I think I am fairly accurate, for whoever asked.
Speaking of the Bible and a lack of knowledge, did you know that your Bible’s earliest Proto-Hebrew and Classical Hebrew manuscripts state that in the beginning, the “Elohim” (GODS), PLURAL, created everthing. That was ‘edited’ out, just as Adam’s first wife Lilith (well documented in old manuscripts) was edited out. There are numerous other examples of editing, excising, and altering that are well known, far too many to go into here. For example, there are 27 Books in my King James Bible; but EIGHTY TWO OR MORE BOOKS ARE KNOWN. (Gospel of Peter, Gospel of Simon, Gospel of Mary Magdalene, etc). These were arbitrarily LEFT OUT by the early Catholic Church. The Bible, in sum, is not “literally” true; that is a notion dreamed up by extraordinarily ignorant churchmen centuries ago, a perpetuated by a small group of such dummie today.
Again, for whoever asked, I KNOW I am accurate on this.
Again, I hit the nail on the head with this one; lack of scientific knowledge and processes is the fundamental giveaway to those who believe this nonsense.