What a depressing story to find in my in-box on Monday morning; apparently according to a number of sources including the BBC a recent poll in several countries has shown that 54% of people in this country (UK) reckon it would be a good idea to teach so called "alternatives" to the theory of evolution by natural selection in science classes such as creationism and intelligent design. What I find most baffling about this is what do these people think is actually going to be "taught". I have this vision of a freshman turning up to medical school on the first day of a new year and proclaiming, "oh yeah I opted to take Genesisology rather than Biology so if you could just show me where you keep the talking snakes then I'll crack on with some dust transmogrification and rib extraction research".
I do hope they take the stork theory of reproduction and the cheese theory of the moon into account when these deluded "ignoranti" fantasise about their children's science syllabuses. This result has been universally criticised by our leading Biology scientists, Steve Jones, professor of genetics at UCL and leading evolutionary science author summed it up for me when he said:
"This shows the danger of religions being allowed to buy schools, hijack lessons and pretend that they have anything useful to say about science – which, by definition, they do not. The figure seems much too high, although no doubt there is a substantial minority that does think this."
No one is saying that these creation myths shouldn't be taught in school, but they should be taught under the banner of RE or philosophy they are not and never will be scientific nor are they in any sense "alternatives" to evidence based learning, something us "boffin's" like to refer to as "REALITY!"
Religion, destroying the enlightenment day by day.
8 comments:
Yes, I saw that too. I'm glad you picked it up for your post. Thanks. (I'm at home sick today so sorry not more enthusiasm in my comment)
Hi E, sorry to hear you are unwell; you clearly need a creation scientist to come round shrug his shoulders and pronounce that "God did it".. :)
Get better soon!
It could be worse, Elizabeth. You could have someone who tells you that the illness is all your own fault. Now what are they called? Oh yeah, Daily Mail reporters.
I'm puzzled by the survey, especially the results in places like the UK, where religion is declining. I've heard more about creationism in the news in the last few years since people like Richard Dawkins started publicly attacking it. I wonder if there's a 'no publicity is bad publicity' element to this, a bit like that BNP/Question Time thing last week, that attacks by scientists and atheists have raised the profile of creationism? Would these figures be lower if it had just been ignored?
dmk, I agree, as Steve Jones says the numbers seem too high and depressingly so.
You could be right, maybe this is some kind of weird backlash, in some ways I hope it is. I think that ignoring things like this only really allows them to persist, much better to get the debate out into the cold light of day and let's all look at the facts of the matter rationally. You must come across it a lot in your line of work?
Its a similar argument to the whole BNP/Question Time thing, i.e. ignore it, suppress it or shine a spotlight on it etc, time will tell I suppose. I think there is something to be said for having the courage of ones convictions and taking the argument to these people.
Hi G, our receptionist gets the Daily Mail (or Daily Fail as we call it), we have a competition in the office every day to see who can find the "Diana" story first. :)
Ugh, I hate the idea of having to shove religion into the field of philosophy (at least analytic philosophy).
I've done both philosophy and science, and in my experience, philsophy is far more rigourous, so it seems that if religion does not belong with science, then it doesn't belong with philosophy either.
As it sits, philosophical thought does not allow people to make up things that they would like to be true, and then simply assert it as such, without the use of evidence or logic.
Religion seems to fall more under history, or else perhaps inquiry concerning it as a social or cultural construct falls more properly under sociology. Otherwise people can study "theology", which can encompass all of these aspects of religion as well as the internal perspective of the believers.
Of course the history of philosophy is already littered with bad religious arguments (often by people who did proper philosophy as well as religion). But all the more reason to make theology its own branch of inquiry and removing it from philosophy altogether. It's bad enough that we're permanently saddled with the likes of Augustine, Aquinas, Descartes and Kierkegaard.
Hi Lisa, would you agree with Hitchens when he says that religion is our (i.e. the Human race) "first attempt" at philosophy and science? I can kind of see that, certainly in the main ones at least.
Post a Comment