Posted on 10/05/2007 6:26:08 AM PDT by SubGeniusX
The teaching of evolution is becoming increasingly difficult in UK schools because of the rise of creationism, a leading scientist is warning. Head of science at London's Institute of Education Professor Michael Reiss says some teachers, fearful of entering the debate, avoid the subject totally.
This could leave pupils with gaps in their scientific knowledge, he says.
Prof Reiss says the rise of creationism is partly down to the large increase in Muslim pupils in UK schools.
He said: "The number of Muslim students has grown considerably in the last 10 to 20 years and a higher proportion of Muslim families do not accept evolutionary theory compared with Christian families.
"That's one reason why it's more of an issue in schools."
Prof Reiss estimates that one in 10 people in the UK now believes in literal interpretations of religious creation stories - whether they are based on the Bible or the Koran.
Many more teachers he met at scientific meetings were telling him they encountered more pupils with creationist views, he said.
"The days have long gone when science teachers could ignore creationism when teaching about origins."
Instead, teachers should tackle the issue head-on, whilst trying not to alienate students, he argues in a new book.
'Not equally valid'
"By not dismissing their beliefs, we can ensure that these students learn what evolutionary theory really says - and give everyone the understanding to respect the views of others," he added.
His book; Teaching about Scientific Origins: Taking Account of Creationism, gives science teachers advice on how to deal with the "dilemma".
He supports new government guidelines which say creationism should not be discussed in science classes unless it is raised by pupils.
But Prof Reiss argues that there is an educational value in comparing creationist ideas with scientific theories like Darwin's theory of evolution because they demonstrate how science, unlike religious beliefs, can be tested.
The scientist, who is also a Church of England priest, adds that any teaching should not give the impression that creationism and the theory of evolution are equally valid scientifically.
Dr Hilary Leevers, of the Campaign for Science and Engineering, said science teachers would be teaching evolution not creationism and so should not need a book to tell them how to "delicately handle controversy between a scientific theory and a belief".
"The author suggests that science teachers cannot ignore creationism when teaching origins, but the opposite is true," she said.
Teachers could discuss how creationism differed from scientific theory if a student brought up the subject, but any further discussion should occur in religious education lessons, she said.
A Department for Children, Schools and Families spokesman said it had recently published guidelines to teachers on the issue.
"Creationism and intelligent design are not scientific theories nor testable as scientific fact - and have no place in the science curriculum. "But we advise science teachers that when questions about creationism come up in lessons, it provides an opportunity to explain or explore what makes a scientific theory."
And for this you say we are abandoning old ideas of DNA data storage? One idea doesn’t even slightly follow from the other. If you are revising your remarks to ‘abandoning ideas of how the data in DNA got there’ then I drop my objection. Otherwise you couldn’t possibly be more incorrect.
You definitely appear confused.
I gave you a link to show you that old ideas about DNA are limited to a mere 1.5% of our genetic code, yet still you cling to that small 1.5% of the picture.
The larger 98.5% view will offer more rational explanations for DNA data storage, data processing, code re-use, generational and species code skipping, code/data duplication/replication, et al.
That fact should be neither surprising nor confusing.
Please explain what data storage is in the majority of DNA that doesn’t code for protein? What data is stored? What information is present?
Obviously we are more complex than simple organisms that have very ‘streamlined’ genomes (i.e. the majority of DNA actually does code for Protein). Perhaps this extra DNA with unknown function allows for this complexity. However if it IS involved it is involved in facilitating RNA and Protein function.
How is this new data going to fundamentally alter our view of life, when simple life doesn’t even have it? It might alter our view of how complexity is accomplished, but the fundamentals of how DNA makes life possible (it makes functional RNA’s and codes for Protein) are not being abandoned, or even changed fundamentally.
The article that I linked above suggested that RNA controls DNA, rather than just being the messenger for DNA as thought for the past 50 years...that RNA is the knig maker.
If validated, that would be a radical rethink.
Ha!
“knig” should be “king.”
As if this isn't already happening???
Last year my kid's middle school science teacher junked the textbooks and went with an "experiential" approach. The class essentially lost an entire year of science education. Nobody could help their kids because there were no texts and we never knew what he was trying to teach.
Fortunately, he was removed. At back to school night, the new teacher was so pleased to find textbooks in pristine condition in the cabinets. We parents exchanged knowing smiles.
It just never seems to end. Whole language instead of phonics. My daughter suffered through fuzzy math last year. This year her world history text has been cut back so they can pack in more about Muslim countries. Sheesh.
Not a radical rethink at all, just yet another level of control, if validated.
Old view: DNA contains the code for Amino Acid sequence and serves as a template for functional RNA’s. Proteins and RNA’s control the replication, repair, and transcription of DNA.
New view: DNA contains the code for Amino Acid sequence and serves as a template for functional RNA’s. Proteins and RNA’s; POSSIBLY MANY DIFFERENT RNA’s WITH UNKNOWN FUNCTION, control the replication, repair and transcription of DNA.
You can characterize that as a radical rethink if you want. But it is a far cry from anything being abandoned.
Keep pulling back your rhetoric a few more paces post by post and it just might approximate reality as known to the Biological Sciences.
No, actually Southack is trying to hide the lack of an intelligent argument by repeating a mantra.
Thank you for the comment on Dembski's explanatory filter. It brought some needed rationality in. That said, I don't know how one can necessarily say whether something that appeared to be by design absolutely wasn't random chance.
Someone explaining Dembski's filter gave the example of a tossed coin turning up heads 500 times - that it was obviously by design.
While I agree that's extremely likely, it is not impossible to get 500 heads in a row by chance.
Or did Dembski put it another way ?
Only an idiot (or an atheist) would say that life and the universe could not have been designed. Some of us are just arguing there's no scientific proof that it was.
There is no rational way to demonstrate the absence of design or intervention by an omnipotent being. One can only seek to demonstrate that things follow regular rules, and that such regular phenomena are sufficient.
It is also rather difficult to show that an unknown series of events in the past was improbable.
Going back to a previous post, regarding Dembski’s explanatory filter. Evolution is an algorithm that computes a number — the sequence of elements in a DNA strand.
Dembski argues that some specific numbers cannot be computed, namely those that result in complex structures. This is an odd kind of argument for a mathematician to make, and one rather bluntly denied by Hubert Yockey.
That's a poor argument since we *know* that Intelligent Design is responsible for all modern transgenic animals. The proof is in the lab.
Evolution can't explain them.
That's incorrect. Demonstrating the absence of bias accomplishes in one stroke that which you attempt to rule as impossible or irrational above.
But you have yet to provide an operational definition of "bias." What is it? How do you calculate it?
Nor have you provided examples of systems having bias and systems not having bias.
Interesting company these creationists keep...
Evolution can't explain them.
Why should it?
Perhaps my favorite book of all time. Thanks for the reminder.
http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/focus/disabilities_02/
http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/deadlymedicine/narrative/index.php?content=science
http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/focus/disabilities_02/
http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/deadlymedicine/narrative/index.php?content=science
The argument to apply animal breeding techniques to humans was first put forward by Plato, a couple of thousand years before modern science.
The knowledge of selective breeding is thousands of years old. Its application is a political issue, not a scientific one.
But let me ask if you favor or disfavor selective breeding: do you care whom your children marry?
If you do care, then the only remaining issue is whether you have the power to enforce your preference. And whether such preferences are enforced by the church or state.
I would say that such parental preferences have been the rule rather than the exception throughout history.
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