Anyway, Bill Nye said in an interview that he was concerned about the effect creationism has on education. In his own words...
[T]here are more people in the world — another billion people all trying to use the world’s resources. And the threat and consequences of climate change are more serious than ever, so we need as many people engaged in how we’re going to deal with that as possible. And we have an increasingly technologically sophisticated society. We are able to feed these 7.2 billion people because of our extraordinary agricultural technology. If we have a society that’s increasingly dependent on these technologies, with a smaller and smaller fraction of that society who actually understands how any of it works, that is a formula for disaster.... My biggest concern about creationist kids is that they’re compelled to suppress their common sense, to suppress their critical thinking skills at a time in human history when we need them more than ever.... There are just things about evolution that we should all be aware of, the way we’re aware of where electricity comes from, or that you have cells with mitochondria.
There are several problems I see with Nye's argument. I've said before that evolution is a trivial pursuit; it contributes nothing to the advancement of technology or medicine or any life improving invention. A better understanding of evolution would not contribute one tiny bit to finding alternative sources of fuel or building clean burning engines or any type of technology that Nye believes will save the planet.
Also, I don't believe Nye can establish a causal link between believing creation and lower academic performance. It's a tired scare tactic used by evolutionists to claim that kids can't understand science if they believe creation yet they have nothing beyond their flapping gums to support this claim. In fact, a case could be made for the opposite; kids who are home-schooled or who attend private, Christian schools – places where creation is more likely to be taught – generally perform better on standardized tests than kids in public schools where creation is not taught.
But if Nye really wants to better prepare kids to contribute to society, evolution would be very low on the list of where education needs improvement. Here's a short video you might find interesting:
I've seen dozens of videos just like this one – videos where kids can't answer basic questions about science or politics or geography or history. According to Wikipedia, “the "average" American reads at a 7th or 8th grade level which is also consistent with recommendations, guidelines, and norms of readability for medication directions, product information, and popular fiction.”
If Nye were truly worried about preparing kids for the future, he would be alarmed by the fact that they can't read! But no, he thinks we need to devote more energy and resources to teaching them evolution! I truly believe Nye is more interested in indoctrinating kids rather than educating them.
I've said before that evolution is a trivial pursuit; it contributes nothing to the advancement of technology or medicine or any life improving invention.
ReplyDeleteA lot of creationists say that. I tend to parse that as "leave us to our delusions; they don't hurt anybody. We're only trying to replace science with question-begging dogma on questions that don't matter economically or militarily or medically." This has nothing to do with whether it's true or not. Wouldn't you at least like the next generation of creation evangelists to understand what the theory they're attacking actually says, so they don't have to just make stuff up?
I don't really see why, on the one hand, we would have to choose between teaching reading and teaching evolution. On the other hand, people tend to try to fix the curriculum where it's fixable -- where they have some idea what to do and where it's politically and bureaucratically possible to do so. Fixing America's schools is an immense and multifaceted problems, including such factors as parents who want their little darlings coddled rather than graded fairly, parents who don't care if their children learn anything or not (this is not all parents -- but then, not all students graduate semi-literate and inarticulate), and, I suspect, bad but popular teaching strategies such as opposition to phonics and drill. It's not nearly so vast a problem to insert a section explaining just what evolution is and how it works into the biology classes.
Steven J,
ReplyDeleteYou said, “A lot of creationists say that [evolution contributes nothing to science]. I tend to parse that as "leave us to our delusions; they don't hurt anybody. We're only trying to replace science with question-begging dogma on questions that don't matter economically or militarily or medically." This has nothing to do with whether it's true or not.”
The fact that evolution makes no practical predictions does have a bearing on whether it's true or not but let's put that aside. I didn't write this as an argument that evolution isn't true but to question how a better understanding of evolution will improve education.
By the way, I've noticed you still haven't pointed to any examples of technology whose invention hinged upon an understanding of evolution.
You said, “Wouldn't you at least like the next generation of creation evangelists to understand what the theory they're attacking actually says, so they don't have to just make stuff up?”
What makes you think creationists don't understand evolution? Most people I know were educated in public schools (including myself) and learned at least as much about evolution as non-creationists.
You said, “I don't really see why, on the one hand, we would have to choose between teaching reading and teaching evolution.”
Just ask yourself, which is the problem: that they can't read or that they don't understand evolution? Kids have to learn reading and math before they can learn anything else. How can they study science if they can't even read the textbook?
Nye is making a straw man. He's saying that kids who believe creation can't make contributions to science. It fails on 2 points: 1) he can't point to any study that shows a correlation between believing in creation and a poor understanding of science and 2) he can't demonstrate how believing in evolution contributes to advancements in technology.
Nye is a zealot in his atheism. He worries more that kids might believe in creation than that they can't read.
Thanks for your comments. God bless!!
RKBentley