John W Burgeson wrote:
> Keith, from the center of the Kansas chaos, posted in response to my
> comments:
>
> "Welcome to the real world! If those qualifying statements were not
> included in the standards, it would not have been approved. Saying this,
> I also agree with the intent of those words. Teaching science is not
> about compelling belief, it is always about introducing students to a way
> of learning about the world around us, and demonstrating the observation
> basis for our current theoretical understanding."
>
> Your first sentence sounds a little bit like a put down, Keith, but I'll
> take it with a < G >. As for your second sentence, I'll assume you know
> whereof you speak.
>
> I'm in substantial disagreement with the rest of your post. If I do not
> try to "compel belief" in gravitation's power to kill someone who flouts
> it, or on any number of other interesting physical phenomena such as
> electricity, heat, radiation, etc., and stuck only to the "high road" of
> " introducing students to a way of learning" then I'd be doing only 1/2
> the job. If anyone in the school lab was injured or killed because I did
> not "compel belief" in some of those things, I am sure I'd wind up in
> court.
>
> Obviously, as George (I think) pointed out, belief cannot be imposed on
> anyone who resists. But one can try.
>
> On issues such as the equal number of ribs by gender, or the ancient age
> of the earth, or the non coexistence of dinosaurs and humans, or the non
> superiority of one race over another, perhaps a good case can be made for
> not teaching these "dogmatically," or trying to "compel belief" in any
> one of them. Perhaps.
>
> A caveat - I'm thinking more of high school people than graduate
> students.
1) I don't know if we can draw a pedagogic line at the point where
actual danger might result
but there would be some truth in so doing. A student may kill him or herself
if not convinced that standing under a tree in a thunderstorm is a bad idea,
but is not immediately endangered by a belief that the earth is 6000 years
old.
2) I used to tell students in my introductory astronomy class that
if they answered exam questions about cosmological theories & observations
correctly & then add "I don't believe this: I think God created the universe
in 6 24 hour days", I'd give them credit. I don't think any of them quite
took me up on that, though some did express religiously based doubts.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
"The Science-Theology Interface"
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