Questioning Science
11/04/12 12:23 Filed in: GenomeWeb Daily Scan
Submitted by S. Pelech - Kinexus on Wed, 04/11/2012 - 13:39.
While the Tennessee House Bill 368/Senate Bill 893 proponents most likely have an clear agenda to push creationist ideas within the classrooms, I wonder whether the Bill might in fact not be a bad thing. According to various polls, the majority of scientists in the United States are atheists or agnostics, but the most of the general population claims to be religious. This is despite decades of trying to ban religious thinking from public schools.
As long as the Bill truly provides for healthy debate, may be it is a good idea that scientific thought is open to challenge. After all, this is the primary difference between the development of scientific knowledge and religious beliefs. Science is self-correcting and provides for re-evaluation and refinement based on actual tests and observations. The evidence in favour for evolution is overwhelming, so scientists should not feel particularly threatened.
Mainstream ideas in science are not necessarily understood nor well adopted by the general public. Children should be exposed to the reasoning behind why scientists believe as they do, and healthy debate is one mechanism to achieve this. With all of the television programs, internet sites and literature that offer scientific insights into the nature of the universe, a lot of children are pretty savvy about the origins of life. Teachers that push a strong creationist platform in their science class teaching might very well become embarassed and find their credibility damaged by their own more independent thinking students.
Link to the original blog post
While the Tennessee House Bill 368/Senate Bill 893 proponents most likely have an clear agenda to push creationist ideas within the classrooms, I wonder whether the Bill might in fact not be a bad thing. According to various polls, the majority of scientists in the United States are atheists or agnostics, but the most of the general population claims to be religious. This is despite decades of trying to ban religious thinking from public schools.
As long as the Bill truly provides for healthy debate, may be it is a good idea that scientific thought is open to challenge. After all, this is the primary difference between the development of scientific knowledge and religious beliefs. Science is self-correcting and provides for re-evaluation and refinement based on actual tests and observations. The evidence in favour for evolution is overwhelming, so scientists should not feel particularly threatened.
Mainstream ideas in science are not necessarily understood nor well adopted by the general public. Children should be exposed to the reasoning behind why scientists believe as they do, and healthy debate is one mechanism to achieve this. With all of the television programs, internet sites and literature that offer scientific insights into the nature of the universe, a lot of children are pretty savvy about the origins of life. Teachers that push a strong creationist platform in their science class teaching might very well become embarassed and find their credibility damaged by their own more independent thinking students.
Link to the original blog post