Should evolution be taught in high school science classes?.
Simple (minded) wisdom:
Simple wisdom on the origins of mankind
I am a bus driver and while waiting on the bus about a week ago, a high school student and I had some “small talk.” The subject of evolution came up. All I asked was, “Do you believe in evolution?” Very bluntly her answer was, “No, things are too orderly!”
I was dumbfounded! So much wisdom and so simple!
Many teachers do have a lot of learning, as do many scientists. She had simple wisdom, which is, in my opinion, very much more to be desired. Somehow, this person knew that the invisible Creator is very very clearly seen in the things he created.
JOHN HETTINGA
The problem with evolution is that we can’t refute intuitive responses easily. The idea that acceleration is constant no matter the mass of the object often weirds kids out when they are exposed to it, but take a tennis ball and a ball of lead and demonstrate it….
Here is an old post from last summer when I debated Susanna of Cut on the Bias on Evolution and Creationism.
An interesting point that I often hear is: Look at trees, there must be a God/Creator/etc. (from people that aren’t particularly religious either). Reminds me of the 18th century bishop who whenever he saw a monkey at the London zoo couldn’t believe there could be a God, as he became so enraged. Romantic, emotional responses, seem to dictate opinions about these sort of issues.
Even if evolution can’t explain all the complexity in nature, I feel toward this topic as a methodological naturalist what I would hopefully feel toward atomic theory in an earlier age. When Dalton’s Theory came out in the early 19th century the mechanisms were rather poorly understood and it was a very ill-understood model. It took the emergence of Quantum Mechanics to have a satisfactory model of the atom (in a fashion). Nevertheless, we saw the first sketches of reality in the Daltonian Model (as opposed to the purely metaphysical conjectures in the original Democritan Atomic School).
This Chris Mooney article about Creationism/Evolution polls might be of interest to some.
Comments are closed.