What to teach in schools (What should be taught in schools?)

by dhw, Monday, September 19, 2011, 17:23 (4600 days ago)

An article in today's Guardian reports on a call to the British government by 30 prominent scientists (including Attenborough and Dawkins) to stop the promotion of creationism and intelligent design in schools. They argue that these are wrongly portrayed as scientific theories by some religious fundamentalists. An organization called Truth in Science denies advocating the teaching of creationism. "We wish to highlight the scientific weaknesses of neo-Darwinism and to encourage a more critical approach to the teaching of evolution in schools and universities," it said.-Intriguingly, a spokesperson for the Department of Education said that the education secretary "will not accept any academy or free school proposal which plans to teach creationism in the science curriculum or as an alternative to accepted theories."-This would be a wonderful subject for epistemological investigation. Theories accepted by whom? Are the "prominent scientists" launching their attack because Truth in Science is pointing out weaknesses in neo-Darwinism ... which is anathema to militant atheists ... or is Truth in Science covering up its own religious agenda? Their website suggests the former, but a Wikipedia article ... listing directors and consultants ... suggests the latter. -In my view, it is totally in order to teach evolution as a scientific theory (not fact), and it is totally in order to point out the possible flaws in some of its arguments. But the moment people start inferring that the theory supports the case for either atheism or theism, origin by chance or origin by intelligent design (whether lower or upper case), they leave the realm of science and enter that of subjective speculation. The theory of evolution does not support either hypothesis, and neither should play any role in science lessons. All that is needed in schools, folks, is a sensible, well-balanced, genuinely scientific approach, videlicet an agnostic approach.