Teach both sides!

To be fair the creationist argument isn't "rawrawraw." It's more like a bunch of word salad that is just about as useless as "rawrawraw".

But the IDiots want to teach more. Less science, of course, but more about the invisible being that left no evidence of its actual existence, methods, or purpose, that actually is responsible for life.

You're against more teaching? What a terrible thing for a teacher to say!

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p

Ah...but THAT there is no evidence IS the evidence!!! It is the BEAUTY of FAITH! It's infallible logic!

Only in this country is bullshit a side of an argument. Gotta love our educational system!

Aha! Now I know why my father is blind in one eye! He was probably watching "Both Sides" and changed his mind before he finished the steak knife treatment. (Now he watches only Glenn Beck, which is like a steak knife in the brain.)

What can you say, you gotta teach the controversy...

Funny how nobody is suggesting teaching atheism in bible classes...

I dunno, I'm pretty tempted by that evidence. I mean if they have pictures of Christ riding a dinosaur... I mean, all Darwin ever rode was a tortoise...

The scrolling headlines are the best.

"Gay Marriage Legalized, Totally Gay Marriage Still in Limbo"

:)

God main his own existence unfalsifiable in order to test our faith! It's the only reasonable explanation!

Personally, I found the example used for alternative medicine to be so cringe-inducingly unfunny that I can't recommend the video:

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2010/01/telling_both_sides.php

Romeo at #7

Maybe we should.

The problem with both ends of the "teach both sides" argument is that the lesson is going to be heavily slanted by the views of the teacher.

I have no problem with "teach both sides" when it's taught by a person who actually knows what they're talking about - since they'll inevitably try to teach their students how stupid ID is.

From the sounds of things, teachers should be doing this anyway.

#11: Seriously? That was far and away the best segment.

Teach both sides?
So in chemistry class, there will be chemistry and magic?
In physics there will be physics and, er, magic?
In mathematics there will be....
How is wishful thinking a 'side' of an argument?
I can see how it works. Lets take gravity. There is a scientific theory, and then there is the 'other side'. Apples fall to the ground because of the workings of gravity, as explained by the scientific theory. Or, apples fall from trees because there is an invisible hand that pushes them to the ground. Seems reasonable.

We should teach both sides of dung science!

http://groups.google.com/group/sci.skeptic/msg/9d1dbd12f9527b9b

Assuming you're responding to my comment Nick (if you're not... ignore me), I think you've misunderstood me.

If you take on the role of a teacher, you've taken on a responsibility to ensure, to the best of your ability, that your students leave your class with a better understanding of the relevant topic than they entered it with.

If you have students in your class who insist on believing that something like ID is just as valid or even more valid that evolution, then that responsibility extends to teaching them why that belief is wrong, or at the very least unscientific.

"Teach the controversy" and "teach both sides" is generally interpreted as "teach creationism" and that is usually what is meant. It's not what I meant in comment #12 and I apologise for the ambiguity.

My point is simply that its gotten to the point where science teachers shouldn't ignore ID/creationism. They should be actively teaching why it is not scientific and that many of the statements made in support of it are simply, factually and provably wrong.

Did anyone else see this and immediately think, "I didn't know Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal had a television network"?

feegz # 16
No, my comment wasn't directed at you, more the whole argument put forward by creationists that their fairy tales somehow amount to a 'side' of an argument. I guess I was also trying to make the point that 'creationism' is wishful thinking, and though it is limited to one area at the moment, I can foresee that putting forward a biblically consistent explanation for natural phenomena could be extended to many other areas.
I agree though, that the best defence against the lunacy of creationism is to explain why it is wrong, and explain why evolution is, as far as we know, the correct explanation for the diversity of life.

Mainly testing my ability to comment, with which I've had trouble. So, in a fairly trivial comment, I'd say this about the video: good idea, mediocre execution.

feegz # 16
No, my comments weren't directed at you. I agree that most likely the best way to defeat the creeping idiocy that is creationism is to explain why it is wrong, and why, as far as we know, evolutionary theory is the best explanation for the diversity of species.
I think the point I was trying to make is that, if creationism represents a 'side' to the discussion about how we came to have such a wonderful diversity of life on earth, then there is no reason why students shouldn't be educated about other, potentially more biblically-consistent, theories.

The whole 'teach the controversy'mantra is a rancid red rotting herring that stinks the place out...

There is absolutely no intention of presenting a balanced discussion.
The whole point is to simply usurp science, full stop.

They want Evolutionary theory to be denigrated to a cute ...'but some folks say...blah blah blah!...but they do not have all the relevant facts!'

That is the prize, to remove the evidence from kids, to fool them into a religio mind set.

That is the bottom line, this is not about fairness, it is about brain washing!

They want their version taught first, and hopefully by the time kids are capable of assessing other information it is to late to change a mind formed in the image of a fictitious deity.

Never trust a theologian with pleading eyes, because they are after compliance not persuasion.

That was so NOT funny.

Keep in mind that for YEC to be anywhere near plausible there is much, much more than evolution that they would have to address. And that's before you begin even trying to rationalize the wacky bible stories in class. You pretty much have to rewrite science from Democritus onwards just to avoid the obvious indicators of an ancient universe.

The scary thing is they're bound to try, they'll stand of the shoulders of giants and pretend to see their sky fairy in the clouds.

B

What about sex education? Why only teach abstinence? Shouldn't they also teach rampant promiscuity?
Or drugs. Teach both sides: "Just say no" and "just say yes".

There are a lot of subjects where we are only teaching one side. I say our children deserve better. They need to be taught about the good sides of cannibalism, too.

I'm all for teaching both sides. Side 1: God did it. OK lets look at the alternative .... (5 years and still going).

Epistemological Paradigm! such foul language!

So in chemistry class, there will be chemistry and magic?
In physics there will be physics and, er, magic?
In mathematics there will be....

...mathematics and Enron accountancy?

Blockquote fail @#27. The first paragraph was quoted from Nick @#14.

(I probably wrote "blockqutoe" instead of "blockquote" again. In my defence, I haven't finished my coffee yet, and haven't had very much sleep this week.)

Walton, preview is your friend.
It costs little (I'm trying to make it a habit).

Let me kick this idea to the curb. After listening to the Hitch on this, I think that "teaching the argument" is a very good idea indeed. That is, if you teach evolution, not as a bolt from the blue (my principle annoyance with conventional science education) but as a discovery that rests on disagreements with Paley and others. At the Darwin festival, I remember Paley's work being praised very highly. I think that if you were to teach evolution as an argument, starting with the ancient arguments from antiquity (maybe begging with Aristotle's Eternist position), down through Paley and others, with The Origin of Species being the main argument, and then the further discoveries in genetics that support it, from Mendel to Watson, you'd end up with students that understand the theory in far greater detail and you'd have less trouble with the creationists.

I remember learning a great deal just by reading the Scopes trial transcript. You should look it up; it's worth the few bucks to get the pdf transcript.

Any thoughts?

Cimourdain:

Let me kick this idea to the curb.

To what do you refer by "this idea"?
You're not too good at establishing your referents, are you? :)

After listening to the Hitch on this, I think that "teaching the argument" is a very good idea indeed.

Care to cite or quote that which you listened to?
(Hitchens speaks much on religion, little on evolutionary theory).

That is, if you teach evolution, not as a bolt from the blue (my principle annoyance with conventional science education) but as a discovery that rests on disagreements with Paley and others.

It's only a "bolt from the blue" if, for some peculiar reason, it's missing from the primary school curriculum.

I think that if you were to teach evolution as an argument, starting with the ancient arguments from antiquity (maybe begging with Aristotle's Eternist position) [blah]

What?! Why would anyone do that?
It's part of the science curriculum — not philosophy. Evolution is an observed fact, and evolutionary theory accounts for it.

I remember learning a great deal just by reading the Scopes trial transcript.

The Dover trial transcripts are far more recent and relevant.

What did you learn from that? ;)

As a reminder of the sort of shit-brick, pushing-the-envelope stupidity we face, the ongoing climate wars at Realclimate produced this gem from one AxelD:

"Please stop resorting to the “evidence”. It’s now completely irrelevant. "

OK, now, I ask you: How do you combat this level of stupidity. If evidence is irrelevant, then it is impossible to change opinion. What I want to know is not just how somebody becomes so deluded, but how they come to think that such an opinion is sufficiently mainstream that they can voice it on a website dominated by scientists.

The general conclusion is that we need a new term for this level of stupidity. The term "disappearing across the stupidity event horizon" has been proposed.

What did you learn from that? ;)

I think that was a bit too dismissive, John, even if you were intentionally going for the Argument Sketch style...

It's only a "bolt from the blue" if, for some peculiar reason, it's missing from the primary school curriculum.

I think he meant that it's taught as if the idea was a "bolt from the blue" to Darwin, without the historical context?

It's part of the science curriculum — not philosophy. Evolution is an observed fact, and evolutionary theory accounts for it.

But some history and philosophy of science is usually included in the science curriculum. Didn't you get an overview of the history of the idea in your evolution classes? Darwin sailed on the Beagle, blah blah blah, that sort of thing?

IIRC, in school we did go through some of the early ideas about evolution. I think the conflict with Lamarckism is, if anything, usually exaggerated for teaching purposes. I'm not sure how to improve that part of evolution education, since the actual history is so complicated.

Windy,

I think that was a bit too dismissive, John, even if you were intentionally going for the Argument Sketch style...

I don't. Dover (2005) is far more recent than the Scopes trial (1926), and relevant ("Teach both sides!") vs. (challenging the unlawfulness of teaching "any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals").

I think he meant that it's taught as if the idea was a "bolt from the blue" to Darwin, without the historical context?

Really. You're very charitable.

Didn't you get an overview of the history of the idea in your evolution classes?

Not that I recall, we learned biology, not evolution back in my day, and yes in secondary school.

FWIW, the textbook was Biological science: the web of life, ISBN 0858470152.

a_ray_in_dilbert_space @ #32

As a reminder of the sort of shit-brick, pushing-the-envelope stupidity we face, the ongoing climate wars at Realclimate produced this gem from one AxelD:

"Please stop resorting to the 'evidence'. It’s now completely irrelevant."

OK, now, I ask you: How do you combat this level of stupidity. If evidence is irrelevant, then it is impossible to change opinion.

I just ran into a similar thing on the JREF forums the other day. Even though some whack-a-loon has been participating in threads discussing AGW for about 2 years now, his latest tack is that we can't even discuss AGW any longer because "scientists don't refer to it that way". WTF?! He's asking us to define the 'AGW hypothesis' for him, even though others have patiently explained it to him at least 15 times. It's infuriating.

The reason why the guy a_ray_in_dilbert_space quoted above thinks all the AGW evidence is irrelevant is because of 'Climategate'. He thinks a few hacked e-mails (that were mostly discussing FOI requests) somehow manages to invalidate all the carefully gathered and analysed evidence for AGW that has happened over the last few decades.

It's the same way creationists operate. It's all about semantics and tone, nothing about substance. Because they *know* they can't win by discussing the actual scientific evidence.

John Morales @ #34

Not that I recall, we learned biology, not evolution back in my day, and yes in secondary school.

Funny, this very topic came up the other night when the wife and I were dining with PZed (OK, blatant name-dropping there. Mea culpa). Turns out that PZed and I are from roughly the same era, and neither of us can recall even hearing the word 'evolution' mentioned in secondary school biology classes.

@ #30 and #34

At least in the British educational system (as experienced by my sample size of 1) evolution wasn't so much a 'bolt from the blue' as a vaguely glossed over little idea which had nothing much to do with memorizing such important things as all the bones in the arm, knowing how to completely fake an experiment to avoid running up and down stairs etc etc.

It would, in my opinion, be great if evolutionary biology could be taught, at least initially, as the series of ideas leading towards it (which is essentially how I taught myself the basics through reading Gould, Dawkins, and some other authors - and indeed how I pretty much fell in love with evolutionary biology) however in my experience this isnt the case - it's all about filling minds with facts to pass tests, sadly it would probably end up putting more importance on the year in which Paley puclished than on the differences between systems and the evidence to support/knock down each idea should it ever make it into a science curriculum in this fashion.

I think teaching that creationism was well supported, until it was not, is a far better way to go than leaving creationism open as the 'contender' rather than as a defeated idea which belongs to history.

In mathematics there will be....

...mathematics and Enron accountancy? - Walton

*chuckle, snort, guffaw!*

I mean if they have pictures of Christ riding a dinosaur... I mean, all Darwin ever rode was a tortoise...

Not quite; he rode horses too. Even caught himself with Bolas once, he did.

If you really want to make sure that we teach children that Creationism is wrong, we need to be making sure that we are also teaching them how to think. We can give them facts and figures until we're blue in the face, but if the current administrations get their way, teachers won't be able to teach thinking skills because we're too busy teaching a myriad of facts to be regurgitated to a standardized test, whether or not these kids have any idea what all of these facts mean when put together.

This is not to say that we should be "teaching the controversy" as you can't teach something that doesn't exist. You can make stuff up and pretend its a controversy (which is what schools in some states would like to either force teachers to do, or at the least allow them to do).

The Homeopathy & Nutritionists vs Real Science! YouTube video of Dara O'Briain is quite funny
this one leaves a who lot to be desired...

There's nothing more you can leave behind
So forget about seeing, get into your mind
Everything looks better when the world is black
Grab a fork, make the first attack

Lights out!
Poke poke, poke your eyes out
Lights out!
Put a pen in your hand, poke your eyes out

I can't see too well, what's it all about?
Well I dunno man, did you poke your eyes out?
Sure thing, I did it today, startin' to get hip to the lights out way

Lights out!
Poke poke, poke your eyes out
Lights out!
Put yourself on the floor, roll all about

If you poke too far you reach the front of your brain
Fork in your mind can drive you insane!
Don't worry much, just let it rip, today your eyeballs do the lights out trip

Lights out!
Put a pen in your hand, poke your eyes out
Lights out!
Poke poke, poke your eyes out
Lights out!
Put an ax in your head, poke your eyes out!

"Did anyone else see this and immediately think, "I didn't know Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal had a television network"?"

Actually, he's been advertising it often on his website. My personal favorites are Equation and Date Wars. Also, I think he's a regular reader of Science Blogs.

Also, it seems like Orac, alternative medicine debunker extraordinarie, didn't like it as much, at least the segment about his specialty. Probably because real examples of woo sound like they're fictional.

Next up: everyone who disagrees with me versus me waving my dick around while flipping the bird!

Best description of the anti-science crowd's arguments I've seen to date. Bravo!

windy,

I think he meant that it's taught as if the idea was a "bolt from the blue" to Darwin, without the historical context?

That's it. Scientific theories are presented, at least in my experience, as bolts from the blue, or pure inspiration, rather than integrations of phenomenal amounts of data. I think that is a very poor and dangerous policy.

But some history and philosophy of science is usually included in the science curriculum. Didn't you get an overview of the history of the idea in your evolution classes? Darwin sailed on the Beagle, blah blah blah, that sort of thing?

That's just decoration. What I am talking about is the long conceptual chain of proofs and inferences that lead Darwin to his conclusions, and that has to include the historical arguments and observations.

John,

Care to cite or quote that which you listened to?

AAI speech, I believe.

Re Cheerios623 @10:

God main his own existence unfalsifiable in order to test our faith! It's the only reasonable explanation!

You might be trying to be facetious, but that is not far from Catholic doctrine. That is, that God created the universe to be completely understandable to man without invoking the existence of God. The point being that any inconsistency that required the existence of God to explain would necessarily put an end to faith since there would be direct proof of God. And for some reason that I never quite got, Faith is the most important thing in the universe, so there can not be any hard evidence of God's existence. In other words, God wants us to have faith; faith is belief without proof; proof destroys faith; so there cannot be proof of God's existence. This is why the RCC has always claimed to be "compatible" with science, that they expect science to be "god-free". And that whole Galileo kerfuffle was not about his science but about control over how to present it to the uneducated masses.

Not that I recall, we learned biology, not evolution back in my day, and yes in secondary school.

'evolution class' was short for the days in biology class when evolution was explicitly the subject.

Iono. I do loves me some SMBC, but I only ever watch the videos when someone embeds them - and then I still don't like most of them.

Sili - "I do loves me some SMBC... and then I still don't like most of them."

Your statement sounds controversial.

Anyhow, for something to do the other day I counted the Steves who are Darwin doubters listed at the Discovery Institute (what have they discovered?) and compared this number to the Steves who support evolutionary theory listed at the NCSE website. 13 Steve listed at the DI while there are (as of a few days ago) 1,131 listed at NCSE. Hmmmm.... It seems an overwhelming number of scientists don't doubt Darwin contrary to what IDiots would have us believe.

The video spoofs what are nontroversies which are manufactured controveries in order to advance an issue. "Teach the controversy" is nothing less than an argument to get creation and the creator back into our schools.

The sad think is they lost in Dover, but they will never give up.

"Teach both sides" is a false dilemma. They like to pretend their "side" isn't just one turd out of a huge pile of shit that has been rejected by science.

What? The dumbass from "Christ rode a dinosaur and I have pictures" can't even falsify a couple of pictures to create an air of legitimacy? Any asshole can find a friend with computer graphics skills and mock up some pics of Jesus on a triceratops! The creotards are getting stupider, I tell you.

They should teach the controversy; I thought the Dawkins/Gould gradualism vs. punctuated equilibrium war was fascinating.

Oh, what? Not talking about that controversy? Never mind.

Still laughing at "Scientator". Make sure you read every single written word – could require watching 2 or 3 times.

Dr. Smith somehow reminds me of Jadehawk :o)

I have no problem with "teach both sides" when

...there actually are two sides, as opposed to one, three, four, five, ten, eleventy hundred...

You might be trying to be facetious, but that is not far from Catholic doctrine.

I'm not sure it's official doctrine, but it is what was taught to me – "miserable would a god be who could be proven" by being able to be grasped by the puny intellects of Puny Humans®.

Teaching both sides, when one side is nonsense ?
Chemistry vs Alchemy.
Gravity vs "we stay on the planet because of God's Love!"

this is a bit late in the offering, but I have to mention it...

What I am talking about is the long conceptual chain of proofs and inferences that lead Darwin to his conclusions, and that has to include the historical arguments and observations.

lol.

In the most popular college textbook about evolution, Futuyma's "Evolution", he spends the entire introductory chapter doing just that; establishing the philosophical changes in history that allowed room for the very idea of natural selection as a mechanism.

again, this is the standard textbook on the issue, and has been for decades.