Is this elitism?
Quick: Define miosis and mitosis. Explain mitochondrion and chloroplast. Now briefly, what’s RNA?
The biology teachers assembled at the University of Colorado last week for a seminar on teaching evolution know most Americans are clueless about basic science.
They find our ignorance exasperating.
But it also explains a lot.
With most people content with being scientifically illiterate, it’s no wonder so many believe intelligent design is a scientific theory.
It unequivocally is not.
It’s a religious belief, a political issue or an abomination destined to cripple Americans in global scientific achievement, depending on your point of view. But it is not a legitimate counterpart to the theory of evolution.
She’s hit on a central reason why Intelligent Design creationism has acquired a popular following in the US—good old-fashioned home-grown ignorance. It’s more than that, though. I expect that in the case of some of pious philosophers and right-wing con artists of the Discovery Institute, they would be able to answer those questions at the top (she set the bar low…those are extraordinarily basic questions in cell biology), and could probably recite some other simple facts about cells, too. In those cases, we also have to recognize that there are people with an ideological axe to grind, who have consciously gone out to acquire some superficial knowledge about the discipline so they can destroy it. You can’t get more blatant than Jonathan Wells on that one.
“Father’s [Moon’s] words, my studies, and my prayers convinced me that I should devote my life to destroying Darwinism, just as many of my fellow Unificationists had already devoted their lives to destroying Marxism. When Father chose me to enter a PhD program in 1978, I welcomed the opportunity to prepare myself for battle.”
One part of the recipe is a set of leaders who aim to demolish a scientific principle, not because it is wrong, but because they don’t like its consequences. Another part is a citizenry (and politicians) sufficiently ignorant that they don’t recognize the con job the leaders pull on them. The US has both.
Carman’s column is a good read that makes an important point strongly, but there is one little piece to which I object.
…some at the seminar suggested that creationism or its politically correct descendant, intelligent design, should be taught in social studies, history or philosophy class along with other creation ideas such as those of the Iroquois, the Chinese and the Egyptians.
As a biologist, I admit to sometimes thinking that would be a fair compromise. But as a professor at a liberal arts institution who respects his colleagues in the social sciences, history, and philosophy…well, that’s not nice. Intelligent Design creationism is a poor and artificial philosophy with no respectable history, and old school creationism is junk religion. They don’t belong in a serious curriculum.
And yeah, that is elitism. If elitism means wanting all of my compatriots to be educated and informed, and expecting that policy will be set by those who actually know something about the subject, then I’m guilty.
August 21st, 2005 at 8:35 pm
We should teach…
“….other creation ideas such as those of the Iroquois, the Chinese and the Egyptians.”
Wha???
But who will teach the the ultimate truth that the entire physical universe was created only 6 minutes ago in the Vast Hypercomputer that hosts the ineffable Master Matrix?
August 22nd, 2005 at 6:32 am
Well done. It’s about time someone said that he’s proud to want the best for his fellow Americans instead of indulging a manipulative drive for ignorance.
August 22nd, 2005 at 9:21 am
Yes, ignorance is the problem, but what’s the solution?
Face it, no one is ever going to make Americans science literate. Most find it boring and far too complicated. Heck, I find a lot of it boring!
What is worse than the science illiteracy is the ignorance related to how evolution is viewed by the scientific community and other authorities in the area. Apparently something like 45% of the folks in the US think SCIENTISTS believe evolution is debatable!
The problem with scientists is that they focus on the bogus arguments which the average person can’t follow so they get the impression that there are in fact two sides to the question. Heck, I can’t explain mitochondrion and chloroplast either BUT I do know how those that can view evolution.
There is too much knowledge in the world for everyone to be literate in everything, but we should at least understand the views of the reputable experts in the field.
So let’s stop worrying about teaching people science and concentrate on teaching them what those who know science think about evolution and ID.
August 22nd, 2005 at 11:16 am
Who objects to Creationism and/or I.D. theory being safely taught in Poly Sci, American Anthropology, or the philosophy of wester relgion survey classes?
I mean, if Oberlin, a coeducational arts and science college, offered a 1 credit class on the 90’s TV show “My So-Called Life”, I think justifcation could be made for religious extremism grappled with in the classroom.
caynazzo
August 22nd, 2005 at 3:09 pm
You know, there is a real bottom line to this issue that is not being discussed. 99.9% of the people who are sponsoring what they are calling this “intelligent design” theory are being hyper-disingenuous. They are really creationists talking in code. But — Deeper this rabbit hole goes! 99.9% of the money that is sponsoring creationist theory which is being masqueraded as this “intelligent design” comes from neocon imperialists who are merely using it as a wedge into the minds of their poorbucker victims.
August 22nd, 2005 at 3:58 pm
The truth is that American culture and society have been hostile to scientific understanding for at least the last 80 years, ever since the age of amateur science done in basement laboratories ended. Yes, we want instant cures for all diseases, space travel etc. but we want results, not understanding. Anyone who writes a formula on a blackboard must be an elitist. We donā€™t want to grapple with complex questions and we are easily swayed by simple slogans like death tax. Any educated person should be able to explain the relationship between chloroplast and mitochondrion at some level, and should be able to define and graph an imaginary number.. How can people have any opinion about global climate change if they donā€™t know 10th grade science? This shameful ignorance canā€™t be blamed on religion or creationists, but it facilitates both. Our schools deserve a lot of the blame.
Itā€™s very important to point out when people start ranting about Darwinists and Darwinism that physicists are not called Einsteinians or even Maxwellians, computer scientists are not called Babbageans, etc. Evolution is much more than Darwin, just as physicists is much more than Einstein. All individual scientists have had a few unsound ideas- Rutherford was sure that X rays had to be a fraud. Science eventually discards crazy ideas, religion much less often.
August 22nd, 2005 at 7:12 pm
Jessica Stern in _Terror in the Name of God_ wrote:
“Asked about the biggest threat to their groups’ survival, a militant says that ‘free secular education for all’ leading to an ‘increase in the literacy rate’ is the gravest threat to the survival of the jihadi groups in Pakistan.”
That goes for the good ole USA as well.
How about an open source, all media, world-wide free literacy campaign as an act of civilian civil defense?
August 24th, 2005 at 7:06 pm
No one else sees the irony? She surely meant to say M-E-IOSIS not miosis. Meiosis and mitosis are regularly compared and contrasted in high school biology because they are both forms of cell division.