Pharyngula::What was he thinking?

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Monday, February 28, 2005

What was he thinking?

PZ Myers • 25 Comments (last page)

Richard Gallagher has an editorial in The Scientist in which he encourages scientists to embrace the "teach the controversy" mantra of the Intelligent Design creationists. There's a tiny germ of a proper idea in there, that this is an opportunity to expose schoolkids to evolution, but it's also incredibly unrealistic. After enthusiastically telling us that this is a wonderful opportunity to play up evolution, that we can use this to promote good biology, and that students will find evolution more compelling than ID, he brings up his one qualifier:

There is one caveat, and it's a big one: The topics must be taught on a level playing field. Full information on evolution and on intelligent design must be supplied, and there must be no further pressure on curricula or teachers. Given this, I'm in little doubt that the open-minded students of the heart of America will see the strength of evolution as a theory.

I think I want whatever he's been smoking.

Gallagher has not thought this through at all. Exactly what information on intelligent design is to be supplied? Could he possibly name something specifically? There isn't one text on ID that isn't dreck, there aren't any scientific papers published, there's no evidence, there's no science of ID to teach. Are the teachers just supposed to read a declaration that maybe gods or aliens created life on earth, and move on?

This is what irritates the heck out of me. We're supposed to teach science as a process, with consideration of the evidence and logic; we aren't supposed to teach it as dogma, and even the creationists agree with me on that. But what do the ID creationists have to offer but dogma and faint protestations and negative (and largely false) criticisms? I've looked and looked at what they have to offer, and there is nothing to teach. I see this silly happy optimism by Gallagher as founded on a phony premise, that there are two sides to be taught here, and it's simply not the case.

The only thing I found worthwhile in the whole piece was his conclusion.

In addition, scientists should go out of their way to support their local high-school science teachers to present the case for evolution. Scientists must propose their case to as wide an audience as possible. This includes commercial television news, a medium of which scientists have been skeptical. Let's get out there and argue!

Yes, let's. But let's not argue for the side of bad science, as he is promoting. Let's get out there and teach evolution and biology and the scientific method, not the fuzzy ignorant hoodoo of the creationists. And let's reject his worthless compromise.

Jason Rosenhouse rips into this at greater length than I have.

If you came here by way of that link in The Scientist, I will mention that Gallagher has most reprehensibly distorted my point and failed to address any of my criticisms. My comment on his latest editorial is here.

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Comments:

#17322: kelley b. — 02/28 at 04:22 PM
So who makes money off The Scientist these days? Who owns it? Wrepublican, by any chance?

#17323: coturnix — 02/28 at 04:29 PM
Argggggh! Balance, balance, balance. Where is the balance between a mountain of facts on side of the scale and a bunch of hooey opinion on the other?

I am all for using Creationism in teaching as a poster boy of dishonesty in religiously-motivated politics. But not in the biology class. And the quality and quantity of our high-school science teachers is, well, not that good. We have to teach many more of them, before we can trust that they will do a good job in the classroom, including a good job in debunking pseudoscientific nonsense they may encounter in their students' quiestions.

Speaking of TV, whatever happenned to that proposed TV show about scientists? There was quite a lot of noise about it a couple of years back, but nothing came out of it.

#17324: — 02/28 at 04:30 PM
It's possible he's thinking of a curriculum that teaches both "sides" with complete honesty...which would mean basically an all-science curriculum that hammers the flaws in ID. Of course, IDers would then howl that such honesty was obvious bias and demand "equal time."

#17325: — 02/28 at 04:31 PM
I'm all for it. Let's right now mandate that every concept of ID which has been published in the biology literature, gets taught in school.

Absolutely nothing would change, because no ID concepts have been published. The one supposed paper did nothing but mention ID, it did not define any ID concept.

#17326: DarkSyde — 02/28 at 04:41 PM
I'll take the devils advocate position. If the topics were taught competently, I see no real lasting harm in allowing students to debate the topic[s] as a class project. I don't know if that would be strictly appropriate or useful in a general intro science/bio course in Junior High, or High School, science curricula. But possibly it might work in an advanced or Honors science course. Such activity might produce learning among students, critical thinking, and they might end up knowing more about the validity of evo and the duplicity of IDC, in the end.

#17327: PZ Myers — 02/28 at 04:45 PM
OK, devil, so what do I teach?

Seriously. I'm used to getting up in front of a class and showing them what we know and how we figured it out and how we apply it. That's my problem: even if I am kind enough to give these bozos five minutes of my class time, even if I'm willing to sit down for an hour of research and prep to back up that 5 minutes, what do I teach?

Can even Satan come up with a short lesson that isn't a collection of lies that I'd then have to spend the next week correcting?

PZ Myers
Division of Science and Math
University of Minnesota, Morris

#17331: — 02/28 at 06:00 PM
I suggest that biology teachers simply be instructed to append "... maybe God did it." to everything they say. For greater emphasis one might prepend "Elitist academics would have us believe that..."

Example:
"Elitist academics would have us believe that the trabecula would then be an example of a novel structure in evolution, produced by a relatively simple positional shift in the expression domains of a few genes, but maybe God did it."

Math teachers may also simplify their lessons by prepending or replacing complicated proofs with "Because I said so."

"x^n + y^n = z^n has no nonzero integer solutions for n > 2, because I said so."

#17334: DarkSyde — 02/28 at 07:14 PM
I think in college you should teach whatever the course material is. Most college classes are a hell of a lot more specific. And for folks who want instruction in IDC there is no lack of Bible colleges. The cases for public K-12 schools and college are not parallel.

But if one were to teach the facts, just the facts, then obviously ID would get the shit knocked out of it, and I'm sure that's what this cat was assuming would be taught; just the facts.

#17338: Prof. N.U.T. Case — 02/28 at 07:59 PM
Gallagher realizes that high school sophomores have well developed analytical reasoning skills.

Authoritatively yours,

Nutty

#17341: profsynecdoche — 02/28 at 08:17 PM
This "teach the conflicts" idea is an idea that has been around for a while in literary studies. (Although I'm sure it has a long history elsewhere, too.) A big-name literary scholar named Gerald Graff suggested in the 90s that literary scholars should embrace the conflicts of the culture wars and use literary texts to "teach them." So, you don't teach Huck Finn is a book that is racist or a book that is anti-racist; you teach student about these conflicting ways of reading and hopefully students learn about the differing ways of reading, about what is at stake in interpretation, and so on. I'm boiling Graff down here, but you get the idea.

I'm a literary scholar, and I think that this is a fine way to teach literature, but one danger is that you can lose sight of how much power you have when you get to define for your students what "the" conflicts are. And that is what is happening here; creationists are defining the conflicts in a way that is antithetical to scientific process and inquiry. I'm sure that there are conflicts within scientific inquiry that could be very useful in teaching, but this approach in the article you quote is not about teaching the conflicts within science -- it is a way of framing a conflict between science and religion. And that is a conflict that is not part of science itself.

#17343: — 02/28 at 09:21 PM
The mere fact that Gallagher doesn't put "intelligent design theory" in quotes is enough to raise my hackles.

Any scientist who published a widely-circulated print article about "ID theory" without describing why "ID theory" is utterly bogus and without discussing the liars at the Discovery Institute, their "Wedge Strategy," and their attempt to redefine science and disparage scientists should be taken behind the woodshed and mercilessly horsewhipped. Failure to raise these points effectively amounts to a disservice which implicitly gives credibility to "ID theory" as merely "inadequate" or "immature" when it is solid crap all the way through.

#17349: — 02/28 at 11:49 PM
That's why I've been saying "Teach the facts first."

Think about it. Spend two or three weeks drilling evolution in -- how it works, why it works, how scientists figured it out.

Then compare it to ID.

So no the one hand you'd have the story of Darwin's incredible collecting abilities, and how he came to see evolution worked, with dozens of his examples of dozens of others.

On the other hand we have Michael Behe at a conference of theologians in Dallas in 1991 trying to figure out how to put a spanner in the works of evolution, and coming up with "irreducible complexity" -- and then the Wedge document.

On the one hand we'd show the effects of evolution science on medicine and health, horticulture, agriculture, animal husbandry, etc.

On the other hand we'd compare it to the press release output from the Discovery Institute.

On the one hand we'd have the kids read and critique one of Ernst Mayer's books. We'd have them track down the footnotes, and see how science is done in a popular vein. We could introduce the Scout Law as a standard of noble behaviro, and show how Mayr lives up to it.

Then we'd give them Jonathan Wells' book against evolution and let them run down the footnotes in the chapter inveighing against Kettlewell. The kids would consider how well Wells measures up to -- or crashes and burns on -- the first point of the Scout Law, "Trustworthy."

It could work. It could work.

[Mild sarcasm mode off]

I DO Think someone should write up a curriculum that critically examines the errors and problems in ID. That should be available as a lesson plan for Kansas, etc.

#17350: — 03/01 at 12:02 AM
Well, I always enjoy playing devils advocate, and DS is as fine a Devil as we are likely to ever find. The impulse to compare and demolish is strong, but high school students are basically in a position where they are taught well established truths in most subjects. Math classes dont spend time questioning the reality or prime numbers. Facts is facts. Some type of critical thinking class for inquisitive students might fly, but I still think it has no place in an actual science class. Next thing you would have to prove that 'the designer' didnt do it. This is the standard they are after, that facts dont have primacy in this debate, but beliefts do.

#17351: — 03/01 at 12:19 AM
sorry 'bout the typos

That should be 'dont spend time questioning the reality of prime numbers'

and at the end 'beliefs do'.

#17354: — 03/01 at 03:22 AM
Are the teachers just supposed to read a declaration that maybe gods or aliens created life on earth, and move on?

That's the thin end of the wedge. If you only teach that part but leave out all the stuff on the fat side of the wedge, then you would be hiding something and depriving the poor kids of a decent education. It's all part of a big strategy, you see.

#17356: — 03/01 at 04:13 AM
The thing I can never get my head around is why there is so much credence attached to the idea that that schools are the proper forum for cutting edge scientific debate. Setting aside for a moment the lack of scientific content in ID and creationism, you don't teach M-theory in schools do you? And yet M-theory is not only testable (in principle), but is expounded by some of the world's leading theoretical physicists. Science education in schools is for three purposes - to teach the scientific method, to develop critical thinking (as with all education) and to convey the basic facts and laws of the universe to the best of our current understanding. I don't see a place there for ID, even if it were a proper scientific theory struggling for acceptance.

#17358: — 03/01 at 05:57 AM
As a highschool sophomore (liberal private school, mind you), my biology teacher assigned us the task of creating a story or an explanation for the existence of life. The meandering, quasi-spiritualistic, anti-rational rebel that I was, I had done a bunch of reading about intelligent design, including Paley's watchmaker parable (who could blame me for being seduced by their scientific sounding jargon with terms like specified complexity), and discussed what I had learned while stubornly upholding the fact that creationism was a viable and unavoidable worldview. The teacher (a great one) was fine about it, and did not condemn or belittle my views, because my 'creation theory' was no less absurd than the other students 'creation fantasies'. At that age, I wasn't particularly sure either way, and I wouldn't have taken kindly to any abuse or condescension, but I recognized that it was the biology teacher's job to teach evolution and my job to accept it or reject it.

I think the entire idea of the exercize, aside from being fun and creative, was to teach 'the controversy' in a way that did not require him to introduce any alternate views explicitly. Rather, the students were free to fantasize, theorize and proselytize in their ideas, while the teacher nodded uncritically and non-judgementally. This seems like the truly liberal-minded position on the matter. If serpents, aliens, virgin-queers or yawehs are brought up, so be it. Students should have every right to express these views, serious or not, but by no means should a biology teacher be required to utter the word 'God' in his classroom.

For those who would advocate that high school science instructors throw a thick blanket on creationism and try to keep it outside the classroom at all costs, or that they should attempt to explain why science is better than creationism, I think you have the wrong idea. All one can really do is to allow science to be as bold, exciting and self evident as it can be, and give students the freedom to organize concepts in their mind as they mature.

For those who would advocate that science teachers give equal treatment to nonsensical gibberish penned by Christians, just go blow a sock you dweebs.

#17359: Bill Ware — 03/01 at 07:38 AM
In the articles about the Dover School System and their ID statement, it was mentioned that the students had two 45 minute classes on evolution in science class. That's not much time to teach anything more that the basics.

#17360: — 03/01 at 08:03 AM
Just out of interest, exactly how much "science class" would a high school student get on average? In my (British) school, science was split into Physics, Chemistry and Biology (as well as optional courses like Design & Technology and Electronics). If I remember correctly, between the ages of 13 and 15 I had about 2 hours of each every week. US terms are much longer than British ones, from what I gather, yet there seems to be very little time to teach any science.

#17363: paperwight — 03/01 at 09:54 AM
GY - We don't get that much science class.

I went to a good (now much degraded) public (in the American sense) high school. If I recall correctly, I took 4 science classes: one each year, for the full school year of about 180 school days. The classes were, from 9th to 12th grade (14 to 18), "Earth Science", Chemistry, (Advanced Placement) Biology, and Physics. Of those, at least Physics was an elective, and I believe that tbe Biology was as well.

#17373: — 03/01 at 11:29 AM
How many hours a week/year though?

You're telling me you didn't even have to take physics at all? You could have gone through the entire system without learning, say, f=ma? I hate to say it, but if that's the case, maybe there are other priorities than keeping ID out.

#17380: paperwight — 03/01 at 01:13 PM
GY - It's been a long time, but I *think* every class in my HS was 50 minutes every weekday, so that would be roughly 4 hours each week, and 150 hours over the course of each year. And yes, you have that right on physics -- it was a Senior Year "brain" course in my HS. Not many people took it.

Similarly math in my HS started at either Algrebra 1, Geometry, or some remedial arithmetic, depending on where you'd finished up in 8th Grade. The progression would run Algebra I, Geometry, Algebra II, Trigonometry. I think that you weren't required to go beyond Algebra II, or 3 years of mathematics, whichever came first for you.

Generally, the course offerings ended at trigonometry most years, though occasionally there were enough people who had gotten through trig by their junior year that they'd offer calculus instead of sending people to the local community college for it.

#17411: — 03/01 at 06:15 PM
Via The Carpetbagger

Bush Science official admits the ID is not science ..

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/003642.html

Speaking at the annual conference of the National Association of Science Writers, Marburger fielded an audience question about "Intelligent Design" (ID), the latest supposedly scientific alternative to Charles Darwin's theory of descent with modification. The White House's chief scientist stated point blank, "Intelligent Design is not a scientific theory." And that's not all – as if to ram the point home, Marburger soon continued, "I don't regard Intelligent Design as a scientific topic."

#17482: Mutant Cat — 03/02 at 01:41 PM
Jake, I wrote an alternative creation theory, only not for school, I think I might have got into trouble, I didn't go to a terribly liberal school. Which brings to mind the other problem with the whole teaching both sides issue. Both sides? There are enough different theories of life on earth with all the established religions and when you add all of the theories that just people on this blog have pulled out of their ass so to speak, the list grows.

#20243: — 03/28 at 01:26 PM
I was on the panel for an ID debate at a science fiction convention last year. My simple point to its proponents was, "We will offer religion equal time in science class when churches agree to offer science equal time on Sunday morning. We don't teach math in literature class, we don't teach art in history class, so why should we teach religion in science class?" That shut down most arguments, and those that remained were slammed by Mutant Cat's point, above, that there aren't TWO versions but THOUSANDS. How do we give them all equal time? We can't. Perhaps a comparative religion class would be a worthwhile requirement, but that's a social studies thing that has nothing to do with the science department.

Teachers have no power to fully indoctrinate students. People come home from English class (high school, college, whatever) saying "That guy's full of it" about this or that book read, for example. And I've done the same with an economics professor and a history professor on this or that particular topic, but still got something out of the class. If a family truly wants to perpetuate the creationist/ID myth in its household, it is free to do so. They just better be aware that they're radically limiting their kids' future career opportunities in the process.

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Monday, February 28, 2005

What was he thinking?

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