Re: Draft: "Why We Should Teach About Creationism in Science Classes"

From: cactus (baldemar.malnariz_at_ubadlands.edu)
Date: 03/13/05 

Date: Sun, 13 Mar 2005 09:33:13 GMT

Cygnus X-1 wrote:
> Still trying to track down some references (and pointers from those in
> the group would be appreciated). References are linked on the web site
> version (see bottom of the main page).
>
> =======
> Why We Should Teach About Creationism in Science Classes
> W.T. Bridgman, Ph.D.
> cygnusx1@mac.com
> "Dealing with Creationism in Astronomy",
> http://homepage.mac.com/cygnusx1/
>
> Draft
>
> In recent years, the proponents of teaching "Intelligent Design" and
> it's precursor "Scientific Creationism" have redoubled their efforts to
> impose their pseudo-science in the classrooms of our public schools.
>
> Yet, in all the turmoil created by these battles in the school boards
> and courts, there is one solution that has been overlooked, or perhaps
> avoided. In the true spirit of turning a problem into an opportunity,
> if we wish to improve the critical thinking skills of our students,
> "Scientific Creationism" provides many examples of a pseudo-science
> that can be analyzed in detail to teach students why it just doesn't
> work.
>
> My particular field is astrophysics, and over the past ten years I've
> examined a number of claims by the "Young Earth Creationists" (YEC) who
> object to modern cosmology's evidence that the universe is on the order
> of 14 billion years old. Creationist "theories" such as claims that
> the speed of light was significantly higher in the recent past (to
> solve the light-travel time of seeing galaxies billions of light-years
> away in a less than ten-thousand year old universe) have errors so
> obvious that they can be addressed by students with a high school (or
> advanced middle school) understanding of physics or mathematics. YEC
> claims using general relativity might have to be dealt with in
> undergraduate to graduate-level physics classes, but nonetheless will
> better prepare future physicists for dealing with these issues. Many
> amateur and professional scientists have analyzed creationist claims
> and the results are available through a number of resources such as
> Talk.Origins.
>
> In college level physics classes, many Creationist claims can be
> examined directly. Gigabytes of astrophysical data are already freely
> available online to support such a project. For primary and secondary
> education, curriculum developers need to be able to convert the
> analyses of pseudo-science claims into workable lesson plans and then
> deliver the resources and necessary training to the schools and
> teachers. This is not an easy task, but the price of NOT doing it is
> the loss of American leadership in science and engineering. I have
> done some work from the astrophysical side of the problem, but
> geologists and biologists need to take a similar approach.
>
> Advocates of "Creation Science" and "Intelligent Design" fear such an
> approach. While it's not received much attention, some have publicly
> admitted that their 'theory' (actually a hypothesis) has had no success
> in the laboratory. That's why they fall back to "teaching the
> controversy" as it is an easy way to avoid this problem while they try
> to maneuver other components of their agenda into the classroom (this
> is why the Discovery Institute describes it as the "Wedge Strategy").
> "Intelligent Design", as a real scientific theory, failed a century
> ago, and belongs in the dustbin of failed theories with the
> luminiferous aether and the plumb-pudding model of the atom. The claim
> that "Evolution is a theory, not a fact" is just playing games with
> words. Electromagnetism is a theory. Quantum mechanics is a theory.
> Even gravity is a theory. I've yet to see anyone demonstrate a useful
> better antenna design, a better semiconductor component design, or
> develop a trajectory to send a spacecraft through the Solar System
> without using these "theories". We've sent spacecraft to distant
> regions of our own Solar System, but I've yet to see a Biblical
> geocentrist compute the trajectory to send a spacecraft to the Moon or
> Mars. This might be an important issue for human crews in the
> not-to-distant future.
>
> Creationists like to claim that we can't "know" what's happening or
> what happened in distant regions of the cosmos or far back in time,
> yet physicists have done this from the time of Galileo with great
> success. Newton's theory of gravity was explaining how planets and
> stars move in empty space nearly three centuries before machines and
> humans could travel in space to test it. Einstein's revision to that
> theory was explaining observations in the distant cosmos years before
> some of the predictions could be tested in Earth-based experiments
> and decades before it's effects were incorporated into the Global
> Positioning System (GPS). Quantum theory was explaining atomic
> behavior in rarefied regions of distant space and the incredible
> high-density structure of stellar remnants such as white dwarf and
> neutron stars decades before the conditions could be even partially
> reproduced in the laboratory, even before it became a key component in
> the development of microelectronics. When astrophysicists discovered a
> deficit in the number of neutrinos emitted from the Sun in the late
> 1960s, called the Solar Neutrino Problem, Creationists touted this as
> evidence that the Sun was not powered by nuclear reactions and the 4.5
> billion year age of the Sun was not possible. Real scientists checked
> their calculations and concluded that a neutrino mass (up to that time,
> the neutrino was assumed to be massless), far smaller than was possible
> to measure at the time, could explain the deficit. In recent years,
> we've been able to confirm this effect in Earth-based experiments.
> We've even discovered properties in the atomic nucleus based on
> cosmological constraints. Cosmology isn't just something that happens
> 'out there' - it has often provided guidance on physical phenomena
> years before controlled laboratory experiments were possible. There
> have been no similar successes or utility from Creation "science" or
> "Intelligent Design". Cosmology has real implications for our
> technology and life on Earth.
>
> Since the dawn of the atomic age in WWII, science has enjoyed the
> grateful generosity of taxpaying public. Scientists have used this
> generosity to unlock the tiniest secrets of the atom to the most
> distant regions of the cosmos and has generated useful products and
> methodologies in the process.
>
> In spite of all this advancement, the American scientific community has
> left behind an intellectual vacuum in the education system that
> crackpots and con-artists have been all too willing to fill. The
> scientific community has ignored this growing problem and now it
> threatens to infect our society. Our nation would not be the first to
> take this self-destructive path. Stalin dismissed Darwinian selection
> in favor of Lysenko's theories on adaptation, allowing the political
> process, instead of the scientific process, define the science. When
> they applied Lysenko's ideas to Soviet agriculture, crop failures
> ensued. This was the reason for the U.S. grain sales to the Soviet
> Union in the 1970s. Their resulting inability to feed their own people
> was a contributor to their collapse. The Nazis despised "Jewish
> Physics" and touted their own "Aryan Physics". The famous "Einstein
> Letter", advocating the development of the atomic bomb, was sent to FDR
> in August of 1939. At that time, all the research with nuclear energy
> weren't much more than tabletop experiments. The only indication that
> the energy release would extrapolate to levels necessary for an atomic
> bomb were the successes at that time of explaining the energy
> production in the Sun and other stars. "Aryan Physics" touted the
> superiority of experimentalists over the 'extrapolations' of theorists,
> and (thankfully) may have hindered their own thinking on such a weapon
> .
>
> And we don't need to limit the debunking to creationism. There are a
> plethora of pseudo-science claims with their adherents, many who post
> their ramblings on the World Wide Web. A perusal of Crank dot Net
> yields a cornucopia of pseudoscientific claims from free-energy scams
> to "proofs" that relativity is wrong, with a broad range of
> sophistication. Teaching students how to analyze these claims with
> real science gives them a valuable tool not only for their professional
> future but also for their role as citizens in a
> technologically-advanced society.
>
> I've raised this issue with scientists and teachers who express
> reluctance to address debunking pseudo-science in the classroom.
> However, the scientific community can no longer afford the luxury of
> letting this battle play out in the courts and hoping for the best.
> Over the past five years, this problem as grown from a single state to
> challenges all over the United States. The approach I propose gives
> the scientific community the chance to take control of the issue rather
> than continuing in this guerilla war strategy of the Creationists.
>
> The scientific community holds all the cards in this debate, it's time
> we play them.
> ---
> Acknowledgements: The author would like to express appreciation to all
> those who reviewed drafts of this document and provided citations.
> ======
> Dealing with Creationism in Astronomy
> http://homepage.mac.com/cygnusx1
> cygnusx1@mac.com
> "They're trained to believe, not to know. Belief can be manipulated.
> Only knowledge is dangerous." --Frank Herbert, "Dune Messiah"
>

Creationism should not be taught in science classes because:
* It's not science. It should no more be taught in science class than
magical incantations to turn lead into gold.
* Any publicity that the creationists receive is good for them. Never
wrestle with a pig - you get dirty and the pig likes it.
* As someone pointed out, debunking it may offend someone's religious
sensibilities. This is not a good thing because religious doctrines,
such as creationism, should not be discussed in class, except for
religious classes. It therefore should never appear in class so that it
would not have to be debunked.
* The farther it is kept from any standard curriculum, the harder the
creationists have to work to get it anywhere near a school. Even
mentioning it in a curriculum or policy document gives them a foot in
the door, or a wedge for a wedge issue.
* Even bringing it up forces debate away from the important issues, such
as how best to teach a science curriculum

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