painted wolf
Grey Muzzle
Not to mention Astrology, Homeopathy, Flat Earth and Geocentrism, demons causing illness and Alchemy.
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Should ID be taught in public schools?
- Thread starter tomspug
- Start date
The Voice of Reason
Doctor of Thinkology
Well, I just have to fight for the inclusion of phrenology. Phrenology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mankind's one true chance of understanding ourselves.
One has to wonder why Bush, Palin, and their ilk haven't fought vehemently for it.
Mankind's one true chance of understanding ourselves.
One has to wonder why Bush, Palin, and their ilk haven't fought vehemently for it.
robtex
Veteran Member
this thread is really long and I don't know if it has been mentioned or not but ANY DECISION on our education system should be made with the idea of opportunity cost in mind. Keep in mind that a child has a finite day to learn a finite number of topics that will have varying impacts on his or her post schooling life. It is important to note that most people will have very little or perhaps no education after their high school days and that their ability to function in society had the possibility of being impacted by the course-work chosen in grades 9-12.
With that in mind if a kid is taking say 6 classes per year year for 4 years, for a total of 24 classes any inclusion, factoring in opportunity cost should and could only be justified as the detriment of other courses that would be bumped to include it.
To put this to an example say in grade 11 a child is given the mandatory classes of one science, one history, one English, one economics course and two electives ranging from home economics to a foreign language
any proposed offering would have to be justified as a reasonable competitor and possible replacement for either a mandatory class or an elective depending on how classified.
I would note that in terms of ID the class is basically a "anti-science" proposal and not only takes the place of things that likely are much more important in functioning in society than a class in faith-based ideology but derails and undermines a branch of education that has been historically found by educators to be of extremely high quality.
In addition ID being considered as indivisible to morality by its proponents integrates a new problem of mandating a faith-based morality system into an educational system and teachers, whom already have course-loads, after-school functions related to their occupation and state standards now have to navigate a theologically-based moral system in addition to their other job functions.
A further issue of ID is that is primary a Christian-based, and to a lessor extend Islamic based idea non-Christians and Muslims will have their educational needs marginalized by their non-subscription to those faiths--assuming if it were mandatory as opposed to an elective.
All in all I don't see any value from teaching it when compared to current curriculum and would much rather have an extra economics, history or political science class included in the educational system over a religious perspective's class.
With that in mind if a kid is taking say 6 classes per year year for 4 years, for a total of 24 classes any inclusion, factoring in opportunity cost should and could only be justified as the detriment of other courses that would be bumped to include it.
To put this to an example say in grade 11 a child is given the mandatory classes of one science, one history, one English, one economics course and two electives ranging from home economics to a foreign language
any proposed offering would have to be justified as a reasonable competitor and possible replacement for either a mandatory class or an elective depending on how classified.
I would note that in terms of ID the class is basically a "anti-science" proposal and not only takes the place of things that likely are much more important in functioning in society than a class in faith-based ideology but derails and undermines a branch of education that has been historically found by educators to be of extremely high quality.
In addition ID being considered as indivisible to morality by its proponents integrates a new problem of mandating a faith-based morality system into an educational system and teachers, whom already have course-loads, after-school functions related to their occupation and state standards now have to navigate a theologically-based moral system in addition to their other job functions.
A further issue of ID is that is primary a Christian-based, and to a lessor extend Islamic based idea non-Christians and Muslims will have their educational needs marginalized by their non-subscription to those faiths--assuming if it were mandatory as opposed to an elective.
All in all I don't see any value from teaching it when compared to current curriculum and would much rather have an extra economics, history or political science class included in the educational system over a religious perspective's class.
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Imagist
Worshipper of Athe.
Intelligent design in its purest form doesn't specify who the designer was; therefore intelligent design includes those creation myths. Intelligent design is to Christian creationism as theism is to Christianity.
Besides, I don't think anyone will be offended if we choose NOT to specifically dismiss their creation myth.
Even if they were offended, we have to accept the fact that we can't possibly include every religion; there are simply too many to include any more than the most commonly practiced religions in most discussions. Many discussions overrepresent monotheism, but that's another issue.
Imagist
Worshipper of Athe.
Education isn't just to improve post-schooling life. I think that high school graduates should be able to speak and vote intelligently based on political issues. Intelligent design is, unfortunately, a political issue right now, and failure to show students its fundamental flaws leaves a gap in those students' education.
I don't think that anyone is arguing that a full class on intelligent design be added. Personally I am arguing that a brief section on the flaws of intelligent design be included in biology curriculum, no more than one or two lessons.
rojse
RF Addict
Let's include the Flying Spaghetti Monster creation myth, too.
rojse
RF Addict
In theory I agree, but since the vast majority of proponets are Christian, I disagree in practice.
Imagist
Worshipper of Athe.
A textbook need not address the Christian-specific elements of ID in its most common form in order to reject it. In fact, I would strongly oppose specifically attacking Christianity in a public school textbook. Doing so would limit freedom of religion. There's a key difference between attacking an erroneous scientific hypothesis and attacking an erroneous religion in a governmental capacity.
Magic Man
Reaper of Conversation
The problem is that it's the Christians that want it added. I'm not sure it should be added either way, but it really is just a ploy to push Christianity. Even if it's claimed that it's not supporting or rejecting Christianity, the fact is that it would be used to specifically support it. It's like a pervert putting a camera in someone's bedroom, claiming that it will only be used in case of emergency, when we all know it'll be used for a lot more than that.
Really?
So theism is Christianity, only with explicit references to Christian theology pulled out in an attempt to let it pass the Church/State separation test of the United States' Constitution?
Your comment goes to the heart of the Flying Spaghetti Monster parody: the intelligent design movement presents a specific religious claim about the origins of life, and it's a claim that has no more merit than any other specific religious claim about the origins of life, whether it's God's hand a la Genesis, the golden egg of the celesial bird Nyx, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster's Noodly Appendage. Because of this, ID should be treated identically to all these other claims that have just as much support - IOW, the only defensible positions on the matter are to include all of them in the science class or to include none of them.
Personally, I think that if you ensure that students have a thorough understanding of evolutionary science, then the fundamental flaws of ID become apparent.
Seeing how ID has much less merit than, for example, the phlogiston theory of combustion, I think somewhat less time and effort is warranted for ID than for phlogiston.
When it came to phlogiston in my science classes, the coverage of it in my science class amounted to zero classroom time and a single page of assigned reading from the textbook that covered various disproven theories and talked about phlogiston for about a paragraph. This material was not included on any subsequent tests or exams. If ID were covered at a level somewhat less than that, I suppose that I could live with it.
crystalonyx
Well-Known Member
I simply don't believe teaching ID can be handled on an objective level, on a general basis, at the secondary level of education, leave it as an elective in college.
Imagist
Worshipper of Athe.
The inclusion for ID that I'm supporting is in the form of a disproof. Christians don't want that more than other people, they want it less than others.
Magic Man
Reaper of Conversation
OK, so then it's not part of this discussion. That's not what's being pushed, so it's not going to happen.
Imagist
Worshipper of Athe.
Yerda
Veteran Member
We should teach about religion. ID might be unscientific, but if folk believe it I'd rather know what it is. Likewise I'd I'm glad I know about Ramadan (and Eid) and Hanukkah.
At this point, I think that any introduction of ID into the curriculum of any subject in a public school would end up being used as a foot in the door for the state sanction of religion. Because of that, I think the harm associated with ID would outweigh the benefit of learning about other people's beliefs... at least for now.
logician
Well-Known Member
No, we shouldn't, not in a public school setting, the chance for bias and prejudicial teaching to students is just too great.
