What Causes or Motivates the Anti-scientists?

[oldbadger]

The problem is that Creationism would not be taught in such a way as to engender research and creative thinking - especially not in Texas. Most children in Texas, old enough to be in an evolution/creationism class, have already had creationism beaten into their brains. The only reason Creos want it taught in schools is to give it a cloak of credibility.

Oh, it's a big bad world, full of agendas, politics and crazy ideas.... for sure.
And surely, many Texas kids will have been spoon fed into all manner of strange ideas. Look........ around here (Kent, England) kids feel that they can't be seen at school unless they are wearing the right brand of trainers. I don't know which group would be more strange.

But if anybody thinks that they can march into a Texas fundy-Christian school and start TELLING kids to think a different way, then they've lost the plot on teaching kids.

If the lesson-plan includes a wide range of folklore, cultures, beliefs...... and, hell, some science ( ) then a % of those children will start to ask questions.

Kids can't ask questions when they're being talked at.

I'm really fearful of starting a real firefight about this, but there's an even tougher question than the genesis/evolution education one. Some States (or schools?) wanted to offer alternative theories to the holocaust for kids to investigate, and threads on RF went red-hot over that. But again, kids that research for themselves remember their own personal search-journeys and findings for most of their lives, and individual investigation wins, every time.

Every generation tries to guide, push, beat, entreat.... its kids into its own frame of mind, and every generation of kids discards most of it as junk. A retired University Lecturer (English Literature) lives around the corner and we chat as we walk our dogs. She's so upset about modern language that she really could do with psycho-therapy to help her. She forgets that the English language bears little resemblance to English in Chaucer's time. Some kid described a passing sports car as 'well-sick' within her hearing and she couldn't stop ranting about it for days.

Our ideas about junior education are still rubbish.....

 

[Altfish]

Hi..........
I don't think that the whole purpose of science is advancement. Whilst science can produce excellent advancements it can also produce WMDs for tyrants, for example.

It is still advancement; the fact that an 'evil' use has been found for a discovery does not make the discovery wrong. Again it is the applied side of science, usually driven by tyrants and governments, which is at fault.

I can see your point about how Grenfell happened, and I can recognise who bad minds can lie on behalf of science, but that is my point about this thread and 'anti-science' folks. Too many people preen themselves with the title of 'scientist' and also 'Intellectual', it's almost a fashion statement these days......

They do not understand the implications of their value engineering. I am an engineer, but I bow to the better knowledge of Fire Safety Experts.

Already on this thread we have seen members who feel this way, one feels that most civil and mechanical engineers should be titled 'technicians' and that many other 'science' titles are invalid........ valid science is only that which operates under the scientific-method. We have heard about 'Pop science', pseudo-science, soft sciences, and my own 'truth-pill sciences'........ and you yourself have shown that political expedience and cut-price work (claiming to be science?) is yet another deviant.

Engineers understand some sc.
One lesson I learnt early on was it is very important to understand the limits of your competence.

So much of all this shows that science needs to discipline itself and the others who would hide under its name before it can point fingers at religion (for example). And I have no agenda.......... I don't believe in a literal Genesis.

Science doesn't need to discipline itself, it is science's funders who need to do that. You could argue that some scientists shouldn't take some of the money offered as the funders are only interested in one outcome, irrespective of what the science finds.

 

[Audie]

Absolutely. And if the schooling is in US States, then various Indian traditions could be included.

When we tell youth what and how to think, it doesn't work.

Just dont get the idea you are likely to ever be right again.

 

[Thermos aquaticus]

But I liked the idea and I'll tell you why...... when children research for themselves they have more respect for their own personal findings, rather than being told what to think and believe.

Most adults I know are incapable of understanding peer reviewed papers, so how is a 9th grader going to be capable of understanding these same papers?

Individual Investigation beats Institutional Indoctrination, every time.

Then why send them to school in the first place? Just give them a library card and be done with it.

 

[Polymath257]

Then why send them to school in the first place? Just give them a library card and be done with it.

Hey! It worked well for me!

 

[Thermos aquaticus]

They'll be able to witness all of that, go to all of that, do it all, experience it......... because the technologists have given them virtual reality to experience it all, as witnesses. Yesterday morning, because I'd seen an old film the evening before, I walked RIGHT AROUND the site of the Alamo, looking in from various streets and entrances. And then I went inside, viewing the place through other people's camera lenses. Virtually I went there........ whilst drinking tea in Kent, England.

Do you think you could rediscover the double helix structure of DNA all on your own? Do you think 9th graders should be doing x-ray crystallography?

The whole point of school is to learn what the scientists before you discovered so that you can stand on their shoulders and add to our knowledge.

If you tell kids what they can and can't do, they'll do what they think.........

They will do what they want until they get a report card with F's, and then they will find that they need to follow what the teacher is teaching.

Well the specialists don't see it that way.

Yes, they do. There is little to no disagreement about how the initial and current expansion of the universe has proceeded. The Big Bang theory is a theory of how our universe expanded, not how it originated.

By all means the BB must be included in any such studies, but all of the specialists' opinions would need to be included for the children to consider. Teaching is a totally differing discipline to lecturing.

The problem with creationism is that the people pushing creationism are not specialists. They are pushing bad science, and they usually don't understand the science they are arguing against.

There is also a pragmatic view that one needs to take. If a high school student wants to pursue a career in the biological sciences they don't need to know anything about creationism. However, they do need to learn about evolution because it is the foundation on which the rest of biology is built. In the same way, students wanting to pursue a career in astrophysics don't have to learn about magical leprechauns that smash protons together. However, they may want to understand the process of nuclear fusion in stars.

 

[Audie]

Do you think you could rediscover the double helix structure of DNA all on your own? Do you think 9th graders should be doing x-ray crystallography?

The whole point of school is to learn what the scientists before you discovered so that you can stand on their shoulders and add to our knowledge.



They will do what they want until they get a report card with F's, and then they will find that they need to follow what the teacher is teaching.



Yes, they do. There is little to no disagreement about how the initial and current expansion of the universe has proceeded. The Big Bang theory is a theory of how our universe expanded, not how it originated.



The problem with creationism is that the people pushing creationism are not specialists. They are pushing bad science, and they usually don't understand the science they are arguing against.

There is also a pragmatic view that one needs to take. If a high school student wants to pursue a career in the biological sciences they don't need to know anything about creationism. However, they do need to learn about evolution because it is the foundation on which the rest of biology is built. In the same way, students wanting to pursue a career in astrophysics don't have to learn about magical leprechauns that smash protons together. However, they may want to understand the process of nuclear fusion in stars.

The fellow with the flattened out hound avatar
is just one of the countless people, educators and
non educators alike who think they know what is
wrong with "the education system" and how to fix it.

I've a notion that, given a free hand to fix it,they
would soon be sorry they started and so would the
rest of us.

 

[ecco]

The whole point of school is to learn what the scientists before you discovered so that you can stand on their shoulders and add to our knowledge.

I would change to word "school" to "education" since, hopefully, education continues long after one leaves school. I know it does for some of us.

 

[Thermos aquaticus]

I would change to word "school" to "education" since, hopefully, education continues long after one leaves school. I know it does for some of us.

I agree. However, 9th graders have no idea where to start.

 

[oldbadger]

I am an engineer, but I bow to the better knowledge of Fire Safety Experts.

Where have they been?
Who are they?
Where were they?

Science doesn't need to discipline itself, it is science's funders who need to do that. You could argue that some scientists shouldn't take some of the money offered as the funders are only interested in one outcome, irrespective of what the science finds.

Well, we executed a few after WWII.

 

[oldbadger]

Just dont get the idea you are likely to ever be right again.

Don't bother with your posts to me if you haven't got anything to say on topic, eh?

 

[oldbadger]

Most adults I know are incapable of understanding peer reviewed papers, so how is a 9th grader going to be capable of understanding these same papers?

If that's your idea of individual investigation and work, then don't go in for teaching infants and juniors.

Then why send them to school in the first place? Just give them a library card and be done with it.

Because they benefit from qualified teachers who deliver lesson plans...... a lesson plan is not a lecture.

 

[Polymath257]

If that's your idea of individual investigation and work, then don't go in for teaching infants and juniors.


Because they benefit from qualified teachers who deliver lesson plans...... a lesson plan is not a lecture.

In my experience, lesson plans are one of the the worst wastes of time for teachers. They have no value for the kids at all.

The whole movement to have kids rediscover basics on their own is, perhaps, even worse than the 'New Math' movement from long ago. It's a good idea to actually pass on what we have learned to the next generation. Rediscovery is simply not going to happen for the vast majority of people and we will end up with students even less able to do math and science than the ones we already have.

How about, instead, we get teachers that actually know the subject they are teaching and that care about the students and let them teach?

 

[Thermos aquaticus]

If that's your idea of individual investigation and work, then don't go in for teaching infants and juniors.

But you are saying that they should do their own research which would necessarily entail reading peer reviewed papers. As soon as you summarize the research then you are not letting them do the research.

Because they benefit from qualified teachers who deliver lesson plans...... a lesson plan is not a lecture.

Teaching kids the background knowledge they need to understand science necessarily involves lectures.

 

[Audie]

Don't bother with your posts to me if you haven't got anything to say on topic, eh?

You dont appreciate that it was profoundly on topic.

 

[Altfish]

Where have they been?
Who are they?
Where were they?

They may not have been commissioned, i.e. not appointed.
OR their comments could have been ignored or value engineered out.

 

[oldbadger]

Do you think you could rediscover the double helix structure of DNA all on your own? Do you think 9th graders should be doing x-ray crystallography?

What do you think the average IQ is for schoolchildren in your area?
What do you think the IQ variation is?
You need to think again....

The whole point of school is to learn what the scientists before you discovered so that you can stand on their shoulders and add to our knowledge.

I hope you don't direct education in your area.
The whole point of school is to prepare a wide range of academic abilities for later life.
Think again.

They will do what they want until they get a report card with F's, and then they will find that they need to follow what the teacher is teaching.

They will respond and react well to lesson-plans that activate INTEREST.
If you think that modern education is about force-fed teaching then you're in a strange place, or just don't know about teaching.

Yes, they do. There is little to no disagreement about how the initial and current expansion of the universe has proceeded. The Big Bang theory is a theory of how our universe expanded, not how it originated.

Which is why 'origination' and 'initiation' is interesting, since so many specialists speak about their ideas.

The problem with creationism is that the people pushing creationism are not specialists. They are pushing bad science, and they usually don't understand the science they are arguing against.

Teach your mother to suck eggs, do you?

There is also a pragmatic view that one needs to take. If a high school student wants to pursue a career in the biological sciences they don't need to know anything about creationism. However, they do need to learn about evolution because it is the foundation on which the rest of biology is built. In the same way, students wanting to pursue a career in astrophysics don't have to learn about magical leprechauns that smash protons together. However, they may want to understand the process of nuclear fusion in stars.

Is that all that you think about? Just how many school-children end up working within biological science, or astrophysics!!! ???
How do your ideas about education prepare school-children for work in, say, retail, or vehicle mechanics, or teaching for that matter? Are you a one horse education rider?

 

[Thermos aquaticus]

What do you think the average IQ is for schoolchildren in your area?
What do you think the IQ variation is?
You need to think again....

I am not the one claiming that 9th graders should repeat all of the science that has been done for the last 200 years without any lectures.

I hope you don't direct education in your area.
The whole point of school is to prepare a wide range of academic abilities for later life.
Think again.

Right. And that preparation should include lectures that teach children the knowledge they will need to know later in life. That's what education is.

They will respond and react well to lesson-plans that activate INTEREST.
If you think that modern education is about force-fed teaching then you're in a strange place, or just don't know about teaching.

Modern education includes lectures. I have sat through many lectures that piqued my interest.

Is that all that you think about? Just how many school-children end up working within biological science, or astrophysics!!! ???
How do your ideas about education prepare school-children for work in, say, retail, or vehicle mechanics, or teaching for that matter? Are you a one horse education rider?

How many kids grow up to be adults who want at least some understanding of the science that is reported in the news?

 

[oldbadger]

In my experience, lesson plans are one of the the worst wastes of time for teachers. They have no value for the kids at all.

Lesson plans deliver teaching to an agreed curriculum, format and style, and they also can ensure that children in every school experience the same teaching delivery and assistance (as closely as possible).

The whole movement to have kids rediscover basics on their own is, perhaps, even worse

Stop there......... they aren't on their own. They have professional trained guidance on hand to introduce subject matter and to bring as high a % of the class to a satisfactory level of accomplishment as possible.
Personal investigation can be undertaken in homework, ideally. The teacher can then focus the class in lessons.
And investigation before indoctrination works.

How about, instead, we get teachers that actually know the subject they are teaching and that care about the students and let them teach?

So you don't think that you have many teachers that can do that?

 

[Polymath257]

Lesson plans deliver teaching to an agreed curriculum, format and style, and they also can ensure that children in every school experience the same teaching delivery and assistance (as closely as possible).

Which, truthfully, is insane. Classrooms differ. The needs of the students differ. There are unexpected opportunities all the time that can enhance education that a lesson plan cannot deal with.

Stop there......... they aren't on their own. They have professional trained guidance on hand to introduce subject matter and to bring as high a % of the class to a satisfactory level of accomplishment as possible.
Personal investigation can be undertaken in homework, ideally. The teacher can then focus the class in lessons.
And investigation before indoctrination works.

Depends on the subject. yes, getting them to think about possibilities before telling them the truth can be effective. But sometimes they need basics before they can even start to ask questions.

So you don't think that you have many teachers that can do that?

Not from what I have seen, no. The teaching of math and science is very poor, partly because of the 'education departments' making things more confusing. Perhaps the single best thing we could do for our educational system is to get rid of Colleges of Education. If you want to teach math, get a math degree *and* some specialization in child psychology.