At 09:40 AM 10/6/00 -0400, you wrote:
>The failure of our students in science and math is what we should be
>addressing rather that the damn issue of whether evolution should be taught
>in public schools or not. Evolution has nothing to say on almost all
>research being done in biology and medicine, whether technical or basic
>research. Witness the fact that almost 100% of the physics done has
>nothing whatsoever to do with the Big Bang. The precise same thing is true
>with the theory of evolution. Moorad
That we should be concerned with the RRRs does NOT rightfully mean we
should neglect all other aspects of learning as unimportant. The study
which sparked this discussion was concerned with the teaching of evolution,
not with all of education; was anyone claiming that it was an exact
indicator of the all aspects of education? That said, I believe it may be
fair to consider what a ranking with respect to teaching of evolution
reflects about the general approach to liberal arts education taken by each
state; having a sound approach to understanding scientific information and
evidence is hugely important for how one thinks in general. More
specifically, the basic principles of evolution and geology are immensely
relevant to current issues facing humankind, especially related to ecology
and the environment. Without an appreciation and understanding of the
timescales involved in various biological and geological processes, we
cannot meaningfully evaluate dynamics and proposed policies relating to
renewable versus nonrenewable natural resources, environmental impacts of
pollution, endangerment and conservation of species populations, the ethics
and potential risks relating to the "escape" into the wild of genetically
modified organisms, and the prediction of viral evolution relating to
anticipation of this season's vaccines, etc. If one simply denies any kind
of evidence relating to things like radiometric dating, population
genetics, rates of mutation and adaptation and speciation, one is
completely unprepared to begin thinking about such things.
Doug
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Oct 06 2000 - 14:03:13 EDT