Re: Challenges to teaching biology

Bill Hamilton wrote:

>--- Pim van Meurs <pimvanmeurs@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>>Man, that's truly sad. Imagine these poor kids indoctrinated to reject good
>>science all in name of religious faith and not realizing that they are
>>rejecting God's Creation.
>>No wonder US kids are doing so poorly in highschool when it comes to
>>sciences.
>>
>>
>
>While I agree that YEC is a factor in the lack of interest on the part of US
>kids in science careers, I would be cautious about ascribing the entire
>phenomenon to YEC. When I was in high school I noticed that some of the
>
>
I was not even thinking of YEC. YEC, like much of ID thrives in a
situation where students are poorly educated in the sciences. But I see
them more as a symptom rather than a cause.

>evangelical leaders had poor grades, yet they were encouraged by their parents
>and church to take on a demanding schedule of organizing and participating in
>meetings. When I first became a Christian (at age 29) one of the practices that
>bothered me about the admittedly rural church in which I became a Christian,
>was that a young person got a lot more recognition from the church if he was
>going into missionary work than if he was going off to get a Ph.D. in
>engineering or the sciences. That perhaps explains to some extent the dearth of
>Christian kids in science curricula, but what about the kids from nonchristian
>homes? There is a dearth of _American_ -- not just evangelical -- kids in
>science curricula. I just retired from GM R&D center, and over 23 years I
>noticed an increasing trend for my colleagues to be Indian, Chinese, Thai, even
>Arab. I feel that working with such an international group was a great benefit
>to me, and I'm glad so many good scientists/engineers have come here, but it
>troubles me that more Americans are not pursuing careers in the sciences.
>
>
Received on Sun Apr 2 17:34:42 2006