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skywalker
climber
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Topic Author's Original Post - Feb 13, 2012 - 03:53pm PT
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I'm getting ready to teach the idea of evolution in my high school bio class. Never taught it (taught chemistry) although I was a bio major. Understanding the touchy nature of the matter, I personally feel that the idea of bowing in the slightest to religious ideology is... well B.S. any thoughts out there?
I think this probably has come up on this website but I'm currently scratching my head as to my approach. I teach in a very small school with few colleagues to discuss this with.
Anyway...Science Teachers???
S...
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
mammoth lakes ca
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Feb 13, 2012 - 03:55pm PT
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Just play Devo's first album over and over until the kids catch on...RJ
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skywalker
climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 13, 2012 - 04:01pm PT
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R.J that is funny...
You made me smile thats good!
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Feb 13, 2012 - 04:09pm PT
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I'm not an American, but I've lived in your country long enough to get a bit of a handle on its religious geography. If you're a climber, as your avatar says you are, then you probably live in a state with mountains in it, and are safe teaching real science.
On the other hand, if you're a climber who has been forced to move to Kansas, or points south and east of there, then you may have a problem. The solution to which is to move back to a state with mountains -- none of which have so far not been taken over by the creationists.
Hope that helped.
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skywalker
climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 13, 2012 - 04:13pm PT
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Jesus Christ really??? I see whats in store...
Yes I live very close to rock and steep creeks.
S...
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Feb 13, 2012 - 04:15pm PT
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my recommendation is to teach it as it is, as a science
and since you are teaching a science class, that is all you need to consider, the science.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Feb 13, 2012 - 04:21pm PT
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my recommendation is to teach it as it is, as a science
and since you are teaching a science class, that is all you need to consider, the science.
+1 -- and I'm an evangelical Christian.
John
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neversummer
Trad climber
30 mins. from suicide USA
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Feb 13, 2012 - 04:21pm PT
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^^^^bingo^^^^Ed nails it.
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Howard71
Trad climber
Belen, New Mexico
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Feb 13, 2012 - 04:24pm PT
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Hello:
I'd suggest starting out by presenting "evolution" as a fact rather than an idea. One could conceivably argue about the role of natural selection in evolution, but evolution itself is simply the fact that things change. What we encounter today wasn't exactly what would have been encountered 1,000,000 years ago and nothing that we see today could have been encountered in its present form 1,000,000,000 years ago. Once your students agree that things change then you might discuss the mechanisms of change - some, like soil errosion, are facts that few would waste time trying to dispute.
Then take a jump and talk abour some biological change that few dispute - resistance to antibiotics by bacteria or resistance to insecticides by insects. Again, changes few would dispute. Next could come some speculation about the mechanisms of these biological changes and that could lead into the role of natural selection in the evolution of biological diversity. If you want to keep it simple just leave humans out of it. When someone brings up a religious component you could introduce the difference between faith-based beliefs and "science as a way of knowing" (Google that term of a lot of material).
I'll admit that teaching this stuff at university level might be easier that in high school. I avoid arguments and treat the religious beliefs of students as beyond discussion.
Good luck!
Howard
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Spider Savage
Mountain climber
The shaggy fringe of Los Angeles
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Feb 13, 2012 - 04:24pm PT
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"The theory is..." "Based on...(source facts)"
"Some people believe ... based on."
The fact is you would only know if you were there. The theory of evolution seems to be really good to me however, there are odd blips and there is evidence for it. Not that it is absolutely true.
If you look at history, hundreds of years ago, thousands even, people thought they had it all figured out but we later found out they did not.
Therefore in 200 years we may look back on these times and see painfully that we did not have it figured out.
Hopefully you're training kids to look for themselves. I'm not saying choose between Old Testament and Darwin. I'm saying look beyond. The truth may still be out there.
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skywalker
climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 13, 2012 - 04:25pm PT
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Thanks John. That is helpful!
S...
Oh and thanks Ed
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A race of corn eaters
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Feb 13, 2012 - 04:25pm PT
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bowing in the slightest to religious ideology
No need. Stick to the science.
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Feb 13, 2012 - 04:29pm PT
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Straight science, the rest is off topic. As a teacher with a degree in Paleontology I've been down this one...
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maldaly
Trad climber
Boulder, CO
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Feb 13, 2012 - 04:31pm PT
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I'm with Ed but, for job security, you need to see if the school district has mandated a "fair and balanced" approach that you are required to teach. If you are required to teach biblical creationism, I'm sorry. I would be inclined to teach the science first, then teach a section on comparative religious theories. Do a section on Norse creationism, Greek creationism, Buddhist creationism, Muslim, etc, etc. When you get to Christian creationism, which is what we're really talking about here, I'd use the seven days as an allegory to the billions of years if they don't already have a curriculum.
1-On the first (billion years) day, god created the Big Bang
2-On the second (billion years), he created gravity which brought all the space dust together into stars and planets.
3-On the third day, he created water
4-On the fourth day, he invented long-chain proteins or mitochondria (or whatever).
5-Walking Fish through Dinosaurs
6-People
7-Then he created War
etc
etc
etc
It actually might be a fun lesson plan to work up.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Feb 13, 2012 - 04:32pm PT
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400 years after Galileo we know he had a lot of it worked out, nothing to change,
same with Newton...
not to say there were some things they did that were sketchy...
so it will be with Darwin 400 years hence
a lot he got right, and if you look at evolution now, it is certainly more nuanced...
Darwin took a lot of inspiration from Geology, where we know what happened even though we weren't there to watch it happen, nor would we have lived long enough to perceive it happening if we were there, yet we understand by our observations of the lithosphere much of the history of the Earth, at a pretty detailed level.
Are there still things to learn? yes, Darwin, and the geologists of his time didn't know about plate tectonics, but they did know that they could learn about the geology of the Earth, and eventually, someone figured out that important aspect of geology...
that's doing science, and they understood that even if they didn't understand everything we understand now.
Mal your a bit behind in your cosmology, Dark Matter and gravity caused the small amount of dust and stuff to condense into stars... God's got to put that in there sometime... maybe at tea-time on the first day?
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FRUMY
Trad climber
SHERMAN OAKS,CA
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Feb 13, 2012 - 04:40pm PT
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Ed's hammer seems to always it the nail on the head.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Feb 13, 2012 - 04:40pm PT
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Malady,
Your narrative reminds me of a Sheridan Anderson cartoon, whose captions were (as well as I can remember)
First, God created man.
Then, He created woman.
Consequently, man created alcohol.
John
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Feb 13, 2012 - 04:51pm PT
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Consider combining teaching methods - speech, reading, videos, go out in nature to observe and touch. Kids learn in different ways. Some take class room teaching well, others like to touch, others like pictures and so on. I guess there may even be evolution PC games made.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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Jon Freriks
Trad climber
AZ
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Feb 13, 2012 - 05:00pm PT
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Like was stated above, organisms change overtime, fossil evidence showing similarities to existing species, bacterial populations with a high frequency of antibiotic resistance ... I teach the mechanisms of change (including genetic drift, migration ... and of course the often over-riding cause of change, natural selection).
Does science contradict creation ideas? I think not. The two are completely separate, not mutually exclusive. I think a scientist who states creationism (or other "god" idea) does not exist is not a scientist. We cannot measure god so AS A SCIENTIST we have no opinion of god.
Is there a god? I think there is. But that is a completely a different discussion not in the realm of science.
Jon
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Norwegian
Trad climber
Placerville, California
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Feb 13, 2012 - 05:02pm PT
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everything works in cycles,
here.
without an introduction of new energy,
entropy reigns, and the excrement of
entropy is gathered up by and re-organized
into new life.
cannot matter be created nor destroyed?
water adheres to its cycle.
the water that is here today has
always been here and is the piss and spit
of our ancestors and of the dinosaurs,
a maountain is encouraged toward a sand grain
via errosion.
that sand grain eventually is swallowed up again
by mother earth and
Her pressures and heat and plate movement
motivate that sand grain to become again, a maountain.
people die.
we are buried or cremated.
by either path we again find our way into the soil.
the soil then fuels further life,
say a tomato plant.
that tomato is consumed by a fertilized
(human or otherwise) female, and
thus we
again,
become (part) of a fetus and
hence grow into new life.
yea. cycles.
there is no after life
because after and before refer to a reference point
and that reference point is orbiting around the continuum
of life.
so yesterday's before is tomorrow's after,
and the now is fleeting cause there is
too much expectation of it and
it just wants to be left alone.
evolution is everywhere around us,
but our supreme intelligence (and thus fear) denies
evolution it's rightful place within our understanding.
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