Been-done Files

Scientist's Science vs. "Politically Correct" Science

2008-05-28T11:58:00.000-07:00

Creationism Creeps into U.S. Classrooms
By Robin Lloyd, LiveScience Senior Editor
posted: 21 May 2008 ET

One in eight U.S. high school biology teachers presents creationism or intelligent design in a positive light in the classroom, a new survey shows, despite a federal court's recent ban against it.

http://www.livescience.com/history/080521-creationist-teachers.html

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RESPONSE
When I attended high school I was drawn to science in general and biology in particular. Boys are driven to take apart record (CD, mp3, etc.) players just to see how the mechanisms and mechanical parts all work together to reproduce the sounds of voices and music. In this way I was driven to discover what makes bits of matter and sunlight work together to "create" life. Honestly, I did not want to be brushed off with mysticism based explanations. God did it -- so what? How did he do it?

Yet, off-topic discussions in the science classrooms abounded. Philosophical kinds of discussions cropped up almost daily, often times escalating beyond the teachers control, only because it is the nature of young students to want to be heard more than to want to hear. (Take as a paradigm my brother John, if you've met him.)

And, in those days, I did not have any deep irritations with that. I considered that my foundational belief system as a believing Latter-day Saint was never at risk of being shaken -- not by emerging paleontological evidences and certainly not by spontaneous declarations of fanciful, adolescent views. So I waited patiently every time for these discussions to end so that I could get to the good stuff.

I just wanted to know how things got from point A to point B.

Now, consider the scenario that most all high school students are still forming their foundational belief system. If pressed to answer the question "does God exist?" most would respond, at least inwardly, undecided. For them, these off-topic classroom discussions are what's important. The building of a foundational belief system on which we govern ourselves for the rest of our lives is happening to them in the science classrooms as much as it was happening to me in my Sunday church meetings and Monday night Family Home Evenings.

If point A is the start of our world or our universe (take your pick) and point B is what we see today, we all agree, things happened in a mechanical, non-mystical way to create the fossil record. It had to be a continuous chain of events -- a sequence of physical, measurable causes and effects. We define everything about us on this concept of continuity (referred to, among scientists, as the conservation of matter and energy over time). Without this continuity we would have no power to act. We could never, ever say to one another that we expect our decisions to have meaning and our hands to perform the deeds of good or ill. Why? Because, at any moment in time -- perhaps every moment in time -- the continuity of all event causes and effects may be disrupted again and again by un-seeable, immeasurable forces, rendering all our actions futile and our desires inconsequential.

For many high school students, deep down, it matters to the nth degree whether or not God exists and how he is going about governing the universe (i.e., interfering or not interfering with the physical mechanisms of the universe; disrupting or not disrupting the continuous chain of causes and effects; etc.). Their whole worldview depends on it. For as long as they are still questioning this they are questioning themselves. In this mental state not one of them could yet know if he or she matters individually. They cannot yet know if they have the power -- any kind of power -- to act, to make a difference, to pursue a personal desire or dream.

It is no wonder that science classrooms have become a forum for off-topic, non-scientific discussions. The classrooms of high school science hold in the balance the making or breaking of a young adult's driving inner hope on life. Otherwise, why bother learning what is supposed to be taught within this discipline? Would it really matter to me in the grand scheme of things? Isn't it all just as likely to turn out to be false as it is to be true?

For me, the solution is obvious: Fill this void that can never be filled through science by encouraging more LDS baptisms and more participation in the doctrinal education programs of the LDS church. Still, in all practicality, there must also be guidelines in place for education administrators to deal with evolution-vs.-intelligent-design-in-the-science-classroom issues that don't seem to go away.

I recommend illustrating to each student -- either at the start of a student's science track or within a parallel humanities course -- the placement of the discipline of science within the greater, purpose-based disciplines. For simplicity, make the point using just two concentric circles, even if presented only as a "chalkboard" line drawing. The outer circle gets labeled STORY, representing all purpose-based explanations of life phenomena. The inner circle gets labeled science, representing all mechanical, non-purpose based explanations of life phenomena. The premise of STORY is that some one caused something to happen. The premise (not the result) of science is that some thing caused something else to happen.

This easy-to-see, no-nonsense foundation for the whole of academia would put all sorts of misunderstandings and unproductive squabbles to rest. Teachers could go about their business teaching; Students could go about their business absorbing information. And we could all continue, unimpeded, along our boundless quest for learning things like how a record player reproduces sound and how the earth reproduces its diverse populations of living plants, animals and humans.

Life-Universe-Everything-Frame of Reference

2007-04-13T21:51:00.000-07:00

Upon finding oneself fielding such unexpectedly abstract questions as, "What is the answer to the question of life, the universe and everything?" where does one, as a mentor, begin? Put differently, what is the starting point for teaching wisdom?

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Assuming that the student is genuinely searching for an answer and not flippantly reenacting a popular Douglas Adams sketch for a laugh, I would begin with a conceptual representation, the l-u-e-for model illustrated here. Of course, this kind of reductionist picture would not be instantly meaningful to a young student, but it provides a roadmap by which the student will be able to follow the progress of -- and make the inevitable course corrections along -- her potential years of soul searching.

Then, using an engaging interview format I would walk the student swiftly through a recap of a few thoroughly distilled, important core arguments -- historical and contemporary -- both for and against this as the pinnacular model of the universe. This done properly, the student can reason for herself the inherent soundness of it. She can thereafter rely not on any one-sided or otherwise limited perspectives but, instead, on her own ongoing, overlapping life experiences, which act as unrelenting stress tests upon the model's validity.

As with all published thoughts today this model is not new. It is, if anything, a no-frills composite of various yet inter-supporting philosophical and metaphysic exploratory works. However, presented to young students in this way will certainly provide solid footing for their personal journeys into de-mystifying the greatest art and literature of the humanities.

Supporting References
- Anatomy of Criticism is an attempt at a "conceptual framework" for criticism of literature as an object of study, as opposed to a subject of study. Herman Northrop Frye believed that if he could digest it all, or at least grasp enough to get a healthy sampling of the overall "global framework" of literature, it would naturally fall into a "symbolic unity" that could be easily understood by everyone.

- "Science, by definition, cannot begin to address non-mechanical cause -- i.e., purpose. Confronted with any unexplained phenomenon, scientists can only posit mechanical causes; purposes are banned from the discussion because they can never be measured or tested. So when a 'scientist' claims that he has proven that there is no purpose, no purposer, no non-physical aspect, he is reporting as a result the very thing that he adopted as a premise. This is bad logic even in high school, but some scientists and most science reporters make this basic mistake all the time." (Card, Orson Scott; "The Human Genome and the Inconvenient Soul"; beliefnet.com)

- "...[we adopt] final, or purposive, causation [as opposed to mechanistic, or random causation]: The universe acts the way it does because it wants to, say we." (Card, Orson Scott; A Storyteller in Zion; "Science Fiction and the Mormon Religion", p. 159)

- "Fiction is...another kind of reality. ... Unlike life, it begins and ends; we can close the book and draw conclusions. It is often easier to learn from fiction than from life..." (Card, Orson Scott; A Storyteller in Zion; "The Problem of Evil in Fiction", p. 75)

- "Real art creates myths a society can live instead of die by..." (Gardner, John; On Moral Fiction; p. 126)

A Bible Verse Blogseed

2007-03-08T19:01:00.000-08:00

The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. Eccl 1:9