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From: friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: The Great Commission
Message-ID: <483@psivax.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 31-May-85 20:38:40 EDT
Article-I.D.: psivax.483
Posted: Fri May 31 20:38:40 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 3-Jun-85 00:16:34 EDT
References: <1147@uwmacc.UUCP>
Reply-To: friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Distribution: net
Organization: Pacesetter Systems Inc., Sylmar, CA
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In article <1147@uwmacc.UUCP> dubois@uwmacc.UUCP (Paul DuBois) writes:
>
>> The real problem is that of bringing proper educational materials to
>> teachers.  (Scientist doesn't necessarily equal teacher, as all too many
>> college students learn.)  The textbook industry is quite slow to absorb
>> new ideas in science.  Partly because what sells textbooks is who they
>> appeal to and who they don't offend.  It's quite likely that many children
>> will not learn about punctuated equilibrium because of the efforts of
>> people like the Gablers in Texas.
>
>The textbook industry may be slow to absorb new ideas.  It would appear
>that they are even slower to get rid of erroneous or unsupported ones,
>as well.  Such as the idea that the horse forms a nice orthogenetic
>lineage instead of a confusing bush at best.  This is *known*.  Such as
>the idea that processes such as simple allelic substitution like we see
>in the peppered moth accounts for macroevolution.  This is *by no
>means* demonstrated.  Yet it gets parroted all over the place.  And
>this general idea isn't just put forth in textbooks written by
>non-scientists.  Take a look at E O Wilson's book _Life on Earth_
>sometime.  Here's part of it [p653]:
>
	Extensive quote ommited.
>
>Did you ever hear anything different than this in school?  I didn't.
>The confidence exuded by this passage is truly a marvel to behold,
>particularly in view of the fact that the general conclusion presented
>by the excerpt is hardly generally agreed upon.
>
	I agree with you here, pre-college science are often poor
and the teaching is often even worse. However, no matter how out of
date or erroneous the treatment of evolution in a non-technical text
is, this issue has *no* bearing on the validity(or lack of it) of
the real theory of evolution as it is being developed by working
scientists. Furthermore, this problem is by no means restricted to
biology texts, it is also found in physics texts at this level(which
still use the "solar system" model of an atom!!), and in fact by nearly
all science text at this level. So what you have here is a totally
different issue, concerning the proper *method* for teaching introductory
science to pre-college students. This is indeed a valid issue, and one
of great concern to me, but I think the solution should be more along
the lines of trying to teach thinking instead of "facts", thus giving
the students a better of the realities of the scientific method.
-- 

				Sarima (Stanley Friesen)

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