Re: Pomposity, thy name is Berlinski

Rodjk #613 <rjkardo@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sep 28, 8:47 pm, Paul J Gans <g...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
John Harshman <jharsh...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Robert Grumbine wrote:
In article <h9iqh9$g1...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Paul J Gans wrote:
John Harshman <jharshman.diespam...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Robert Camp wrote:

[trim]

It does point out a problem that still exists.  Chemistry classes
in both High School and College teach the atomic theory.  They
go over it several times.

Very few schools really teach evolution in the same depth.  Most
High Schools, if they mention it at all, give it a cursory once-over.
And college biology classes sometimes devote a majority of one
lecture to it.

As a result we end up being a nation of people who have graduated
from High School and have had at least some college who are
creationists.

And we want to blame somebody else for this.  The fault is ours.

  Pogo's Law is a pain.

  The osmosis theory of learning really doesn't work for much.  Assuming
that because material relevant to a topic does get discussed, the related
but untaught topic will be understood, just doesn't work.  If evolution
is to be understood, it has to be taught.  

I have to question whether you have ever actually seen a college-level
class in comparative vertebrate anatomy.

Don't.  I talk to the biology department at NYU almost every day.
Nobody really teaches evolution, its ideas, and the attacks on
it.

Besides, tons of kids manage to get through Bio 101 and 102 without
doing any vertebrate anatomy.

Yet in chemistry I manage to teach about radiodating.  That's not
a mainstream chemical topic.  I do it because, as I point out,
some folks deny that it can be done.

--
   --- Paul J. Gans

I have to agree with Gans on this one. As I have posted before,
through high-school and college in the 80's and 90's I took many
biology classes for non-majors. Almost no mention was made of
evolution at all. When I asked one of my professors, he said that
students should have learned that in high school and that they should
already know what they need to know about it. As I remember, he
likened it to knowing that the planets revolved around the sun, it was
such basic information that it did not need to be gone over again. I
pointed out that my study group, which had 6 or 7 students in it (and
were all A and B students, and he knew us because we tended to ask a
lot of questions, both in class and later in his office) and only
myself and one other student ( a biology major) accepted evolution. He
could not believe it, so the next class he asked the class to raise
their hands if they believed evolution was correct. Very few hands
were raised.

Yup. NYU students are smart enough to tell any faculty member
who asks that "of course I believe in evolution". But don't
ask any of them why one should believe in it.

--
--- Paul J. Gans

.

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