Teach Them Science!

I just spoke with my Board of Education representative Gail Lowe and had to explain to her what a theory is. These people are responsible for the E in BoE in Texas. When we spoke and I expressed my opinion that I desired to keep science in the classroom, she took the approach that I am in the camp that evolution should be taught in schools.

Who made camps exactly? The Scopes Trials were quite a while ago. Inherit the Wind, was a great book and a decent movie. But that is history! Why are we re-visiting this topic today? I am not convinced the people responsible for the selection of our text books have an adequate understanding of the basic principal of science. Religion is not science. Considering, science requires a theory to be supported by evidence and this theory can be only be supported with evidence. This process is repeatable through experimentation by others, with supporting theories which do not stand by themselves. A theory is not monolithic entity. It is a framework, a continuum, and it is self correcting. Religion is faith. It is personal. One does not ask another person to validate another person’s faith. At least they should not. I had to make this point this point very clear.

Fact: There is not room for both in a science classroom. One is theory based. One is not. This is not opinion. You cannot test, measure, and replicate tests of others faith based observations.

Fact: Just because a given ‘theory’ is not ‘whole’ does not mean that the parts which are understood are in any way invalidated by the supportive arguments.

Fact: Science deals with what it can observe either directly or indirectly. No magical thinking is allowed.

I left the conversation with the idea that what we know today changes from what we will know tomorrow. We learn. We adapt. Science is humbling. I suggested if want to have religion in our schools, we should have religious electives. Dogma, on the other hand is stagnant. Did not we just get recently get around to apologizing to Galileo for his blasphemy about Jupiter? If you want to see how the GOP has been hijacked by the Christian right, visit the Discovery Institute. So much for limited government.

Yes – it has come to this. We are worse than Kansas, we are even worse than Louisiana. However, unlike these states, we set the example.

Visit the site: http://www.teachthemscience.org/