4 ms·

Why is slate doing this? Shouldn't we be teaching every point of view the students are going to encounter objectively instead of censoring "unwanted things"?

• skylan_q 13y ago
  Why is slate doing this? Views. That's about it.
• angersock 13y ago
  No, because anybody who believes in creationism is a completely backward person and incapable of rational, critical thought. Even on the off-chance they somehow come up with something that makes sense on another topic, anything they say is suspect. So, no, we shouldn't be teaching every point of view, because that'd be stupid. Similarly, I've flagged this article, because it's just another "ho ho ho look how superior we are to those backwards Southerners yes...."
  • chad_oliver 13y ago
    > anybody who believes in creationism is a completely backward person and incapable of rational, critical thought. Was that meant to be sarcastic? Because that's rather bigoted. I think that creationism is irrational, but it's a very large jump to say that a person is therefore incapable of critical thought.
    • angersock 13y ago
      My entire post was sarcasm, though reading back through it it is rather dry and non-obvious.
      • chad_oliver 13y ago
        Ah, my bad.
• MartinCron 13y ago
  Choosing only to teach actual science in science class doesn't exactly equate to censorship. There are all sorts of non-scientific beliefs that aren't covered in science class. Phrenology isn't part of biology. Continental drift isn't part of geology, but nobody calls those omissions censorship.
• eksith 13y ago
  In science class, we teach science. Creationism is religion and belongs in religious studies. If the students themselves or the parents "want" creationism to be taught, they may elect to take a religious studies program. Also of note, anyone's inability or unwillingness to accept reality doesn't make reality any less real.
• talkerlang 13y ago
  "Shouldn't we be teaching 'EVERY' point of view the students are going to encounter...." Why stop at Creationism then? By that logic, there should be classes for Hinduism, Scientology, Flying Spaghetti Monsters, Deepak Chopra, Mormonism... and the list goes on.
  • waps 13y ago
    So wait ... we will be preventing students from hearing about religious dogma by ... imposing our own dogma ? Wtf ? The Soviet union, incidentally, did exactly that. Here's one of the initially funny consequences of forcing scientific views on everyone, currently referred to as Lysenkoism [1]. It's only funny until you realize just how many people this affected and what was done to enforce this. Short list of people executed as direct result of attempts to enforce scientific socialist/soviet dogma: Isaak Agol Solomon Levit Grigorii Levitskii Georgii Karpechenko Georgii Nadson Is scientific dogma really any better than religious dogma ? I would argue that the vast majority of Christian schools teach both creationism and evolution. What is wrong with that ? Incidentally, like the things it's describing, there's quite a bit of evolution in evolution itself. So much, that what most people were taught as evolution is no longer considered true. I also love the naivite in this position. As if this pushing of evolution is being done to advance scientific knowledge. It is being done for the same reason that the French revolutionaries did it (another example of people who pushed scientific dogma, another example of that practice ending in mountains of corpses). They did it for a simple reason : to make people follow the state like they follow the church. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism
• dragonwriter 13y ago
  Science class isn't about teaching "points of view", its about teaching science. There are other contexts in which teaching non-scientific "points of view" that people might encounter could defensibly be taught.