The need of education.

[laticauda]

Deleted everything I had written here myself.
I am tired now.
Sad and confused.

Ditto.

I thought what you'd written was very eloquent and insightful. Sorry if I came across as harsh, or if it felt like I was trying to guilt trip anyone, or things like that. I'd only meant to elaborate on what is a very common misconception, and it's one that's held for good reason! When people speak of "abolishing" things in broad terms it inevitably creates confusion and mistrust.

Not at all. Your argument is also a valid one. I do not think it is right for any individual or group to be intolerant of someone's identity and life choices, no matter what the excuse. It's a disgrace that anything like that is aloud to go on in the 21st Century developed world.

General message: I feel like we've derailed this thread enough and, as one of the people responsible I'd like to apologise to @laticauda. Their discussion really interested me.

I am not offended, do not worry.  In fact, discussion is not some thing to be afraid of, it is essential to get a better understanding of the world around us, even if we do not always agree.  Keep the ideas coming.  It is great to hear all of your stories and thoughts.

As for teaching...In the USA, you have over 50 different educational systems.  Each state has the own system and the one that I am in is all about standardized tests, ELA, and Math.  Science, History, Art, PE, and Music are not considered important unless you are working toward ELA and Math.  (ELA is English Language Arts (ELA) & Literacy if you didn't know)

[Newt]

Your lesson sounds like a fun one! I'm glad there are engaged and enthusiastic teachers like you out there, even in our era of ever-more conformitized (is that a word? ELA was not my strong suit) and lifeless education policy.


I've also had discussions with doubters of Earth's prehistoric past who believe that fossils are rare and precious items, conveniently "discovered" in remote areas by the academic elite. Of course nothing could be further from the case, but if you only learn about fossils from news media, which of course is only interested in human ancestors and spectacular big vertebrates, you could be forgiven for accepting this particular conspiracy theory.[/size]


Fossils exist by the billions. If you have some fossiliferous deposits in your area (and most areas do), perhaps you could bring in a tub full of float for your students to sort through. Picking a few dozen brachiopods or crinoid stems out of the most ordinary-looking gravel pile, and explaining to them that they can go out themselves and find thousands more if they have a little patience, should be enough to convince most students that there's no hoax. If fossils are all made and secretly placed underground, it would be not only the greatest hoax of all time, but the greatest human achievement of any sort ever undertaken.

[Tyto_Theropod]

@laticauda It's very similar in the UK, as you can pick your GCSE subjects but it's mandatory that you do maths and either English language or English literature. There are also other systems like O-levels, standard grades and the like, depending on which school you go to.

I've also had discussions with doubters of Earth's prehistoric past who believe that fossils are rare and precious items, conveniently "discovered" in remote areas by the academic elite. Of course nothing could be further from the case, but if you only learn about fossils from news media, which of course is only interested in human ancestors and spectacular big vertebrates, you could be forgiven for accepting this particular conspiracy theory.[/size]


Fossils exist by the billions. If you have some fossiliferous deposits in your area (and most areas do), perhaps you could bring in a tub full of float for your students to sort through. Picking a few dozen brachiopods or crinoid stems out of the most ordinary-looking gravel pile, and explaining to them that they can go out themselves and find thousands more if they have a little patience, should be enough to convince most students that there's no hoax. If fossils are all made and secretly placed underground, it would be not only the greatest hoax of all time, but the greatest human achievement of any sort ever undertaken.

From the point of view of money and manpower, it would certainly be rather a pointless exercise. I've made this point to a friend of my parents who buys into this conspiracy, but he just smiles and nods. I think it goes in one ear and out of the other! At least he isn't one of the aggressive types. He's just politely confident in the fact that I'm wrong. A friend of mine also had a run-in with someone who thought that the moon landings were faked and that the universe outside the Solar System didn't exist, but that's a whole other kettle of fish!

[Ravonium]

I agree with everything you're saying here. I was bored senseless by my biology GCSE, for example. It was mostly just health ed (e.g. "here's why you shouldn't take drugs!") and really basic human anatomy (e.g. "Label the pancreas and the liver,  but we're not going to tell you any cool bone names because that would be a waste of time."). It even mentioned some things (I can remember ribosomes being one) without explaining what they were or how they were important. I actually took some OU courses to learn more about evolution, behaviour, anatomy, etc., because the basic GCSE basically didn't tell you much at all.

As someone currently doing GCSE Biology, it seems to have changed only a bit from your description. Basically, health ed isn't a major part of it anymore and anatomy and cell biology has become a bit more detailed. Still, the overall focus hasn't changed that much.


I agree with the general message of the thread that critical thinking skills should become more important in science-related education.

[Halichoeres]

I teach college biology and it is very difficult to get my students to care about anything that isn't directly helping them be more competitive for medical school. I try to meet them where they are by pointing out all the ways that our bodies reflect our ancestry that wouldn't make sense in a designed-from-scratch scenario; or by pointing out how many human diseases arise from evolutionary compromises (that is, the result of the impossibility of optimizing everything at once). I try to bring in things from the fossil record, if only for the few who are clearly excited when I do, but a lot of them are clearly immediately tuning out.

Anyway, I think this is a worthwhile exercise you've undertaken, laticauda. I'm glad you're on the front lines, as it were.

[DinoToyForum]

Last month I was on flight with another palaeontologist and the flight attendant asked if we were architects. We think it was because my colleague had a pencil behind his ear. We replied that, no, we are palaeontologists, which met a blank face. So, we explained that this means we study dinosaurs and fossils. "So, is it real?" she asked. It took us a few seconds to register that she meant are dinosaurs and fossils real. "Absolutely", we replied. "Absolutely?" she repeated back to us with an incredulous expression. We nodded and she moved on happily. I'd only met one 'dinosaur skeptic' before, a security guard in the UK. My impression on both occasions was that they were not in denial in the sense that they didn't believe the evidence or that it conflicted with their faith, they just hadn't really thought about it before.

One's first thought is that they must be winding you up but they aren't. It is difficult to comprehend to people like us but the only experience some people have of dinosaurs is from pop culture. And believe it or not, a lot of people haven't even seen Jurassic Park! Me, I watched it on the flight. And again on the flight back.

The world contains a diverse array of people with different backgrounds and interests. For someone who has never encountered a single piece of evidence for dinosaurs in their life – never picked up a dinosaur book, never been to a natural history museum, never really thought about them at all – to suddenly encounter a 'dinosaur exert', I suppose it is a legitimate question to ask if they're real.

Luckily, because the fossil record is physical, abundant, global, and available to everyone mildly curious about it, the evidence for dinosaurs is overwhelming for anyone willing to consider it in good faith for a second or two. For anyone unwilling to consider it in good faith, well, nothing can be done about that.

[Tyto_Theropod]

The world contains a diverse array of people with different backgrounds and interests. For someone who has never encountered a single piece of evidence for dinosaurs in their life – never picked up a dinosaur book, never been to a natural history museum, never really thought about them at all – to suddenly encounter a 'dinosaur exert', I suppose it is a legitimate question to ask if they're real.

Luckily, because the fossil record is physical, abundant, global, and available to everyone mildly curious about it, the evidence for dinosaurs is overwhelming for anyone willing to consider it in good faith for a second or two.

Dr Admin's Words of Wisdom! This couldn't have been more beautifully put.

[laticauda]

Which is why if you are honest and present the facts, even if a person is not convinced, they now have some new information to ponder. 

[Syndicate Bias]

Last month I was on flight with another palaeontologist and the flight attendant asked if we were architects. We think it was because my colleague had a pencil behind his ear. We replied that, no, we are palaeontologists, which met a blank face. So, we explained that this means we study dinosaurs and fossils. "So, is it real?" she asked. It took us a few seconds to register that she meant are dinosaurs and fossils real. "Absolutely", we replied. "Absolutely?" she repeated back to us with an incredulous expression. We nodded and she moved on happily. I'd only met one 'dinosaur skeptic' before, a security guard in the UK. My impression on both occasions was that they were not in denial in the sense that they didn't believe the evidence or that it conflicted with their faith, they just hadn't really thought about it before.

One's first thought is that they must be winding you up but they aren't. It is difficult to comprehend to people like us but the only experience some people have of dinosaurs is from pop culture. And believe it or not, a lot of people haven't even seen Jurassic Park! Me, I watched it on the flight. And again on the flight back.

The world contains a diverse array of people with different backgrounds and interests. For someone who has never encountered a single piece of evidence for dinosaurs in their life – never picked up a dinosaur book, never been to a natural history museum, never really thought about them at all – to suddenly encounter a 'dinosaur exert', I suppose it is a legitimate question to ask if they're real.

Luckily, because the fossil record is physical, abundant, global, and available to everyone mildly curious about it, the evidence for dinosaurs is overwhelming for anyone willing to consider it in good faith for a second or two. For anyone unwilling to consider it in good faith, well, nothing can be done about that.

Reminds me of the argument About Aliens or if there's life out there which to me is ridiculous to think we are the only ones especially considering we are still learning about our own Earth and probably won't know everything it keeps at least for a long time.

[stargatedalek]

Reminds me of the argument About Aliens or if there's life out there which to me is ridiculous to think we are the only ones especially considering we are still learning about our own Earth and probably won't know everything it keeps at least for a long time.

The strange part is that we haven't encountered signals from far away alien civilizations when they invented radio or television millions of years ago, Fermi paradox and whatnot. This is a pretty fun video about that very topic.

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m35BzXffBEA

[close]

Perhaps we've given future lesson ideas, haha .

[ITdactyl]

I teach college biology and it is very difficult to get my students to care about anything that isn't directly helping them be more competitive for medical school.

^This.  Sorry, I get excited when someone else puts to my sentiments to words.  The pressure from some education systems to only talk about topics that will produce measurable outcomes seems to undermine the purpose of education.  At least that's how it feels to me, and I'm only a trainer/resource speaker.  Sometimes the teachers and professors would share their stories with me.  There's joy when a few students show interest (even in passing), but there's also frustration when some students report them (through the school feedback form) for broaching topics that are not in the school curriculum.

Luckily, because the fossil record is physical, abundant, global, and available to everyone mildly curious about it, the evidence for dinosaurs is overwhelming for anyone willing to consider it in good faith for a second or two.

I really wish my country had dinosaurs (or pterosaurs), but alas, our only mesozoic fossils are jurassic ammonites.  'Attended an exhibit recently.  A local museum wanted the public to be aware that there are in fact mesozoic fossils in the Philippines.  In attendance (aside from the academics) were the amateur fossil collectors (from the villages bordering the dig site) and some members of a local tribe (they "manage" the land where the fossils are located).  A geologist gave a short presentation about how the fossils were formed and an even shorter talk about what ammonites are.  I remember the slide had a simplistic illustration of a random sauropod on what looks like a small island, and some ammonites swimming in the sea.  After the talk I followed the press and bloggers who wanted to interview the museum staff and guests.  They asked one of the fossil collectors what she thought about the exhibit and the presentation.  She replied that she's happy at the prospect of tourist money finally reaching their village; and that she'll gladly study about fossils more if only to get more tourists to the area.  When the tribe members were asked what they thought about the matter, they replied that the rocks (re: fossils) were "weirdly shaped" and they're just glad that someone found a use for rocks that they thought had "no value".  When asked what they thought about the presentation (about the origin of the fossils), they shrugged it off as outsiders "imposing" their version of a creation story.


And I'm not upset.   Baby steps.   Maybe in the near future, talks about fossils (and related topics) will be part of the curriculum of local schools.

[Shonisaurus]

I believe that education about dinosaurs and other extinct animals in the fossil record must be realistic and authentic. We must abandon the two extremes that try to discredit paleontology, on the one hand cryptozoology (that is to say that dinosaurs still exist in remote places of the earth) or negationism based on denying reality, that dinosaurs did not exist and that the remains that are in fossil rocks are due to accidents of nature.
 
The dinosaurs existed and were real what we do not know of many of them. Most of their fossil record is very incomplete in some cases and many species that we consider of several species of dinosaurs belong to the same species or vice versa.

[Halichoeres]

I teach college biology and it is very difficult to get my students to care about anything that isn't directly helping them be more competitive for medical school.

^This.  Sorry, I get excited when someone else puts to my sentiments to words.  The pressure from some education systems to only talk about topics that will produce measurable outcomes seems to undermine the purpose of education.  At least that's how it feels to me, and I'm only a trainer/resource speaker.  Sometimes the teachers and professors would share their stories with me.  There's joy when a few students show interest (even in passing), but there's also frustration when some students report them (through the school feedback form) for broaching topics that are not in the school curriculum.

Yeah, it's depressing when people view school as nothing more than job prep. I'm not sure who convinced them that curiosity is decadent or superfluous, because kids sure don't start out with that mindset.

[Tyto_Theropod]

@Shonisaurus I hate to sound like I'm playing devil's advocate here, but whilst many proponents of living pterosaurs and the like seem to think it can, cryptozoology cannot 'disprove palaeontology'. As is often pointed out, a large, terrestrial animal not known in fossils from after the K-Pg boundary being discovered alive in the present day (an extremely unlikely event!) would not somehow disprove evolution or suggest that the earth was much younger than is currently understood. It would only tell us that the animal in question had only undergone minor evolutionary changes over the course of the last sixty-five million years. I'm not trying to disagree with what you said, only to clarify!

@ITdactyl and @Halichoeres, I had a similar experience at university. I ended up getting on really well with most of my lecturers because I was one of the few students who showed any kind of interest in what they were teaching. Most of the class didn't even seem that worried about jobs, they just wanted to get drunk and party. Much as I hate to sound like a critical snob, it begs the question as to why they were even in university at all.

[Halichoeres]

That there are religious people who refuse to accept a worldview based on scientific evaluation of evidence and that there are scientific people who want religion abolished. Both are ignorant in their own ways, with the latter basing their view of religion entirely on a handful of extremists and cults. In a way, these two needlessly opposing sides reinforce each others' views.

As someone who could arguably be described as the latter, I just thought I would chime in and explain why there are people who find religion so distasteful. I want to make it clear I don't mean to discourage anyone's belief, rather that is something deeply personal that everyone should have the ability to chose for themselves, I'm just trying to shed some more light on "the other side".

Firstly, I and many others stand firmly with the idea that religions and beliefs are two distinct concepts that are often conflated. Beliefs are largely cultural, belief in a particular creator, particular mythology, or a particular afterlife. Religion is a structure of organization wherein members typically share a singular set of beliefs, and that is designed to encourage the application of those beliefs in the day to day lives of the groups members and often of those outside the group.

I was raised as a Jehovah's witness, and grew up in fear of retribution from the church for who I was. Frankly, evolution vs creationism felt a lot less important when faced with the very real fear of conversion therapy. And they are far from the only ones doing things like that. A lot of large religious organizations and companies are allowed to spread messages of fear and hate under the guise of practicing their religion, all the while receiving tax benefits and even promotion from governments. Despite making over eighty million dollars a year (in Canada alone!) in donations, the Jehovah's Witnesses get massive tax cuts, and are absolved from their promotion of bigotry and hate crimes in their produced media (as a recent example, they produced cartoons for children encouraging them to bully their LGBT classmates).

If this massive international corporation can get away with acting like this, I think it's fair to say this is not based on "extremists and cults". Religious organizations abusing their religious influence to wield secular power is very real, and a lot of people are hurt by it.

When people speak of abolishing religion, we don't mean abolishing beliefs, we mean abolishing the secular benefits that religious organizations receive, and holding them accountable when they promote bigoted or otherwise destructive messages. It's not a true separation of church and state if the church gets tax benefits.

I missed this post before, and I just want to say that I too was raised as a JW, and when my parents figured out I didn't believe anymore they threw me out of the house (I was 16). So to some extent I get where you're coming from.

With the caveat that there is obviously a spectrum of belief and reasonableness, the both-sides-do-it explanation of extremism elides the fact that the harms that result from the two "extremes" aren't remotely symmetrical. The corollary of the false dichotomy fallacy is the fallacy of the middle ground.

[Neosodon]

This is kind of a depressing thread. To end on a better note. I go to colledge in Utah which tends to rather religious. In my first biology class my proffesor told the everyone nothing in biology even makes sense without evolution. Not once in any class did creatonism or a 6,000 year old earth come up as a topic of debate. I come from a very religious family and I've discused evolution respectfully and my dad now agrees the evidence for evolution is very strong even though he has doubts. It's illegal to have creatonism in pulic school curriculum's. Creatonism may be out there but in the academic, scientific and professional realm, were it really matters, it's basically non existent. Although old and well entrenched ideas die hard; in a free country with open access to information, evidence and facts always win out in the end.

[Gothmog the Baryonyx]

This is kind of a depressing thread. To end on a better note. I go to colledge in Utah which tends to rather religious. In my first biology class my proffesor told the everyone nothing in biology even makes sense without evolution. Not once in any class did creatonism or a 6,000 year old earth come up as a topic of debate. I come from a very religious family and I've discused evolution respectfully and my dad now agrees the evidence for evolution is very strong even though he has doubts. It's illegal to have creatonism in pulic school curriculum's. Creatonism may be out there but in the academic, scientific and professional realm, were it really matters, it's basically non existent. Although old and well entrenched ideas die hard; in a free country with open access to information, evidence and facts always win out in the end.

Only if people go looking for the information. Aren't some people content with their own comfy ideas?

[TaranUlas]

Only if people go looking for the information. Aren't some people content with their own comfy ideas?

From my own experience with teaching (I agreed to do some volunteer work for a summer with a dinosaur exhibit at my local zoo. I ended up basically becoming the main person in charge of it due to possessing the knowledge and have even been asked to help with coming up with the material for next time), that can be very true for a large number of people. The number of people who would just walk off as soon as I pulled out a feathered Velociraptor or mentioned Tyrannosaurs probably having some feathers (Before we begin the integument debate... I was teaching just a summer ago and from I gathered from actually reading the paper, while it made it unlikely to be fully feathered, feathers of some kind would still be reasonable so I stuck with that) was rather high and whenever I was set up by our one feathered dinosaur (Citipati. They had it labeled as such prior to me doing anything so they had their heads on straight there), I would always hear people complaining about it or regarding it as insanely bizarre for some reason.

That being said, there were also plenty of people who were extremely interested into the subject and were very open to new info (Amusingly kids were way more open to feathered dinosaurs for the most part than their parents were.) I also feel that the way of teaching isn't helping with the decrease of interest of curiosity (One thing I emphasized to kids and parents who asked about it was that paleontology was always updating and thus will never be guaranteed except within narrow standpoints like "did Tyrannosaurus rex eat meat?" and others where the answer is highly unlikely to be anything other than the current one. Part of being a smarter individual is knowing what isn't guaranteed and what is and thus being able to engage in healthy speculation about prehistoric life. The issue is that most people don't know what's up for debate and what isn't so they either accept speculation as fact or end up questioning everything. I think the most irritating example of the latter for me was someone asking how we knew that T rex ate meat and then questioning how we knew serrations and sharp teeth as being examples of carnivorous behavior. At a certain point, you are overthinking the topic) as well as the issue of energy and time on the part of students (I remember High school from about 6 or so years ago and I remember essentially ending up with long hours of school and then immediately going into at least another hour or half of extracurriculars and then roughly about an hour or two of homework if anything is there.)

[Ravonium]

...because it's one of those things where trying to simplify the explanation of what's going on ultimately just makes it way less clear and harder for a beginner to understand.

Just to update my previous comment on this thread, I experienced something today similar to what you describe when being taught about genetic engineering.

Basically, on the powerpoint the teacher was using, there were two seperate explanations of the process. One of them, despite its lengthy focus on the example they were using, still managed to explain the process well. The other explanation only really explained how the genes are extracted (it did not mention the gene being inserted into another organism, and the only gene it mentioned it being joined to was itself). The teacher decided to use the latter of these under the guise that it was 'simpler'.

Due to the longer explanation having this number of steps, the teacher asked the class to simplify the shorter explanation into 4 steps (despite it missing out a key part of the process). In the 4 steps the teacher ended up writing down*, the final one mentioned the extracted gene being joined to the DNA of another organism, despite nothing in the shorter explanation implying this.

*this was without any class input, nor any implication that this was meant to help the class (although even if it was, it would have still confused them, possibly more so).


TL;DR As much as I may be grasping at straws here, I do wonder what else I'll be utterly confused about when I learn about a more long-form explanation of it.

[Lizerd]

Oh talking about awful science education? I have some stuff to add.
In the way the current curriculum (at least where I live) has the issue of just being over a decade old and stupidly boring. The issue with it in general is this: if your excited to learn and study science like me and hopefully a lot of us, in general we go out and learn on our own. Pretty soon we cover things we already know easily. If your also like me and suffer from ADHD anything boring or redundant is practically a form of torture. Then there are most people who really want to just get through the class, and as a result don't really give a dam.

Another huge issue is the fact that the curriculum really fails to put things in perspective on their relevancy. For example when learning properties of water, the stuff of life, it was presented in such a boring way most the class forgot it rapidly. Similar case for DNA and genetic engineering. The most recent and controversial aspect of science made boring. Now that is something impressive.