Teach Both Theories
From SkepticWiki
[edit] Introduction
The fact that creationists are dreadfully, ludicrously wrong will become evident to anyone who peruses our list of creationist arguments. This article therefore explains, for the benefit of those creationists who can't figure it out for themselves, and for the poor souls who engage them in debate, why we shouldn't teach falsehoods to children, even when accompanied by the truth as a counterbalance.
[edit] Problem 1: Which creationism?
There are, of course, lots of creation myths; even amongst those whose prefered myth is Genesis, there is a split between Old Earth Creationism and Young Earth Creationism; even among YECs, there is a split between the purists who see Intelligent Design as a blasphemous watering-down of God's word, and the pragmatists who want to smuggle something creation-ish into schools by any means necessary.
Even leaving that aside, there is a further problem, which is that creationist arguments consist of ad hoc excuses which are mutually inconsistent. One creationist will claim that no new species have been observed, another will claim that "rapid speciation is an important part of the creation model"[1]. One creationist will claim that Archaeopteryx has the anatomy of a modern bird; while another will try to avoid its implications by claiming that Archaeopteryx is a hoax produced by adding feathers to a fossil of Compsognathus, a dinosaur. Some creationists will assert that dinosaurs are still roaming the earth; others claim that they never existed in the first place[2]. For some, there is no order in the fossil record; for others there is, but it was produced by hydrological sorting.
In order to "teach creationism", the government would have to decide which is the One True Creationism on which the curriculum should be based. Leaving aside the number of creationists that this would not please at all, they have the practical problem that if they try to identify the One True Creationism by consulting creationists, they will not agree on one version; and if they try do this by consulting people with actual expertise, they will not agree that any version of creationism is true.
[edit] Problem 2: Lying to children is wrong
The appeal to "teach both theories" is often accompanied by the claim that biologists and creationists are "looking at the same evidence" and interpreting it differently. If this was the case, then creationists would have a point. But it is not: biologists look at the evidence, whereas a quick glance at any list of creationist arguments reveals that creationists are looking, not at the evidence, but at silly falsehoods invented by other creationists.
When, for example, a creationist asserts that "the butterfly, fern, rose and fish appear suddenly and fully developed" in the Cambrian Explosion, and a paleontologist gives an accurate account of Cambrian fossils (which contain no butterflies, ferns, roses or fish), they are not "looking at the same evidence". Paleontologists have looked at the evidence --- that's their job. The creationist has looked at creationist pamphlets and taken every word as gospel --- that's his.
Such falsehoods should not be taught in the classroom; but creationism is composed almost entirely of falsehoods, from the dirty (e.g. "Hitler was an evolutionist") to the ridiculous (e.g. NASA and the "missing day") to the libelous (e.g. their claims about the experiments on the peppered moth). If we winnow away all the simple factual errors from creationism, all we have left is couple of logical fallacies, some Bible-thumping, and sheer bewildered incomprehension.
[edit] Problem 3: Science teachers have integrity
A creationist can stand up and recite a piece of creationist nonsense about how "evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics" or how there are "no intermediate forms in the fossil record" with a clear conscience: he doesn't know it's not true. Most of them, indeed, would be hard put to define the terms they're using, such as "thermodynamics" and "intermediate form".
But a competent science teacher would know what the words mean, and know that these claims are false. To quote Stephen Jay Gould:
- "Creation science" has not entered the curriculum for a reason so simple and so basic that we often forget to mention it: because it is false, and because good teachers understand exactly why it is false. What could be more destructive of that most fragile yet most precious commodity in our entire intellectual heritage -- good teaching -- than a bill forcing honorable teachers to sully their sacred trust by granting equal treatment to a doctrine not only known to be false, but calculated to undermine any general understanding of science as an enterprise?
One might try to obviate this problem by having creationism taught by, for example, gym teachers, but there would still be the problem that while the ethics of being a creationist propagandist don't require you to know what you're talking about, the ethics of teaching do, and a conscientious gym teacher would research the subject matter before teaching it.
[edit] Problem 4: The Eleventh Commandment
Even if science teachers were willing, to keep their jobs, to break the Ninth Commandment and bear false witness, there is still the apocryphal Eleventh Commandment: "Thou shalt not get found out".
But this is an inevitable result of teaching "both theories". How can we ask a science teacher to teach in the morning that "Archaeopteryx has the anatomy of a modern bird" and in the afternoon to teach the detailed facts about the anatomy of Archaeopteryx? Inevitably, the children will find out in the afternoon that she was lying in the morning. Even people without integrity object strongly to being found out: it is hard to imagine anyone, however morally bankrupt, willing to undertake the job of science teacher under such conditions.
To take another example, a great deal of creationist rhetoric involves lying about what the theory of evolution is. This tactic falls to pieces when you "teach both theories": one day, the science teacher must rave on about "atheism" and "materialism" and "random chance" and "something coming from nothing" and all the usual creationist nonsense: the next day she's obliged to teach them what the theory actually is. What is she meant to say when she's caught, as she must be? "Well, children, there are two theories as to what the theory of evolution is. Creation theory says that the theory of evolution is this stuff about 'random chance', whereas the theory of evolution says that the theory of evolution says what the theory of evolution says, and these are both equally valid views."
Would she not at some point snap and admit that creationists are wrong and she knows it?
For much the same reason, if we are to teach both "theories" then all the creationist arguments from incomprehension must also be discarded. It's fairly futile for a science teacher to ask "if we're descended from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?", if she's then going to answer the question; nor to declare that she can't see how symbiosis evolved if she's then going to explain exactly how it evolved.
[edit] Problem 5: Creationism as pop-pseudoscience
We are all familiar with popular science writing of the sort that skips over the mathematics, attributes measurements to a "special measuring device", explains the hard bits of science in terms of metaphors, and so forth. This allows people to learn about science without actually learning science. In science classes, students are meant to learn science.
The trouble is that so much of creationism is popular science writing (or pseudoscience writing) without any details behind it to study. Here, for example, is a creationist excuse for the order found in the fossil record:
- We explain the fossil record as having formed due to biogeography, differential mobility and hydrodynamic sorting.[3]
This is a pop science explanation of real, detailed science which doesn't actually exist. There is no actual predictive, testable model behind this: that's all there is. In science classes, one is meant to learn more than the pop-sci explanation: with creationism, there is nothing more to learn.
[edit] Problem 6: Equal time
This leads on to a further problem: the demand for "equal time". Consider: it only takes seven words to recite: "evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics", whereas to explain what the Second Law of Thermodynamics is took the SkepticWiki slightly over 3000 words, several diagrams, and a considerable quantity of high-grade mathematics.
If equal time means restricting the statement of scientific facts to the time it takes to recite a creationist falsehood, then the only possible reply to the creationists' seven words would be: "Oh no it doesn't, you silly bozo". If, on the other hand, "equal time" means that the creationist argument should be stated at the same length as the facts, then the children would be less than entertained by the spectacle of their teacher reciting the phrase "evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics" 440 times, in the interests of fairness and balance.
[edit] Problem 7: Examinations
Another problem related to the previous two is that we would have to accept creationist answers and accurate answers as equally valid for examination purposes. But different amounts of effort are required for the two.
For example, a factual answer to the demand to "list six saurian features of Archaeopteryx" would require the student to recall details of anatomy such as the lack of a pygostyle, the lateral processes on the caudal vertebrae, the semi-lunar carpal, the presence of gastralia, the unfused manus, and the presence of teeth. The creationist, meanwhile, gets the same marks by writing "there aren't any". (Unless, of course, the state has mandated that the creationist portion of the curriculum should teach that Archaeopteryx is a hoax, in which case the creationist answer should be "all of them".) To take another example, a factual answer to the question: "What are the principles of geology?" requires an essay of some length. A creationist answer requires the two words "Evolutionist assumptions".
It is plain that this procedure rewards the lazy and the stupid as much or more than the students who can be bothered to study. We could perhaps get round this by getting each student to give two completely different answers to each question, one factual answer and one creationist answer.
[edit] Problem 8: Letting creationists set the agenda
In order to give both sides of the argument, every creationist falsehood needs to be corrected by teaching the facts. But this gives them an unwarranted power to set the agenda for the teaching of real biology. If, for example, creationists decide that their biology curriculum is going to include their usual nonsense about the Second Law of Thermodynamics, then to counter this is will be necessary to spend some weeks teaching the basics of thermodynamics until the children can see that creationists are wrong. But there is no other conceivable reason for teaching about thermodynamics, a part of physics, in biology lessons, except to rebut this bit of creationist nonsense. Left to themselves, the makers of biology textbooks would never bother to drag in this massive, pointless irrelevance.
Even when creationists make claims about biology, it might not be the bit of biology that's most useful to teach, or which best develops the understanding of the subject: but if, for example, creationists wish to talk rubbish about bananas, then to present the other side, some of the time allotted to teaching real biology must be spent teaching about the history of the banana as a cultivar, whether or not this would make up part of an ideal biology course.
[edit] Problem 9: Time
There are only so many hours in the school day, and only so many days in the school year. It seems unreasonable to waste any of them teaching something which the teachers know to be false and the children will discover is false.
Creationists occasionally argue that teaching creationism alongside biology would sharpen children's critical thinking skills. If that is our aim, then it would be a good idea to teach an actual course in critical thinking, rather than merely exposing children to truth and nonsense and hoping that they figure it out for themselves; there would also be no reason to use only one pseudoscience as an example of nonsense, and there would certainly be no need to give it equal time with biology.
[edit] Problem 10: Where will it all end?
This brings us on to the final problem with teaching creationism. If we allow one subject, creationism, to be taught against the consensus of experts and the testimony of the facts, then what arguments would we have against teaching astrology alongside astronomy, crystal healing alongside medicine, Holocaust denial alongside history, Flat Earth beliefs alongside geography, and so forth? The only major difference between creationism and other forms of pseudoscience and pseudohistory is that in the United States only the teaching of creationism has been found to be contrary to the First Amendment.
Creationists, in particular, could hardly object to such a procedure, since their calls to "let the children decide", their appeals for "fairness", and their claims about "critical thinking" would apply equally to any other pseudoscience; unless, for some reason, this rhetoric is mere hypocrisy designed to disguise their actual reasons for wanting their beliefs taught in schools.
Perish the thought.
