Teaching About Evolution.

Early Learning Teaching Your Child Encyclopedic Knowledge
1

Has anyone considered teaching Evolution?

Why is it so important to teach evolution? After all, many questions in biology can be answered without mentioning evolution: How do birds fly? How can certain plants grow in the desert? Why do children resemble their parents? Each of these questions has an immediate answer involving aerodynamics, the storage and use of water by plants, or the mechanisms of heredity. Students ask about such things all the time.

The answers to these questions often raise deeper questions that are sometimes asked by students: How did things come to be that way? What is the advantage to birds of flying? How did desert plants come to differ from others? How did an individual organism come to have its particular genetic endowment? Answering questions like these requires a historical context—a framework of understanding that recognizes change through time.

Basic details here:

http://www.geocities.com/plecoboy88/Evolution.html

2

That is a brilliant question and since I am a Christian, I don’t teach evolution to my son at all. Instead I teach creationism, directly from the bible. It makes sense, especially since Darwin has been disproved, I want to teach my child what I believe to be correct. If you are looking for a fantastic series, or you want some bits on creationism, google Ken Ham. He has made books for kids. If you want bits, I changed the books into bits and would be happy to share them with you. It is taught it a factual, scientific way using Genesis as the basic foundation.

3

Would be great if you will share the Creationism bits with all of us, Mandy!

I know for teens, there are great materials on http://www.drdino.com/, because I used those materials to teach Creation vs Evolution classes. ( There are videos, seminars, classes, workbook, also great section with questions and answers, with lots of links to scientific evidence, which is great for teaching)

We also teach Creationism, it is very easy, simple, explainable, straight from the Bible and supported by scientific evidence. No need to come up with theories for everything, like in Evolution theory :smiley: , just to teach the kid next year that those theories were disproofed :slight_smile:

Some fun parts can be taken also from this awesome documentary “The Priviledged Planet” http://www.privilegedplanet.com/ It is not made for kids ( very good for teens and adults), but some facts and POI can be taken from there for teaching younger children, I think ( I am planning to do it in a little while, but not for the next few months just yet :slight_smile: )

And this is another good documentary http://www.illustramedia.com/cfacinfo.htm , by Lee Strobel by Illustra Media

In any case, will be great if you can share the bits that you have created! K2U!

4

I think this is an interesting debate.

I will be teaching my daughter both evolution and creationist theories. I am not really religious at all but I believe in a God. Secondly since both theories are valid I will present them to her in an unbiased way and she can decide for herself what she chooses to believe.

Since neither one can be proved or disproved and I would like to see the Independent Scientific studies not done by a church, religious group or fanatical science person. That has proven or disproven the theories. I believe that is how they will remain pure theories to be pondered on until the end of the universe.

5

Quote “especially since Darwin has been disproved” This is simply not true-The theory of evolution is broadly accepted by scientists because the theory is supported by overwhelming evidence. Scientists continue to argue about the details of evolution, but accept the main ideas of the theory.

Intelligent design is a religious view, a relabeling of creationism and not a scientific theory.
Objections made when investigated closely, involve one four problems:

Faulty assumptions
Faulty data
Misapplication of principles, laws, and equations
Failure to consider opposing evidence

6

I think that it is important to teach what a variety of people believe in. That being said, I will be teaching evolution, creationalism, and what other group of people (e.g. Native Americans, ancient civilations, and etc.) believed in.

Even if you believe in God and that the Universe was created in seven days, children should still be aware that not everyone agrees with that idea. The same goes for people who only believe in evolution. Children of those parents should be aware that other people believe that the world was created by a higher being.

7

I agree that we should inform our children of alternative beliefs. Scientific knowledge, however, is not the same as any set of beliefs. Science is unusual in that it is cumulative. It is a system built over time, wherein useful information is retained and ideas that simply don’t stand up are discarded, based on the confirmation of knowledge through testing.

Non-scientific thinking starts with a premise and then looks for things to support it, scientific thinking constantly tries to disprove itself. Children need to be aware of Confirmation Bias.

Your Doman related site looks promising-karma to you.

8

Thanks! It has been a lot of work. I can only work on it for five minutes here and there with work, school, and my precious babes. There are many typos and things left out. I’ve decided to post it anyway even though it is very much work in progress.

The scientific method rocks. It’s really the best that we can do without being all-knowing.

George Washington was killed because it was once thought that blood letting could help people get better. During ancient times, people bore holes through other people’s heads to perhaps release evil spirits. We, of course, now know that these sorts of treatments do not help and even hasten the death of the individual. This is science in action. One day, we might learn that the things that we are doing now are really not correct. Take string theory for example. One day when we have better methods of measuring the very big and the very small, we might learn that this theory is not correct at all.

I believe that when teaching evolution that it is definitely a great idea to outline the scientific method. Science is not perfect, but it leaves room for reflection, reasoning, and deduction.

9

I do have high education in physics so science is not foreign to me :wink: These 4 are what Evolution (as in explaining of beginning of life) is based on :biggrin: :biggrin:
Faulty assumptions
Faulty data
Misapplication of principles, laws, and equations
Failure to consider opposing evidence
There is a different meaning of the word Evolution, but maybe I won’t get into it now…
Watch Kent Hovind if you’d like some entertaining enlightenment :smiley:

I think this is a bigger topic than science - true or false. Whether you can or try to disprove either Evolution or Creation/Intelligent design the purpose or faith (if you will) behind them is what matters to me. :slight_smile: Created in the image of God is just a lot more inspiring to individual and productive to community than coming from a monkey :tongue:
Do post your bits, Mandy :wink: k

10

I will be teaching my child about evolution. I do not want to limit his ability to enter and excel in biological/medical fields.

11

Is this the same Kent Hovind? “Hovind’s lack of academic training makes it impossible to engage him on a professional level.[9] Other critics of Hovind have charged that Patriot Bible University is a diploma mill, as it has unreasonably low graduation requirements, lack of sufficient faculty or educational standards and a suspicious tuition scheme.”

http://www.answers.com/topic/kent-hovind

“Hovind’s views are criticized by the scientific community at large and even some fellow Young Earth creationist organizations like Answers in Genesis.”

Since November 2006 Hovind is serving a ten-year prison sentence in the Federal Correctional Institution, Edgefield in Edgefield, South Carolina, after being convicted of 58 federal counts, including twelve tax offenses, one count of obstructing federal agents and forty-five counts of structuring cash transactions.

12

I like the scientific method, too (like purplefungi).

My view is that micro-evolution (evolution within a species) has been scientifically proven. They have been able to do experiments and observe the results. However, macro-evolution (evolution between species) doesn’t have enough scientific evidence. Like Chris1 said, “Science … based on the confirmation of knowledge through testing.” Scientist have not been able to do that. So, macro-evolution is still in the hypothesis stage of the scientific method (that’s why it’s called a theory). So, if one believes in it, it takes faith.

Now, as parents I think we have the privilege of teaching our children what we believe. When they are old enough to do critical thinking, I think it is important to let them study the different views and theories out there. I think a good scholar knows both sides, then makes an educated decision.

13

Macroevolution-biologists often refer to it as the “fact of evolution”

The consensus of the scientific community is that the alleged micro-macro division is an artificial construct made by creationists and does not accurately reflect the actual processes of evolution. Evolutionary theory (including macroevolutionary change) remains the dominant scientific paradigm for explaining the origins of Earth’s biodiversity. Its occurrence, while controversial with the public at large, is not disputed within the scientific community.

The overall theory behind macroevolution (i.e. common descent) has been overwhelmingly consistent with empirical data. Predictions of empirical data from the theory of common descent have been so consistent that biologists often refer to it as the “fact of evolution”.

14

Nikolett,

You have confused evolution which is the study of how groups of living things change over time, with abiogenesis which is the study of how life on earth could have arisen from inanimate matter.

Abiogenesis is in it’s infancy. Scientists have only recently started researching catalytic RNA, for example. However, evolution, a separate theory, has mountains of evidence behind it and is well defined. Both theories deal with different realms of evidence and are really in different fields. Abiogenesis is more in the realm of chemistry while evolution is fully in the field of biology.

Chris.

15

They do lump it all together in school, don’t they? I’m glad you mention they are just theories after all… :slight_smile:

As to Kent Hovind, I am not his judge, I wasn’t aware of his tax evasion issues, but it doesn’t negate the fact his ministry has done smth good :slight_smile:
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_Kent_Hovind_right&src=ansTT

16

This has been an inspiring debate. Ultimately, each parent has the right to teach their child what they believe to be true. All of your comments are respected but for those that are interested in creationism, I will post the bits. Just give me some time because I have put lots of photos of my son in them to make them pertinent to him. So I will recreate them and post. Thanks for the interesting conversation!

17

Blindly accepting parent’s beliefs without question is an example of dogmatism, the blind acceptance of received ideas. This discussion is not about religion; rather, its acceptance without question that is the important matter. People frequently adhere unflinchingly to childhood beliefs, shutting their minds to new ideas, or even to other older ideas. This is death to intellect.
Children need to be informed of alternative views and should be encouraged to doubt and question.

Critical Analysis of Kent Hovind’s Age of the Earth

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNZCcTcOPV0&feature=related

Critical Analysis of Ken Ham’s Do Animals Evolve?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arMGLixFse4&feature=related

Chris

18

Oh, so cute :slight_smile: He does look like a monkey a bit :laugh:

Anyway, dont really have a chance to follow the discussion with travelling, but definetly would suggest “The Priviledged Planet” documentary.

On the first glance, though, it does not look, like your, Chris’s posts have much to do with baby’s /children education or trying to look for tips or share your own experience, rather like trying to start a debate

I am pretty sure that parents here know what they teach their children, and are busy with that instead

As for me, having medical education and coming from the family of scientists, it makes sense to teach my baby ID principals. And, yes, I will definetly introduce Evolution, in due time, so she would know what some people read in some textbooks, among so many other theories, How high of a priority will be given to it? Probably not too high, as it is just one of many different things she will be learning, but enough for her to explain and reason things, when she is asked about it. It would not even come to my mind to actually teach that theory to my child.

Even my parents, who were higly educated and respected scientists, encouraged me to not pay much attention to the Evolution theory, when I studied it in school ( they were not believers, so religious beliefs had nothing to do here), my dad, who was a physicist, spent a few hours telling me that it is simply not mathematically feasable ( I loved our math discussions with dad!), and explained to me that even though we may not know exact answer as far as origins of species and Earth, I should look elsewhere for it, not to the Evolution theory. It was simple as that! It did not left me confused, it just reinforced my natural curiousity, desire to search for answers and study. It made sense.

So for those who for one reason or another does not teach Biblical Creation, I would say this is a good example of how to present it. It definetly worked in my case, and later, when I was old enough to make my own choice, I made an informed decision.

Later in life, as I asked many of our family friends ( some are leading scientists in EU, members of the National Academies of Science) about Evolution and Intelligent Design, none of them had confidence in Evolution theory, all were definetly persuaded in ID, since not all of them were Christians, not all of them held Biblical beliefs on the Creation of the World. But Intelligent Design was defiently a choice.

Those were the people who studied biology, microbiology, nuclear energy indepth. I also heard from a few of our family friends how it was their studies that led them to believe in Intelligent Design.

Have to run to be with my baby now, but hope it helps! :smiley:

19

Hi Skylark,

This is the goal for our children-children with open and enquiring, doubting and questioning, fully functioning minds. Karma to you.

1987: Beliefs of American earth and life scientists:

According to Newsweek in 1987:

“By one count there are some 700 scientists with respectable academic credentials (out of a total of 480,000 U.S. earth and life scientists) who give credence to creation-science…”

That would make the support for creation science among those branches of science who deal with the earth and its life forms to be about 0.14%

20

:smiley:

Secular researcher Richard Milton summarized the current world situation:

“Darwinism has never had much appeal for science outside of the English-speaking world, and has never appealed much to the American public (although popular with the U.S. scientific establishment in the past). However, its ascendancy in science, in both Britain and America, has been waning for several decades as its grip has weakened in successive areas: geology; paleontology; embryology; comparative anatomy. Now even geneticists are beginning to have doubts. It is only in mainstream molecular biology and zoology that Darwinism retains serious enthusiastic supporters. As growing numbers of scientists begin to drift away from neo-Darwinist ideas, the revision of Darwinism at the public level is long overdue, and is a process that I believe has already started.” (Much more so, a decade later…)

  • Richard Milton, Shattering the Myths of Darwinism (Rochester, Vermont: Park Street Press, 1992, 1997), p. 277.

My experiences are actually even more up to date :smiley: I guess I am a bit young for “Newsweek in 1987” article :yes: :slight_smile: And the people I mentioned in my previous post are not one of a thousands of the ones who got their doctorates and became units in statistics, but rather distinguished and known scientist who stand on their own in their areas of research.

I can not say about all scientists, neither I really took time to look at the statistics field by field.

What I wrote came from my personal experience, and as a result of thoughtful and in-depth discussions with number of leading EU scientists ( not from English speaking countries), thats all. So sharing this, may be considered just a personal observation.

However, it does explain why I came to conclusions and beliefs that I did; why I am open to Scientific Evidence, and therefore accept and wholeheartedly support the Intelligent Design theory. And I hope these personal observation will be of interest and help to those who after reading them, will consider to analyse and study the presenting evidence with open minds and will let that evidence lead them to conclusions.

But most of all, lets have fun teaching or little ones about beauty, diversity and fascinating complexity of this world. There is so much to discover, and no doubt as they discover new things every day, these discoveries will speak for themselves. After all there got to be a Designer…

That reminded me of a story I read in one of the Digests a little while back, cant remember exactly which one but the story stayed in my memory, I thought it was neat, it went something like that:

"[i]Many years ago Sir Isaac Newton had an exact replica of our solar system made in miniature. At its center was a large golden ball representing the sun, and revolving around it were smaller spheres attached at the ends of rods of varying lengths. They represented Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars and the other planets. These were all geared together by cogs and belts to make them move around the "sun" in perfect harmony.
One day as Newton was studying the model, a friend who did not believe in the Biblical account of creation, stopped by for a visit. Marveling at the device and watching as the scientist made the heavenly bodies move in their orbits, the man exclaimed, "My, Newton, what an exquisite thing! Who made it for you?"
Without looking up, Sir Isaac replied, "Nobody."
"Nobody?" his friend asked.
"That's right! I said nobody! All of these cogs and belts and gears just happened to come together, and wonder of wonders, by chance they began revolving in their set orbits and with perfect timing[/i]."

… He made the point!" And so did I…

But that is why it is fun, no need to argue, proove or debate. All those things our little ones will be learning about the world around them, will speak for temselves. So I do not worry about that :slight_smile: